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Indian Publisher Withdraws Book, Stoking Fears of Nationalist Pressure [Hindu Book Ban]
NYTimes ^ | February 14, 2014 | ELLEN BARRY

Posted on 02/14/2014 9:49:40 PM PST by Steelfish

Indian Publisher Withdraws Book, Stoking Fears of Nationalist Pressure By ELLEN BARRY

FEB. 13, 2014

NEW DELHI — In a fight with a major company, a frail 84-year-old retired headmaster would seem to be the David to India’s publishing Goliath, Penguin Books.

But this week the headmaster, Dinanath Batra, achieved the crowning victory of his career as a right-wing campaigner, forcing Penguin to withdraw and destroy remaining copies of a scholarly work on Hinduism by an American professor that Mr. Batra has called “malicious,” “dirty” and “perverse.”

Mr. Batra’s assiduous legal filings in defense of his religion had sometimes paid off in the past, but never like this. India’s intellectuals actually stopped in their tracks this week, wondering what had induced Penguin Books India to settle out of court with what one writer termed “an unknown Hindu fanatic outfit.” The Times of India warned of “Taliban-like forces,” and a prominent columnist decried “the pulping of liberal India.”

The announcement has rippled through a city bracing itself for big change. Three months remain before general elections, in which the secular Indian National Congress Party is expected to suffer one of the worst losses in its history to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: academicbias; feminist; psychobabble; revisionisthistory

1 posted on 02/14/2014 9:49:40 PM PST by Steelfish
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To: Steelfish

Funny how the Times seems to have no problem with nationalists in other countries, but in the US they’re so militantly hard-left they’re willing to sacrifice their readership to maintain their political position.

And I’m not that convinced the BJP is going to manage to swing the election as deeply as the Times seems to think. The BJP keeps getting exposed in scandal after scandal.


2 posted on 02/14/2014 10:09:18 PM PST by Little Pig (Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici.)
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To: Little Pig

The Book can be downloaded at this link:

The section on God Shiva- represented by by erect phallus is quite interesting.

https://ia600604.us.archive.org/28/items/TheHindusAnAlternativeHistoryWendyDoniger_201402/The-Hindus-An-Alternative-History-—Wendy-Doniger.pdf


3 posted on 02/14/2014 10:11:16 PM PST by Steelfish (ui)
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To: Steelfish

The dispute over that is deep and widespread. My guess is the effort against that interpretation stems from a desire to escape what is viewed as an embarrassingly-primitive form of worship, largely through revisionism. Phallus worship is known in many cultures around the world, and dates back into antiquity. While I’m no scholar, it strikes me as highly contradictory that the same culture that created the Kama Sutra and the carvings of the Konark Sun temple would somehow disavow the obvious symbolism of the Shivalingam.


4 posted on 02/14/2014 10:21:28 PM PST by Little Pig (Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici.)
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To: Steelfish

I am familiar with Wendy Doniger. I had her translation of the Manu Samhita, did not like it, looked up other information about her, and saw that she is indeed perverse, dirty and thus a very inaccurate translator. She injects her own perverse ideas into the texts.

Dininath Batra is entirely correct.

I’ve read the older translation of Manu Samhita (can’t remember the Indologist’s name at the moment, might have been Max Muller) and it was very different.

Wendy whatsername is a feminist pervert.


5 posted on 02/14/2014 10:38:07 PM PST by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: Little Pig

The Kama Sutra is a very minor text when compared with the vast ancient texts of the four Vedas, the 18 Puranas, the Mahabharat, the Ramanayan, the Upanishads, etc.

It’s not even very ancient.


6 posted on 02/14/2014 10:44:05 PM PST by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: little jeremiah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Doniger


7 posted on 02/14/2014 10:48:06 PM PST by Steelfish (ui)
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To: little jeremiah; Little Pig
It would seem (at least from this Wiki summary) that your impression of Wendy is accurate.

It seems that she is caught up in interpreting Hinduism through her feminist prism. Note the buzzwords in her descrptor.

(Not only that, but she looks like she's got something naughty hidden in her pocket.)

"Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (born November 20, 1940) is an American Indologist who has taught at the University of Chicago since 1978. Much of her work is focused on translating, interpreting and comparing elements of Hindu theories through modern contexts of gender, sexuality and identity.


8 posted on 02/14/2014 10:50:51 PM PST by shibumi (Cover it with gas and set it on fire.)
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To: shibumi

That’s it to a “t”.


9 posted on 02/14/2014 10:55:05 PM PST by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: little jeremiah

And the dispute about whether the Shivalingam isn’t very ancient either. My point is not that the KS is ancient, but that it, as well as many many carvings and other art in India reflect a cultural sensuality that modern scholars in and outside India seem to be trying to deny or revise out of existence.

Doniger may be a feminist, and may be casting phallicism in Hindu symbolism in a bad light (I didn’t read the passage, so I don’t know her specific opinion), but the attack on her book is founded on the principle that the shivalingam is not phallic at all, not on her presentation of it.


10 posted on 02/14/2014 11:11:42 PM PST by Little Pig (Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici.)
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To: Little Pig

If a person wants to understand the Shiva ling, they have to first clear their minds of western sexology or western psychological ideas.


11 posted on 02/14/2014 11:55:51 PM PST by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: little jeremiah

If a person wants to understand Western sexology or Western psychological ideas they must clear their minds of the Hindu caste systems and ancient fantastical texts.


12 posted on 02/15/2014 6:35:12 AM PST by ExpatGator (I hate Illinois Nazis!)
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To: ExpatGator

Western sexology and psychology are filled with errors.

Unless one has studied the Vedic texts and history, they will have no clue as to what they teach.

Atheists who study the Bible see no truth it in.

You believe what you believe, and I believe what I believe.

Western sexology and psychology has brought a decadent, degraded and immoral culture. Are you happy now?


13 posted on 02/15/2014 6:51:21 AM PST by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: little jeremiah

LOL, good one.

“By their fruits ye shall know them and all that fluff...”


14 posted on 02/15/2014 9:04:03 AM PST by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
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To: James C. Bennett

I remember some years ago when some perverts in Australia had a big sodomy festival and decorated the hall or where ever it was, with some large posters of Indian devas but they were changed by adding obscene features.

That got a lot of publicity in India and protests, I saw a photo of a large group of Shaivite renunciates sitting in near the Australian embassy, replete with tilak on the head, dust, and symbolic tridants.

Nice.


15 posted on 02/15/2014 9:14:15 AM PST by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: Little Pig

If the BJP doesn’t maul the Congress in this election, they should disband themselves.


16 posted on 02/15/2014 1:15:44 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
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