rajivmalhotra.

com

The Asymmetric Dialog Of Civilizations

The History
In contrast with theclashof civilizations now being popularized, I would much rather propose adialogamong them. But what are the
historical reasons for lack of this dialog, and what prevents this from becoming thetoppriority for humanity today? I researched the
writings of eminent scholars in a variety of specialties, such as history, multiculturalism, colonialism, Eurocentrism, to name a few.
Serious work by many mainstream scholars abundantly establishes the mutual dependency between the asymmetry of power and
institutionalized prejudices in research and education. These asymmetries of power and intellectual representation prevent genuine
dialog among the peoples of the world.
Consider the following quotes from prominent scholars of inter-civilization studies:
Eurocentrism is the colonizers model of the world in a very literal sense: it is not merely a set of beliefs, a bundle of beliefs. It has
evolved, through time, into a very finely sculpted model, a structured whole; in fact a single theory; in fact a super theory, a general
framework for many smaller theories, historical, geographical, psychological, sociological, and philosophical. J.M. Blaut[1]
The conquistador exerted his power by denying the Other his dignity, by reducing the Indian to the Same, and by compelling the
Indian to become his docile, oppressed instrument. The conquest practically affirms the conquering ego and negates the Other as
Other [A]fter the innocent Others victimization, the myth of modernity declares the Other the culpable cause of that victimization
and absolves the modern subject of any guilt for the victimizing act Finally, the suffering of the conquered and colonized people
appears as a necessary sacrifice and the inevitable price of modernization Modernity justifies the Others suffering because it
[allegedly] saves many innocent victims from the barbarity of these cultures The myth of modernity perpetrates a giganticinversion:
the innocent victim becomes culpable and the culpable victimizer becomes innocent. Enrique Dussel[2]
Notice, in particular, how academic scholarship in the humanities, far from being consideredobjective, is viewed as a central culprit,
even today:
[T]he history which [the colonial scholar] writes is not the history of the country which he plunders but the history of his own nation
in regard to all that she skims off, all that she violates and starves. Frantz Fanon[3]
[T]he game is still going on, when otherness of the other is used to legitimize the oppression and subjugation The tensions and
anxieties that we bear as members of distinct groups are now to be seen in their interconnectedness It is indeed difficult to fight a
battle whose goal is not to defeat anyone but rather that nobody is defeated. The battle is to be waged against a system that produces
the oppressors and the oppressed, the exploiters and the exploited, the winners and the losers, cutting across race, gender, nationality
or any other form of collectivity The institutionalization of universities into departmental structures plays an important role in the
cultural life of the West. This is precisely why when these departments do not represent the intellectual traditions of the East, they are
not simply silent but they are helping to perpetuate the image of a mythical, mysterious, non-rational East. Anindita Niyogi
Balslev[4]
Focusing specifically on the misrepresentation of India, I found a wealth of research material. For instance, Wilhelm Halbfass, the
Indologist at U-Penn (who unfortunately passed away a year ago) wrote:
In the modern planetary situation Eastern and Western cultures can no longer meet one another as equal partners. They meet in a
westernized world, under conditions shaped by western ways of thinking. [5]
Colonizers heavily sponsored scholars to research and represent their colonized subjects. For instance, the British Census of India was
one such process to represent India in British categories, while superficially pretending to use Indian categories. This became the
basis for re-engineering Indias society to fit into rigid castes, a representation that has continued after independence and has become
the center of Indias politics today. The essentializing of caste in the representation means that it is deemed an inherent and
unchangeable quality that Hindus are frozen into forever. (Traditionally,jatisandvarnaswere independent of one another, and had
mobility.) The more flexible language of describing certain communities as socially underprivileged, and implementing affirmative
action programs strictly based on economic means, would have de-essentialized thejati, and over a period of time reduced its
significance.Dalitas a category by birth is self-perpetuating, unproductive and divisive, and the consequence of adopting a colonial
representation system.
A representation system is a meta-ideology, providing the implicit frame of reference of the discourse, and acts as the subliminal
playing field on which specific scholarship unfolds. The power of representation was explained very emphatically by Friedreich
Nietzsche:

The reputation, name, and appearance, the usual measure and weight of a thing, what it counts for originally almost always wrong
and arbitrary grows from generation unto generation, merely because people believe in it, until it gradually grows to be a part of the
thing and turns into its very body. What at first was appearance becomes in the end, almost invariably, the essence and is effective as
such.
