Rajiv Malhotra

Rajiv Malhotra (born 15 September 1950) is an Indian-American author and Hindu activist who, after a career in the computer and telecom industries, took early retirement in 1995 to found The Infinity Foundation, which focuses on Indic studies and promotes a non western and nationalistic view on India and Hinduism.^{[note 1]} Malhotra has written prolifically in opposition to the academic study of Indian history and society, especially the study of Hinduism as it is conducted by scholars and university faculty, which he maintains denigrates the tradition and undermines the interests of India "by encouraging the paradigms that oppose its unity and integrity".^{[web 1][1]}

Biography

Rajiv Malhotra^{[web 2]} is an Indian–American activist, researcher, writer, and speaker on the character and place of Hinduism in the globalizing world. Rajiv Malhotra was born September 1950.^{[web 3]} He studied physics at St. Stephen's College, Delhi and computer science at Syracuse University,^{[web 4]} and was "a senior executive, strategic consultant and an entrepreneur in the information technology and media industries"^{[web 3]} until his retirement in 1994 at age 44.^{[web 3]} Malhotra took an early retirement to pursue establishment of the Infinity foundation in 1995.^{[web 3]}

Currently, Rajiv Malhotra is a full-time founder-director of the Infinity Foundation^{[web 5]} in Princeton, NJ. He also serves as chairman of the board of Governors of the Center for Indic Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and as adviser to various organisations. Yvette Rosser describes Malhotra's stance toward Hinduism "as that of a ‘non-Hindutva Hindu’".^[2]

Infinity Foundation

The Infinity Foundation is an organisation based in New Jersey, which states to be promoting Indic studies.^{[web 6][note 1]}

The Foundation has given more than 400 grants for research, education and community work.^{[web 3]} The Infinity foundation has provided small grants to major universities in support of programs including visiting professorship in Indic studies at Harvard University, Yoga and Hindi classes at Rutgers University, the research and teaching of non-dualistic philosophies at University of Hawaii, Global Renaissance Institute and a Center for Buddhist studies at Columbia University, a program in religion and science at University of California, endowment for the Center for Advanced Study of India at University of Pennsylvania, and lectures at the Center for Consciousness Studies at University of Arizona.^[5] The foundation has provided funding for journals like Education about Asia^[5] and International Journal of Hindu Studies^[6] and for the establishment of Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Non-violence at James Madison University.^[6]

While the Infinity Foundation's own materials describe its purposes in terms of education and philanthropy, scholars of Hinduism and South Asia see it largely as an organization committed to the "surveillance of the Academy," and senior scholar of Hinduism in the U.S., Columbia University's Dr. Jack Hawley, has published a refutation of the foundation's characteristic charges against the study of Hinduism in North America.^{[web 7]}

Criticism of American academia

American academia

Malhotra voices four criticisms of American academia:^[1]

1. "American academia is dominated by a Eurocentric perspective that views western culture as being the font of world civilisation and refuses to acknowledge the contributions of non-western societies such as India to European culture and technique".^[1]
2. The academic study of religion in the United States is based on the model of the "Abrahamic" traditions; this model is not applicable to Hinduism.^[1]
3. Western scholars focus on the "sensationalist, negative attributes of religion and present it in a demeaning way that shows a lack of respect for the sentiments of the practitioners of the religion".^[1]
4. South Asian Studies programmes in the United States create "a false identity and unity"^[1] between India and its Muslim neighbour states, and undermine India "by focusing on its internal cleavages and problems".^[1]

In his 2003 blog Does South Asian Studies Undermine India? at Rediff India Abroad: India as it happens, Malhotra criticises the uncritical funding of South Asian Studies by Indian-American donors.^{[web 1]} According to Malhotra:

Many eminent Indian-American donors are being led down the garden path by Indian professors who, ironically, assemble a team of scholars to undermine Indian culture. Rather than an Indian perspective on itself and the world, these scholars promote a perspective on India using worldviews which are hostile to India's interests.^{[web 1]}

Malhotra argues that American scholarship has undermined India "by encouraging the paradigms that oppose its unity and integrity",^{[web 1]} with scholars playing critical roles, often under the garb of 'human rights' in channelling foreign intellectual and material support to exacerbate India's internal cleavages.^{[web 1]} According to Malhotra, Indian American donors were "hoodwinked"^{[web 1]} into thinking that they were supporting India through their monetary contributions to such programmes.^{[web 1]} Malhotra compares the defence of Indian interests with corporate brand management, distrusting the loyalties of Indian scholars:^{[web 1]}

Therefore, it is critical that we do not blindly assume that Indian scholars are always honest trustees of the Indian-American donors' sentiments. Many Indian scholars are weak in the pro-India leadership and assertiveness traits that come only from strongly identifying with an Indian Grand Narrative.

