In his famous essay titled "The Death of Sanskrit", he opens with the following paragraph. His political motives and his attitude towards Sanskrit is not in doubt:
"In the age of Hindu identity politics (Hindutva) inaugurated in the 1990s by the ascendancy of the Indian People’s Party (Bharatiya Janata Party) and its ideological auxiliary, the World Hindu Council (Vishwa Hindu Parishad), Indian cultural and religious nationalism has been promulgating ever more distorted images of India’s past. Few things are as central to this revisionism as Sanskrit, the dominant culture language of precolonial southern Asia outside the Persianate order. Hindutva propagandists have sought to show, for example, that Sanskrit was indigenous to India, and they purport to decipher Indus Valley seals to prove its presence two millennia before it actually came into existence. In a farcical repetition of Romantic myths of primevality, Sanskrit is considered— according to the characteristic hyperbole of the VHP—the source and
sole preserver of world culture. The state’s anxiety both about Sanskrit’s role in shaping the historical identity of the Hindu nation and about its contemporary vitality has manifested itself in substantial new funding for Sanskrit education, and in the declaration of 1999–2000 as the “Year of Sanskrit,” with plans for conversation camps, debate and essay competitions, drama festivals, and the like."
"In the age of Hindu identity politics (Hindutva) inaugurated in the 1990s by the ascendancy of the Indian People’s Party (Bharatiya Janata Party) and its ideological auxiliary, the World Hindu Council (Vishwa Hindu Parishad), Indian cultural and religious nationalism has been promulgating ever more distorted images of India’s past. Few things are as central to this revisionism as Sanskrit, the dominant culture language of precolonial southern Asia outside the Persianate order. Hindutva propagandists have sought to show, for example, that Sanskrit was indigenous to India, and they purport to decipher Indus Valley seals to prove its presence two millennia before it actually came into existence. In a farcical repetition of Romantic myths of primevality, Sanskrit is considered— according to the characteristic hyperbole of the VHP—the source and
sole preserver of world culture. The state’s anxiety both about Sanskrit’s role in shaping the historical identity of the Hindu nation and about its contemporary vitality has manifested itself in substantial new funding for Sanskrit education, and in the declaration of 1999–2000 as the “Year of Sanskrit,” with plans for conversation camps, debate and essay competitions, drama festivals, and the like."
Yet this man got the Padam Shree (perhaps because of this work)m received $20 mililon from Narayan Murthy to lead the translation of Indian classics, then became India Abroad's "Person of the Year in 2013".
The climax of his career is now happening. He is going to control the selection of the scholar for a $3.5 million donation from a group in NY/NJ who are working with Sringeri mattha to set up this new Hinduism Chair at Columbia Univ. It will be the flagship of Sringeri mattha in the academy.
Pollock's game plan has gone through three phases:
First he established his credentials as a young Sanskrit scholar by doing translations of Sanskrit texts into English - using dictionaries as he is said to be unable to converse in Sanskrit. These were non controversial works =just to get established. But he is not a sadhak, hence it is textual analysis only.
Then he turned into a Leftist social scientist and started producing a large quantity of anti-Sanskrit works like the above quote. His thesis is that Sanskrit has been abusive against dalits, women, minorities. That the Aryans brought Sanskrit and its texts to India. That Hindu chauvinists are trying to revise history and claim otherwise. The above para quoted says it all.
Finally, he started to champion the revival of Sanskrit but in a specific manner: He wants to secularize it by removing references that are Hindu. He considers mantras to devatas a problem. He is leading many projects in USA to bring Dalits to Columbia and train them in Sanskrit with his own political. spin. So what he wants is a doctored up approach to Sanskrit that is not in line with our traditional approach. He praises this as "modernizing Sanskrit". This is similar to decoupling Yoga from Hindu in the name of "modernizing Yoga". The implication is that tradition is flawed and must be upgraded by de-contextualizing it of its dharma and thereby modernizing = secularizing it.
This is a replay of how Oxford became the world center for Indology in the British era. That was under British rule but now it is under Indian rule.
First he established his credentials as a young Sanskrit scholar by doing translations of Sanskrit texts into English - using dictionaries as he is said to be unable to converse in Sanskrit. These were non controversial works =just to get established. But he is not a sadhak, hence it is textual analysis only.
