[INDOLOGY] Against the petition against Prof. Pollock

[Nityanand Misra]

On 28 February 2016 at 20:03, Andrew Ollett <andrew.ollett at gmail.com> wrote:

> It is perfectly clear that there are fundamental differences of opinion,
> including two very different views of what scholarship (especially
> historical scholarship) should do and what its responsibilities to the past
> and the present are. But it is also clear from the petition and many other
> cases that Malhotra and his followers purposely distort Pollock's arguments
> in order to make them accord with the caricature they have presented. They
> need to believe that he is a present-day Thomas Macaulay who has "deep
> antipathy" to "Indian culture." That, in the end, is what this petition is
> about. The point is simply to try to harass, malign, and discredit people
> who write things that don't always and entirely accord with a particular
> vision of the Indian past (or present, as seems to be more relevant here)
> using the divisive and ugly rhetoric that Malhotra has coined ("insiders"
> and "outsiders," "sepoys," "Orientalists," "Macaulayites," etc.).
>
> I would say that Malhotra and his followers are free to raise money for
> their own series of books that will duly reflect their vision of the Indian
> past, but they have actually done this, and anyway that's not the point:
> it's to *stop* the people they disagree with.
>
>
>
While the petition does cite Mr. Malhotra and his latest book, I do not
believe that the 132 signatories can be characterized as ‘Malhotra's
followers’: quite a few are distinguished scholars in the field of Sanskrit
and Indology and a name in themselves.


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