They regard the power of Grand Narrative (other than their own) as a cause of human rights problems internally, failing to see it as an asset in global competition externally. Hence, there is the huge difference between the ideology of many Indian professors and the ideology espoused by most successful Indian-American corporate leaders.^{[web 1]}

According to Malhotra, a positive stance on India has been under-represented in American academia, due to programmes being staffed by Westerners, their "Indian – American Sepoys"^[7] and Indian Americans wanting to be white – whom he describes as "career opportunists" and "Uncle Toms" who in their desire to become even marginal members of the Western Grand Narrative sneer at Indian culture in the same manner as colonialists once did. Malhotra has accused the academia of abetting the "Talibanisation" of India, which would also lead to the Talibanisation of other Asian countries.^[8]

Wendy's Child Syndrome

Malhotra has voiced criticisms of western studies of India. His 2002 "Wendy"-blog,^{[web 8]} in which he criticised the use of Freudian psycho-analysis to analyse Indian culture,^{[web 4]} was the starting point^[9] of a "rift between some Western Hinduism scholars [...] and some conservative Hindus in India, the United States, and elsewhere".^{[web 4]}

In this blog RISA Lila – 1: Wendy's Child Syndrome,^{[web 8][10]} he criticised the use of Freudian psychoanalysis to analyse Indian culture.^{[web 4][11]} It was the starting point^[9] of what Martha Nussbaum has called a "war"^[12] by "the Hindu right"^[13] against American scholars.^[9] The blog "has become a pivotal treatise in a recent rift between some Western Hinduism scholars—many of whom teach or have studied at Chicago—and some conservative Hindus in India, the United States, and elsewhere."^{[web 4]} Malhotra concluded in his blog: "Rights of individual scholars must be balanced against rights of cultures and communities they portray, especially minorities that often face intimidation. Scholars should criticize but not define another's religion."^{[web 4]}

According to Braverman, "Though Malhotra's academic targets say he has some valid discussion points, they also argue that his rhetoric taps into the rightward trend and attempts to silence unorthodox, especially Western, views."^{[web 4][note 2]}

Ideas

Malhotra's work analyses and critiques Western culture, philosophy and political discourse from the perspective of a "Dharmic paradigm" or framework. Malhotra argues that India has been studied from a western perspective, but that Indians have not gazed at the west from a "Dharmic framework". He presented a more nuanced picture of the sex-scandal involving Swami Nithyananda arguing that there's more to it than what was being portrayed in Indian media.^{[web 9]}

Dharmic traditions vs. Abrahamic religions

Malhotra argues that there are irreconcilable differences between Dharmic traditions and Abrahamic religions.^[14] The term dharma:

... is used to indicate a family of spiritual traditions originating in India which today are manifested as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. I explain that the variety of perspectives and practices of dharma display an underlying integral unity at the metaphysical level.^[15]

According to Malhotra, Abrahamic religions are history-centric in that their fundamental beliefs are sourced from history–that God revealed His message through a special prophet and that the message is secured in scriptures. This special access to God is available only to these intermediaries or prophets and not to any other human beings.^{[web 10]} History-centric Abrahamic religions claim that we can resolve the human condition only by following the lineage of prophets arising from the Middle East. All other teachings and practices are required to get reconciled with this special and peculiar history. By contrast, the dharmic traditions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism—do not rely on history in the same absolutist and exclusive way.^{[web 11]}

According to Malhotra, Dharmic traditions claim an endless stream of enlightened living spiritual masters, each said to have realised the ultimate truth while alive on this earth, and hence, able to teach this truth to others. Unlike in the case of Dharmic traditions, the great teachers of Abrahamic traditions are not living models of embodied enlightenment. Instead, Abrahamic teachers proclaim the truth based on historical texts. The consequences of these divergent systems are enormous, and are at the heart of Dharmic-Abrahamic distinctions.^{[web 12]} Dharmic flexibility has made fundamental pluralism possible which cannot occur within the constraints of history centrism.^{[web 13]}

According to Malhotra, both Western and Dharmic civilisations have cherished unity as an ideal, but with a different emphasis. Malhotra posits a crucial distinction between

• A "synthetic unity" that gave rise to a static intellectualistic worldview in the west, positioning itself as Universal,^[16] and
• An "integral unity" that gave rise to a dynamically oriented worldview based on the notion of Dharma.^[16]

While the former is characterised by a top-down essentialism embracing everything a priori, the latter is a bottom-up approach acknowledging the dependent co-origination of alternative views of the human and the divine, the body and the mind, and the self and society.

