Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Volume 26 Article 4

November 2013

The Pitfalls of Trying to Be Different

Brian K. Pennington Maryville College

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Recommended Citation Pennington, Brian K. (2013) "The Pitfalls of Trying to Be Different," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 26, Article 4. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1543

The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. Pennington: The Pitfalls of Trying to Be Different

The Pitfalls of Trying to Be Different Brian K. Pennington Maryville College

FOR more than a decade has methods of senior scholars in the study of been known to the study of South Asian ,1 one will discover the author religion as a vigorous critic of the practices and pursuing a somewhat different agenda. frameworks that academics have employed to How exactly to understand this agenda, represent to the West. Those who know however, is one of the central questions I came him from his no-holds-barred online articles or to ask myself as I made my way through the by his unflinching confrontation with volume. appears to reveal established scholars at academic meetings may Malhotra in the process of refashioning his be pleased by the rather different tone of Being image as well as his tactics for counteracting Different: An Indian Challenge to Western the influence of university-trained scholars on , Malhotra’s latest attempt to the public perception of Hindu religious intervene in the academic study of the religious traditions. Here we find Malhotra concerned traditions of the South Asian subcontinent. less with landing a series of blows via umbrage Whereas Malhotra has achieved much of his and verbosity and more with constructing an renown through intemperate language, he is Indic/Western binary that casts each tradition and should be remembered also for his in a dualistic plot of utterly irreconcilable demands that practicing have a say in worldviews competing for supremacy and how they are represented and for provoking a relevance on a rapidly shrinking planet. In needed self-examination by the scholarly depicting their incompatibility, Malhotra community writing about the traditions of unapologetically takes sides, distilling essential South Asia. These are not the primary concerns characteristics and drives out of each of the of Being Different, and if one reads it motivated traditions he has manufactured and arguing by the lurid promise of a new assault by that the dharmic traditions of India (which, as I Malhotra on the motives, character, or discuss below, he identifies as both the modern

Brian K. Pennington is Professor of Religion and Chair of the Division of Humanities at Maryville College in Maryville, TN. He is the author of Was Hinduism Invented? Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion (Oxford University Press 2005) and editor of Teaching Religion and Violence (Oxford University Press, 2012). He is also co-editor, along with Amy Allocco, of the forthcoming Ritual Innovation in South Asia. His fourth book in progress, ’s Fifth Abode: Emergent Religion in the Indian Himalayas, is a study of religious change in the pilgrimage city of Uttarkashi. Pennington serves on the Advisory Committee of the Conference on the Study of of India and is a former board member of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies and the American Academy of Religion.

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“nation” and the ancient civilization),2 provide free-market trade in the depiction of Indic techniques and resources superior to those of traditions in which activist groups with the Christian West for generating a truly knowledge of India scrutinize scholarly work pluralistic society. He operates in this book less on both India and the West, employing their in the mode of protest and more in the mode of own knowledge of India and her intellectual apologist, in the classical sense, for the traditions.6 I take, therefore, Being Different as intellectual heritage of the South Asian the latest stage in Malhotra’s campaign to subcontinent. speak back to the academy whose ranks, he has Let me say first of all that I have no quarrel complained, are closed to him, and I will assess whatsoever with the book’s major argument it as he clearly intends it, as a direct about Indian intellectual traditions as a rich engagement with the scholarly world. and under-exploited resource for confronting It is with that prior understanding of our globe’s manifold social challenges. Malhotra’s longer career as a Hindu activist Malhotra argues, and I agree, that they can opposed to the Western study of Hinduism and prove remarkably “comfortable with relative a broad acquaintance with his writing that I truths, uncertainty, ambiguity, disorder and accepted the invitation to this forum and with pluralism of all kinds.”3 The book’s underlying which I read the book. I was relieved to find shortcoming, in my judgment, is in the that he has left some of his more colorful execution and sweep of this argument. In a language aside in favor of mildly self- moment, I will address that issue, but first aggrandizing tales of his clashes with (mostly) allow me to offer some context for what American scholars, but the result is Malhotra readers might regard as a fairly unforgiving stripped of much of his fire. Instead, he trades assessment of the work: Malhotra has in the broadest caricatures of Western and previously likened the system of academic Indic traditions. Despite its length, the major training and university credentialing to a caste observations of Being Different can be system, implying, among other things, that it summarized in a set of pithy and reductive protects its privilege and status by restricting generalizations for which many of us would access to the labor that generates them.4 He has chastise our undergraduates had they proposed more explicitly labeled practices of peer review them: India is enriched by traditions of the a “cartel” and complained of their preference embodied pursuit of knowledge but the West is for theory over data and their propensity to constrained by its orientation to historical shield authors from critique by those who lack revelation; dharmic traditions perceive an credentials issued only under their auspices, integral unity to the cosmos while the Western particularly by practitioners of religious worldview can only construct a forced unity of traditions whom religious studies scholars parts; dharmic traditions accept difference and represent in their work.5 uncertainty but the West can only respond to Indeed, it would be hard to deny some those realities with anxiety and conquest. In merit to these critiques. But Malhotra has the process of erecting these neat and perfectly further charged the academy with “intellectual mirrored cultural formations, Christian and corruption” and “cronyism” and demanded a Indic traditions are reduced to mere cartoons

