Thapar Appointment Attack Against Political Freedom

[Guest guest]

Below are two responses I wrote to Harsh Kapoor's (and other SAWC

members) 'apology' for publicly attacking me as a Right Wing Hindu

Fundamentalist.

Their 'Apology' is at the bottom of the page.

Parker

 

"THE FACT IS ROMILA THAPAR'S APPOINTMENT IS AN ATTACK ON THE

DEMOCRATIC WILL OF THE INDIAN ELECTORATE. IT IS AN ATTACK ON INDIA'S

POLITICAL FREEDOM. IT IS AN ATTEMPT TO USE THE FEAR OF AMERICAN MIGHT

AND INFLUENCE TO FORCE INDIAN VOTERS TO VOTE

AGAINST THE BJP AND OTHER HINDU TRADITIONALISTS."

 

Dear SAWC Members,

I wanted to add some thoughts in regards to the Thapar

appointment and petitions.

First, its unfortunate that academics have reverted to

name calling. I am called a Hindu Fundamentalist

and my actions are portrayed as part of some 'vast right wing

conspiracy.'

 

Second, I am then called a racist. This must be on the

assumption that I, as a white American, am riddled

with guilt for past injustices.Sorry to disappoint

you. I have no racist ideology and see it as ignorance

in the first degree. I am also surprised that you

would present Hindus in a racial sense. The fact is

there are over 1 million non indian hindus (not including Balinese

Hindus) and many

racial types in Hindu India.

I state again that Hindus are generally unorganized in

a collective sense. I find this phenomenon in nearly

every Hindu org I have researched. In fact this

unorganized trait seems to be in many traditional

cultures. It may have something to do with their

belief in a live and let live policy or the Let Go and

Let God philosophy. Its fine in a peaceful world but

not in adversarial situations.

 

Third, you ignore the fact that no where in my

petition did I demand the removal of Thapar. I simply

protested her appointment.I did this intentionally

just to voice my personal dissappointment rather than

believing that I could actually have her removed.Of

course I would be elated if she was removed.Where is

your respect for freedom of speech and the right to

dissent? As an American, I remind you that any

attempts to supress free speech in our country will

backfire.

 

Fourth, you misrepresent Hindutva ideals of what and

who constitute a Hindu. For them Hindu means any

Indian that recognizes that they belong to the ancient

Indian civilization regardless of language or

religion.

 

Fifth, the Thapar supporters are presenting the

petition as an attack on academic freeedom. This is

blatantly false propoganda designed to demonize and

trivialize those opposed to Thapar's Ideology.

The appointment to the US Library of Congress Kluge

Chair is not a mere academic appointment but is rather

a political appointment.

As the media reported, The views of such appointees

are taken into account by the US Govt policy makers.

So by appointing Thapar, a well known enemy of the

democratically elected BJP Government officials of

India, she has been empowered to influence US Govt

policy against her political and ideological

adversaries in India.

So again, you so called level headed academicians,

researchers and promoters of truth are promoting lies

and disinformation. THE FACT IS ROMILA THAPAR'S

APPOINTMENT IS AN ATTACK ON THE DEMOCRATIC WILL OF THE

INDIAN ELECTORATE. IT IS AN ATTACK ON INDIA'S POLITICAL

FREEDOM. IT IS AN ATTEMPT TO USE THE FEAR OF AMERICAN

MIGHT AND INFLUENCE TO FORCE INDIAN VOTERS TO VOTE

AGAINST THE BJP AND OTHER HINDU TRADITIONALISTS.

So have some integrity and admit the facts and forget

about using immature tactics to disempower others. It

does not become you.

Sincerely, Parker

 

Dear Harsh Kapoor and Others,

Thank you for your response. I just want to

respond to a couple of points. Saying Hindus are not

organized isn't racism but is from my personal

experiance. Of course this doesn't mean every Hindu in

the world, just the ones in my personal circle.

However what I have seen in India regarding the

revival of Hindu pride is encouraging.

As a resident of Hawaii, I truly admire the Hawaiian

cultural renaisance. From my travels throughout India

and first hand experiance, I see the efforts of the

VHP/RSS/BJP as an exact parrallel to the Hawaiian

activists. The only differance is that the Hawaiians

have alot of sympathy and support whereas the Hindus

are ridiculed and demonized for doing the exact same

things.

Here in Hawaii, ancient HAawaiian values are seen as

wonderful alternatives. Ancient HAwaiian religion is

praised as a wonderful way of preserving and

protecting the enviroment. However in India, ancient

Hindu ideals are belittled or demonized.

Basically my view is that a majority of the ancient

root cultures of the world had a holistic and balanced

relationship with the universe. Hinduism is one of

these ancient root cultures. Not only that, unlike

most other ancient civilizations (ie.prechristian)it

is a huge cultural and civilizational phenomenon that

is thriving and dynamic. I am convinced that these

ancient cultures have vast experiance and know how in

every aspect of life.

What I find disturbing is that many in India want to

deny Hindu civilization its right to be involved in

government or education. Its as if the need to

separate church and state is being artificially

enforced upon India. In the west, such a division was

neccesary in order to stop the fanatics. In the

ancient root cultures, everything was interconnected

in such a way that spirituality was an integral part

of day to day reality.Therefore when the western

doctrine of separation of church and state is imposed

on ancient societies, these societies nearly all

became extinct. Thus I see the current efforts to

demonize the Hindu reanaisance as a form of cultural

genocide.

