Author: Rajeev Srinivasan
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: November 2, 2002
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/nov/02rajeev.htm
There is also a collective 'Fear
of NRIs,' I think, along with the irrational fear of engineering. The 'secular
progressives' realize that NRIs, and in particular NRI engineers, especially
those who made money in the high tech boom of the 1990s, are not so likely
to swallow their propaganda. (Another disclaimer: I do recognize the very
real problems a lot of NRIs have, of cultural confusion and displacement,
but in the eyes of the JNU-ites, NRIs form a cohesive and frightening force.)
These NRIs have seen the world and done well in fully competitive circles,
do not have inferiority complexes, and do not need to suck up to some white
academic like Doniger for crumbs like travel grants, which the 'sepoys'
of Indology in India crave.
In other words, the NRI engineers
are shouting from the rooftops, 'The Emperor has no clothes!' This is,
of course, distressing to those who have been supplying non- existent clothes
to the Emperor and profiting mightily therefrom.
These NRI engineers have also come
to realize that there is something precious in India that is under grave
threat from the Sino-Islamic axis and Christian fundamentalists.
And they have begun to organize;
and the results are beginning to appear. Partly through NRI assertiveness,
but mostly through local strategy, the Hindu right wing is beginning to
get its act together regarding vulnerable Dalits and Adivasis and about
the leftist-missionary stranglehold on education. Note the signal Supreme
Court ruling that has, finally after 50 years of Nehruvian Stalinist fascism,
allowed the school curriculum to reflect some ground realities as well
as the results of new research.
As a result of all this, it is getting
to be a little more difficult for Christian cultists to prey on unsuspecting
tribals or to brainwash children. Thus the increasing 'secular' 'progressive'
paranoia and fear of NRIs. If said NRIs become more influential, with their
wealth and their general savvy, the increasing irrelevance of the Nehruvian
Stalinist dinosaurs will be accelerated. Their patrons in American- and
Vatican-funded missionary circles would not approve at all.
A few months ago, I was talking
to a 'secular progressive' journalist, and he mentioned in passing how
there was a lot of NRI money coming in from the US to support right wing
Hindu activities. I was startled, for any NRI Hindu money would be a mere
pittance as compared to the absolute billions funneled into India for Wah'abi
mosques by Saudi Arabia and the ISI, and on conversion/terrorism activities
by the Vatican, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, Pentecostals and sundry
Christian cults. (In Tripura, Christian terrorists have killed many Hindus;
in Mizoram, they have ethnically cleansed Hindus.)
Soon thereafter, there was a flurry
of reports in the media, especially in the US media, about how money from
US Hindus was helping Hindu militants in India. Two things were obvious:
one, it is meant to equate Hindu 'militancy' with Islamic militancy, which
is currently under a microscope in the US, and where links by US Muslim
organizations with the Taliban and al Qaeda are being investigated. The
fact that Hindu 'militancy' is pretty mellow and consists primarily of
shouting a few slogans - definitely no flying planes into tall buildings
is involved - is conveniently ignored. Two, this is a concerted and organized
campaign, presumably led by the lunatic fringe Marxists-with-Hindu-names
in the US. It did not 'just happen': there is malice aforethought.
But I digress. There is yet another
fear: the 'fear of numbers and logic.' Engineers are brought up on numbers
and logic, whereas a lot of Indians are functionally innumerate and illogical,
especially those in the humanities. As Indiresan correctly points out,
the natural sciences deal with immutable laws of nature, whereas the humanities
deal with man-made laws, which are generally not based on fact, but on
opinion.
I have an empirical observation:
merely by throwing a few numbers at them, you can intimidate many humanities
people. In years of writing columns and receiving my share of hate mail,
I have seldom come across a humanities type contesting my data. They may
rant and rave about what a horrible person I am, and perhaps about how
little I understand their disciplines, but they hardly ever challenge the
numbers. I shall, uncharitably, conclude that this is because they are
innumerate. They must be the ones keeping India's lottery business going,
as they fail to understand that they are almost 100% likely to lose their
money.
But far more alarmingly, some humanities
types are also illogical. To illustrate this, I'm afraid I have to pick
on someone who is one of my favorite columnists: Renuka Naryanan of The
Indian Express. There are a few female columnists whose work I always read:
Sandhya Jain, Sucheta Dalal, Renuka Narayanan, and, of course, my friend
Varsha Bhosle.
When I read Sandhya Jain's rational
and well thought-out work, I am consumed with envy: I wish I had written
that! In Sucheta Dalal's elegant and precise columns I find an encyclopedic
knowledge of Indian business. Renuka Narayanan's erudition and knowledge
of both the performing arts and religion are stunning. And Varsha, well,
she's in a class of her own, my warlike friend: she reminds me of Rumpole
of the Bailey and his 'She Who Must Be Obeyed.'
Yet, despite Renuka Narayanan's
erudition, I find her grossly illogical, as a result of her extreme political
correctness. In one of her columns, she claimed that 'Allah belongs to
India as much as to Arabia.' Fine sentiment, indeed, but I believe this
is blasphemy. For Allah, as far as I know, shows a very clear preference
for Arabia and Arabs and, indeed, generally speaks in Arabic. If her intention
is to say that Islam is universal, well, she should simply say so. Otherwise,
I could counter with 'Yahweh belongs to Arabia as much as to Israel,' or
'The Buddha belongs to Arabia as much as to Thailand,' which I don't think
anybody in their right mind would claim.
