[INDOLOGY] Narratives of WSC forum from different perspectives

[Dhaval Patel]

There are two more first hand narratives which have come up in the interim
on Bharatiyavidvatparishat

Narrative 3 is from Mr. K. S. Kannan.
Narrative 4 is from Anuradha Choudry


NARRATIVE 3

QUOTE

Apropos of the mails of Dr Shivani and Dr. Jayaraman.

The authentic voices of Dr. Jayaraman at the outset and Dr. Shivani who
gave the final blow - are indeed highly commendable, and hold a mirror to
their righteous indignation and commensurate braveness in raising their
voice against a reprehensible iniquity.

With his uncanny insight, Dr. Chamu Krishna Sastry cautioned me (and a few
others)
,
 even before the "Open" Forum began
,
 that a bashing of the Hindu heritage
was
 about to begin on stage.
H
alf an hour before the "Open" Forum began
,
Dr. Varakhedi even
sent a mail
to Dr. Adheesh Sathaye purporting that one-sided representation on the
stage is unbecoming and
can
lead to
bias,
ill-will and embarassment. Sensing trouble, and just minutes before the
"Open" Forum commenced, Dr. Adheesh Sathaye came to me and beseeched in his
suave, placatory, and almost imploratory voice that peace be maintained,
and to listen patiently to the experiences that the
*invited *speakers
, "our honourable guests",
 were to present.

It is obvious from these that what happened on the stage was clearly
agenda-driven and
was
so predictable
, after all
.

Dr. Chamu Krishna Sastry endeavoured to drive sense into the  brains of the
(Orwellian) Double-speak experts by showing the living example of Veda
Vijnana Gurukula, and even presented the Principal of the esteemed
institution before the audience for any clarification, and backed his
statements with statistics. All fell on
the
stone-deaf ears that adorned the stage
which also
held on to the mike as though they would never get
yet
another opportunity to address
a quiescent
audience non-stop. They were apprehensive perhaps that no other organiser
of such a conference would collude with them so well to give a one-sided
presentation.

The trio on the stage so very well exemplified the opening verse of
Nīlakaṇṭha Dīkṣita's
*Kali-viḍambana*:
*na bhetavyaṁ, na boddhavyaṁ, *
*      na śrāvyaṁ vādino vacaḥ |*
*jhaṭiti prativaktavyam *
*      sabhāsu vijigīṣubhiḥ ||*

For an international event of that scale, wherein  even a Union Minister
was to take part in an official manner, greater transparency was indeed
called for: What exactly was the deal, then, between the organisers and the
doctors on the stage who were more or less given the assurance that the
audience would be patient no end? Should not those be sued for libel who
branded the
generally
reticent and restrained
audience as hooliganistic? It is difficult to gauge the impunity,
impertinence, and intransigence of the intolerant elements that adorned the
stage.

To be styled an "Open" forum, it would have been behoving had the
organisers betrayed a modicum of sense in planning and announcing at the
outset that a last half an hour would be reserved for an interactive
session (after an hour or so of the presentation by the panelists). The
audience grew a little restless only towards the fag end of the allotted
duration of the program, when there did not seem to be even the slightest
provision for the audience to raise issues. Even then, there was nothing
that can be legitimately labeled as trolling (= "inflammatory or
inappropriate messages") - only raising of concerns.

The least that the organisers of the conference must do is
- to publish
an uncensored video of the "Open" Forum, retract the uncivilised epithets
they have showered on the patient
 and scholarly
 audience, and issue a public apology, and promise to behave responsibly
henceforth.

KSKannan

UNQUOTE




NARRATIVE 4

QUOTE
Respected Scholars and Dr. Shivani,

I would like to start by expressing my whole-hearted endorsement of the
very well-articulated, objective and scholarly mail  of Dr. Shivani,
regarding the proceedings of the eventful forum at WSC. I will not
reiterate what transpired as Dr. Shivani has brilliantly conveyed the same
but i would like to place before you a couple of details of the forum that
might help you appreciate what the audience was made to go through that
evening thereby throwing more light on why the interventions by the
audience and some post-event exchanges were perceived as being
'threatening' or 'hooliganistic' by the esteemed panelists as well as to
give you an idea of the extant of the scholarly deliberations that were
being discriminated against!

