[INDOLOGY] Indology List posting protocols

[Ananya Vajpeyi]

Dear Patricia,

I've followed with alarm and dismay the series of posts on this list
addressing your unhappy experiences at Nalanda. This mail is primarily to
express unequivocal solidarity with you as a fellow academic, and to
acknowledge the importance of bringing your story to the table to share
with colleagues in different countries and contexts.

It's really disappointing that despite the vigorous discussions we had last
year around issues of gender (specifically at the World Sanskrit
Conference), and despite the regrettable departure from this forum of
eminent women scholars who are at the forefront of challenging the sexism,
misogyny and straight up disrespect towards women that afflict all of our
disciplines and institutions, individuals like Koenraad Elst are still able
to post on Indology. Not only post, but as Matthew Kapstein correctly
points out, post sans any kind of self-directed or externally imposed check
on either the quantity or quality of what is being put out there for others
to suffer.

One would have hoped that neither common sense civility, nor the forum's
rules of engagement would really encourage or allow this kind of lowering
of our standards and wastage of our time, 700 people's time, as Dominik
Wujastyk helpfully reminds us. To say nothing of how tiresome it is to go
over the same ground again and again without registering any progress in
the overall understanding of basic facts about sexual harassment, gender
justice, and the non-negotiable need for us to make our exchanges
egalitarian, equitable, respectful and meaningful for women and men alike.

If Indology were to be more vigilant and proactive about its own standards
and protocols, you and I would not need to use our spam filter as often as
we do, alas.

Yours,

Ananya Vajpeyi.

-- 

Ananya Vajpeyi
Fellow and Associate Professor
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29 Rajpur Road, Civil Lines
New Delhi 110054 INDIA


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