Fwd from RISA-L

[Robert Zydenbos]

On Tue, 26 Oct 1999 16:49:10 PDT, Vishal Agarwal wrote:

> In posing this question, Dr. Zydenbos has unwitingly vindicated Dr. Elst. As
> an Indian, I know that many of my countrymen (including Hindutva-vaadis)
> consider the opinion of western scholars more trustworthy than those of
> Indians--> the result of a deep seated inferiority complex. And this is what
> Dr. S. R. Rao had sought to dispel when he referred to 'these whites'.

If you consider Dr. Elst a trustworthy scholar, then I fear we have
little of a basis for a discussion. But however that may be, I hope
that you realise that neither I, nor living 'white' scholars (whose
arguments can be supported for good reasons by Indians too, mind
you) can be held responsible for any such supposed inferiority
complex. And through such racialist assumptions and
accusations, any earnest discussion (on virtually any subject) is
made impossible; this should be clear. (This may be the objective
of such accusations.) Please look at the arguments, not at the
skin colour etc. of who pronounces them.

> Therefore,

"Therefore"?

> conjuring images of Nazism in this context by Dr. Zydenbos was
> outright slander (arising out of a misunderstanding, if not malice), despite
> his denials to the contrary last month. And so, the expose of Dr. Elst is
> quite in place and justified. More so because the article of Dr. Zydenbos
> falls within a pattern of slander of academics or non-Academics perceived as
> sympathetic to Hindutva.

I slandered? Where?

We have seen how Dr. Elst failed to answer even the simplest of
my queries on this list just a month ago and left the discussion
with a huff and a puff and a flimsy accusation of "manipulations", in
spite of my making things for his defence easy by offering all the
relevant materials online. You appear not to have gone through
them and / or not to be interested in an objective evaluation.

There once was a notorious political personality who proclaimed
that if a lie is repeated often and loudly enough, people start
believing it is the truth. (I will refrain from saying who that was; his
identity is also not so important.) It is sad to see that you too
apparently are following the same course, for reasons best known
to yourself. You can believe what you wrote; I can also not stop
you from believing that the world is a flat disk resting on the back of
a gigantic turtle, if that is what you wish to believe. -- I have
provided the materials and pointed out some elementary errors,
logical and other, in what the opponent said. That is about the best
that a scholar can do.

> Discussion on AIT is banned on the list and so I will refrain from
> commenting further on this issue although others might have done so.

Good idea: do us a favour and follow Dr. Elst's example.

(BTW: have you not noticed that the issue was not Aryan migration
at all?... Cf. the ensuing discussion on RISA-L, which is available
in their online archive [subject: "Sonia Gandhi and the great Aryan
myth"]. There I have also given my analysis of why certain people
still insist on writing "AIT".)

RZ