It’s not about ‘The Hindus’
-A recall of alternatives-
Disclaimer : Views expressed below are personal, based on the personal conviction that no single person embodies all Indian aspirations and no single text captures every idea of India.
It takes a thousand voices to tell a single story.
- Native American Proverb, Tribe unknown (as read on Twitter)
This article is not about The Hindus : An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger. In fact, this article will not include a single quote from the said book, which can be read via links here1 in full, less liable to the risks of being primed and prejudiced by mined quotes and misquotes. This article is not being written to reiterate the obvious point that alleged oversights in footnoting or proofreading, and tenuous-seeming or provocative-seeming speculations are no reason to justify the pulping of a book. That is a point that has been argued with conviction and civility by many advocates of academic freedom and civil liberties elsewhere, and it is a sobering reflection of the state of democracy in India that compels anguished advocacy for freedoms that are ostensibly guaranteed. Instead, this article is a beginning in an attempt to go beyond frequently raised (and addressed) objections to explore some infrequently considered narratives and alternatives, whose recall in the collective imagination is being stymied by aggressive thought-policing or apathetic thought-paralysis. (more…)