U-turn theory

According to Malhotra, the Western appropriation of Indic ideas and knowledge systems has a long history. According to Malhotra, in what he calls "the U-Turn Theory",^[7] the appropriation occurs in several stages:^{[web 14][web 15]}

1. In the first stage, a Westerner approaches an Indian guru or tradition with extreme deference, and acquires the knowledge as a sincere disciple.
2. Once the transfer of knowledge complete, the former disciple, or/and his/her followers progressively erase all traces of the original source, repackages the ideas as their own thought, and may even proceed to denigrate the source tradition.
3. In the final stage, the ideas are exported back to India by the former disciple and/or his followers for consumption. Malhotra cites numerous examples to support this theory, dating from the erasure of Upanishadic and Vijnanavada Buddhist influences on Plotinus to the modern day reimportation of Christian yoga into India.

Another example is the influence of Vivekananda's influence on western thought, for example William James and his The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902).^[17] According to Malhotra, Vivekananda's ideas have continued to exist in the West in various manifestations, for example via Aldous Huxley and his The Perennial Philosophy (1945), and the works of Ken Wilber. Malhotra's gives an overview of westerners who were influenced by Vivekananda's ideas across the generations, examining how they shaped 20th-century Western thought, and questions why much of his influence remains unacknowledged and unaccredited.^{[17][note 3]}

Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines

Malhotra's book Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines^[23] discusses three faultlines trying to destabilise India:

1. Islamic radicalism linked with Pakistan
2. Maoists and Marxist radicals supported by China via intermediaries such as Nepal
3. Dravidian and Dalit identity separatism being fostered by the West in the name of human rights.^{[note 4]}

This book goes into greater depth on the third: the role of US and European churches, academics, think-tanks, foundations, government and human rights groups in fostering separation of the identities of Dravidian and Dalit communities from the rest of India.^{[web 17]}

According to Malhotra:

In south India, a new identity called Dravidian Christianity is being constructed. It is an opportunistic combination of two myths: the "Dravidian race" myth and another that purports that early Christianity shaped the major Hindu classics.^{[web 18]}

British linguists Francis Ellis and Alexander Campbell worked in India to theorize that the south Indian languages belong to a different family than the north Indian ones. Meanwhile, another colonial scholar, Brian Houghton Hodgson, was promoting the term "Tamulian" as a racial construct, describing the so-called aborigines of India as primitive and uncivilized compared to the "foreign Aryans".^{[web 18]}

A scholar-evangelist from the Anglican Church, Bishop Robert Caldwell (1814–91), pioneered what now flourishes as the "Dravidian" identity. In his Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Race, he argued that the south Indian mind was structurally different from the Sanskrit mind. Linguistic speculations were turned into a race theory. He characterized the Dravidians as "ignorant and dense," accusing the Brahmins – the cunning Aryan agents – for keeping them in shackles through the imposition of Sanskrit and its religion.^{[web 18]}

Reception

Appreciation

Scholars have recognized that Malhotra has been influential in sparking widespread dissatisfaction with the scholarly study of Hinduism. Hinnells considers Malhotra to lead a faction of Hindu criticism of methodology for the examination of Hinduism.^[25] Prema A. Kurien considers Malhotra to be at "the forefront of American Hindu effort to challenge the Eurocentricism in the academia."^[26]

Other scholars welcome his attempt to challenge the western assumptions in the study of India and South Asia^{[27][note 5]} but also question his approach, finding it to be neglecting the differences within the various Indian traditions.^[29][30] In response, Malhotra points out that he does not state that all those traditions are essentially the same, that there is no effort to homogenise different Dharmic traditions, but that they share the assertion of integral unity.^[31]

Criticism

Martha Nussbaum criticises Malhotra for "disregard for the usual canons of argument and scholarship, a postmodern power play in the guise of defense of tradition.".^[32] Brian K. Pennington has called his work "ahistorical" and "a pastiche of widely accepted and overly simplified conclusions borrowed from the academy." Pennington has further charged that Malhotra systematically misrepresents the relationship between Hinduism and Christianity, arguing that in Malhotra's hands, "Christian and Indic traditions are reduced to mere cartoons of themselves."^[33] According to Jonathan Edelmann, one of the major problems with Malhotra's work is that he does not have a school of thought that he represents or is trained in. This fact, undermines his claims to be engaged in purvapaksa debate. Purvapaksa debate requires location in a particular place of argument.^[34]

In May 2015, St. Olaf College Hindu-American scholar Anantanand Rambachan, who studied three years with Swami Dayananda,^{[web 19]} published an extensive response to Malhotra's criticisms in Indra's Net charging that Malhotra's "descriptions of my scholarship belong appropriately to the realm of fiction and are disconnected from reality."^{[web 19]} According to Rambachan, Malhotra's understanding and representation of classical Advaita is incorrect, attributing doctrines to Shankara and Swami Dayananda which are rejected by them.^{[web 20][note 6]} Malhotra's epistemological foundations have also been critically questioned by Anantanand Rambachan. He does not, according to Rambachan, situate his discussion in relation to classical epistemologies or clarify his differences with these.^[35]

