Book to be pulped. Free speech curbed??

[sanjayt]

Originally Posted by GpeL

Atta boy sanjay.. Ramayana, mahabharata, krishnaleela etc etc are all MYTHOLOGY.. i.e nicely written stories/novels like you have those james hardly chase and michael crichton blokes and nothing more.. weed induced stories. They are not facts and they are not history (or may be they are history as they say.. oh well he is history now).. they were used as a teaching tool for morality in days when people were illiterate and were more receptive to stories as their guideline.. like you have these days in school.. a story and then a "the moral of the story is" kinds.

Public can get their underwear in knots over nothing..

As for her KKK connection.. sure wasshisname.. that daadi waala most wanted feller.. he is my cousin...

You posted that thread calling Krishna a cheat. If you publish that as a chapter in a book, you can be sued under Section 295A of the IPC, which is a colonial-era law. The other guy can claim that his religious feelings were hurt. It's a criminal offence, not a civil offence, and you can be jailed if convicted. You and your publisher can be endlessly harassed in the courts. So even if there are no mob demonstrations, there are other intimidatory tactics that can be used.

So if do not stick to the standard line, if you voice unconventional opinions on religious topics, you can get into trouble. A small, vocal minority who are opposed to your religious view-point is enough to get you into trouble.

[GpeL]

BTW just so to be sure.. "Atta boy sanjay" means I was patting your back.. remind me later I will rep you.

You are right about the liabilitty there.

[sanjayt]

Some people have remembered The Satanic Verses now.

The same publisher, Penguin, had published The Satanic Verses. When Khomeini issued that fatwa, Penguin stood its ground.

But now, even before the trial court had delivered a verdict, they capitulated.

[Origmos]

I think Penguin pulped the book because of the incorrect facts inside the book. Just because a Hindu group pointed out the errors doesn't mean that group is a fascist one. A book might be anti Hindu, but it doesn't have the right to pass on incorrect information and defend itself as sacrosanct at the same time.

What robs a Hindu of his right to point out incorrect information in a book about Hinduism? Should Hindus depend only upon 'secularists' for such a deed?

I seen this attitude everywhere. This is a very bigoted view by itself aka if a Hindu tries to defend his religion, he is a communal. If a Muslim or Christian tries to defend their own religion, it is their secular right.

Frankly we are not falling for it anymore, no matter how the media tries to pervert the issue at hand. We know how credible the marxists and seculars are in our great land.

[Origmos]

Alternative history or warped history?

Sunday, 16 February 2014 | Rajesh Singh | in Plain Talk
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The debate over publishing house Penguin's withdrawal of a controversial book on Hinduism has largely centred round the issues of politics and ‘tolerance for secular values’. In the cacophony, the core matter has been shut out from the discussions.

The points which the petitioners, who went to the court against the book, and a bunch of online protestors who wrote to the Penguin offices in the US and India, raised, have been missing from the discourse. To contemptuously dismiss them is as wrong as the withdrawal of the book, and shows similar intolerance as in the latter case.
But before we get to them, let us bring certain facts on record. The first is that no Government authority has banned the book. The second is that the publishing house has withdrawn the book from the Indian market as part of an agreement which it reached with the Delhi-based petitioner, Shiksha Bachao Andolan, out of the Delhi High Court. The third is that no ‘Hindu' organisation has violently agitated against the book or issued fatwas against the author. The fourth is that the withdrawal has got nothing to do with the surge of the BJP and Narendra Modi in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election.
Writer-turned-social activist and the country's self-appointed conscience-keeper Arundhati Roy has in an open letter to Penguin, drawn a linkage between the withdrawal and the rise of the ‘fascists’. She said, “The elections are still a few months away. The fascists are, thus far, only campaigning. Yes, it's looking bad, but they are not in power. Not yet. And you've already succumbed?” She forgets that the ‘fascist' forces have been in power in many States since the last decade and more, and none of them has either banned the book or launched a hate campaign against the publisher and the author.
She and others of her kind can lament to their heart's content that the country's laws are the real culprits since they allow for the intimidation of writers and publishers. Perhaps she too believes despite knowing better, like Doniger does out of sheer ignorance, that the laws are biased in favour of the Hindus. In any case, she has never had much respect for law, going by the way she has backed the Maoists and their campaign for change through the power of the gun. She and those others seem to forget that the very laws they trash allow them the freedom to spew venom. In a less tolerant society and legal system, she would have been behind bars long ago.
Now, let's look at some of the issues that the petitioners against Wendy Doniger's The Hindus: An alternative History, now recalled from the market, have flagged. Many of these are factual in nature, and some have hurt the sentiments of the Hindu community. But we’ll be on the facts.
On page 552 of the book, Doniger claims that Tulsidas composed Ramcharitmanas in Varanasi. She writes, “The Brahmins of Varanasi, where the text was composed, are said to have been shocked by the composition of a text in a vernacular language.” It is well established that Tulsidas composed the epic in Ayodhya. The slip-up may seem to be a minor one concerning a place, but given that Doniger was writing a scholarly account of Hinduism, and that too an ‘alternative history', the error seriously dents the book's credibility.
The petitioners also latched on to a description the author, citing early (Rig Vedic) sources, gives on page 112 of the eating habits of the Vedic people. “The usual meal of milk, ghee (clarified butter), vegetables, fruit, wheat, and barley would be supplemented by the flesh of cattle…” The petitioners pointed out that wheat had never been mentioned in the Rig Veda and that the first mention came only in the later Yajur Veda. It is clear that Doniger was not being careful with her research.
To top it all, is the author's contention that the population in the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation (the Harappan culture, really) was “as many as forty thousand”. She footnotes a source here, but is clearly wrong, according to her critics. The figure of 40,000 would refer to the population of Mohenjo-Daro alone; the entire ancient civilisation comprised around five lakh people, by most established estimates.
But that is not the end. At a footnote on page 194, Doniger refers to one of Mahatma Gandhi's essays on the Bhagvad Gita, the title of which she gives to mean as ‘Asakti Yoga' (science of deep attachment), when in fact it should have been ‘Anasakti Yoga' (science of deep non-attachment or detachment). How could the author have been so careless in a book that is supposed to be a scholarly account of a religion — and that too an alternative history of the world's oldest religion?
There are also many errors of date that the petitioners have pointed out, such as those concerning Kabir, Muhammad bin Qasim, Akbar and Mirabai. These are unpardonable in a book authored by a scholar who holds two doctorates in Sanskrit and Indian studies from the universities of Oxford and Harvard, has translated several works from Sanskrit, taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and is considered a world authority on Hinduism.
Interestingly, neither the publisher nor the author, since the time an organisation, the Sarasvati Research Trust, demanded the book's withdrawal through its online campaign in 2010, and since the time they were challenged in the courts, bothered to come clean on what amounts to alleged factual errors, or meaningfully dispute the claims their critics had made. The fact that Penguin has now ‘succumbed' may have more to do with its weak position vis-a-vis these factors than with the presence of a hidden arm-twister and prejudiced laws.
It must be mentioned here for the benefit of those who see the hand of ‘Hindutva' in the withdrawal of the book that in none of the above instances do the arguments go beyond facts of history and documented material. Of course, the petitioners, both online and in the court, had also raised the matter of hurt to Hindu sensitivities, but these were complementary, not exclusive, to the factual inaccuracies they referred to with special vehemence.
In all fairness, thus, the debate should have centered round these contentious issues. Noted experts in Hindu religion, archaeology and history ought to have deliberated and contested on television channels the points the petitioners had raised. Sadly, we have seen none of this.
But, does all this mean that Penguin's action of withdrawing Doniger's book was in principle appropriate? No, it wasn't, also because it has given the book, and its author, further respectability. It has provided a handle to the ‘secularists' to go Hindu-bashing yet again.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnis...d-history.html

