RISA Lila - 2 - Limp Scholarship and Demonology
RISA Lila - 2 - Limp Scholarship and Demonology by Rajiv Malhotra
The growing Indian Diaspora is gradually learning how its heritage has been both portrayed and mis-portrayed in the American education system, and about the urgency to engage the system along the same lines as is already being done by other American minorities, such as Jews, Muslims, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, African-Americans, Hispanics and Native-Americans.
This engagement requires the members of the Diaspora to be equal participants at the discussion tables where Indian traditions are the topic – including schools, colleges, museums, media, political think tanks and corporate policy meetings. However, getting such a seat involves a complex process of negotiation, because the incumbents who are entrenched in the institutions often see any power-sharing as a dilution of their authority.
Dating back to the earliest occupation of India by the British, academic scholarship has often studied and depicted India and its religious and cultural traditions as consisting of the exotic cultures of distant and primitive peoples. For generations, these views went unchallenged. Although more recently, a number of educated Indians, as well as contemporary American scholars, have sought to stimulate a rethinking of this approach and bring into the scholarly dialogue an expanding knowledge and awareness of the traditions, a significant portion of the scholarly community continues to adhere to and promote myopic and outdated views.
Moreover, such scholarship sadly fails to acknowledge that the adherents of these traditions are not primitive foreigners, but they are increasingly one's Indian-American neighbors, doctors, classmates and friends. Furthermore, it fails to recognize that these traditions are finding adherents among a significant number of Americans and other Westerners who find them compelling and important. This increasing presence and participation of Indians and Indian culture in American society not only provides new and valuable resources for scholarly research understanding, but it also demands that scholars become more aware of and sensitive to the traditions and their followers.
The events described below illustrate how the Diaspora is disadvantaged in its attempt to enter the negotiation process with the Western academic structure. Many Diaspora leaders have opted not to articulate their indigenous viewpoint (many, no doubt, never had a native Indian viewpoint in the first place, having been raised in a Eurocentric education system). Several spiritual leaders remain cocooned within the security of their introverted spiritual groups, and lack the required skills for successful negotiation in the global context on behalf of their cultural identity. Therefore, it is challenging to find knowledgeable individuals who are committed to a fair and balanced approach to tradition, and are willing to stick their necks out amidst a hostile environment, whereas it is not hard to find atheist, Marxist Indians in academia today, who are happy to trash Indian traditions.
This leadership vacuum has spawned a plethora of self-appointed activists, who often lack the sophistication to engage the systems effectively. Nonetheless, this may be a part of the cross-cultural learning process.
This dilemma in cultural discourse about Indian Traditions in the academy may be illustrated by the following fast-moving events which occurred recently. This essay is structured as listed below:
I. Petition against the “Limp Phallus” depiction of Ganesha.
II. Dialog with Paul Courtright.
III. Critique of the Petition.
IV. Threats and attempts to stop them.
V. Another RISA Lila begins.
VI. In India: Motilal Banarsidas withdraws the book.
VII. “Good boycotts” and “Evil boycotts”
VIII. “Good against Evil” witch-hunts begin
IX. Reality begins to sink in
X. The Myth of RISA
XI. (Re) negotiating our place in globalization
XII. Letter from a 14-year old Indian-American schoolgirl
The growing Indian Diaspora is gradually learning how its heritage has been both portrayed and mis-portrayed in the American education system, and about the urgency to engage the system along the same lines as is already being done by other American minorities, such as Jews, Muslims, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, African-Americans, Hispanics and Native-Americans.
This engagement requires the members of the Diaspora to be equal participants at the discussion tables where Indian traditions are the topic – including schools, colleges, museums, media, political think tanks and corporate policy meetings. However, getting such a seat involves a complex process of negotiation, because the incumbents who are entrenched in the institutions often see any power-sharing as a dilution of their authority.
Dating back to the earliest occupation of India by the British, academic scholarship has often studied and depicted India and its religious and cultural traditions as consisting of the exotic cultures of distant and primitive peoples. For generations, these views went unchallenged. Although more recently, a number of educated Indians, as well as contemporary American scholars, have sought to stimulate a rethinking of this approach and bring into the scholarly dialogue an expanding knowledge and awareness of the traditions, a significant portion of the scholarly community continues to adhere to and promote myopic and outdated views.
Moreover, such scholarship sadly fails to acknowledge that the adherents of these traditions are not primitive foreigners, but they are increasingly one's Indian-American neighbors, doctors, classmates and friends. Furthermore, it fails to recognize that these traditions are finding adherents among a significant number of Americans and other Westerners who find them compelling and important. This increasing presence and participation of Indians and Indian culture in American society not only provides new and valuable resources for scholarly research understanding, but it also demands that scholars become more aware of and sensitive to the traditions and their followers.
The events described below illustrate how the Diaspora is disadvantaged in its attempt to enter the negotiation process with the Western academic structure. Many Diaspora leaders have opted not to articulate their indigenous viewpoint (many, no doubt, never had a native Indian viewpoint in the first place, having been raised in a Eurocentric education system). Several spiritual leaders remain cocooned within the security of their introverted spiritual groups, and lack the required skills for successful negotiation in the global context on behalf of their cultural identity. Therefore, it is challenging to find knowledgeable individuals who are committed to a fair and balanced approach to tradition, and are willing to stick their necks out amidst a hostile environment, whereas it is not hard to find atheist, Marxist Indians in academia today, who are happy to trash Indian traditions.
This leadership vacuum has spawned a plethora of self-appointed activists, who often lack the sophistication to engage the systems effectively. Nonetheless, this may be a part of the cross-cultural learning process.
This dilemma in cultural discourse about Indian Traditions in the academy may be illustrated by the following fast-moving events which occurred recently. This essay is structured as listed below:
I. Petition against the “Limp Phallus” depiction of Ganesha.
II. Dialog with Paul Courtright.
III. Critique of the Petition.
IV. Threats and attempts to stop them.
V. Another RISA Lila begins.
VI. In India: Motilal Banarsidas withdraws the book.
VII. “Good boycotts” and “Evil boycotts”
VIII. “Good against Evil” witch-hunts begin
IX. Reality begins to sink in
X. The Myth of RISA
XI. (Re) negotiating our place in globalization
XII. Letter from a 14-year old Indian-American schoolgirl
posted by Maha Vishnu | 2:48 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home