Huston Smith, one of the leaders of the western academy for religious studies, recently described Freudian psychoanalysis of Hindu
saints, now a popular academic movement, as colonialism updated. [6]
The Challenge of Dialog
To have a genuine dialog of civilizations, the other side must be present as itself and not via proxy, must be able to use its own
framework to represent itself, and must be free to anthropologize and criticize the dominant culture without fear of undue censorship
or academic reprisal. Balslev explains the importance of the process:
The challenge before us is not to validate a heritage or a culture at the cost of another but to perceive cross-cultural conversation as
a mutually empowering dialogue that raises the consciousness of all the participants involved [I]n a genuine dialogue, the dialogical
partners are not merely subjects speaking to each other, butparticipantsin the dialogue. The practice of dialogue is an art that must
be cultivated We must revise our prejudgments, modify our hypotheses, and then listen again. In this to-and-fro movement in which
we (mutually) seek to understand each other, the dialogic partners cultivate theartof the hermeneutical circle. [7]
Before proceeding to describe the asymmetries that prevent genuine dialog specifically between Indic traditions and the scholars, I
wish to clarify at the outset that I represent neither pole of what has become a bipolarfightfor the representation of Indian culture: I
amnotrepresenting the Hindutva view, as Hindutva should not be conflated with Hinduism, because: (i) Hindutva is a political
mobilization, (ii) it is a recent 20th century construct in response to contemporary situations, and (iii) it assumes a specific
(reductionist) package of stances, whereas most Hindus pick and choose positions from ana la cartemenu of choices [8]. At the same
time, I do not deny the Hindutva their right to a position within the vast spectrum of Hinduism, as one of many ways to be a Hindu. At
the other pole, is the theory of Hinduism defined asThe Evil Brahmin Conspiracy. Most Hindus I know belong to neither extreme,
although there has been a tendency for one pole to insist, if you are not pink, you must be saffron, and vice versa. The vast middle is
un-essentialized, where creative dialog can take place, and it is in this middle space that I position myself and the observations below.
The five asymmetries, of which the first three concern academic translations of Indic culture, are:
Asymmetry I: Anthropologist Dominating the Native Informant
Karen Brown, the anthropologist of religion, recently proposed the following as the credo for western anthropologists: The people
and cultures that we Westerners study deserve our respect, reciprocity, and responsibility. [9] However, scholars often
unintentionally assume that distance (intellectual, cultural, geographic) produces objectivity, whereas reciprocity and not distance is
the key to dialog. The dark side of contemporary anthropology is exposed bluntly by Edward Said:
[Western scholarship] carries within it as a major constitutive element, the unequal relationship of force between, the outside
Western ethnographer-observer and a primitive, or at least different but certainly weaker and less developed, non-Western society.
The real problem remains to haunt us: the relationship between anthropology as an ongoing enterprise and on the other hand, empire
as an ongoing concern. [A]nthropology is being seen as part of a larger, more complex historical whole, much more closely aligned
with the consolidation of Western power than had previously been admitted. Thus: think the narratives through together within the
context provided by the history of imperialism. [10]
The fetishization and relentless celebration or difference and otherness can therefore be seen as an ominous trend. the
spectacularization of anthropology cannot easily be distinguished from the process of empire. . [I]n so many of the various
writings on anthropology, epistemology, textualization, and otherness that I have read, which in scope and material run the gamut
from anthropology to history and literary theory, there is an almost total absence of any reference to imperial intervention as a factor
affecting the theoretical discussion. There are armies, and armies of scholars at work politically, militarily, ideologically [11]
And is echoed by Robert Young:
The appropriation of the other as a form of knowledge within a totalizing system can thus be set alongside the history (if not the
project) of European imperialism, and the constitution of the other as other alongside racism and sexism. [12]
Tzvetan Todorov analyzes anthropology historically using the term new trinity to describe the old-style soldier-conquistador: it
consists of the scholar, the priest, and the merchant: The first collects information about the country, the second promotes its
spiritual annexation and the third makes certain of the profits. [13]
Western anthropologists of India use native informants, who are typically poor and less educated villagers paid to produce the data,
and who often place the scholar on a pedestal because of their own limited material resources and the glorification of Indias
xenophile elite. Scholars mine such data, filter it through western lens, legitimize it with western peers who are part of their own
academic system, and too often assert this Orientalist construction as the truth. Few today do this overtly or intentionally. However:
There is little counterbalancing information flow to help the villagers learn what was said and published about them by the scholar
except what thesamescholar feeds them.
