This is not a new phenomenon. Rao is not the first prominent Indian in position of power to entertain such ideas.   
It is for more than a decade or so that critical historians are on the defensive. Elements of the Western Indology are partly responsible. Many obscurantist elements were encouraged during the final decades of the cold war in the name of research into the true Indian tradition.    The enlightened tradition that saw its beginning in the 1860s in Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, R.G. Bhandarkar and others rapidly waned in the eighties when the cold war was in its peak. The present correspondent too suffered and was even mocked at for his way of enquiry by friends in the West who hardly saw the danger. Only an insignificant percentage of the Western Indologists has cared to sift the husk fron the grain. As you sow so shall you reap!
Best
DB


On Sun, Jul 13, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Walter Slaje <slaje@kabelmail.de> wrote:
​Indological expertise is in demand,

FYI,

WS
​

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Steve Farmer saf@safarmer.com [Indo-Eurasian_research] <Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com>
Date: 2014-07-13 8:11 GMT+02:00
Subject: [Indo-Eurasia] Interview with the new ICHR Chairman
To: Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com
Cc: Steve Farmer <saf@safarmer.com>

 

Revealing interview with Yellapragada Sudershan Rao, Modi's new Chairman of the powerful Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), in today's _Outlook India_:

"Ramayana, Mahabharata Are True Accounts Of The Period...Not Myths"
http://tinyurl.com/qadhsft

Commentary in the same edition by Anuradha Raman:
"Ram, Where Art Thou"?
http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Ram-Where-Art-Thou/291362

Total public silence from Western Indologists so far on Rao's appointment, which is curious.

Typical quotation from the interview with Rao, a colleague of NS Rajaram, responding to questions from the interviewer:

You are the author of the Mahabharata project? What is the project about?

There is a certain view that the Mahabharata or the Ramayana are myths. I don’t see them as myths because they were written at a certain point of time in history. They are important sources of information in the way we write history. What we write today may become an important source of information for the fut­ure in the future. When analysed, of course, they could be declared to be true or false. History is not static. It belongs to the people, it’s made by the people. Similarly, the Ram­ayana is true for people...it’s in the collective memory of generations of Indians. We can’t say the Ramayana or the Mahabharata are myths. Myths are from a western perspective.

What does that mean?

For us, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are true accounts of the periods in which they were written.

Steve

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Posted by: Steve Farmer <saf@safarmer.com>
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