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BREAKING INDIA western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines Rajiv Malhotra & Aravindan Neelakandan Copyright © Infinity Foundation 2011 AU rights reserved. No part of tliis book may be used or reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work This e<iition first published in 2011 Third impression 2011 AMARYLLIS An imprint of Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. Editorial Office: J-39, Ground Floor, Jor Bagh Lane, New Delhi-110 003, India Tel: 011-2464 2447/2465 2447 Fax: 011-2462 2448 Email: amaryllis®amaryllis.co.in Website: www.amaryUis.co.in Registered Office: 10, Nishat Colony, Bhopal 462 003, M.P., India ISBN: 978-81-910673-7-8 Typeset in Sabon by Mindways 6esign 1410, Chiranjiv Tower, 43, Nehru Place New Delhi 110 019 ' Printed and Bound in India by Manipal Technologies Ltd., Manipal. Contents Introduction xi 1. Superpower or Balkanized War Zone? 1 2. Overview of European Invention of Races 8 Western Academic Constructions Lead to Violence 8 3. Inventing the Aryan Race 12 Overview of Indian Impact on Europe: From Renaissance to R acism 15 Herder’s Romanticism 18 Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) 19 ‘Arya’ Becomes a Race in Europe 22 Ernest Renan and the Aryan Christ 23 Friedrich Max Muller 26 Adolphe Pictet 27 Rudolph Friedrich Grau 28 Gobineau and Race Science 29 Aryan Theorists and Eugenics 31 Chamberlain: Aryan-Christian Racism 32 Nazis and After 34 Blaming the Indian Civilization . 35 4. Imperial Evangelism Shapes Indian Ethnology 37 Biblical Theory of Race and the Myth of Ham 39 William Jones Maps Indians onto Biblical Ethnology 42 One Hundred Years of British Indological Institutions 48 5. Lord Risley Morphs Jati-Varna into Race 51 Building on Max Muller’s Work 52 Risley’s Race Science 54 Risley Freezes the Castes 56 Ambedkar Demolishes Nasal Index Racism 60 6. Inventing the ‘Dravidian’ Race 61 Hodgson Invents ‘Tamulian’ 63 Caldwell: Transforming Linguistics into Ethnology 64 A Conspiracy Theory is Born: Cunning Aryan Brahmins Exploited Innocent Dravidians 66 De-Indianizing the Tamil Traditions 67 7. Dravidian Racism and Sri Lanka 79 Outdated Geology Mixes with Theosophical Fantasy 81 Lemurian Origins Linkup with Bishop Caldwell 83 Theosophy - Buddhism Uses Aryans to Counter Evangelism 85 Clash of Colonial Constructs: Aryan-Buddhist-Sinhalese vs. Dravidian-Saivite-Tamil 86 8. Digesting Hinduism into ‘Dravidian’ Christianity 88 The Myth of St Thomas 89 Evangelism and the Dravidian Movement 91 Christianizing Hindu Popular Culture 111 f 9. Propagation of ‘Dravidian’ Christianity 125 2000: Seminar on ‘Dravidian Religion to Eradicate Casteism’ ' 127 2001: India Declared the Mother of International Racism - 127 2004: ‘India is a Dravidian Christian Nation, and Christians Made Sanskrit’ 129 2005: New York Conference on Re-imagining Hinduism as St Thomas Dravidian Christianity 129 2006: Dravidian Christianity Becomes an International Movement 135 2007: Second International Conference on the History of Early Christianity in India 139 J 2008: First International Conference on the Religion of Tamils 142 Christian-Dravidianism vs Modern Archeology 148 Assessing the Robustness of the Thomas Myth 149 Dravidian Spirituality as Interim Stage for Christianizing 150 • 10. Dravidian Academic-Activist Network Outside India 154 Oxford-Yale Origins of the Dravidian Linguistic Canon 157 Academic Discourse Drives Indian Politics: Annadurai 160 SARVA Project and Identity Politics 162 Academic Support for Tamil Separatist Conferences 166 The Berkeley Tamil Chair 167 Europe-based Tamil Studies 170 11. Western Discourse on India’s Fragments 173 Deconstructing India Systematically 177 Atrocity Literature as a Genre 182 Atrocity Literature Feeds India’s Fragmentation 185 Indian Minorities Serving the Global Majorities 189 Identity Faultlines for Western Intervention 193 12. The Afro-Dalit Movement 196 Ary an/Dr a vidian and Hutu/Tutsi Parallels 197 American History Defines the Afro-Dravidian Movement 200 Western Government-Church Axis influences Afro-Dravidian-Dalit 207 Ramayana interpreted as a Racist Epic 209 13. India: A Neo-Con Frontier 212 Corporate Multinationals to Convert Hindus 213 Dalit Activism by the American Christian Right 220 Right-wing Think-tanks and Policy Centers 234 Sustained and Biased Perceptions 240 14. India: A Left-wing Frontier 247 Example of Left-Right Collaboration in Washington 249 US-based Academic Deconstruction of India 251 Islamic Tint in the Secular Lens 266 15. The US Government’s Direct Involvement 268 International Religious Freedom Act 268 US Commission on International Religious Freedom 271 Pew Trust Repackages and Spreads: ‘India is Next Only to Iraq’ 283 US Government Agency for International Development (USAID) 285 Obama and US Foreign Evangelism 287 16. British Intervention in Present-day India 297 Anti-India Axis in the UK 299 \ 