Similarly, Narayanan recently said
she was ashamed of Hinduism because a Muslim Kashmiri acquaintance of hers
had been abused and kicked by a ticket examiner in a train just because
he was wearing Muslim Kashmiri clothing. Now she is guilty of at least
four logical fallacies. One, she is attributing motives by assuming Mr
Kicker is a practicing and religious Hindu and that he kicked the Muslim
precisely because he is a practicing, religious Hindu. Yet she does not
tell the reader why she concludes that Mr Kicker is not a. a Marxist, b.
a Christian, c. a Muslim of some other persuasion, say Shia or Ahmediya
or Sufi, d. an atheist, e. just a jerk.
Two, she is guilty of rapid generalization:
even if Mr Kicker is a Hindu, it does not follow that all Hindus are like
Mr Kicker. Three, she is guilty of callisthenic leaps of faith, no pun
intended. I am not aware of anything in Hinduism that suggests kicking
Muslim Kashmiris, so why should anybody be ashamed of Hinduism for Mr.
Kicker's actions even if he's a Hindu? Four, this is known as 'poisoning
the well,' casting aspersions on an opponent's character, rather than focusing
on his arguments, by putting any Hindu interlocutor on the defensive by
insinuating he should be ashamed.
Another example of her lack of logic
(or common sense) was her claim that when colonial and Christianity-crazed
Portuguese sailors in distress off the Chennai coast were guided to safety
by a mysterious light emanating from the Kapaleeshwar temple, 'they built
a church right next to it.' I have news for Narayanan, although in fact
I am sure she knows this already. The Portuguese did not build a church
'next' to the temple, they built it 'over' the temple. That's right, they
demolished the ancient temple that had stood there for at least a thousand
years, and built their San Thome Cathedral right on top of it! For full
details, see Ishwar Sharan's book, The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore
Shiva Temple, (Voice of India, 1991), excerpts on the Web at http://hamsa.org
Finally, almost all of Narayanan's
columns have gratuitous positive references to Sufism. Since Sufism is
accepted as part of Islam, and Islam has well defined behavior for all
Muslims, it is exactly as tolerant or peaceful or spiritual as Islam generally
is. At best, it is a marketing variant, meant for the consumption of particular
groups of people. It cannot be fundamentally different, or it would be
a heresy. Yet, many of India's painfully PC people ascribe to Sufis, their
music and their dance and their spirituality, some grossly over-rated importance.
In effect, the claim is that whatever spirituality Hinduism can boast of,
Sufism has the same or better. Jalaluddin Rumi this, qawwali, that. Wah-wah!
Why, I don't know. After all, Sufis are the original whirling dervishes:
the object of mirth in many travelogues. Why the pinnacle of Indian music
and dance are supposed to be Sufi I shall never know. It must be yet another
example of dhimmitude, Nehru style, that is, Islamic=good, Hindu=bad. Persian
and Arabic=good, Sanskrit=bad.
It's unfair of me to pick on Renuka
Narayanan, but her dhimmitude (in relation to both Christianity and Islam)
is particularly galling, as she is clearly not brain-dead, unlike most
of the 'secular progressives' in the Indian media.
Coming back to engineers, I guess
it must be pretty clear by now that they are bad people. But wait, not
all of them. There is at least one IIT Madras product who is a big wheel
at Frontline (isn't that China's national magazine?); an IIT Kanpur product
is a big shot at Outlook magazine; another IITian is Sandeep Pandey of
ASHA, Magsaysay award winner and advocate of separatism for Kashmir. Jairam
Ramesh, Congress bigwig, is from IIT Bombay. Does the fact that these folks
exist and are 'secular progressive' give at least a temporary reprieve
to engineers? I guess not.
Those who demean science and technology
would be well advised to wonder why they call one of their specialties
'Political Science.' Is this like 'Palmistry Science'? Or 'Creation Science'?
What is scientific about it? And why is Economics the 'dismal science'?
My belief is that humanities types secretly admire the precision and reproducibility
of scientific disciplines. And naturally they trash that which they are
in awe of and cannot understand.
Just look at the new-fangled humanities
curricula in the market. Unbelievable that people actually pay good money
to take these courses. 'Post-Modern Studies.' 'Cultural Studies.' 'Post-Colonial
Studies.' 'Cultural Anthropology.' 'Gender Studies.' 'Deconstruction.'
Yeah, 'Advanced Basket-Weaving,' too. A lot of turgid, meaningless texts,
which remind me of the Marxist vocabulary that I just love: bourgeois,
revanchist, dialectical, revisionist, imperialist running dog, class struggle,
etc, and equally arcane stuff. I strongly recommend Foucault and Derrida
if you suffer from insomnia.
What is a good way to identify these
humanities fraudsters, you ask? Simple: anybody who says 'trope' or 'praxis'
is undoubtedly one. If I were you, I wouldn't touch any of their specialties
with a barge pole.
I must end with another disclaimer:
there are many in the humanities who do excellent work, diligently and
with great integrity. I salute them. It is not them that I target, it is
the shysters of the media and the self proclaimed 'intelligentsia' who,
far from being 'progressive', are the most reactionary elements around.
They are the ones, the 'sepoys' in Rajiv Malhotra's terminology that have
to be engaged in battle and trounced. They are the ones who have manufactured
a mythical history of India; they are the ones who are shouting loudly
about errors in textbooks when they have done nothing but bowdlerization
for fifty years: see my earlier column on historicide. In short, they are
the barbarians within.
