Prejudice and Oppression in Indology

Addressing the Subtleties of Prejudice and Oppression in Indology (first draft)

The petition for Sheldon Pollock to be removed as head of the Murty Classical Library of India translation project is the face of a deeper situation. Presently, the focus of many articles has been on trying to understand why a group of Indian academics and scientists are calling for his removal. Pollock is a dedicated scholar who has utilized a large capacity of his life on the study of Sanskrit and so there have been articles protecting him, and also articles explaining his faults. Those who are western educated, don’t question Pollock’s credentials, and they also carry the same blind spots.

This translation project is important because the Harvard translations will be used in academic situations[1] and will influence the views of both Hindus and non-Hindus for generations to come.

Calling Hindu Nationalists as Fundamentalists

The Indian academics and scientists who have written the petition have been dismissed as fundamentalists by western academia. This is not appropriate actions by any organization, and especially one associated with Harvard University. If an educated woman is passed up multiple times for a promotion at work and she indicates the fact that she was more qualified than every male that did get a promotion, then it is discrimination to not take her seriously by calling her a feminist. If a black person verbalizes racism, it is discrimination to ignore their concern by calling them over sensitive. When Indians stand up for Hindu views, it is discrimination to ignore what is being said by calling them fundamentalists.

Hindu fundamentalists do exist, but I consider it racism when someone like Rajiv Malhotra is called a Hindutva fundamentalist. It is one thing when an individual believes that their scripture was written by god himself millions of years ago, and that anything good in the world came from their culture. But then there is the recognition of power imbalances, misappropriation, misrepresentation, and micro-aggressions. I consider Rajiv Malhotra as the level headed voice leading the Hindu equality movement.

In Indic studies among the white Universities, there is a lack of modern cultural sensitivity and an excess of white Eurocentric egotism. I will use comparisons from other situations of racism/sexism or discrimination to make my points more clear.    

Who Should we be Suspicious of?

Pollock used the "Hermeneutics of Suspicion" to give commentary on the Hindu religious book, the Ramayana, which has offended many. He even associates the use of Sanskrit with Nazi control. Those offended have been called fundamentalists, and I have not seen this questioned. So to make the point more clear, I have translated the storyline into a concept westerners have a closer association to. If a scholar of Christian studies said,

“The Bible is a text that discusses the life of a socialist egalitarian Jew executed by the government for sedition. For centuries, priests of the Bible were able to keep this text in Latin to support the governing royalty and remove any socialist agendas of the lower classes. They have perpetuated that it is the people that have sins which cause their problems, and that socialist ideology died with the Jew who then came back to life and can therefore magically remove this sin. They promote him as a god-man, similar to the Egyptian Osiris who brings salvation, to make it clear that no one is above government sedition. It is also important to note that it was a coloured Semitic executed by lighter skinned Greeks to justify the supremacy of Greek ideology and white skin over the rest of the world, which Christians have also used to justify slavery.”   

How would the average Christian feel about the scholar who wrote this being in charge of one of the largest translation projects of Christian literature? Would a rational Christian feel comfortable knowing that this scholar will lead, chose and edit the works of other scholars who will influence how the entire world perceives them? Why would an Indian requesting that there be some additional oversight be called fundamentalist?

  

White Privilege 

Research on white privilege indicates that the greatest barrier for white Americans to racial understanding is their lack of awareness of their whiteness (Sue & Sue, 2016). Imagine some white professor’s studying African folklore, and books by other Europeans on African folklore with Freudian interpretations of meaning and then thinking that they understand African religion better than Africans who practice it. This doesn’t happen in African studies but it is an attitude by westerners in Indology.  

There is a failure of western Indology to be aware that as a white colonial culture they hold a perspective that is privileged by the dominant culture. This lack of sensitivity is a common issue in white hegemonic Indology as can be seen in other areas where white privilege is unseen by white culture (Bell, 2003). Indian culture is still recovering from colonialization and the derogatory treatment given by white European academics. Western academia has chosen to study Indology within a Christian framework, with Freudian ideas, evaluation of power structures and other concepts popular in western academia at the moment.

Authority

Could Chinese studying the bible through a communist lense be authorities on Hinduism or India? They could if we lived in a world, where Chinese universities dominated the intellectual landscape. 

Western academia and its study of Sanskrit texts is not Hinduism. The beliefs and practices taught by the living teachers of India’s traditions are Hinduism. White academics do not have authority to define what Hinduism is; a PhD does not give authority to define another’s religion. When Indians speak out about their religion, it is discrimination to call them fundamentalist.

Sanskrit literature has suffered colonial devaluation for hundreds of years as we see in the division of the world into civilized nations and barbarians by Thomas Babington Macaulay and his conscious destruction of Indian education starting with his 1835 declaration. Harvard and its Sanskrit academics have not cleared themselves of colonial values.

A life studying Sanskrit has been the defence most have used to defend Sheldon Pollock against the accusations of the petition. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter what the educational background is; white Eurocentric ideology or ethnocentric monoculturalism can distort one’s view. It is clear that Sheldon Pollock is not above that, and there is no reason to not create oversight to ensure more cultural sensitivity for future projects.

