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

[Dean Michael Anderson]

I agree with Hans Hock, George Thompson and others that we can't say for certain what the language of the IVC was, and that it was mostly likely multilingual. And, I would add multicultural, since it was at the intersection of several different cultures: Coastal Indian, Doab Indian, Central Indian, Himalayan, Iranian, and Central Asian, not to mention the evidence for oceanic trade with Mesopotamia.
I am not saying that there were definitely large numbers of Indo-Iranians in the Harappan Civlization but, according to mainstream Indo-European scholars, they were not that far away in Central Asia, and the Harappans did have overland trade with and through those regions. So the existence of Indo-Iranian communities among the Harappans is not at all unreasonable. I believe Asko Parpola proposed as much; and perhaps Madhav Deshpande, although I don't have their publications at hand. Perhaps they could comment.
On another topic, the reason scholars reject the Hindutva-inspired theories is not because of their politics but because of generally poor quality of their scholarship. This is as it should be. I'm glad to see that accusations of racism and nationalism have not gained traction in this discussion because such inflammatory terms only serve to distract us from the real scholarly issues pertaining to ancient India. 
This is not, of course, to declare that the study of the effect of modern racist or nationalist ideologies on Indology should be off-limits. But they are two different, yet often conflated, topics that should be kept separate.
Best,
Dean AndersonEast West Cultural Institute

      From: "Hock, Hans Henrich" <hhhock at illinois.edu>
 To: Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei at uchicago.edu> 
Cc: Indology List <indology at list.indology.info> 
 Sent: Friday, June 12, 2015 7:36 AM
 Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Article about the politics surrounding Indology at the IHRC
   
Dear Matthew and George,
I agree with both of your comments. To avoid raising too many red flags, I confined my comments to the issue of the decipherment (or not) of the Indus symbols. There clearly are great cultural differences between the Indus Civilization and the Vedic one, including the great role of the unicorn in the IC and its absence in (early) Vedic.
Best wishes,
Hans Henrich



On 11 Jun 2015, at 14:53, Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei at uchicago.edu> wrote:

Dear everyone,

I would suggest that all be more restrained in the use of the term "racist," the connotations of which 
generally suggest that the person so characterized attributes constitutional inferiority, or ritual pollution,
or moral degradation, or animality, etc., to certain classes of persons on account of their "race," a term
whose precise significance is deeply problematic. Chauvanism is not the same thing, nor is triumphalism, though
these also involve judgments of human inequality.

The Aryan topos frequently is imbricated with racism, but it is not necessarily so. More damning, in my view,
have been the reckless, unscientific confusions of historical linguistics, cultural history, mythology,
genetics, archeology, nationalism, etc., that characterize many of the recent discussions. These are not by any
means to be mixed indiscriminately. 

Best in my view to be cautious in one's methodology and prudent in one's vocabulary. 

Matthew Kapstein
Directeur d'études, 
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
The University of Chicago


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