There are hardly anyindependentsurveys or focus groups in the field to ascertain whether villagers disagree with the ethnographies
that become standard descriptions about them, or to point out what was left out, distorted or improperly contextualized.

Villagers should be able to give their own opinions of the scholar as thefirangifrom America, including her exotic or peculiar ways:
the poorhaveagency. Researchersdoinclude how villagers react to, admit, get used to, or query the scholar, but this itself is usually
the dominant cultures own filtered presentation.
All measurements disrupt. I am unaware of any controlled studies comparing a neighboring village that was not disrupted by a
prolonged scholarly intervention, so as to evaluate the social re-engineering side effect of scholarship.
While there are also many sensitive researchers, there needs to be greater recognition of the need for reciprocity. This calls for disintermediation of the role of anthropologist as knowledge broker between the villagers and the American students. I do not claim to
know yet how to achieve true independence, but a plurality of cross-cultural worldviews would be better than one dominant view.
For instance, besides reverse surveys, native informants could get invited to panels via video phones that are now very cost effective,
with translators. Perhaps, the scholar-as-broker feels threatened that the native informants would be found to have agency after all,
and to challenge decades of research. This is especially severe when the White Womans Burden drives the scholar to impose her gift
of agency on poor people presumed to have none.
Are the native informants becoming victims of the scholars violation of trust? I propose that an interactive dialog
betweenequalcivilizations become anthropologys new hermeneutics, and that scholars expand their work to enhance validation and
symmetry.
Asymmetry II: Western Scholar of Texts Dominating thePandit
The use ofpanditsis another method by which the west re-maps Indian culture. Manypanditsare simple and straightforward, not
aggressive compared to many western scholars, not into power games or concern for royalty or intellectual property rights, and are
trusting of western intentions. The misappropriation of basmati rice and other intellectual property may be used as an analog to
appreciate that the Indian ethos does not emphasize personal ownership of know how (including spiritual knowledge), and that some
of what the west does is unethical and exploitative as per the traditional Indian system of professional ethics. One must inquire
whether the publish-or-perish syndrome and personal egos cause some scholars to try to own pre-existing knowledge and to
reducepanditsto native informants, whereas in their own tradition they deserve respect as great humble teachers.
Furthermore, sincepanditsare rarely invited as respondents or co-authors when the work gets presented, they do not always find out
what finally gets published, and their interpretation sometimes gets distorted along the way. For instance, when scholars write that
Ganesha symbolizes the limp phallus, or when they over-interpret sati as adefiningfeature of Hinduism, should the reader not be told
what the insider has to sayalso? Sanskrit terms that deserve thick descriptions often get reduced to simplistic Eurocentric and
Abrahamic representations [14]. Even comparative religion is often framed in a paradigm of western superiority. Is it that scholars
seepanditsas not having western PhDs, and hence as not legitimate experts of their tradition?
Asymmetry III: Cognitive Scientist Dominating theYogi/Meditator
The laboratory measurement of higher states of consciousness achieved by advancedyogisand meditators is at the cutting edge of
transpersonal and humanistic psychology, mental health, neuroscience, and phenomenology. And some Indic theoretical models are at
the center of the philosophy of quantum physics based emerging worldviews. But many ancient Hindu-Buddhist inner science
discoveries are being misappropriated and/or plagiarized:
Lucid Dreaming is the western name for Indo-Tibetannidra yoga, and Stanfords Stephen LaBerge is nowadays the acknowledged
discoverer.
Mindfulness Meditation is Jon-Kabat Zinns repackaged and trademarkedvipassna.
Herb Benson repackaged TM into his Relaxation Response and now runs a multimillion dollar business based at Harvard, claiming
these ashisdiscoveries. Numerous spin-offs in mainstream stress management and management consulting theories came from this
source.
Rupert Sheldrake recently came out in an interview acknowledging that his famous theory known as Morphogenic Resonance was
developed while researching in Indias ashrams.
Ken Wilber started out very explicitly as an interpreter of Sri Aurobindos philosophy for the benefit of psychologists, but now places
himself as the discoverer on a higher pedestal.
