SV: Rajaram's bull
Subrahmanya S.
subrahmanyas at HOTMAIL.COM
Fri Aug 4 16:27:35 UTC 2000
Lars, You writing is most humorous.
You are in effect stating that Western Indologists are the
only people who can scientifically study India !
It is funny how Western Indologists get all upset when
they are told that their thinking is the same as that of the
old colonial and missionary types. But calling any Indian
who questions the AIT/AMT as being politically motivated
is scholarship eh ?
I am not sure, if you have even understood the kinds of
objections that have been raised against the AIT/AMT,
that you are so willing to dismiss it.
Needless to say, Just like the 19th century indologists
you are are ready to call any Indian objections
as being rooted in faith or religion.
Any Indian who accepts your theories is scientific, and
he who doesnt is not scientific !
This kind of attitude is standard Orientalism.
Is it possible at all that a lesser person like me could also
be scientific ?
Let me repost a quote by Edward Said, please try to understand
what it means. Said's words apply to India as well.
Regards,
Subrahmanya
===========================================================
Quote by Said
from http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Orientalism.html
"One would find this kind of procedure less objectionable as
political propaganda--which is what it is, of course--were it
not accompanied by sermons on the objectivity, the fairness,
the impartiality of a real historian, the implication always
being that Muslims and Arabs cannot be objective but that
Orientalists. . .writing about Muslims are, by definition, by
training, by the mere fact of their Westernness. This
is the culmination of Orientalism as a dogma that not only degrades
its subject matter but also blinds its practitioners."
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