Then he turned into a Leftist social scientist and started producing a large quantity of anti-Sanskrit works like the above quote. His thesis is that Sanskrit has been abusive against dalits, women, minorities. That the Aryans brought Sanskrit and its texts to India. That Hindu chauvinists are trying to revise history and claim otherwise. The above para quoted says it all.
Finally, he started to champion the revival of Sanskrit but in a specific manner: He wants to secularize it by removing references that are Hindu. He considers mantras to devatas a problem. He is leading many projects in USA to bring Dalits to Columbia and train them in Sanskrit with his own political. spin. So what he wants is a doctored up approach to Sanskrit that is not in line with our traditional approach. He praises this as "modernizing Sanskrit". This is similar to decoupling Yoga from Hindu in the name of "modernizing Yoga". The implication is that tradition is flawed and must be upgraded by de-contextualizing it of its dharma and thereby modernizing = secularizing it.
This is a replay of how Oxford became the world center for Indology in the British era. That was under British rule but now it is under Indian rule.
Indians in the next decade will throng to Columbia to get certified if they want to be taken seriously in India as Sanskrit experts.
This means such Indians will get a heavy dose of Western hermeneutics which is the theoretical lens used in Columbia and elsewhere, This lens sidelines all Indian siddhanta. It replaces the siddhanta with things like:
Freudian psychoanalysis
Western feminism
Subaltern studies
Marxism
Postmodernism
'Dalit studies
etc
So traditional Sringeri interpretations of their own guru will fade away, and be replaced by the "modernized" fashions. Indian pandits and acharyas will find themselves at a disadvantage and feel like outsiders in such discussions, unless they submit themselves to get trained in hermeneutics -- in which case they will end up brainwashed as Ananya did.
Freudian psychoanalysis
Western feminism
Subaltern studies
Marxism
Postmodernism
'Dalit studies
etc
So traditional Sringeri interpretations of their own guru will fade away, and be replaced by the "modernized" fashions. Indian pandits and acharyas will find themselves at a disadvantage and feel like outsiders in such discussions, unless they submit themselves to get trained in hermeneutics -- in which case they will end up brainwashed as Ananya did.
Our well-intended leaders simply lack enough competence to be able to make such strategic choices without a lot of coaching.
Even if the first occupant of the chair is a good one for us, there are serious issues long term:
Subsequent selections as per contract will be 100% controlled by Columbia U.
The power center for Sanskrit studies will shift from Sringeri to USA. This means adhikar tto run conferences and journals, control translations (Pollock already does that with Murthy's $20 million), produce the next generation of PhDs for deployment worldwide including India.
This chair will be cited as a role model to approach all other matthas and Hindu organizations. Taking Hindu money and using it to control their discourse will become a fashion in the name of "collaboration", "globalization", "modernizing", etc.
It seems that we have not learned any lessons from what happened under the influence of Robert de Nobili in the 1600s, William Jones in the late 1700s, and Max Mueller in the 1800s. We are as colonized mentally as ever. Dangle some affiliation with westerners and look at the way go chasing the limelight.
Subsequent selections as per contract will be 100% controlled by Columbia U.
The power center for Sanskrit studies will shift from Sringeri to USA. This means adhikar tto run conferences and journals, control translations (Pollock already does that with Murthy's $20 million), produce the next generation of PhDs for deployment worldwide including India.
This chair will be cited as a role model to approach all other matthas and Hindu organizations. Taking Hindu money and using it to control their discourse will become a fashion in the name of "collaboration", "globalization", "modernizing", etc.
It seems that we have not learned any lessons from what happened under the influence of Robert de Nobili in the 1600s, William Jones in the late 1700s, and Max Mueller in the 1800s. We are as colonized mentally as ever. Dangle some affiliation with westerners and look at the way go chasing the limelight.
Sringeri was the last remaining pure center we had from the past era that never got compromised or violated during the long period of Mughal and then British rules. Now our own folks are paying money to invite foreign domination.
The same folks like Pollock/Ananya who despise"Brahmanical hegemony" find it desirable to replace it with white hegemony.
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