Allegations of plagiarism

In July 2015, Richard Fox Young, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, ^{[note 7]} who studied Malhotra's work for an essay published in 2014,^{[note 8]} alleged that several passages of Indra's Net as well as Malhotra's (2011) book Breaking India were plagiarized.^{[web 21][note 9]} Andrew J.Nicholson and his publisher Permanent Black, agreed with Young that Malhotra plagiarised Nicholson's book Unifying Hinduism.^{[web 23]} Nicholson further noted that Malhotra not only had plagiarised his book, but also " twists the words and arguments of respectable scholars to suit his own ends."^{[web 23][note 10]} Permanent Black stated that they would welcome HarperCollins "willingness to rectify future editions" of Indra's Net.^{[web 23]}

In a response Malhotra stated "I used your work with explicit references 30 times in Indra’s Net, hence there was no ill-intention,"^{[web 25]} and provided a list of his references to Nicholson.^{[web 26]} He announced that he will be eliminating all references to Nicholson and further explained:^{[web 25][note 11]}

I am going to actually remove many of the references to your work simply because you have borrowed from Indian sources and called them your own original ideas [...] Right now, it is western Indologists like you who get to define ‘critical editions’ of our texts and become the primary source and adhikari. This must end and I have been fighting this for 25 years [...] we ought to examine where you got your materials from, and to what extent you failed to acknowledge Indian sources, both written and oral, with the same weight with which you expect me to do so.^{[web 25]}

Publications

Books

• Rajiv Malhotra (2011), Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines (Publisher: Amaryllis; ISBN 978-8-191-06737-8)
• Rajiv Malhotra (2011), Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism (Publisher: HarperCollins India; ISBN 978-9-350-29190-0)
• Rajiv Malhotra (2014), Indra's Net: Defending Hinduism's Philosophical Unity (Publisher: HarperCollins India; ISBN 978-9-351-36244-9)
• Rajiv Malhotra (2016), Battle for Sanskrit: Dead or Alive, Oppressive or Liberating, Political or Sacred? (Publisher: Harper Collins India: ISBN 978-9351775386)

Other publications

• Malhotra, Rajiv (2005). "India and Globalization". In Nagendra Rao. Globalization, pre modern India. Daya Books. 
• Malhotra, Rajiv (2007). "The axis of neo-colonialism". Indian Journals 11 (3). ISSN 0971-8052. 
• Malhotra, Rajiv (2009). "American Exceptionalism and the Myth of the Frontiers". In Rajani Kannepalli Kanth. The Challenge of Eurocentrism: Global Perspectives, Policy, and Prospects. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-61227-3. 
• Malhotra, Rajiv (2013), Vivekananda's Ideas and the Two Revolutions in Western Thought. In: Vivekananda as the Turning Point. The Rise of a New Spiritual Wave. Pp. 559–583 (PDF), Advaita Ashrama 

Key online writings

• Rajiv Malhotra (2002), RISA Lila – 1: Wendy's Child Syndrome
• Rajiv Malhotra (2003), Problematizing God's Interventions in History

Involvement

• Antonio de Nicolas, Krishnan Ramaswamy, and Aditi Banerjee (eds.) (2007), Invading the Sacred: An Analysis Of Hinduism Studies In America (Publisher: Rupa & Co.)

See also

• François Gautier
• Madhu Kishwar
• Kanchan Gupta
• Arun Shourie
• Kali's Child
• Anantanand Rambachan
• Bengali renaissance
• Indian independence movement
• Neo-Vedanta
• Postcolonialism
• Anti-Hinduism
• Invading the Sacred
• Sepoy

Notes

References

Sources

Published sources

Web-sources

Further reading

Malhotra's criticisms

• Ramaswamy, Krishnan; Nicolas, Antonio de; Banerjee, Aditi (2007), Invading the Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America, Rupa & Co 
• Kurien, Prema A. (2007), A place at the multicultural table: the development of an American Hinduism, Rutgers University Press, ISBN 978-0-8135-4056-6 
• Nussbaum, Martha C. (2009), The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future, Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-03059-6 

Background information

• De Michelis, Elizabeth (2005), A History of Modern Yoga, Continuum 
• Sweetman, Will (2004), "The Prehistory of Orientalism: Colonialism and the Textual Basis for Bartholomaus Ziegenbalg's Account of Hinduism" (PDF), New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 6, 2 (December, 2004): 12–38 
• King, Richard (2002), Orientalism and Religion: Post-Colonial Theory, India and "The Mystic East", Routledge 
• Bryant, Edwin; Patton, Laurie (2013), The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History, Routledge 

External links

Malhotra

• rajivmalhotra.com
• The Infinity Foundation
• Huffington Post – Blog by Rajiv Malhotra

Responses

• Jeffrey J. Kipal, The Tantric Truth of the Matter. A Forthright Response to Rajiv Malhotra