Dear colleagues,

As the petiton stands today (Sunday 6 March), it still asserts about Prof. Pollock that,

The specific reference to Pollock's 2012 Heidelberg lecture, that was the reference originally given for the Macaulay & Weber idea, has been removed, and the accusation has thus been rendered generic, referring only to "in his career." 

Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan, the person apparently now responsible for the petition, has asserted that the petition has been updated (presumably as a response to my post of 27 Feb and to similar observations by several others), removing the arguments that I pointed out were based on complete misunderstandings of Pollock's writings.  In fact, it is not the case that the petition has been fixed.  Every original criticism of Pollock is still present in the petition.  All that has changed is that the specific citation of these arguments from the 2012 publication has been removed (the footnote reference has been deleted, if you like).  The petition thus retains all its original errors, although it has been edited to make it harder to do the fact-checking. 

I understand from recent correspondence in this forum that Prof. Kutumba Sastry has withdrawn his support for the petition specifically in his capacity as President of the IIAS and former principal of the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan.  However, his wishes have not been respected by Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan or whoever controls the public petition, since as of today, the petition still says,

Out of respect for Prof. Kutumba Sastry, those who control the petition should abide by his wishes.

Sincerely,

Dominik Wujastyk