was: filtering out ...

[Guest guest]

Dear Mr Joshi,

 

On Thu Jun 14, 2001, shashi_kant_joshi wrote:

 

[...]

 

I need not quote most of what you wrote, because I agree with you on

most of the matters which you brought up (what the British did in

India, etc.). Other remarks by you seem the result of what we call

'hineininterpretieren', i.e., seeing things which are not there at all.

E.g., your conclusion that I suffer from a "superiority complex" merely

because I am trying to understand why so many persons, over several

years, have been trying to create the bizarre impression that a person

who is not Indian but spends his professional life studying India must

be 'anti-Indian', a 'Hindu-hater' and what not. When such accusations

are totally devoid of substance, yet keep cropping up, they become

interesting and invite attempts at understanding.

 

I can only conclude that there is something very unfortunate about

Indian emigrants and their attitude towards the new environment to

which they emigrate - particularly North America, since I hardly see

this kind of thing coming from other parts of the world. I am *not*

joking or merely making a provocative statement here, and I believe

that this is something that merits serious anthropological /

sociological study, also because it hampers communication, as we see so

often on this list. There is something in North America that is more

problematic than elsewhere (which, we must note, does not effect certain

individuals who seem perfectly content in the new environment. What I

am referring to seems to be merely a widespread tendency, not an

absolute rule, as with all social phenomena). This could have its cause

either in North American society or in the expectations and attitudes

of those who emigrate to North America, or both.

 

This list (and its predecessor) offers a wealth of material that shows

persons of apparently Indian origin who enjoy 'flaming' at any

non-Indian scholar, always along the lines of 'us' versus 'them'.

Individuals become reduced to being members of perceived

collectivities. The criticism never contains any scholarly substance but

quickly, if not immediately, turns into ad hominem attacks of a

discriminatory nature. Mr Agarwal wins first prize for this, and he has

given an excellent example just the other day: I have been on his hit

list for a long time, and he has never substantiated any of his

accusations against me. He is only one example, but a nicely clear one,

because he is so extreme.

 

This has something to do with a certain kind of social consciousness,

and there are indications that the mentality underlying the caste

system has something to do with it. (Caste thinking also stresses

largely mythical collective characteristics, rather than concrete,

actual individuality.) I already brought this up in my doctoral

thesis, 12 years ago, where I discussed the novels of an RSS

propagandist who thinks of Americans as a 'caste' (jaati) and proceeds

to heap a huge amount of fantastic prejudices on the 'American caste',

as he also does on the 'Christian caste'. The inciting towards communal

hatred is so clear, so prejudiced, mendacious and distasteful that I

dare say one would have a hard time finding a publisher for this in

modern Europe, but in India that man is a bestselling author. There

evidently is a market for this, i.e., there is a bent of mind that

likes this.

 

A different example of this searching for enemies among 'them' is the

modern myth that has built up around Max Müller, which also surfaced

here recently and which Prof. Witzel corrected; and as expected the

corrected poster was not grateful. There is a demand, so to say, for

falsehood that bolsters an equally false self-righteousness, always in

terms of collectivities.

 

Attacks on this list follow very much the same general pattern: one

sets out from the basic idea that there is 'us' versus 'them', and

'they' are an 'enemy', hence anything 'they' say is intrinsically evil

and just about anything, no matter how twisted and cynical, is

permitted to demean, hurt, calumniate, slander the target. After all,

the target is only one of 'them' or 'those', something like a dalita, so

you are free to do as you like.

 

Of course there are persons of Indian origin on this list who are beyond

this, who have enough solid self-esteem so as not to need this game and

have the decency to dislike it. Also community background is important:

certain castes (i.e., sub-cultures with their own norms and values) are

clearly more 'communal' than others. There are communities in which

communal exclusiveness is hardly or not a positive value at all,

because the dignity of the collectivity is merely derived from

that of the constituting individuals, which is what really matters. And

because each individual has his / her own dignity and self-esteem,

there is no need in such communities to 'prove' (in the self-deluded

manner described above) the dignity of the collectivity. This makes the

names of the noisiest persons on these internet lists sociologically

interesting, indicating as they do the persons' social backgrounds.

 

Coming back to the message -

 

<< do you think indians who are in u.s.a. are beggars who have been done

a favor to by anyone in giving them a job? >>

 

The question is: why are they not in India, or somewhere else? I have

nothing against people making their livelihood abroad (I myself am an

example of that). Yet the pattern of Indian emigration is interesting,

and it is not too far-fetched to link this to the Indian glorification

of English (see also the next paragraph).

 

<< do you know that in indian schools kids learn 3 languages! >>

 

For your information, In the Netherlands, where I finished my schooling,

we learn *at least* 4 (I took 5). You need not tell me about Indian

schools and the tribhaa.saasuutra, because my daughter went to what was

considered the best school in the Indian city where I lived for 16

years. English-medium. In her class of 48 pupils, only 2 did not want to

become engineers and physicians and emigrate to the USA, and this was

not in the first place because the 46 were interested in technology or

wanted to serve suffering humanity. :-) Their mastery of the two other

languages they were supposed to learn was minimal, which I found very

sad. (Now please read my previous paragraph again, before proceeding to

the next.) I did not like this best school in our middle-large Indian

city, but the alternatives were not so good. The educational situation

in India is sociologically quite interesting - and saddening. (Am I

'condescending' now? Am I allowed to say this at all?)

 

<< do you know that c.e.os of some of the biggest giants are indians?

the companies like oracle, microsoft, sun and the entire silicon

valley is ridden with highly qualified indian people? most of whom

earn in a month what you earn in decade? >>

 

I see an interesting difference in values here (dollars again - excuse

me if I consider this a confirmation of something I wrote previously.

Should Indian people, or people in general, be valued according to

their dollars?). Personally I have more interest in the sannyaasi, the

yoogi, the paramahamsa, the shastri, the people who can give the world

something specifically *Indian*. Which is what Indologists are

interested in.

 

Finally, I fear that also your message is an *excellent* illustration of

the communal 'us' versus 'them' mentality that I sketched above - since

you club me together with others concerning topics about which I have

written nothing! ("giita is trash", "sita ram goel" - what?) This

means that I do not feel called upon to comment on such passages. It

also means that the potential respect for me in you was minimal to

begin with, since your attitude is discriminatory and you show that you

are unable to think of me as an individual. You have reduced me to a

member of 'them', just as Mr Agarwal does, in the manner that I have

described above.

 

In view of what you have written about me in the quoted message, I

expect that you have already closed your mind and are not reading this,

or if you are, I expect it will be to continue a polemic with the same

flawed logic of several paragraphs in your last message (the key

concept here is what Indian logicians call ativyaapti - the same flaw

that underlies casteist and all other discriminatory thinking). For

this reason, I do not consider you a suitable interlocutor for a

continued discussion, which is unfortunate, since your previous message

made me believe that you could be. If this opinion sounds hard, let it

be so. After what you have ranted against me, you should be sportive

enough to stomach this much.

 

RZ