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of themselves.7 For Malhotra, every Christian is rishis who have reconfirmed its core insights a fundamentalist evangelical bent on the generation after generation.10 Dharmic aggressive propagation of Christianity, and traditions emerge with an organically and every practitioner of dharmic traditions is a internally generated integral unity that is philosophical monist engaged in the rigorous breathtaking in its bold defiance of the forces application of the “contemplative sciences.”8 So that the Humanities have long demonstrated thoroughly unnuanced and two-dimensional shape all human institutions and human ideas. are his images of Abrahamic and dharmic The title of his second chapter, “: Freedom traditions that he frequently takes recourse to from History,” is just one indication of how tables neatly displaying the absolute binary adamantly Malhotra’s method must and does relationship between them.9 deny that Indic traditions are subject to or In Malhotra’s introduction, he announces products of material, social, or political his intention to studiously avoid any suggestion influences. that dharmic traditions are multiple, distinct in Malhotra’s antipathy for history, verging at their various expressions, or products of many points on an outright anti-historicism, is disparate influences. To put it in his own also evident in Chapter 4, “Order and Chaos.” language, “If is put forward merely as His aim there is to demonstrate that the West an eclectic collection of disparate ideas, it will “sees chaos as a profound threat that needs to lack the cohesiveness necessary to function as a be eradicated either by destruction or by force for change” (5). In these words I find well complete assimilation,” while “dharmic captured a serious flaw in the book’s cultures tend to be more accepting of conception and design: its major claims about difference, unpredictability and uncertainty India and the West are assertions in search of than westerners” (168). In many respects it is corroboration. It would appear from the outset the book’s strongest chapter. It compiles that Malhotra intends to avoid the evidence of compelling secondary sources11 and takes history if it proves inconvenient to the recourse to authoritative primary sources, its lionization of Indian intellectual traditions on argument is cohesive and progressively the basis of the dharmic principles he imputes developed, and a number of its claims follow to them. Malhotra’s casual and thorough directly from the evidence offered. But it is rejection of history as ill-suited to his goals precisely for those reasons that the book’s leads him to attribute historical consciousness failure to meaningfully engage scholarly entirely to the sad and neurotic West, happily discourses shows through so clearly. Although liberating dharmic traditions, the West’s utter his best secondary sources would have and absolute opposite, from forces of historical cautioned against such formulations, he change and external cultural influence. The blithely makes such categorical assessments as product is an uncritical promotion of a “Westerners are especially uneasy about homogenized Indic heritage whose superior variation and nuance in the domain of ethics,” character, he argues, rests on the fact that it is and “Westerners are…baffled and disturbed by protected from the forces of history because it Indian aesthetics” (191 and 203). In his arises from the internal religious experience of examination of Vedic and Biblical sacred text

