Book Review: An Update on AIT (Part 1)

[Swaminathan Madhuresan]

--- Dr. D. Wujastyk <ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK> wrote:

> I haven't read Ramaswami's book, so what I say may be mistaken, but what
> surprises me from the quotation offered is the narrow focus on political
> and hegemonic power relations and the exclusion of any mention of
> missionary zeal.  Surely Caldwell ("Bishop Caldwell") and most other early
> language-workers were motivated not primarily by the desire to rule, but
> by the desire to bring their vision of Christian Truth to the population
> of India.  This is also clearly a deeply problematic programme, but surely
> a much more interesting and one.

  For a scholarly treatment of Caldwell's missionary motives and work,
 pl. see Ravindran Vaitheesparan's PhD thesis, U. Toronto (1998).
Ravi is a lecturer in History there and has published some papers in
South Indian Studies, U. Madras, Editor: M. S. S. Pandian.

Here is one, not a very scholarly assessment on Caldwell:
"the view that the South Indian languages have an origin different
from that of the North Indian languages is based on irresponsible,
ignorant and motivated utterances of a missionary".
N. R. Waradpande, "Facts and fiction about the Aryans"
in S. B. Deo & S. Kamath, The Aryan problem, Pune, 1993, p. 14-15.

Wardpande's view on IE family from the same:
"the linguists have not been able to establish that the similarities
in the Aryan or Indo-European languages are genetic, i.e., due to
their having a common ancestry".

In his recent review, Rajaram refers to this book (Deo/Kamath).

Regards,
SM




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