I am shocked to see that thousands of Hindus and Indians are gathering online in a Taliban like way to force the withdrawal of Wendy Doniger’s excellent book “The Hindus: An Alternative History” published by Penguin.
The petition for the withdrawal of the book can be read at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/dharma10/petition.html – where it describes the book as insulting and hurtful to Hindus and Indians everywhere. That is ridiculous.
In reaction to this I have launched a counter petition at http://petol.org/THAAH123 with a point by point response to their erroneous analysis and would be grateful if you could let everyone you know about this.
This petition is a counter response to the shameful demand for the withdrawal or banning of this excellent book. I support much of what the book purports and even more importantly I support Wendy Doniger’s right to write, publish and propagate her opinion without the misplaced intervention of xenophobes and Indic or Hindu arrogance. I urge Penguin not to succumb to the pressure of this group and instead encourage them to take the high road as well as the path taken by most Hindus throughout history and allow for the free exchange of ideas, discussion and dialogue. We are an inclusive faith and an ever-absorbing people and do not condone xenophobia or prejudice of this kind.
Wendy is being awarded at the National Book Critics Center Awards in New York at 6pm on Wednesday 10th March 2010 – there are planned protests in support of her book as well as one planned by USHA against the book. Please come out and support Wendy if you are in NYC.
Thank you for joining this cause. The petition is at http://petol.org/THAAH123.
Thank you all lovers of free speech and Hindu tolerance.
Raja Choudhury
New Delhi
raja@c3cube.com
+91 9871586502
You have not explained why both petitions started by you on behalf of two organizations, have been closed. You owe it to all lovers of free speech and antihinduism.
Are you a supporter of blasphemy of Doniger?
As a self-appointed Protector of Academic Freedom and Tolerance, are you capable of appreciating the irony in finding yourself censoring every opinion that may alleviate your ignorance? You censored out 80 percent of your own supporters, and 22 out of 23 (i.e., all except your own pompous self) from your Petitions In Support of Pornography.
The people who expressed outrage at the peddling of pornography at the expense of their most cherished beliefs, feel compelled to chuckle at your being laughed out of town.
In short, Raja, you are an idiot. Face the truth.
Huh? Hindus signing online petition is like Taliban? Are you out of your mind? I think you have no clue about what the Taliban did.
As for Mrs. Doniger. I know quite a bit of inside information about her. She is as dumb as they come and is a professor only because of affirmative action. A few years ago, Microsoft Encarta investigated complaints of racism by Doniger and found her article to be unscholarly and racist and also full of factual errors and replaced the article.
I think you lost it when you compared people expressing their opinion on the net as something similar to what the Taliban did. Sorry, that does not cut it. Besides, you clearly do not understand what freedom of expression means.
Boycotts and private citizens applying pressure on commercial houses are legitimate means of expressing dissent. It would be denying one’s freedom of expression when the government uses force to prevent one from expressing oneself freely. If private citizens use coercive methods, it would be unacceptable.
I think you must be new to the United States and you do not understand what we stand for. We believe in freedom of expression and it includes internet petitions and pressure on commercial houses in non-violent ways.
You just waded into the deep end when you compared such methods to that of the Taliban. I shudder to think what would happen if people like you come into power. You would ban the internet because those of us who use it are like the Taliban!
Rajaji,
Did it ever occur to you that the people who have criticized Wendy have as much right as her to post their views without being called names like ‘Taliban’?
Hope the counter petition (no locked!!) didn’t stem out of your arrogance or ignorance.
-Arun
Mr. Choudhury should be commended for (belatedly) beginning to have some glimmerings of realization about the wisdom of claiming to be a proponent of Free Speech (without taking the trouble to find out the issues) and then censoring out most of those who tried to educate him on the issues. I saw many of those “44 signatures”. Well.. none of those came anywhere close to being as abusive as the writings of U. Chicago’s Professor Wendy Doniger or her proteges, most notably Professor Paul Courtright of Methodist-originated Emory University, Atlanta.
If you have the patience to learn to spell long words like “Upanishads” etc., dear Mr. Choudhury, let me assure you that you also have the potential to think and understand why even laid-back non-political people like me who swear by Academic Freedom and the principle of treating people of all colors, beliefs etc equally respectfully, are aghast at the disgusting antics of the “Divinity” Schools. There is NO Academic Freedom to publish child pornography, and no respectable educational institution approves or allows the peddling of pornography or religious hate literature in the guise of “Scholarship”. I have, over the years, seen several RISA-L members, usually wet behind the years barely out with a PhD themselves, describe themselves as “SCHOLARS” on the ancient religions and cultures of the Indian subcontinent. I just used to laugh at those (until the RISA-L got its undies in a knot and decided to take their hilarious “deliberations” off the open internet) but it was not until someone persuaded me to spend a few minutes reading Courtright’s and Doniger’s “scholarship” (and nearly caused me to vomit) that I saw the sheer virulent bigotry and hate pornography that they have been putting out.
