Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Clinton, Trump and the Circus of American Presidential Politics

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

The American elections are a phenomena well worth watching. Without being unduly judgemental one can say that the campaign is both entertaining as well as infuriating at times. Here we, in India are used to semi literate foul tongued politicians like Mani Shankar Ayer, Manish Tewai, Laloo Prasad Yadava, Nithesh Kumar, Katheria, Khejriwal and others. So the comparison can only be of degree and quality. The Congress breed of dynastic fascists have their own brand of invective to hurl against their opponents. The BJP retaliates by launching a tirade against corruption, "Italian Mafia" etc. So we are used to foul language, insensitive remarks and down right abuse. So what is so surprising that we should even write about the endless stream of abuse and insults spewing out in torrents from the mouths of the two important Presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton.

The Presidential campaign started  with Mr Trump declaring to the world in general that "Crooked Hilary" is not to be trusted. He raised serious questions about her "ethics" as if ethics has ever been a factor in US politics. The immediate provocation for this rather large charge against Hilary is the ongoing FBI investigation into the use of a private server during the time she occupied, without honor or distinction, the office of the Secretary of State, as the Foreign Minister of US is often termed. Just before leaving office she deleted more than 30,000 emails stating that they were private in nature. Later it was disclosed that she raised more than 100 million dollars for the Clinton Foundation from donors in the Middle East even as she served as the Foreign Minister. Just imagine what would have happened if an Indian Minister had done the same. Salman , the Foreign Minister under the discredited UPA regime is still facing flak for the scandal over his Trust.

Hilary Clinton was not fazed. She breezed through the crisis and the American Media has been extremely kind to her by not raising any awkward question. I always marvel at the utter absence of an adversarial press in US. In India, Freedom of the Press is measure by the adversarial position it takes vis a vis the NDA Government. BJP bashing in general and Narendar Modi trolling in particular have become the bench marks of a free press here in India. Hilary Clinton was not questioned with the same passionate intensity with which Mr Donald Trump is question, over Trump University, for instance. Hilary Clinton thunders against the failed business projects of Trump but does not take any questions over the character, or better still, the lack of it in Mr Bill Clinton. The Monica Lewinsksy Scandal which almost brought the Presidency of BIll Clinton down making him the only President in over a century to be impeached is not brought out to embarrass Hilary Clinton. Imagine the same thing happening here. Impossible. Kumaraswamy, Deve Gowda's son still faces questions over his long term relationship with the starlet, Sandhya.

The two candidates revile each other in a manner that would make bazzar women, exemplars of perfect behaviour. Of  course, I do not mean any disrespect to bazzar women who are certainly better behaved than these two. Crooked Hilary has become the given name of Hilary Rodham Clinton and that has to be said with a vicious smirk. And Clinton cannot be out done: Trump will bankrupt USA like his casinos. The Press does not badger Hilary over her false statement made over the attack on the American Ambassador in Libya but hounds Mr Trump for his Tax Returns and he wards off the searching prying questions by saying that he is under audit, a statement that is at best half true. On the Orlando tragedy Trump has been quite honest even at the cost of political correctness. He has blamed Islamic terrorism for the attack, while Hilary taking her cue from Hussein Obama soft pedals the whole Islamic aspect of the tragedy. Trump has been consistently been saying that immigration from terrorism infested countries needs to be put on hold. And that is certainly a step that cannot be faulted and to make him sound like a dangerous demagogue for stating the obvious is certainly disingenuous.

The American elections are fun to watch. And certainly we hope that the Americans do not vote for another term in which the failed policies of Obama will continue.

Sunday, June 12, 2016

From Orientalism to Academic Hinduphobia: The strange career of the American Approach to Indian Studies

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books American scholars are an intense serious lot. They take their state, their Government, their politics and their society far more seriously than the average Indian scholar. While I disagree with many of them,I retain a lurking sense of admiration for the integrity that they display in their research. I graduated with a Ph D in History from one of the leading Public/State Universities in the US and had the good fortune to be trained by a Historian who is rated as one of the leading scholars of the last century. Having said this, I must reflect on the recent controversy stirred by by Rajiv Malhotra in his various publications particularly his highly polemical book, The Battle for Sanskrit. An attack on Sheldon Pollock for his rather asinine political views is one thing, but a concerted attempt at delegitimizing his valuable contribution to early Indian History is an entirely different issue. I too find the collective petitions by YS based academics on the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi extremely patronizing and an affront to Indias dignity. The political process in India is of concern only to Indians and the American scholars like Martha Nussbaum, Wendy Diniger, Sheldon Pollock and a host of Jewish American scholars are all quiet when it comes to US crimes in different parts of the world. I have not come across the same sort of rant by these scholars on Israels attack on Palestinians, on the illegal War in Iraq and Syria, the large scale use of drone in slaughtering non white non combatants all over the world. My litany can go one. I am putting these facts across only to draw attention to the fact that US academics are often servitors of power and are quite willing to extend their expertise into sensitive areas of national security and espionage. The posture of moral outage adopted by these scholars is misplaced and we will find it more convincing if the Marthas, the Wendys and others direct their ire at US racialist policies in different parts of the world. Having said this I would like to highlight the contribution of one scholar who is the subject of Rajiv Malhotra's attack, Sheldon Pollock. In the Battle for Sanskrit Rajiv Malhotra, an NRI settled in USA has thundered against Sheldon Pollock and has tried to link Language of the Gods in the World of Men to a whole host of poltically sensitive questions. He accuses Pollock of arguing that India is the spiritual home of Nazism. This is quite absurd and nowhere does Pollock make that claim except to suggest that the notion of Aryan was introduced into Europe through the Western Indological scholarship. Pollock is too sophisticated a historian to make such a crude argument: Arya on well born is not the same as Aryan and therefore India is in no way responsible for the horrors of the Holocaust. By making this sort of claim, Malhotra undermines his otherwise well researched work. If his argument is that US academics are uncomfortable with the idea of a strong, vibrant India then he is not wrong. And that has to do with US strategic and geo political interests. Is Pollock saying that Sanskrit is irredeemably a language of oppression and exclusion. The answer to this question is far more nuanced than what Malhotra admits. True, like Latin, Sanskrit too was associated with a courtly culture marinated in oppression, caste purity, rituals of power etc. A language is only an instrument and does not carry the burden of sin associated with the speakers of the language. English is the language of slave traders, conquerors and the like but that does not make us reluctant to use it. Nowhere does Pollock make an explicit link between language and social structure. However, a profound question lies at the heart of the book under discussion. Why did Sanskrit reemerge in the sixth century as the language of prasastis, public eulogies and courtly literature at the same moment in time when vernacular cultures became more assertive. This question is important and an analysis of the mutual relationship between marga and desi is an interesting exercise. Now is raising critical questions a form of Hinduphobia. I have left out Wendy Doniger from my discussion as I find her work stupid and trashy. Her publishers rightly decided to pulp her work. However even she has a piece of research that is actually quite good, a study of the problem of evil in Indian thought. If we reject her approach we are left only with David Shulman and his work. I personally feel that while US scholars are rather politically motivated in the way they, at the instigation of Indian Left Liberals started bad mouthing the Hon ble Prime Minister of India, it would be wrong to throw the baby with the bath water. American scholarship is awe inspiring in many significant ways and if US scholars need to retain their legitimacy, it would behove them not to fall victim to the political machinations of third rate Indian scholars in Universities such as Delhi, JNU and others.