[INDOLOGY] Fwd: Article about the politics surrounding Indology at the IHRC

[Jesse Knutson]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jesse Knutson <jknutson at hawaii.edu>
Date: Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 3:44 PM
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Article about the politics surrounding Indology at
the IHRC
To: Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi at gmail.com>


Prof. Paturi, Kind sir, 1. I only wished to point out that the IVC was a
distinct civilization from the speakers of Old Indo- Aryan. I did not mean
better, just technologically more advanced, and distinct. This are facts
that need not contain any additional value judgment. 2. I know that IVC
seals have not been deciphered, but simply wished to point out that in all
probability, in the opinion of most experts, they did not speak an
Indo-European or Indo-Aryan language. The only people who believe otherwise
are the true racists and chauvinists, the Hindutva morons who sadly are in
a position of great power in your country today.

So I would recommend that, in a spirit of intellectual integrity and calm,
you try to discern the intent of someone's comments, before you start using
heated language, and calling people racists and chauvinists.

Good day,J

On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 12:45 AM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Apart from Prof. Howard Resnick's analysis, the following from  Prof.
> Jesse Knutston also deserves attention:
>
> when in fact the IVC was a highly developed civilization, of greater
> antiquity than the Veda, which did not speak an Indo-Aryan or Indo-European
> language. To attribute the IVC cultural achievements to the speakers of
> Vedic is extremely racist and chauvinistic.
>
> 1. 'IVC was a highly developed Civilization' has the following assumptions
> : a. civilizations are superior to non-civilizational cultures. b. IVC has
> that superiority of being a civilizational culture. This is confirmed by
> the expression 'IVC cultural acievements'
>
> 2. 'which did not speak an Indo-Aryan or Indo-European language' has this
> assumption: The language spoken by the IVC people is clearly, undisputedly
> known through the decipherment of the seals and other such 'written'
> evidences.
>
> Assumption under 1. is racist, evolutionist and has urban chauvinism.
>
> Assumtion under 2. is in contradiction with the fact that the language of
> the IVC speakers is still under dispute and not yet clearly established.
> --
> Prof.Nagaraj Paturi
> Hyderabad-500044
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing
> committee)
> http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or
> unsubscribe)
>



-- 
Jesse Ross Knutson PhD
Assistant Professor of Sanskrit and Bengali, Department of Indo-Pacific
Languages and Literatures
University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
452A Spalding



-- 
Jesse Ross Knutson PhD
Assistant Professor of Sanskrit and Bengali, Department of Indo-Pacific
Languages and Literatures
University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
452A Spalding


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20150611/bc5843c8/attachment.htm>