Esalen Institute appropriated J. Krishnamurti and numerous other Indic thinkers into what its contemporary followers regard as it
own New Worldview.
Thomas Berry, Father Keating (in the footsteps of Bede Griffiths), and others have constructed the New Liberal Christianity, using
Indic appropriations. Jewish scholars have likewise constructed the non-dualistic Kabala based on Vedanta. While these pioneers
recognize and admit the source, there followers are often ignorant and see these innovations as emerging entirely from JudeoChristianity.
This is only part of a long list: the core of the emerging western worldview and cosmology involving physics, cognitive science, and
biology is being rapidly built upon recycled Indic knowledge, but too frequently the source is being erased and over time.Yogisand
meditators, who should be regarded as co-discoverers, usually remain anonymous laboratory subjects and native informants.
Does this remind us of the way America is said to have been discovered in 1492, as though the millions of Native Americans who lived
here for thousands of years did not matter? It became a bona fide discovery only when Europeans registered it as such. Because land
owned by the natives had not been recorded in European registration systems, their ownership was declared illegitimate. Much of the

Renaissance and Enlightenment of Europe was based on the appropriation of Indic and Chinese civilizations, and yet these
civilizations were demonized to justify colonialism [15].
I have been told in private by some of the cognitive science misappropriators that they respect Indic traditions greatly and personally
know them as the sources, but that in public the distancing is good for book sales and for securing research grants, and that the stamp
of western science is what legitimizes these traditions. Their position, stated quite openly in many cases, is thatdiscovery occurs only
when the west appropriates something. This appears to be a racist theory of knowledge, one that denies agency and rights to nonwesterners. Also, while plucking the fruits, there is no attempt by these appropriators to nurture the roots of the source traditions.
A plausible theoretical model for this is: The west plagiarizes from Hinduism-Buddhism with one hand (e.g. cognitive science), while
another western hand stereotypes the source as caste, cows, curry exotica and worse (via anthropology/religious studies).
Theacademic arsonreferenced here is merely a continuation of the age old plunder while you denigrate the sourceprocess at work. It
is a continuation of the paganization of pre-Christian religions while at the same time appropriating many central elements from the
pagans into Christianity.
Asymmetry IV: Who Speaks as Insiders of Indian Culture?
In contrast with science, technology, business, and other professions where Indians now routinely occupy many high positions,
Indology remains perhaps the last holdout of colonialism. However, Indians in the above mentioned fields, with successful experience
in dealing with westerners, are seldom included as dialog representatives. The Diaspora that identifies with Indic traditions publicly
and positively and the non-Indian Hindus in yoga-meditation centers are oftennotthe ones who the western academe dialogs with as
spokespersons for the tradition.
Instead, it is a layer of elites from within the colonized culture who are groomed to become proxies for the tradition. Frantz Fanon
explains:
The colonialist bourgeoisie had in fact deeply implanted in the minds of the colonized intellectual that the essential qualities remain
eternal in spite of all the blunders men may make: the essential qualities of the West, of course. [16]
In the case of Indians, such persons are commonly referred to as Macaulayites, after Lord Macaulay, who developed this strategy in
1835 as a way to create Indian intellectual sepoys serving the British rule. The program was highly successful and has now assumed a
postcolonial life of its own. Eurocentric representation systems have been installed into the minds of elite Indians, who now function
as the internal agents working from within Indian society, typically remote controlled by a western incentive system of visas, jobs,
foreign travel, grants, and various forms of career advancement. The Eurocentric mental representation is commonly applied
subliminally, and often there is only slight self-awareness that this is being done. Many westernized Indians are radically convinced
that the indigenous tradition is a backward one, and that their mission in life is to uproot it and replace it with a superior western
import often done with a passion as though to earn a ticket to neo-white status. They often consider biases against Indic traditions as
a great compliment to their own sense of modernity, and also as a great western gift to the Indians, and volunteer as partners to
facilitate this process. When this mental colonialism is pointed out to them, it often evokes severe anger and defensiveness.