In 2003, the arrogance of Emory Department Religion Department Chair Laurie Patton (a signatory on your Counter-Petition) and Dean Robert Paul of Emory University, in responding to the polite and respectful letters from respected Atlanta community members, finally forced me to join in helping to explain a few things to Emory’s distinguished Scholars – like which way an elephant pees – and the statement of the Law on Child Pornography. I had to explain that essentially calling my concept of the Almighty a “MoFo” as Courtright did, only showed how dangerous it is to send children to Methodist-run Emory University.
Now there is a citizen protest against the wares that Doniger peddles, and I thoroughly endorse it. I am shocked to see a supposedly intelligent human like yourself, who even claims to know the Upanishads, come out SUPPORTING such pornography, and describing those of us who have taken the trouble to learn the issues, as “Taliban”. That’s ME you’re calling “Taliban”, Mr. Choudhury. For your information, yes, I did indeed study for the first 6 years of my education in Catholic and then Islamic schools, but they weren’t such stupid bigots as your heroes of the American Divinity Schools. In fact they were the ones who taught me how to respect all religions – a lesson that is completely lost on Dr. Doniger, her alumni and her other followers.
I must say in response with all due respect, that you are generous with your gratuitous insults, but way too stringent with the use of your own brain.
It is time you thought about the saying:
“Ignorance can be cured. Stupidity is permanent”.
You need to apologize before it is too late. It may be too late already for most people’s opinion of you, but there may be some of us left, who perhaps did not have very high expectations.
Best regards
Narayanan Komerath
PhD (Thankfully not in Pornographic Divinity)
Arunji,
Your fatwa against Wendy Doniger has resulted in her book becoming a best seller in the US and India. Well done!!! Your actions have helped make sucessful the exact thing you were fighting against. Classic fundamentalism.
I have published all your comments so let us not discuss free speech any further.
Best wishes,
Raja
Thanks for posting this blog. I tried to sign the petition but it has been closed it seems, at the author’s request. That tells me about the integrity of Wendy Doniger. You know, probably unlike most of others here, who I believe are from upper castes, I was born in a lower caste family i.e. OBC. I never liked the subtle discrimination when people would found out what we were. I still remember my first year at the Engineering college where I was ragged because someone found out that I was OBC. It was pathetic!! So, I always had a different take on Hinduism. I could ask questions which nobody else would, I would use skepticism of science, evidence based reasoning, to judge all claims. So that lead to my path to Atheism. Faith is a dangerous ground to tread, blind faith can be quite dangerous, as I can see here on the many comments posted.
“Pg 130 – The author claims that there are no Gods in the Vedas who are Shudras. “, I do not see any problem with that statement whatsoever. Are you folks so afraid to accept that casteism still exists, and that, it was always a part of the Indian society. It is also mentioned in the purusha-sukta of Rigveda where shudras are said to have emanated from the feet of the lord (पद्भ्याम् शूद्र् अजायत padbhyām śūdro ajāyata) //wikipedia. So, this nasty discrimination originates in our religion. I went to a school called Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Narendrapur, West Bengal. It is a residential school run by Sadhus (Hindu Monks). http://www.rkmvndp.org/ So, yes I know my share of Hinduism, maybe not as much but good enough to know truth from fiction. And ugly casteism exists even on Indian Matrimony sites, I would say almost 95% (specify castes that they want to marry into). So, how can you deny this ugly truth. True that things may have changed in a last little while, but overall situation looks grim for India. I remember few years back in South India, a Brahmin teacher hit a young student with a cane and accidentally blinded her in one eye. I never remember reading much about it after that one time.
Also when the author says Pg 468-469 -��The mosque, whose serene calligraphic and geometric contrasts with the perpetual motion of the figures depicted on the temple, makes a stand against the chaos of India, creating enfoOur Opinioned vacuums that India cannot rush into with all its monkeys and peoples and colors and the smells of the bazaar�� Most of the people here do not even realize that India is a nation within a nation. One nation which is rich and prosperous, and the nation of the lower strata, the lower castes, the tribes.Rabindranth Tagore wrote in his poem, (I will try to make a translation ) “The person you are leaving behind will drag you behind”. So, as all these money is pouring into India has not changed the fortune of the people who are at the bottom and nobody even talks about them. As if, not speaking about those problems would make them go away. So, people like you who have posted most of the comments here are disgusted every time when that naked truth dances in front of your eyes.
Last but not the least, let me make very clear that I am proud of my culture. We have given the world so much, in terms of science, literature, arts, music. But I only take the positive and criticize the part that is bad. So, I would urge people not to be blinded by emotion and faith and look for what things really are. In Black and White. And in the end I will quote Voltaire, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” Freedom of Speech and Expression!!
Cheers,
Suds
Richmond Hill, ON, Canada