NON INDOLOGY BUT URGENT ACTION

[mrabe at artic.edu]

[will apologies, I reiterate with the one missing word replaced in caps...]

>venantius pinto said:
>>
>> COME DEMONSTRATE AGAINST BARBARIC AND HORRENDOUS BATTERRER MOHAMMED MOHSIN
>[...]
>
>
>The person who posted this message has been given a first warning about
>using INDOLOGY as a means for circulating non-indological materials.
>
>Three such warnings result in being struck from the INDOLOGY list.
>
>Of course I am horrified by the behaviour described by the poster, and
>sympathize with the protest against such barbarism.  However, such
>emotions to not constitute a valid reason for posting a message to
>INDOLOGY which does not concern indological studies.
>
>Dominik Wujastyk

But what if it prompts a cultural note by Paul Courtright (or someone else
that's studied _sutee_) on the order of his learned commentary on the
varied agendas of colonial-period indologists?  And wasn't there a call for
participation at a Harvard conference on wife-burning on this list?  Maybe
these topics are too combustible to risk starting a thread/fuse, and I am
certainly not equating to two, but still...during my last year in India
('90-91) when there were all those Mandal-commission protests that led to
self-immolation AND a few of the "aidding and abbetting" type where the
victims were NOT willing participants, I couldn't help but suspect that
mythic and or historic precedents may be relevant.  Or maybe not: at least
I'd like someone to try and persuade me of their irrelevance.

Michael Rabe