[Buddha-l] A letter concerning toleration

[curt]

I think that the "Hindutva" pheonomenon is somewhat more complex.
In part it is a legitimate response to "cultural imperialism" - ie, Western
intellectuals establishing an "accepted" view of all things Indian -
without much input from said Indians. But even that isn't really true
because one of the people that the Hindutvas get the most worked up
about is Romila Thapar, who is Indian. But she is, according to the
Hindutvas, a "Marxist" - which is, of course, a non-Indian ideology,
and so even thought she is Indian she represents an infiltration of
non-Indian ideas into the Indian intelligentsia, or something like that.
But the critique of Thapar and "Marxism" is not without some merit -
because there is a tendency for scholars to crudely misapply a deeply
ingrained cultural critique of all religions that is really only applicable
to Christianity. Even scholars who aren't Marxists often act like they
are when talking about religion (the opiate of the people and all that).

A fascinating window into the intellectual world of Hindu "revivalism",
or what the western media and the Indian secularists have labeled as
"fundamentalism" is the writings of David Frawley.

- Curt

Richard Hayes wrote:

> On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 12:41:47 -0500 (CDT)
>  "Timothy C. Cahill" <tccahill at loyno.edu> wrote:
>
>> I'm not really sure what a society of jackboots and goose-steps looks 
>> like.
>
>
> PBS has had some good programs on North Korea recently. Several tens 
> of thousands of soldiers in jackboots goosestepping and shouting 
> praises to their enlightened leader is not a pretty sight.
>
>> See:
>>
>> http://www.campus-watch.org/
>
>
> Tim, have you encountered any of the Indian studies equivalents to 
> what this web site is doing? I haven't met any of them face to face, 
> but I have heard rumors about students "monitoring" classes about 
> Hinduism and complaining when professors said things that could be 
> perceived as critical of, say, the caste system. As you no doubt 
> recall, a few years ago the Indology list was almost brought down by 
> some contributors who objected strenuously to someone suggesting that 
> the Aryans had gone into India and Persia from Anatolia or the steppes 
> of Europe, rather than being indigenous to India and moving out. Even 
> discussions about Sanskrit grammar were becoming flame wars.
>
> Buddhist studies has been relatively free of attempts by Buddhists to 
> control what is taught in the classroom, although I do recall 
> receiving some threats in the mid-1990s from a Nichiren zealot who 
> took offense at some thread on buddha-l. The messages arrived in my 
> campus mailbox on postcards mailed from Connecticut. The messages were 
> composed of letters cut out of newspapers and pasted on the cards. I 
> thought it was laughable, but a couple of my colleagues were quite 
> alarmed at the possible implications.
>
> The very idea of academic freedom is, and long has been, puzzling to 
> quite a few non-academics. I suspect that American society is once 
> again living in a period when the freedom to say things that deviate 
> from a particular view of the world (even the universe) can be taken 
> for granted. NPR and PBS are both under close scrutiny by 
> neo-conservatives. The gap between North Korea and the United States 
> is still (thank Amitabha) enormous, but events in recent years 
> suggests it may be closing, and there is not much comforting evidence 
> to suggest that the folks over in La Casa Blanca would not like to see 
> America become as repressive as any number of totalitarian regimes in 
> the Middle East, Asia, Africa and South America have been.
>
>