[GpeL]

BTW hinduism did not exist until most recent times.. it was something else.. I know it but to these historians.. it was NEVER called hinduism.

[Origmos]

Preach it to Wendy. She certainly knew Hinduism and the the name 'Hindu' to put it on the name in her book title.
Whatever the name, there is a continued set of traditions and beliefs that were continued through India's history.

We also know it is only Hinduism when it comes to denigrating it, it is something else altogether when the good aspects of it get stolen to appropriate as a new 'secular' doctrine (eg. yoga). We know it is a ploy to deny Hindus or Hinduism (or whatever all the seculars/marxists call it, we don't care) any credit in the positive sense whatsoever.

Therefore the love for Gandhi, using his name, the usual suspects get to rebrand everything good from Hinduism into their own warped sense of history.

Now comes the denial of the name, before it came the distortion of history.

We know these tricks very well.

[Origmos]

And since when did Arundhati Roy care about the Indian constitution or India at all?

Didn't she encourage Kashmiris to secede from India calling us 'Bhukke Naange Hindustan?"

Is there no limit to hypocrisy amongst these wolves?

[sanjayt]

Originally Posted by GpeL

BTW hinduism did not exist until most recent times.. it was something else.. I know it but to these historians.. it was NEVER called hinduism.

You got to use some name, some label as a convenient reference. People do understand that Hinduism encompasses multiple traditions.

[GpeL]

it had a name bur that was not HINDUISM which the turks and mongols used as a mispronounced term for 'sindhu culture' re: sindhu river banks..

[sanjayt]

Okies. But are you saying that we should use a different name now?

[GpeL]

No since everyone knows and had taken the census of mohanjodaro and harappa.. they did not know hinduism did not exist in the days those faulty data is being quoted.

[sanjayt]

Hmm. So what's a usable date for the beginning of Hinduism?

When I did a quick search, what I got was that the Indus Valley Civilization (Mohenjedaro/Harappa) predated the composition of the Rig Veda. Mohenjedaro and Harappa seem to have vanished somehow? The composition of the Rig Veda was dated around 1500 BC. The composition of the Yajur Veda, Sama Veda and Atharva Veda came a few hundred years after the composition of the Rig Veda.

So do we use 1500 BC as the start date for Hinduism?

[GpeL]

Well no.. it was much much much later.. Hinduism as a term to refer to people living in the banks of the river "sindu" started from the time invaders (the various khans a. la. chengis khaan, mohd. Gazni et al.) tried to take over/loot the riches of the indus valley civilization.. infact the term Indus also comes from the river "sindu".. so historically speaking may be 13th century or so?.. The civilization existed as far back as 3500 BC.. but the "TERM" emerged much much later to differentiate them much later.. Even during the invation of alexander the term Hindus was not used.. it was Arya Dharma and India/Bharat was known as Aryavarta.. but the "general" term was different.. and let us see how many know that term.

[sgars]

It is normally called 'Sanatan Dharma'. If i go by ACK, founder of RSS Hegdewar was againt using the term 'Hindu'