Richard Crasta, a Goan Christian now living in New York, is rather blunt about the obsession to become a Macaulayite by trying to
imitate the image of the dominant culture,
whether we be Bombayites trying to put on Oxford accents and fake a knowledge of cheeses and wines; or whether we be Delhi
literati striving to make a favorable impression on Delhis western diplomats minor potentates who have, either by their power to
throw parties and patronize locals and soakem up with Scotch and grant them visas, favors, or cultural junkets, or by their personal
charm, become resident reminders of the superiority and the power of the white race. [17]
He explains that the end result is a dislocation from the roots:
ethnic shame is a phenomenon that is particularly intense among Indians abroad Ethnic shame is the opposite of ethnic pride
and it is a sublime example of the success of colonialism in co-opting us in our own subversion, and in our alienation from our culture
and our earth, and ultimately the extinction of our own culture [I]t contributes to our collusion with the forces that tend to make us
invisible in a foreign society. [18]
Eventually this turns into hate for the tradition as a way to assume superiority by proving ones alienation from it:
The India Haters Club is growing larger and larger, and its largest contingent is probably the millions ofIndiansfor whom a few bitter
experiences of betrayal have pushed them over the edge into self-hatred:Yes, my skin is brown, but my soul is white. [19]
Yet, the Macaulayites remain second class in the western space, notwithstanding whatever financial success and even prestigious
positions they attain:
This Western carrot of acceptance and riches is accompanied by a stick:Do not cross the boundaries. Always remember your placethe
carrot and stick are so discreetly transferred by Third World writers onto theirinternalcensor that they are often unconscious of their
own self-censorship. [20]
Along with Macaulayites, Indian Marxists born againas progressives after the Cold War dominate Indias academe, and often
power broker as strategic allies of western academicians. But there are many contradictions in these experts on India:
(i) Such Indian scholars, despite their Subaltern studies, are often alien to the masses and culture of India, and disrespect and
caricaturize Hinduism in a reductionist Eurocentric way.

(ii) They know mainly western thought and hermeneutics. Few have education in Sanskrit or the Indian Classics, which were
abolished in post-Independence India in the name of secularism and to promote modernity by eradicating intellectual
backwardness. (By contrast, in the west most experts in the western humanities have a grounding in Greek Classics.) To get a good
PhD in Sanskrit, Indology, or Religious Studies, one must go to a university in the west, as Indias own education system abolished
these disciplines.
(iii) Yet, their personal careers are based on being proxies for the very tradition that they regard as a scourge.
The phenomenon of South Asianizing, which has emerged from this confluence of excessive ethnography and Indian Macaulayism,
has subverted Hinduisms universal truth claims. Contrast this with other world religions for instance, Christianity is notdefinedin
terms of Middle Eastern ethnography, although it is studiedalsoin sociological terms. Furthermore, the Diaspora feels that the
ethnographies of South Asia get superimposed as their image.
It is the ethnography of elitist anti-tradition Indians that would make a fascinating field of research. Defensive about their awkward
position, these elitists often brand anyone speaking assertively for Indic traditions as Hindutva, saffronist, fundamentalist, fascist,
fanatic, neo-BJP, nationalist, or equivalent [21]. In fact, the only way to be a good Hindu in the eyes of some is to behave in accordance
with Orientalist images. This name-calling has now been picked up by many western scholars as well.
Asymmetry V: Politics of Representation and Power
There is asymmetry also in the license to criticize: western scholars control thevyakhya(i.e. hermeneutics, right to criticize, what is
deemed important and interesting, etc.), manage theadhikara(i.e. appoint those in charge of gate-keeping the academic channels), and
sometimes even field the persons who represent Indic traditions. When criticized by trulyindependentIndians (i.e. those who do not
seek visas, PhDs, jobs, tenure, etc.), some academic scholars have resorted to intimidating name-calling to affect censorship. This
attack on the messenger serves to deflect from the message.
Crastas reaction is an outburst:
We refuse to perform monkey-dances for your pleasure. And what makes you think we cannot be spiritual and sexy at the same time?
That is your own hang-up. Weve become prisoners of your ideology. We are invisible to you. Either we are what you want to see in us,
or we dont exist. [22]
Many culturally proud Indians feel disenfranchised and outcast in the academic study of their traditions, perhaps because of a smaller
presence of the practitioner-scholar than in the case of Buddhism, for instance. Until two years ago, there was one-directional namecalling, only by the licensed scholars. But then Hindus started several Internet forums which scholars could not control, and these
have become vehicles to mobilize and develop counter name-calling, returning in kind the ad hominems used by scholars. Frankly, this
is unproductive, and the time has come to move beyond rudeness and name-calling ineitherdirection.