As rightly pointed out by Dr. Shivani, the topic held the promise of a
meaningful discussion as it was relevant to me both in the contexts of
caste and gender since i have a deep love and regard for Sanskrit which has
been respectfully nurtured and encouraged by many learned scholars from the
very beginning even though i was a woman and did not belong to the caste
that was being openly abused through the narratives of the esteemed
panelists in the guise of sharing personal anecdotes. As was rightly
pointed out, the audience was made to wait patiently for more than an hour
and a half of listening to some *very original attempts at a scholastic
presentation by Dr. Kaushal Panwar on the injustice and absurdity of making
a Man - the Purusha, perform the birth-giving role of the woman by being
made the Creator in the Purusha-sukta.*

This point was very emphatically acknowledged by Dr. Vajpeyi as being very
pertinent. She also added about the *thought-provoking possibility of
representing the Purusha lying down in order to depict a less-hierarchical
understanding of society*! On being politely asked after the event whether
she was aware of the fact that in Sanskrit the gender of words does not
necessarily correspond to the sex of the person/ object in question, she
rebutted rather ungraciously (being off-record) about my audacity in
questioning her knowledge of Sanskrit instead of engaging critically on
'her own work of philology, history, theory, hermeneutics, translation or
whatever other modalities of reading and interpretation with an equally
sharp eye in the objects of her analysis' as she has herself stated in her
mail.

Kindly note that that the audience was given roughly about 15mins to
question and respond to these kinds of sophisticated intellectual
revelations which were being made in the garb of 'self-reflection,
reasonable-thinking and open conversation'.

When well-respected and learned senior scholars like Sri Chamu Krishna
Sastri systematically put forth their counterpoints in an utmost
gentlemanly manner to the esteemed panelists on the actual status of
Sanskrit learning among women and the lower castes based on the decades of
the tireless hardwork of volunteers from all backgrounds and walks of life,
he was first politely cut short by Prof Adheesh with the excuse of lack of
time then fiercely countered by Dr Panwar who initiated the whole
discussion on Harijans in a loud and aggressive voice. This in turn
compelled the President of the IASS, Prof Kutumba Sastry, who had sat
through silently the entire proceedings in the back to respond - all of
which is now being presented as 'Harassment and discrimination'. (Kindly
note that the recording had been conveniently switched off - leaving the
world to the conclude on the basis of whoever spoke out loudly first as was
the privilege of Dr Vajpayi to capitalise on this opportunity to publically
'bad-mouth' the learned scholars gathered there in the successful act of
playing the 'damsel in distress' oppressed by the tyrannical Sanskrit
fraternity (as women apparently had no voice therein!)

Dr. Vajpayi made a few rather uncharitable comments off-stage about her
position towards certain castes when affronted politely after the event,
leaving me and my fellow Sanskrit friends and colleagues wondering about
the actual intentions of this entire forum and her lead participation in it.

To conclude, the questions that we were all left grappling with at the end
as an audience -
1) What were the organisers trying to highlight by including such an
unscholastic forum with unprofessional and ungrounded narratives and views
where there was no intention to listen to any other perspective besides
those that insisted on tarnishing Sanskrit and Sanskritists?
2) If the panelists had foregone conclusions on the same, why bother
torturing a learned audience with this ill-intended views expecting them to
digest it all in silence?
3) Was the outcome of the forum the expected and desired food that the
panelists namely Dr Vajpeyi looking for to broadcast to the world in the
name of an honest 'soul-searching' exercise?

I leave these questions for the respected scholars to ponder upon as well
.. but would like to end by stating that the trauma of the 3 panelists is
absurdly seeming to outway that of the 100 odd learned audience who
attended the forum that evening!

Pranams
Anuradha

UNQUOTE


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