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the myths are treated in a wholly ahistorical allowance of the rights of democratic manner as if they exist as eternally present, citizenship to a religious minority, however, unitary, and uncontested templates for moral with the shocking caveat that, as Indians, they action and the apprehension of reality (183- would, however, have to set aside their 191). commitment to the killing of infidels (341)! I mentioned above Malhotra’s elision of the Indian Christians fare no better, although distinction between India the modern nation- they fare no worse. Despite a presence in India state and India the ancient civilization. He that predates their appearance in much of devotes no ink to explaining his ready Europe, despite their establishment long before identification of the two and avoids, thereby, some of the forms of Hinduism that Malhotra calling much attention to what may be the celebrates, they are simply ignored, a social most spectacular of his many bold moves. To fact inconvenient to his absolute India/West, me it is perhaps the most troubling. He has Hindu/Christian binary. Troublesome though disavowed any connection to politics. they might be to an effort such as this one that I take Mr. Malhotra at his word and, I want to seeks to simplify matters far beyond what the be clear, I have no reason whatsoever for data will allow, they are also citizens of a questioning his sincerity on that point. But at constitutional democracy that Malhotra the same time, his project is thoroughly fashions as thoroughly Hindu. Malhotra has imbued with the identification of India with the and will object that his project is not about Sanskritic and Hindu traditions, an Islam and that he is under no obligation to treat identification that utterly disallows the it systematically. While he would be technically association of any individual or community correct on the latter point, here and that does not understand itself in those terms elsewhere12 he emphatically and repeatedly with authentic India. Islam is mentioned but a insists that his concern is about India and the handful of times, the majority of them to link it West. For Being Different, however, India does historically or politically to the not and cannot include those outside dharmic undifferentiated Abrahamic/Western faiths. Whatever his more scholarly aspirations, Christianity he establishes as the foil to dharma there is no doubt his work can be—and may (59, 63, 86, 88, 92, 165, 174, 191, 255, and 288). In already be—used as a device to delegitimize the the few cases where he actually mentions political subjectivity of non-Hindu Indians and Muslims in India, all but one positions them as offer support to those who would marginalize conquerors or rapists of Indian women (117, minority communities in India. In a book whose 171, 240, 291). In a single instance, at the close explicit aim is to “argue that the dharmic of the book, he mentions Muslims in a traditions…offer perspectives and techniques framework that seems to accept they are Indian for a genuinely pluralistic social order and a by way of acknowledging that they share jāti as full integration of many different faiths,” the a principle of social organization with Hindus, a saddest, and, I think, the most damning of the fact which gives them a place to “advocate book’s failures is the absence of any meaningful their legal and ethical principles in the public discussion of actual, living religious pluralism sphere.” He follows this magnanimous based on dharmic principles in ancient or

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contemporary India or the contributions of its One reason, of course, is vigorous self- minority religious communities to forging a promotion on Malhotra’s part, but few pluralistic India. academics can legitimately throw that stone. The question I am left with at the end of Another explanation casts the academy in the book is not “what has Malhotra better light than Malhotra has represented us accomplished?” because I believe he has and undercuts, moreover, one of his central produced a work that some audiences—perhaps assertions: that the academic study of religion Western seekers into Indian spirituality who maintains a strict custody over its are after a cogent challenge to the categories of conversations, deliberately, strategically, and self and belief they have inherited; perhaps cynically restricting access to knowledge and Indians attracted to a confrontation with inuring itself to critique. It is quite simply the Western worldviews built on categories from fact that academic institutions such as those I Indian traditions; perhaps readers raised in have named as well as individual scholars13 secularized households who want to have courted Mr. Malhotra precisely because understand some of the broad distinctions that he has offered that critique, even if inelegantly might be made between India and the West— and acerbically. The generous responses of will find useful, and they will not be some of my colleagues, including the most substantially misled. I remain, however, abused among Mr. Malhotra’s targets, have somewhat perplexed by the question of why shown admirable restraint and have caused me academics of many stripes, including those to reconsider the offense I have taken at his Malhotra has directly attacked, continue to attacks on the academy.14 What most of the engage him in dialogue. If, as I think this book available evidence, in the form of apologies, shows, his command of scholarly literature is pained disclosures, and willing engagement basic at best; if he rejects the very practices of with Hindus critical of the academic study of self-government and principles of Indian religious traditions reveals is not an credentialing that we employ to ensure arrogant cabal, hostile or indifferent to how its (imperfectly, it is true) informed discourse and audiences might understand or misunderstand rigorous investigation; if his arguments and its work, but often an embarrassed and claims seem an unacknowledged pastiche of solicitous crew tripping over itself to widely accepted and overly simplified demonstrate its goodwill and eagerness to hear conclusions borrowed from the academy, why and understand the concerns he represents. do Princeton and the University of I concluded my 2004 book Was Hinduism Massachusetts offer him a podium? Why does Invented?: Britons, Indians, and the Colonial the International Journal of organize Construction of Religion with a plea that scholars a symposium on his work? Why does the of religion seek meaningful dialogue with Society for Hindu-Christian Studies honor him practitioners of religious traditions who are with serious discussion of his book at one of the critical of the academic study of religion. At only two sessions it holds annually and with a that time, Mr. Malhotra was becoming more symposium in the one issue of its annual widely known as a leading voice among those journal? Indians in the US who called on Hindus to