My survey shows that representation systems and power are mutually interdependent. Many Indians blame the current world power
structure, but that part is self-evident. It is simply a statement that there is a problem, but one must understand the mechanisms
behind this power imbalance and how to alter them. Here is my model: Ross Perot pioneered facilities management, a field wherein
the supplier takes over the entire burden of information management on behalf of the client, including and especially the staff, the
infra-structure and the total responsibility for results. As times goes by, the supplier gains greater control over the client, and the
client loses freedom, independence, and even the know how to be able to get rid of the supplier at a future date.
In an analogous manner, the British did facilities management for Indias Nawabs and Rajas operated their armies, collected taxes
on their behalf, educated their citizens as they deemed fit, operated the courts, etc. who had already become nominal second tier
rulers under the Mughals. These local rulers were the clients and the British East India Company (later to become the British Empire
of Queen Victoria) was the facilities manager. Under the revenue sharing arrangements, the local ruler received a tiny fraction (usually
under 10%) of the taxes collected by the British (often involving draconian tax rates). Additionally, the massive profit margin on trade
between India and Europe was also Britains to keep, besides the transfer of textiles, steel and other essentials of the Industrial
Revolution from India to Britain. The Indian ruler was a nominal figurehead in the arrangement, so as to preserve the appearance that
the British were in fact there to help upgrade the level of civilization on his behalf. This facilities management was the greatest
transfer of wealth between one place and another ever in human history.
As part of this facilities management contract, the British also became trustees of the scholarship and hence the intellectual
representation systems of India. They researched Indic traditions, translated and interpreted the texts. They constructed the famous
interpretation of the Manusmriti so as to be able to say that they were in fact enforcing Hindu law in ruling India. The sophisticated
technique, still in use, has been to first master Sanskrit texts, so as to understand the native representation system; then to map Indic
texts and re-interpret them using the western meta-narrative discreetly and invisibly, while maintaining the aura of authenticity by
using enough Sanskrit terms.Hindus continue to accept a de facto facilities management arrangement by letting outsiders control Indic
intellectual know how and identity. There is no other major world tradition so abandoned intellectually by its own people.Remedy: both
the insider and the outsider view of a tradition must be represented in a balanced way.
The criticism of Hinduism in academe is done in a fashion that it appears to be fair. The evidence is presented as authentic Hindu
understanding, and the motive is claimed to be the well-being of the oppressed Hindus to save them from themselves. Never mind
that no defense side is often practical given the above asymmetries, and evidence is often exaggerated. Hindus are co-opted as
Macaulayites to make the kangaroo court seem legitimate, and there has been no shortage of such opportunistic Hindus. The trial of
Sri Ramakrishnain absentia, with no defense side allowed except by way of a reaction against the verdict, is a recent example. [23]
Most seriously, the representation system in which the discourse takes place, and in which modern Indians have been programmed to
think, is of the west and by the west, and under the intellectual, financial and political control of the west.

Nicholas Gier used Titanism to describe Hindu gurus who are larger than life and assume unquestionable authority. But in the
Indian mind, the West has a Titanic presence. There are westernScholar Titansnow dominating Hinduism Studies, who have usurped
the ultimate authority that traditionally belonged to the Vedas a sort of colonialism.
The Gandhian Response
Gandhis innovation in reversing the massively asymmetric power that the British enjoyed was based on two profound insights: (1) The
British self-identity was built on the deeply rooted belief that the British were highlycivilized(and hence the White Mans Burden to
go around civilizing others.) (2) The British depended upon the Indians as consumers, having appropriated Indias centuries of
supremacy in textiles and steel exports, and reduced Indians to poor consumers. On #1, Gandhi continually challenged them by taking
the moral high ground, compelling them to respond as civilized people, which they could not refuse to do, until the moral standard he
set became too high for the British and their system imploded. On #2, he initiated successful consumer boycotts and indigenous
production.
Learning from #1: When asked what he thought of British civilization, Gandhi is said to have replied, That would be a good idea. I
would have to give the same assessment of westernobjectivescholarship. Being seen asobjectiveis to the academicians of Indic
traditions what being civilized was to the British. Hence, by compelling them to be objective in receiving criticism, in
acknowledging falsities that they have perpetuated, in re-examining the asymmetries we have our best chance to change the very
system of objective scholarship that they control. Sincesat-chit-anandis everyones inherent nature, western scholars will of their own
begin to distance themselves from their abusive cohorts. Learning from #2: A growing number of students in class nowadays are
Indian Americans. Once these and otherconsumersof the scholarship de-legitimize the instances of abusive scholarship, the scholars
will have to change.