India’s Scholars

There is an argument that India does not produce the scholars to take on the study of these texts. It is said that Indians don’t care about their sacred texts, and so it is up to white western academia to take on the task. I will compare this to the statement in America that blacks aren’t smart enough to go to college, and that’s why there is so few black scholars, doctors, lawyers and millionaires. The issue is not that blacks are not as smart, but that it has only been a few generations since slavery, since the removal of Jim Crowe laws, and not only has there been no American reparations, but there has remained a struggle against prejudice.

India lacks better Hindu academics, because they were colonized by the British, taught their belief system was inferior, had an upper class that were educated in Catholic schools, and the country was bled to make money for England. A few decades of independence is not enough to generate a thriving academic elite that can compare to the financially supported Universities of the West. Harvard wasn’t built overnight, but it was built with the money from many suffering slaves and conquered lands. The average Indian does not come from a land of plenty where they have the choice to follow a life in academia if they want a good life for their family.   

Western academics have promoted their world view by force for the last few hundred years. When India speaks her own voice, to call it fundamentalist, is to not be self-reflective of one’s own self assumed belief structure. The way that an English University may want to look at a particular text may not be the ideological framework that the text is best seen within. To believe that a one has the right way of looking at it because of their western Eurocentric education, is a fundamentalist position.  

There are Hindutva fundamentalists, in all realms, there will always be fundamentalists. I think that west will have a hard time defining this though, particularly from its own history of prejudice and oppression. Hindutva is a requirement of the Hindu people to restore their culture and save it from westernization. If someone thinks westernization is a good thing, they most likely suffer from ethnocentric monoculturalism. It is discrimination to think that a western perspective is superior, and it is important that the Hindutva movement gives a firm ground for Indian belief and ideology, without it needing to fit in a box appropriate to Eurocentrism. Different views and focuses are important, and the support and protection of these differences is not fundamentalism.

India and Indology

Pollock believes that there is no Indian culture or people as a stable singular entity and has chosen to promote the removal of Indology and group it into South-Asian studies. He has promoted the removal of India from western history books and to replace it with South-Asian history.  

One could look at the earlier Vedic periods and group the history into Indo-Iranian studies, but then India’s colonization of South-Asia brought Hindu religions and culture to much of South Asia in the later time periods. These colonies have been independent from India for over a millennia. India has kept its culture alive and present day India holds its own place and culture in the present time.

            “American history” starts with Columbus and people fleeing political oppression. Somehow missing a few millennia of Native American culture, because white Eurocentric perception only cares about its own history in America. So if American history can be limited to the last 300/400 years, then who is determining when Indian history begins? And who gets to decide?

            It becomes a big issue when a few white European professors think they have the right to rename the culture of a subcontinent filled with the third largest religion in the world to make it fit into their white concepts. And then they proceed to change the textbooks which educate American children. 

I agree with many that believe the change has been an attempt to discredit Hindu Nationalism. This could be compared to telling someone promoting African pride that there is no distinct African culture, so they can just be grouped with all coloured people. The removal of India and Indian history as a separate entity is a disservice to Indians and the rest of the educated world. Hindu Nationalism (Hindutva) is important to bring pride back into Hindu culture.

Genocide and Islam

            One of the most important aspects of multicultural sensitivity is to not deny oppression or any other aspect of a race’s suffering. To deny that blacks suffer racism is actually to be prejudice. Often whites who try to be non-racist will say they don’t see colour, which is easy for a person in the dominant culture to say, but it does not acknowledge the individual suffering from oppression and discrimination.

It is not culturally sensitive to ignore that Native Americans have suffered both physical genocide, and cultural genocide by being forced to attend catholic schools. It is culturally insensitive to expect Native Americans to be on equal standing as European-Americans in regards to all aspects of modern living. Hindus have suffered huge devastating consequences of Muslim invasions with both physical and cultural genocide. Afghanistan and Pakistan were not peacefully converted to Islam. It is not anti-muslim to acknowledge this suffering. Mosques stand atop sites where once stood Hindu temples and Christian missionaries presently are still actively converting Indians to Christianity with all types of underhanded methodologies. To not acknowledge this suffering of the Hindu is to not acknowledge the Hindu.

White academics feel very uncomfortable talking about the Hindu-Muslim issue and genocide. The West has its own history of genocide in the Americas of which it has not fully acknowledged, and the West also has a closer tie to Abrahamic Islam than it does to pagan Hinduism. India also still suffers from regular Islamic terrorism, which the West is only beginning to experience in very small amounts compared to the regularity in India. The past genocide from Islam, followed by British colonization needs to be acknowledged and not ignored.     

Indian Philosophy in America

           

I work in the fields of Ayurveda, Jyotish, and Psychology. There is a huge amount of psychological concepts borrowed from India that do not get acknowledged. By acknowledgement, I mean referencing the idea in papers that use the concepts as a western source would properly get. It is even looked down on in some places to have Indian reference. 