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exercise a vigilant surveillance over scholars’ of scholars and those activists Malhotra has representations of Hinduism. I think it is fair to represented to move beyond a poisonous say that, even as he has angered many of us, antipathy, I welcome it warmly and look Mr. Malhotra has done the academy a service forward to further dialogue. by making us feel the need for that dialogue more urgently. In spite of the rising Notes

temperature in those days, however, I was still 1 Rajiv Malhotra, “Washington Post and naively unaware of how poisoned the Hinduphobia,” Sulekha.com, atmosphere would continue to become. It is my http://rivr.sulekha.com/washington-post-and- personal judgment that Malhotra’s methods for hinduphobia_103592_blog, 20 Apr 2004, raising his audience’s awareness have (accessed 10 Oct 2012); “RISA Lila 1: Wendy’s resembled too closely the political manufacture Child Syndrome,” Sulekha.com, of rage and affront that have triumphed over http://rivr.sulekha.com/risa-lila-1-wendy-s- civil discourse around the world during the last child-syndrome_103338_blog, 6 Sept 2002, decade or two. I believe that the dialogue (accessed 10 Oct 2012). between scholars and Hindus concerned about 2 Rajiv Malhotra, Being Different: An Indian the academic study of Hinduism has been much Challenge to Western Universalism, (: less productive than in might have been as a Harper Collins, 2011), 3. result. 3 Malhotra, Being Different, 140. Taking this longer view of his career into 4 Rajiv Malhotra, “Is There an American Caste account, particularly when he has demanded a System?” Sulekha.com, free market exchange of ideas, I believe we pay http://rivr.sulekha.com/is-there-an-american- Malhotra and the principles he has advocated— caste-system_98493_blog, 29 Jan 2001 (accessed the right of the represented to represent 10 Oct 2012). themselves, the insistence that the influence of 5 Rajiv Malhotra, “The Peer Review Cartel,” The Western categories of analysis and Western Cycle of Time, theoretical tools in the study of Hinduism be http://www.cycleoftime.com/articles_view.ph challenged, and the expectation that our p?codArtigo=65, n.d., (accessed 10 Oct. 2012) academy open itself to critique from the 6 ibid. outside, particularly by practicing Hindus—no 7 My choice of the metaphor “cartoon” is honor by engaging him on any terms other informed by Malhotra’s frequent invocation of than the merit of his work. On that score I feel Krishnan Ramaswamy, Antonio de Nicolas, obligated to offer my candid assessment that Aditi Banerjee, eds., : An Being Different is a book that is interesting and Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America (New significant primarily and perhaps exclusively Delhi: Rupa, 2007), a text funded by his own because Mr. Malhotra is its author. Under Infinity Foundation that scathingly attacks the another’s name it would attract little academic academic study of Hinduism and frequently notice and certainly would not give us cause to employs cartoons to belittle it. find ourselves on these pages. If the book and this forum signal, nevertheless, a mutual desire

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8 A glaring error that he repeats many times game&format=pdf&option=com_content, n.d. and uses to build his case against Emory (accessed 10 Oct 2012). University illustrates how rudimentary his understanding of Christianity is and how careless his research into it has been: he calls Emory a Lutheran institution and attacks Emory on the basis of a thorough misunderstanding of Lutheran theology. Emory is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. See 21-24. 9 Malhotra, Being Different, e.g. 62, 100, 112-13, 201, 259, 299. 10 This is the argument of Chapter 2, “Yoga: Freedom from History,” 54-100. 11 Although the chapter relies heavily and primarily on a forty-year old work, R. Lannoy, The Speaking Tree: A Study of Indian Culture and Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1971). http://dx.doi.org/2027/mdp.39015002387838 12 Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan, : Western Interventions in Dravidian and Faultlines. New Delhi: Amaryllis, 2011. 13 See, for example, the list of endorsements that appear in the first pages of Being Different that precede the title page. 14 For two examples, see Ann Grodzins Gold, “Toward Context Sensitivity,” Barnard Department of Religion, http://religion.barnard.edu/defamation- context; n.d., (accessed 10 Oct 2012), and the personal correspondence from Sarah Caldwell made public by Malhotra in “The Insider/Outsider Academic Game,” Rajivmalotra.com, http://rajivmalhotra.com/index.php?view=arti cle&catid=20%3Aamerican-education- reform&id=33%3Athe-insideroutsider- academic-

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