From: vishalsagarwal
Message: 12933
Date: 2002-03-29
--- In cybalist@..., "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...> wrote:
> Hmm. I wonder what this above exercise in hypothetical thinking
> serves to show and who it is meant for. "Scholar" seems to be
> underhandedly used here to portray Europeans of non-Indian heritage
> or of non-Muslim faith as incapable of rational thinking and
> prone to quick-lynching xenophobia.
VA: The word was in ' ' for two reasons - In the subsequent part of
my message, I have referred to a quickie Indologist to highlight how
some ethnocentric people in the West rush to make judgments on India.
Some might actually be genuine scholars, but rush to make judgment on
Indian topics on which their depth of knowledge is suspect. For
instance, I would presume that an IE scholar would typically not know
much about various varieties of religious nationalisms in India.
Secondly, it IS A FACT that many otherwise professional scholars are
quiet condescending when it comes to Indians. You may check the
archives of the Indology list to see plenty of such examples. From my
perspective of Hindu morality, these people cease to be scholars in
the true sense of the word. As it is said - 'vidya dadaati vinayam'.
> Yet more generalisations, this time using the term "people"
> who are by no means as comfortable with diversity as Vishal
> as long as this diversity does not include the Northern Irish,
> Germans, Swedes, French or Italians who, as we all know, love to
> lynch Indians who publish ideological journals.
VA: You are misrepresenting my statement. I did not say that anyone
with the aforementioned nationalities lacks an appreciation of
diversity. I rather said that certain western scholars tend to view
people with the aforementioned (and similar) nationalities with
greater respect than see Indians.
It is a fact of life, that racism, whether covert, or overt, still
exists. I hope you do not deny that.
It is also a fact, that inverted racism ALSO exists, i.e., people of
color might discriminate against Caucasians. On the whole however,
you know what history says.
> Here the keyword has changed to "we", implying but not
> substantiating the existence of a mysterious group-think collective
> which coincidentally shares the exact same thoughts as
> Mr Vishal Sagarwal. Or perhaps, "we" is used here as the
> self-honorative first person singular.
VA: Being a linguistic, you ought to have judged that I am from north
India where we often use first person plural where the first person
singular is implied. And we often use second person plural where
singular is implied. This is for use of a more dignified language,
and not a reflection of one's ego etc.
BTW, in this context, 'we' includes all those people who were quite
annoyed by the aforementioned quickie Indologist's outpourings,
assisted by a Harvard professor. I do not see what is wrong in using
the plural here. You can see archives of various lists to see how
many people were offended by such remarks.
I suppose also that you represent only your own personal opinions,
and do not represent any 'group think'.
> And I do hope that catchy keywords like "scholar", "people", "we",
> "we the people" or "we the scholarly people" are no longer
> carelessly dropped into text all in order to artificially add life
> to a decomposing thought.
>
> Afterall, we scholars hate when people do that. :)
VA: I yet have to see your views on the fact that the publisher of
JIES is alleged to be an anti-Semitic ideology follower. Do you think
that JIES veterans like Mallory, Polome, Gimbutas etc., could have
been unaware of this fact?
I hope to end this conversation here.
Vishal