 

The VHP efforts to reclaim Ayodhya, Mathura, Varanasi

etc are nothing new when percieved globally. Here in

Hawaii, not a day goes by without hearing of Hawaiian

traditionalists reclaiming this sacred spot or

another. The American Indians have been trying to

reclaim site after site. Even the Greek orthodox

Christains are engaged in similar struggles with the

former Soviet States. The wellknown Black American

Pride is accepted as an understandable reaction to

past injustices. Howver when we apply the exact same

actions to the Hindu activists, the Hindus are

presented as 'fascists' or other such nonsense.

 

I encourage anyone interested, to read the book called

"Agents of Repression." It is a well documented and

accurate book detailing the actions of the US Govt's

COINTEL branch of the FBI.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the US govt

targteted AIM (American Indian Movement) and the Black

Panthers. By acts of terror, murder and frame-up, the

US Govt was able to destroy these two groups and deny

them the right to be legitimate organizations. I SEE

THE EXACT SAME METHODS BEING USED AGAINST THE HINDUTVA

ACTIVISTS. The fact is, now that Hindus have achieved

political power on a global level, they are being

targeted. You can call it conspiracy theory nonsense,

but it is an old story. No one denies it has happened

before. No one denies it is happening...except when it

is related to the Hindus.

 

Also I never said my teacher taught misinformation

about India. I said that the textbook used for the

course was full of misinfo. I never attributed such

statements directly to Thapar but I see her as one of

the promoters of misinformation.

 

I see Buddhism as a dynamic branch of Hinduism not as

a separate tradition so ofcourse there will be many

similarities.

 

Again, I personally do not like Thapar's work and like

a bad movie I could not sit through, I find her work

tedious and innacurate. To my surprise, alot of people

agree with me and thus so many have signed the

petition.

Sincerely, Brannon Parker

 

Response to Brannon Parker's Message re the SACW Alert in Defence of

Romila Thapar [see the Letter recieved by SACW ]

 

Dear Brannon Parker,

 

Thank you very much for your email. We are grateful to you for

offering us the rationale behind your web petition. Certainly we do

not intend nor did we attempt to slander you personally. The website

you saw was set up to argue against the main line of argument in the

petition which we saw as congruent, indeed along the grain of,

hindutva fundamentalism. You are not a Hindutva fundamentalist, that

may be as you say, and if you took this from the website, then we are

sorry for you. However, the web petition you initiated against the

appointment of Prof. Romila Thapar to the Library of Congress, adopts

a distinctly Hindutva fundamentalist position that has been

rigorously criticized in many other places for describing India's

past as being monocultural and being excusively 'Hindu'.

 

The assessment of the petition as organised by Hindutva

fundamentalists does not just rest on where the petition originated.

The calls for collection of signatures on web noticeboards of

Hindutva circuits, coupled with the rabidly chauvinist sentiments

expressed by many of the signatories, suggests that Hindu

fundamentalist networks have been mobilized in support of the

petition.

 

We are of course quite startled and dismayed by your frequent claims

about "Hindus" being disorganized, etc. There is a tendency toward

racism in these remarks that you may want to reconsider. Are

all "Hindus" unable to act, being bad organizers, and what not.

 

Of course you have the freedom of speech, but neither you nor we have

the right to toss accusations around without a scrupulous discussion

of facts. Let us take the few that you offer in your email:

 

(1) Kaliyug.

You assert that a teacher mentioned that the idea of Kaliyug comes

from Kali. Does Professor Thapar make this claim? We have not seen

her make this statement.

 

(2) Origins of Hinduism.

You assert that a teacher told you that Hinduism comes after

Buddhism. The verity of this claim depends on certain definitions.

What do you mean by Hinduism? Is Hinduism always the same or does it

also have a history? Certainly in the time of Ramanujan, drawing from

Shankara, the various traditions that came before were radically

transformed to begin the formation of what we know as Puranic

Hinduism with the multiplicity of Gods, etc. This was around the 11th

Century, when temple building emerges as an important aspect of Hindu

practice. In the 19th Century, Dayananda Saraswati reacted to this

form of Puranic Hinduism to refashion a practice he called Sanathana

Dharma, a return to the Vedic Brahmanism of the ancient times. If you

accord the Hindus the right to history, then it is arguable that

Hinduism comes after Buddhism. D. D. Kosambi has a wonderful paper on

the Bhagavada Gita that might be useful to you -- it shows how

Buddhism impacted upon the text and how it was later added to the

Mahabharata.

 

(3) India as a Civilization.

You assert that your teacher said that since there was no unified

state there was no unified civilization. Again, I don't want to

defend your teacher whose categories 'state' and 'civilization' are

in need of analysis. You should of course know that the idea of an

Indian civilization is not indigenous to the traditions of thought

within India but it is a product of German Indology, drawing from

Hegelian ideas of civilization. If you look at the Sanskrit corpus,

there is no idea of a unity of civilization, only a vision of how to

live in the cosmos. There is a European fallacy at work here: one

that comes from Germany's own history of state formation out of the

baronies, trying to forge a state to exercise the right of Germany to

be a civilization. This problem does not appear in Indic texts,

either in Sanskrit (for instance, the Arthashastra) nor in Persian

(for instance, Ain-i-Akbari).

 

Professor Thapar is an esteemed historian with many publications that

illuminate India rather than ridicule Indians in a racist manner for

being disorganized, etc.

 

sincerely

 

Harsh Kapoor & others

 

On Behalf of The South Asia Citizens Web