7.0 Epilogue

Indology is one of the few areas of specialization in which several 19th century colonial and racist paradigms are still accepted as gospel truth [Ref. 33, 34]. Understandably then, specialists in other areas like geology, archaeology, anthropology, archaeo-metallurgy and even scientists/physicists (and members of other professions) who are ardent students of Indological topics have often challenged the sacred dogmas of Indology. Some Indologists, largely linguists and philologists, have hit back, often in the most distasteful manner. For instance, in their recent publication [Ref. 32], Witzel (as well as his co-author) lampoons the people who have critiqued his (and those of others holding similar opinions) writings in the most condescending manner:



Ironically many those expressing anti-migration views are migrants themselves, engineers or technocrats like N. S. Rajaram. S. Kak, and S. Kalyanaraman, who ship their ideas to India from the U.S. shores. They find allies in a broader assortment of home grown nationalists including university professors, bank employees, and politicians (S. S. Misra, S. Talageri, K. D. Sethna, S. P. Gupta, Bh. Singh, M. Shendge, Bh. Gidwani, P. Chaudhuri, A. Shourie, S. R. Goel). They have gained a small or vocal following in the west among “New Age” writers or researchers outside mainstream scholarship, including D. Frawley, G. Feuerstein, K. Klostermaier, and K. Elst. Whole publishing firms, such as the Voice of India, and Aditya Prakashan, are devoted to propagating their ideas.



Witzel is not the only Indologist who demonizes those that question the dogmas of Indology. In his hit list above, Frawley (a Hindu), Elst (a secular humanist) and Klostermaier (an ordained Catholic priest and a celebrated Professor Emeritus at a mainstream University of Canada) are not ‘New Agers’, S. Kalyanaraman lives very much in India, while S. S. Misra, M. Shendge, K. D. Sethna (born a Parsi), A. Shourie and S. R. Goel (has a graduate degree in History) are definitely not ‘nationalists’ in the parochial sense of the word. S. P. Gupta is an archaeologist, Bh. Gidwani is a novel writer, M. Shendge is an Indologist, K. Elst has a doctoral degree in Indology, Bh. Singh is said to have been a Marxist and Misra is a renowned mainstream Sanskritist/linguist. Aditya Prakashan is an old publishing house that has brought out dozens of books that have nothing to do with ‘propagating their ideas’. In fact, some of the above (eg. Arun Shourie, S. R. Goel) have not even written anything significant on AIT or related matters. Nevertheless, this example shows the extent to which some academicians can stoop to lampoon those who disagree with them - or with their Marxist colleagues in India (as is the case with Shourie and Goel, who have criticized Marxist Indologists in India).