neo-Orientalism (i)

[Lakshmi Srinivas]

--- Robert Zydenbos <zydenbos at GMX.LI> wrote:

Robert,

 I am disappointed by your these two posts than by
your original rant which prompted my retort. I think
you simply have to learn to pass up the opportunity to
selectively quote from private correspondence without
permission and refrain from making up medical excuses
for others. As for you deconstructing my name, I find
it deeply discourteous and positively disrespectful.

> Simply saying that once
> upon a time somebody in the wide Western world wrote
> something, does not
> prove that he is relevant in the context of some
> very other person (e.g., me;
> or was it Vivekananda about whom LS was writing?
> anyhow, I fail to see the
> relevance) and his ideas somewhere very else in that
> wide Western world at a
> very different time.

Let me jog your memory a little here. My original
retort was prompted by yet another comment about
Vivekananda by you. This time you were saying that the
image of Indian spirituality in the West owes itself
to Vivekananda. (If I remember right it was not the
first such rant by you). I merely happen to remember
that a clear generation before V, popular authors were
writing in such images. So you don't know it. What's
more: you think it's not relevant. Thereby you
justifiably arouse pity. Do you think the image of
India in the West was created only by Sanskritists and
guru's. Don't you know there were colonial
administrators, soldiers, missionaries, engine
drivers, spies, to use Kipling's categories?

What manner of an Indologist ignores background
materials before making up theories? Clearly if you
must write about meta Indological topics, you must
read background materials ... even if they are
Victorian fiction.


> My favourite quote from older English literature is
> from something by
> Kipling that I _have_ read. Everybody quotes "For
> east is east, and west is
> west, and never the twain shall meet..."; but then
> follows (now quoting from
> memory):
>
>      "But there is neither east nor west, nor
> border, nor breed, nor
> birth,
>      When two strong men stand face to face, though
> they come from the
> ends of the earth."
>
> I wonder why hardly anyone quotes this...

He also wrote "The White Man's Burden". This was
quoted by the American establishment to justify
occupying Philippines. It also prompted poems such as
"The Brown Man's Burden" and "The Black Man's Burden".
Maybe now, you want to say "Kipling, who?"


--- Robert Zydenbos <zydenbos at GMX.LI> wrote:
> (continuation)
>
> Another disturbing aspect of what we may call the
> 'politically correct'
> vulgar Saidianism on this list is that it tends to
> advocate a kind of
> intellectual apartheid: Westerners should not study
> / think about / make
> pronouncements about India, because they are, well,
> Westerners.

This is patently absurd. If your comments do not make
sense and if you pile up rant upon rant, you can
expect somebody sometime to stand up and say
something. I hope you do not expect your "westernness"
to be your defense there.

What do you do with people:

1. Who deny Vedic orality
2. Who would like to see a "yugAnta" phenomenon behind
the rise of a political Hindutva

   If for a modern phenomenon you have to go back to
the turn of the era to find a theory, then do you
subscribe to the "Unchanging East" paradigm? Haven't
these fellows heard that the Cold war has ended, for
example?

   Maybe then an Indian Europologist should posit that
the formation of NATO in post WW2 situation was
prompted by a yearning for a Pax Romana, eh?
3. Who would attribute the western image of Indian
spirituality to a favorite bete noir viz., Vivekananda
without reading background material

(You can conclude that they are dabbling outside their
fields of expertise. It is not this that I object to
but the stridency with which some views have sought to
be imposed on the readers without adequate research).


It is however important to see what effect this kind
of pseudo theories has. Essentially this lot of
western Indologists are then doing exactly what
Hindutva type Indologists are doing. Promoting an "us
" vs "them" bipolarity and working to eliminate the
middle ground. In the process, western Indologists who
are more thorough and professional are sought to be
silenced as are Indians of the non Hindutva hue. (I do
not include in tha latter category some "quarter
Dravidianists" of Indian origin :-)) Rajaram and Co do
that with their pseudo scholarship on serious topics
while this lot does it with inadequate study on meta
Indological topics.

I do not propose to waste my time on the rest of your
questions in the subject line Neo_Or i and ii.

Needless to say, I shall continue to read your posts
on Kannada and Jaina studies with interest.

Thanks and Warm Regards,

LS






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