Many western scholars have already been very sympathetic, have devoted their lives to positive and fair scholarship, and have had the
courage to step out of the orthodoxy of scholarship. We need more truly independent scholars to stand up:
It is indeed high time that independent, unattached scholarship shed the constricting crutches of corporatist paradigms, tied to the
newest fashion of academic respectability, to perform the simple, but signal, intellectual service required of a scholar ofthinking for
oneself. [24]
References:
[1]The Colonizers Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History, by J.M. Blaut. The Guilford Press, New York,
NY. P.11.
[2]The Invention of the Americas: Eclipse of the Other and the Myth of Modernity, by Enrique Dussel. Translated by Michael D.
Barber. The Continuum Publishing Company, New York, NY. Pp. 44; 64-67.
[3] Frantz Fanon,The Wretched of the Earth. P.120.
[4]Cross-Cultural Conversation, Edited by Anindita Niyogi Balslev. The American Academy of Religion. Pp.23-24.
[5]India and Europe, by W. Halbfass. First edition, Delhi, MLBD, P. 44.
[6] Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Spring 2001. P.2.
[7]Cross-Cultural Conversation, Edited by Anindita Niyogi Balslev. The American Academy of Religion. Pp. 24; 37-38.
[8] For instance: (i) I have criticized the introduction of astrology as a science into the academic curriculum, and the notion that there
is a Vedic Science. (I have argued that Newtons Laws of Gravitation are not English Laws or Christian Science). (ii) I have
expressed concern that the Aryan theory controversy is overdone in its significance, at the expense of more serious issues. (iii) I do not
subscribe to the literalist interpretation of the Puranas neither to claim hi-tech accomplishments (that the Hindutva claim), and nor
to literally interpret the verses suggesting social abuse (that westerners like to rub in). (iv) I have written about the general intellectual
shallowness in many instances of Hindutva scholarship, at least in its current stage. (v) I am against the demolishment of mosques,
even when there is compelling evidence (including from Muslim sources) of some of these having being built by destroying Hindu
temples.
[9] Karen Brown, the anthropologist of religion, speaking at the World Conference on Gender and Orality May 2001, Claremont
CA.
[10]Representing the Colonized: Anthropologys Interlocutors, by Edward W. Said,Critical Inquiry, Volume 15 Winter 1989. Pp. 217-224.
[11]Representing the Colonized: Anthropologys Interlocutors, by Edward W. Said,Critical Inquiry, Volume 15 Winter 1989. Pp. 213-214.
[12]White Mythologies: Writing History and the West, by Robert Young. Routledge, London. 1990. P.4.
[13]The Conquest of America, by Tzvetan Todorov P. 175.
[14] Examples of terms deserving better treatment include:murti, deva, varna, lingam, tantra, agni, sati, atman, etc.
[15] See for example, J. J. Clarks book,Oriental Enlightenment.
[16] Frantz Fanon,The Wretched of the Earth.

[17]Impressing the Whites: The New International Slavery, by Richard Crasta. Invisible Man Books. Pp. 10-11.
[18] ibid. Pp. 100-103.
[19] ibid. P. 107.
[20] ibid. P.15.
[21] As one example only, those adopting aliteralist interpretationof Indian texts are deemed fanatics, nationalists, and
fundamentalists. But in Bible Studies, literalist interpretations are a well-respected hermeneutical approach. George Gallups book of
surveys of Americans religious beliefs says that over 50% of all Americans believe in theliteralinterpretation of the Bible. Yet, we
dont denounce the majority of Americans as fundamentalist-fanatics. In the case of Islam, the Koran is viewed as the literal history
and not metaphorically by the mainstream. Personally, I prefer the metaphorical interpretation of all religious texts, but feel that
literalist interpretations are a persons right without facing abuses.
[22] Crasta. P. 79.
[23] See Swami Tyaganandas criticism of the book,Kalis Childposted
at:http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/s_rv/s_rv_tyaga_kali1_frameset.htm
[24]Breaking With The Enlightenment, by Rajani Kannepalli Kanth. Humanities Press, New Jersey, 1997. P. xv.
Published: 2001

Original URL:
http://rajivmalhotra.com/library/articles/asymmetric-dialog-civilizations/