Rediff on Thapar Protest

[Guest guest]

Romila Thapar's appointment to

Library of Congress opposed

 

April 25, 2003 05:33 IST

http://www.rediff.com/us/2003/apr/25us1.htm

 

A petition is circulating on the Internet against the appointment of

Professor Romila Thapar as First Holder of the Kluge Chair in

Countries and Cultures of the South at the Library of Congress.

 

The petitioners allege that she is a Marxist and anti-Hindu and it is

a waste of US money to support a Leftist.

 

The Librarian of Congress, James H Billington, appointed Thapar last

week and she has already started work, Robert Saladini, a

spokesperson for the library, said. He said he has no information on

the petition.

 

The petition can be viewed at:

http://www.petitiononline.com/108india/petition.html

 

The holder of the chair, which is located in the John W Kluge Center

of the Library of Congress, pursues research on the regions of

Africa, Latin America, West Asia, South and Southeast Asia, or the

islands of the Pacific including Australia and New Zealand, using the

immense foreign language collections in the specialised reading rooms

of the Library of Congress.

 

Thapar will spend ten months at the John W Kluge Center

pursuing 'Historical Consciousness in Early India' as her area of

research.

 

Thapar, emeritus professor of Ancient Indian History at Jawaharlal

Nehru University in New Delhi, who has served as visiting professor

at Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania, is an

authority on Indian history.

 

The author of many seminal works on the history of ancient India, her

volume of the 'Penguin History of India' has been continuously in

print since 1966. Her latest publication is 'Early India: From the

Origins to AD 1300'. Other recent works are 'History and Beyond'

and 'Cultural Pasts: Essays in Early Indian History'.

 

She has held many visiting posts in Europe, the United States and

Japan. She is an Honorary Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and

at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

She has honorary doctorates from the University of Chicago, the

Institute National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris,

the University of Oxford and the University of Calcutta.

 

Through a generous endowment from John W Kluge, the Library of

Congress established the center in 2000 to bring together the world's

best thinkers to stimulate, energise, and distil wisdom from the

library's rich resources and to interact with policy makers in

Washington, DC.

 

The center houses five senior Kluge Chairs.

 

The petitioners say: "It is a great travesty that Romila Thapar has

been appointed the first holder of the Kluge Chair.

 

"In regards to India, she is an avowed antagonist of India's Hindu

civilization as a well-known Marxist. She represents a completely

Euro-centric worldview. I fail to see how she can be the correct

choice to represent India's ancient history and civilization.

 

"She completely disavows that India ever had a history. The ongoing

campaign by Romila Thapar and others to discredit Hindu civilization

is a war of cultural genocide. By your unfortunate selection of

Thapar, America is now aiding and abetting this effort."

 

The petition has 133 signatures already. One of the signatories, Hari

Singh, said: "The comments from Ms Thapar are disgusting and are

reflection of her ignorance of Indian History."

 

Venkatesh, another signatory, commented, "It's a shame to the USA &

Indian govt. that a Communist like Romila Thapar is having a free

run."