Dear Colleagues, 

As many on this list including Dominik Wujastyk, Matthew Kapstein, Madhav Deshpande and Tyler Williams, among others, have pointed out, the petition to remove Professor Pollock from the General Editorship of the Murty Classical Library of India suffers from either a deliberate or a genuine misreading of his writings and lectures. Moreover it is motivated not just by his vocal stand in favour of the freedom of expression and the right to dissent in India and elsewhere reiterated numerous times of late, but also by a desire on the part of the sponsors and writers of this petition to generate some sliver of scholarly attention for Rajiv Malhotra's new book, The Battle for Sanskrit. 

Apart from being a plagiarist, Malhotra is no scholar of anything, least of all Indology or Sanskrit. (I'm not even sure if any book by him can be accurately described as "new", given his record of plagiarism). His entire strategy of calling attention to his publications, such as they are, is to make ad hominem attacks on bona fide scholars, especially Professor Pollock, and now almost exclusively him (though others of us have been collateral damage in the past). 

In my view, Malhotra's latest book deserves not one minute of our time, and is best left to rightwing propaganda publications like Swarajya, Niti Central and other blogs, newspapers etc. of that ilk to review (or not). It's an echo chamber of Hindutva paranoia and self-congratulation, untouched by scholarship. Why spoil their party? 

As for the 10,000 signatures on the petition, these things are easily managed by the cyber-machinery of the Sangh Parivar. Not for nothing are there entire dedicated cells of trolls and bots whose job it is to swell the numbers, as it were, merely the digital reflection of a larger ideology of majoritarianism at work. 

I am assured by the concerned editors at Harvard University Press and by Professor Pollock himself that HUP and Harvard's legal and PR departments are well placed to handle this kind of -- well, whatever you want to call it -- provocation, irritation, distraction, or incitement. We really need not worry our heads engaging with these people as though they might actually know something about the classics, of any language, whether of early or modern South Asia. 

Goodness knows we all have enough on our plates, with JNU and other public universities and their students across India in dire need of our material and moral support at a moment of real political crisis.

In solidarity, and urging us all to #StandwithJNU, 

Yours,

Ananya Vajpeyi. 
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