Writing in the soothing tangerine sunset years of a full, fruitful life devoted to unsurpassable national service, Pandurang Vaman Kane closes the final volume of his majestic History of the Dharmasastra with these poignant words of farewell:
I could not arrange or plan my life…Thinking over the vast Sanskrit literature and the labour and time that I had to spend on one branch of it, I am inclined to close this Epilogue with two lines from Browning’s poem: ‘Look at the end of the work, contrast The petty done, the undone vast.’
The other indomitable stalwart of Indian history, Jadunath Sarkar would spend hours at a stretch in various libraries and personally visit remote historical sites in an era where travel was quite an ardour. He would then make piles of notes and references and only once he was satisfied would the actual writing begin.
We’ve already seen the approach, method and scholarship of Acharya M. Hiriyanna elsewhere.
These three examples are sparkling representations of the innate nature, character, conduct, scholarship and attitude of the luminaries of Bharatavarsha’s modern renaissance. Neither was it just a matter of devoted scholarship. It was a sacred calling and this was how one prepared for it:
a certain cultivation of self-denying ethics in the personhood of the historian, a practice of a sense of ascesis, was therefore essential, for without that, the historian could not receive the truths the facts told…a way of preparing oneself for a truth that was beyond partisan interests. A self-denying quality he willingly imposed on himself…It was an inextricable part of his historical method; the man was the method.Dipesh Chakraborty: The Calling of History
Not one scholar or researcher of this period passed sweeping judgements with an air of finality on any subject. And these were giants who had examined primary sources in their respective original languages and corroborated their findings with multidisciplinary evidence. They never used the words, “maybe” and “perhaps” as replacements for “conclusion.” It was always invariably, “based on available evidence,” and when new evidence was discovered that negated their earlier writings, they promptly revised their writings citing this new evidence. More importantly, they left behind a pause adding that “future scholars and researchers may continue this work.” Their single-minded devotion to truth and the realisation of the human’s insignificance in the cosmic sweep of Time and Creation endowed them with humility which is what bestowed authority to their work.
And then the parasitic generation of Marxist nation-wreckers descended on this field sanctified by these luminaries and sullied it with pure filth. We’re deeply familiar with who they are and the lasting damage they’ve done. When we read their ideological-political tracts masquerading as history and scholarship, we’re astounded at a central trait that colours them all: an air of haughty supremacy that demands not acknowledgement but blind obedience. It is as if they arrogated to themselves an everlasting contract to pass “final” judgements on things they not only know nothing about but which they sought to destroy. It was and remains a perverse celebration of opaque ignorance that takes pride in itself.
Thus, Romila Thapar write entire books about ancient India without knowing a single word of Sanskrit. Satish Chandra not only apologises for but endorses bigoted Muslim chroniclers like Ziauddin Barani. Ramachandra Guha’s poisonous tract on Makers of Modern India has no place for Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, P.V. Kane, Veer Savarkar, and D.V. Gundappa but minsters tender loving care on the zealot, Syed Ahmed Khan, the breaker of India, Jinnah, the first political goon, E.V. Ramaswami Naicker, Nawab Nehru and the pedophile Verrier Elwin. And then, the self-hating Meera Nanda writes similar nonsense about Hinduism and Hindutva by happily cherry-picking only the material that she can force-fit into her breaking India agenda. The list of civilisational sins of these ideological, academic and intellectual mercenaries is truly endless.
Needless, their unhinged insanity is the consequence of their incurable addiction to communist cocaine. The first and second generations snorted this. And bred. And their vandalism was and remains all-encompassing.
We have demonstrated scores of real-life instances of their thuggery in the realm of history. But they’ve inflicted a far more profound damage in the spheres of literature, art, theatre and cinema. The late U.R. Anantamurthy writes with unconcealed glee in his political screed disguised as the novel, Bharatipura “how easy it is for the Dalits to destroy the Brahmins by destroying their Deities and sacred symbols.” Pages after pages are devoted to the methods of such destruction narrated by its protagonist who wistfully daydreams and misses the black mole on the white buttock of his former British girlfriend. Or the vile A.K. Ramanujan who translated Anantamurthy’s life-negating Samskara and authored the illiterate political pamphlet, 300 Ramayanas. The less said about Girish Karnad’s theatrical massacre of our puranic characters and historical episodes, the better.
If our eminent distorians disfigured Indian history on an epic scale in the fond hope that it would obey Karl Marx, our eminent litterateurs mixed the LSD of Sartre, Camus, Kafka, Derrida and D.H. Lawrence to Marxist cocaine. In the realm of Kannada literature, U.R. Anantamurthy and his ilk were primarily English lecturers and academics weaned on the venomous udders of Sartre, Lawrence & co. Like their counterparts in history, they had absolutely no firsthand knowledge of or formal or traditional training in either the ancient or classical languages or literature of Bharatiya Bhasha.