For example, presently, with the incredible benefits of mindfulness training, it is being brought into organizations, schools and psychology practices. It has been stripped of all its Indian terminology and association- so that it will not disturb the Christians who fear that their children may convert, or be poisoned by some foreign idol worshiping religion. The fear of Hinduism is not a projection, it is an actual situation that Christian America is struggling with as yoga, meditation and all aspects of “India” are seeping into American culture.

I am a white European-American who has spent multiple years living in India. I do not consider myself an Indian history fundamentalist. I consider myself culturally sensitive to Indian Hindu culture and Hindu-American culture. I write this in the hope to bring more awareness into the present discussion about the petition against Sheldon Pollock.

There is a deeper situation that can be understood by this petition. Indology and its associated or overlapping branches in white academia are in need an update in multicultural sensitivity. Feminist movements, African, and Latino movements have been fighting for equal rights, opportunities and recognition for some time and have been establishing methodologies for that. India became an independent country in 1947, but Indology is still controlled by the previous western colonial powers. This petition points to the fact that there is a 'need' in western academia.   

What is needed in Indology, is better multicultural skills and competencies. Not just a European perspective of what other cultures and religions are and believe or their language, but an education about the blind spots of white privilege by those scholars coming from being members of the dominant racial group. Discussing racism commonly brings up resistance (Tatum, 1992), and professors in western Indology have often responded offensively. I see these negative reactions as being a clear sign that there are issues to be addressed, and I hope this petition will be taken seriously in order to implement real change.


Addition: 31 May 2018 in an exchange regarding to Pollock's statement that he is under attack because he is an outsider:

My Reply to the article:

"The Ramayana has a life in the hearts of Indian people. I think I have been, to some degree, insensitive to that and I’m trying to learn. I don’t think I would have written anything differently but..."

I think this verse by Pollock sums up my issues with him. He admits being insensitive but says he wouldn't have done it differently. It’s a colonial attitude that a post-colonial country is fighting against. A culturally sensitive attitude is subtle, and he just doesn't get it.

Response: whatever, dude. Shelly Pollock is great muthafuckin' Sanskritist, one of the best. and he cares WAY more about Sanskrit and Kannada literature than ANYONE i've ever met in India (in 23 years of going there).

My reply to comment: He is a great Sanskritist. That doesn't mean he is culturally sensitive.

Response: well, he sure ain't sensitive to the likes of the BJP and the RSS. i'll take him over Frawley any day . . . by a light-year.

My reply to comment: I myself wouldn't fall into either Frawley's or his camp. I think our generation is approaching Sanskrit material from a much more integrated, scholar-practitioner level that is aware and respectful of cultural dynamics. 

I also have a hard time with a white upper class man whose country was previously colonizing/oppressing, focusing on how Brahmin's used Sanskrit to impose a caste system, as if we don't have an inequity problem right here in our own home (without Sanskrit), and as if our own (non-Sanskrit) oppression is not still fresh enough. In Jungian psychology, they talk about projecting one's shadow- one's own moral deficiency- onto others as a way to relieve oneself of the responsibility we have for it. That projection has an air of superiority, which makes the one being projected on feel inferior. I think the fundamentalism of the BJP and RSS is a response to that colonial remnants of cultural and ideological oppression and feeling of inferiority. And to me, that means that being culturally sensitive and respectful is an important element in healing this wound.

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As an after-thought: Sheldon Pollock is a well distinguished scholar in a prestigious university. And this makes it so he needs to be held accountable for how he presents information. He is not a free-lance writer, who can express his creativity as he wants. He represents the attitude of an entire institution, which in this day and age is supposed to have a cultural sensitivity.   

References 

Bell, Lee Anne. "Telling tales: What stories can teach us about racism.” Race, Ethnicity and Education 6, no. 1 (2003): 3-28. 

Helms, Janet E. Black and White racial identity: Theory, research, and practice. Greenwood Press, 1990. 

Kivel, Paul. "How white people can serve as allies to people of color in the struggle to end racism." White privilege: Essential readings on the other side of racism (2002): 127-136. 

Kivel, Paul. Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice Ð 3rd Edition. New Society Publishers, 2011. https://books.google.com/books?

Spanierman, Lisa B., V. Paul Poteat, Amanda M. Beer, and Patrick Ian Armstrong. "Psychosocial costs of racism to whites: Exploring patterns through cluster analysis." Journal of Counseling Psychology 53, no. 4 (2006): 434. 

Sue, Derald Wing, and David Sue. Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice. John Wiley & Sons, 2016. https://books.google.com/books?

Tatum, Beverly. "Talking about race, learning about racism: The application of racial identity development theory in the classroom." Harvard Educational Review 62, no. 1 (1992): 1-25. 

Todd, Nathan R., and Elizabeth M. Abrams. "White dialectics: A new framework for theory, research, and practice with White students." The Counseling Psychologist (2010): 0011000010377665. 

To end on a more humourous note:

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[1] I once had a university class where the teacher had us use two translations of a Greek text. One was the better translation by a non-PhD, the other was the printed by Harvard and was the one we were to use for proper reference. In this way, the nature of the Harvard Press translations need to be taken more seriously, as they will continue to hold more authority based upon their source.