17. Continental European Interventions 307 Affiliates of Dalit Dissent in India 316 Network of Academic Dalit Studies 321 Individual Scholars Propagating Dalit Separatism 327 18. India’s Christian Umma 334 US-based Expansion of Indian Christianity 337 Christian Media 356 Intelligence-gathering Operations 363 Effects on the Ground * 370 19. India in the Clash of Civilizations 377 The Cover Map ' 378 Maoist Red Corridor Through India 380 Nagaland Model in Nepal and India’s Red Corridor 381 Islamic Slice of Dravidistan 394 Tamil Nadu 397 Kerala 400 Abdul Nasser Madhani, Godfather of south Indian Jihad 401 Tamil Nadu-Kerala Jihad Nexus 404 Madhani Released and Jihad Outsourced to Kerala 405 Karnataka 407 New Developments in 2010 411 Appendices 423 Appendix A: A Short History of Racism from the Nasal Index to the Y-Chromosome 425 Appendix B: Ancient Tamil Religion in Sangam Literature 431 Appendix C: Parallel Developments in Africa 438 Appendix D: Thomas Hoax on Native Americans 449 Appendix E: Papers Presented at New York Conference 2005 451 Appendix F: Case of the Disposable Epigiaphist 459 Appendix G: Monitoring Foreign Funds 463 Appendix H: Lutheran World Federation Targets India 467 Endnotes 476 Glossary 551 Bibliography 560 Index of Schematic Diagrams and Figures 621 Acknowledgments 625 Index 626 Introduction This book has- emerged as a result of several experiences that have deeply influenced my research and scholarship over the past decade. In the I99OS5 an African-American scholar at Princeton University casually told me that he had returned from a trip to India, where he was working with the ‘Afro-Dalit Project’. I learnt that this US- operated and -financed project frames mter-jati/varna interactions and the Dalit movement using American cultural and historical lenses. The Afro-Dalit project purports to paint Dalits as the ‘Blacks’ of India and non-Dalits as India’s ‘Whites’. The history of American racism, slavery and BlackAVhite relations is thus superimposed onto Indian society. While modern caste structures and inter-relationships have included long periods of prejudice toward Dalits, the Dalit experience bears little resemblance to the African slave experience of America. But taking its cue from the American experience, the Afro-Dalit project attempts to empower Dalits by casting them as victims at the hands of a different race. Separately, I had been studying and writing about the ‘Ar^^ans’, as to who they were, and whether the origin of Sanskrit and Vedas was an import by ‘invaders’ or indigenous to India. In this context, I sponsored numerous archeological, linguistic and historical conferences and book projects, in order to get deeper into the discourse. This led me to research the colonial-era construction of the Dravidian identity, which did not exist prior to the nineteenth century and was fabricated as an identity in opposition to the Aryans. Its survival depends upon belief in the theory of foreign Aryans and their misdeeds. xii I Introduction I had also been researching the US Church’s funding of activities in India, such as the popularly advertised campaigns to ‘save’ poor children by feeding, clothing and educating them. In fact, when 1 was in my twenties living in the US, I sponsored one such cliild in South India. However, during trips to India, I often felt that the funds collected were being used not so much for the purposes indicated to sponsors, but for indoctrination and conversion activities. Additionally, I have been involved in numerous debates in the US with think-tanks, independent scholars, human rights groups and academics, specifically on their treatment of Indian society as a sort of scourge that the west had to ‘civilize’. I coined the phrase ‘caste, cows and curry’ to represent the exotic nnd sensational portrayals of India’s social and economic problems and their interpretation these as ‘human rights’ issues. I decided to track the major organizations involved in promulgating these various theories, as well as those spearheading political pressure, and eventually the prosecution of India on the grounds of human rights violations. My research included following the money trail by using the provisions of financial disclosure in the US, studying the promotional materials given out by most such organizations, and monitoring their conferences, workshops and publications. I investigated the individuals behind such activities and their institutional affiliations. What I found out should sound the alarm bell for every Indian concerned about our national integrity. India is the prime target of a huge enterprise—a ‘network’ of organizations, individuals and churches—that seems intensely devoted to the task of creating a separatist identity, history and even religion for the vulnerable sections of India. This nexus of players includes not only' church groups, government bodies and related organizations, but also private think- tanks and academics.