Yet, armed only with the aforementioned disqualifications, they began spouting grand pronouncements on an entire sacred civilization and high philosophical culture dating back to a few thousand years.
It is precisely this fundamental point that we must understand, question and expose repeatedly: the complete lack of any qualification on their part to write or speak about these subjects. There is no credibility without qualification. Would you trust a Ram Guha to perform heart surgery? Well, if that’s asking for too much, would you trust him to repair your car or bike? If not, why not? You would rather trust that ubiquitous unlettered Abdul to repair your vehicle. The obvious answer to this question applies to Ram Guha & gang’s “qualifications” to write on Hinduism.
But here’s the other side. One seriously underestimates their capacity to plumb the sewage of the worst of human nature. More than anyone, they are themselves thoroughly aware that they are consciously aware that they’re deliberately lying, distorting, and lack the aforementioned qualifications. But it is as it should be. Why bother about minor irritants like qualification and training when your declared intent is destruction? The Naxals do this with guns and grenades, their posh counterparts do it with ink and bytes and soundbytes.
But how does one circumvent things like qualifications and genuine learning. Chiefly through a threefold skullduggery.
First, by declaring that the only valid qualification is that which they dole out at opium dens like the JNU. That instantly eliminates substantial competition: either fall in line or be “left” out from career prospects.
Second, by dismissing even the notion of objectivity as a bourgeoise construct. This simultaneously negates the requirement for proof, evidence and all the time-tested precepts of logical reasoning. Thus we have the real-life spectacle of 17-year-olds asking why we should “believe” say, R.C. Majumdar and that anybody can write any book based merely on their fond feelings and “inclinations” on any subject. This is the most decisive recipe for the destruction of knowledge itself as an innate value that needs no proof.
The third is most dangerous of them all: erasing standards, a diabolical enterprise in which these cocaine-addicts have met with overwhelming success. This is precisely what enables a shrieking, past-her-prime bimbo like Sagarika Ghose to “write” about the Purushasukta and female orgasms as some kind of a fundamental right. At the same time. Or a Chetan Bhagat who feels no shame in pontificating about Hindu culture all because he’s a celebrity author of badly-written high school apologies for fiction. Neither can these spurious eminences escape under that other great mantra of free speech. Free speech is not a tuxedo that gives you a free pass to peddle arrant ignorance nor grants you immunity from its consequences.
Celebrity “culture” is what we’ve “achieved” by elevating vulgarization. Trivialisation, not mediocrity, is the real ruling elite.
On a deeper note, this threefold tactic is what enabled our Left-Liberal cocaine-snorters to nonchalantly dismiss the foregoing cultural and scholarly titans. Therein lies perhaps the greatest tragedy of “independent” India. Jadunath Sarkar, Sardesai, et al were true pioneers in their respective fields. They left the mortal world with a genuine belief and fond hope that future generations would build on their foundational work and carry their legacy forward.
And then the pack of academic jackals and intellectual vultures descended. The greater crime of our eminent distortions and cultural vandals is not their vandalisation of history and culture but negating it. The smelly essence of the perverse phenomenon they have let loose on at least three generations is what Saul Bellow called the “disheartening expansion of trained ignorance.” But Bellow wrote this in the mid-1980s and merely stopped the word, “ignorance.” Today, this has culminated in an intuitive, Pavlovian death-embrace of 24/7 all-encompassing depravity.
The moist Leftist fantasy of a truly egalitarian world will never be realised but their degenerate narrative, Stalinist methods and the viral infection they have spread is ensuring the decomposition of entire societies. And they have wreaked this murderous havoc armed with a kind of visceral hatred that can emanate only from the depths of unresolved personal pathologies whose natural home is Marxism and its contemporary equivalent, Left-Liberalism.
As far as India is concerned, the Sanatana civilisational vigour has not fully ebbed unlike the West whose dominance is visibly declining because its classical learning and culture has been decimated. Indeed, Douglas Murray’s Strange Death of Europe is a statement of this reality and an expression of the acceptance of an inevitably tragedy which the West is too weak to prevent.
In direct contrast, India presents perhaps a last reawakening because this civilisational vigour is slowly reasserting itself in myriad forms. One method of channelizing this vigour and making it more muscular and confident is to begin openly, ruthlessly questioning the qualifications of those who seek to demonise or tar Sanatana Dharma. Arguing with or rebutting them implies that we’re giving them a credibility they never had in the first place.
If you don’t trust Ram Guha to fix a puncture or repair your vehicle, why would you be offended by his incoherent rants about Sanatana Dharma?
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