Letter from Shirley Jacob

Dear NL Team,

Subscriber from Mumbai. You may accuse me of being ‘triggered’ but I write this email to address Mr. Anand Vardhan’s deep concerns over the “feminization of Hinduism”, something I have a feeling I wouldn’t have had to do had Ms. Deepanjana been there. I’m not a Hindu but much to my annoyance, even Christianity has often been accused of being feminised.

I look forward to reading Mr. Vardhan’s articles on Newslaundry since they offer a sane conservative perspective, which is why I was surprised when he chose to use that “politically incorrect” term, as he himself put it. But then again, is a conservative really a conservative if he hasn’t proudly internalized misogyny? Probably another one of those “martial values”, eh?

Maybe he’s right. Maybe a “lack of respect for courage” is a feminine attribute, because why else would women so often end up bearing the brunt of men acting evil out of their own religious convictions. And how dare women have a problem with reducing religion to a dick-measuring contest? (Excuse my language)
So how about this? By all means, fight and kill each other over your religious beliefs, but leave women out of it. And then maybe conservative Christians, Hindus, Muslims and other religious men won’t have to worry about the feminization of religion.

P.S. Shout out to all fellow subscribers.

Sincerely,

Shirley 

Letter from Sudhakar Reddy

Dear NL Hafta Team,

This is my first email to you – both as an active listener/reader/follower and as a subscriber. I have been wanting to write this email for a while now. I don’t know what has stopped me from doing that; but better late than never. Let me start by asking one simple question – What is “Independent Media”?

Does an ad-free model make you really independent?  Yes, It does; but only when it’s about having the freedom of building/disseminating news narratives, not dictated by sponsors/ad-spenders. But, is that all? Is that enough to make you independent? Think through that question deeply enough.

News should and must rely on facts and only facts – free of personal/editorial biases. But is that still enough? I have heard the NL Hafta panel spending countless hours discussing the Yogi, JNU, National Anthem, Cow Vigilantism, Beef Politics, and many such issues. I have heard you guys spending hours to articulate your thoughts on all such issues. You have even discussed Trump for god knows, what reasons, for practically in every other NL Hafta.

Consider these.

• A man carried the body of his wife for over 10 kms. on his shoulder in Odisha’s Kalahandi after failing to get a vehicle from a government hospital.
• The very next day and in the same state of Odisha, a hospital worker stands on a dead body, presses down to break the bones so the body is more compact to carry. The workers stuff the broken body in a plastic bag, sling it on a bamboo stick and carry it through the roads.
• Many more stories of such public apathy in Hyderabad and everywhere else.

Doesn’t your blood boil? How many minutes did you really spare to discuss Govt. apathy to having a dignified right to death (forget life). Why doesn’t your heart pound when you hear stories like these? What stops you from building/disseminating narratives on issues of LIFE.  Why does it take a doctor to be outraged to wake you up from your slumber and worry about what happened in Dhule, in Maharashtra?

For me, you are far from being Independent. Stop this posturing if you don’t have the courage and conviction to discuss stories and build narratives beyond what the Mainstream Media thinks are stories-of-national-interest. True Independence comes  when you free yourself from personal/editorial bias and from biases driven by what the so called “Old Media” thinks are real issues. I don’t give a damn to your source of funding – subscribers or corporate sponsors. But, I would worry if your coverage is dictated by “What’s in News” and not “What should be in News”. That’s “Independent Media” for me.

 In Assam recently, a man has to carry his brother’s body on a bicycle. Outraged?

Not yet?

This happened in the CM’s constituency?

Now that should make the story worth discussing/deliberating about.

Come on now. There is POLITICS in it – CM’s constituency.

Would always remain subscriber for I believe in allowing a space for everyone – NL, Arnab, Barkha, Rajdeep, Everyone.

Regards,

A subscriber

Letter from Nikhil Mennon

Dear NL Hafta Team,

I have listened to NL Hafta for more than a year and I have enjoyed it every week. It has become a comforting part of my weekend routine. So thank you Mr. Sekhri, Mrs. Trehan, Ms. Pandey, Prof. Ranganathan, Mr. Vardhan, and Mr. Nijhawan. I value the breadth of views represented on the panel, especially because I disagree with it often. And before accusations are thrown around, yes, I am a subscriber (though my initial efforts at subscribing were thwarted by the payment gateway).  

I am a historian, about to complete a PhD in modern Indian history at Princeton. And I introduce myself in this manner because the matter I wish to flag relates to the discussions of Indian history over the last two Haftas. 

Sushant Sareen and Anand Vardhan complain about Indian history writing being controlled by a left-liberal mafia. I have heard this tiresome and paranoid complaint for a decade, since the time when I was in college in Delhi. But I have rarely been provided any convincing evidence for why the Hindu Right hasn’t made an effort to produce any credible scholars. One argument has been that a certain ideology has has such dominance on university campuses, that scholars with opposing views of History cannot be employed. While there might be have been some truth to this on certain university campuses for a certain period, surely the Left in India was never powerful enough to control all central and state universities. Why hasn’t there been any genuine scholarship proving that the medieval period in India was one of bigoted Muslim tyranny? And why is it that non-Indian scholars from across the world (in the US and UK) also seem to find no evidence for this spurious theory of unique Muslim bigotry in Mughal India? Surely these foreign scholars are not looking for jobs in JNU or Calcutta University. The problem with the Hindutva position on this question is that it requires you to believe in a decades long global conspiracy of scholars, with no apparent reward for maintaining this global conspiracy. 

Mr. Vardhan might point to Jadunath Sarkar’s research as proof of his theory. But as towering a figure in Indian scholarship he once was, Jadunath Sarkar’s research is more than half a century old. And the research conducted in the decades since then have refuted that view and made much progress. A lot changes in half a century of scholarhsip!

You may ask what I mean by “genuine scholarship”. And as Prof. Ranganathan will corroborate, there are certain shared expectations across academia: rigorous training, the use of evidence, and double blind peer review. And let us not demean the skills required to produce actual historical research in medieval and Mughal India. My colleagues who study this period spend years training in languages (Hindi, Braj Bhasha, Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, etc.), examining texts and archeological evidence and using multiple sources to confirm claims.  As a historian of modern India, for example, I am not capable of doing this research. But I am aware of the hard skills required to do so.

You seem to respect the sciences (kudos on the Science Desk). I would request that you extend the same respect to all empirically driven academic research (peer reviewed, and published in academic journals and presses) as well. If not, we are left with Directors of the ICHR (Indian Council of Historical Research) such as the present one who produce no academic research and spout fallacious theories that foster a crude Hindu pride and pander to the party in power. I do not want to enter an argument about whether there were biases among earlier Chairpersons. There certainly might have been. But were they recognized scholars, using methods of research that are globally recognized? Yes. 

 Your guest Sushant Sareen proudly proclaims: “The kind of liberalism that was there in Hindu society was amazing!” What is the evidence for this? Firstly, the category of “Hindu society” would not have made sense to a people living in the Indian subcontinent for much of its history. Identities were multiple, based on caste, language, ethnicity, and sect. There was no unified consolidated “Hindu society” for much of our history, and their practices varied by region and sect. And even if there was a “Hindu society”, their treatment of lower caste and outcastes puts into perspective any lazy self-congratulatory arguments about “amazing liberalism”. 

About the claims of temple desecration by Sultanate and Mughal rulers. Again, this is the central plank of Hindutva brigade: an assertion more than a reasoned stance. Based on reading some of the more recent scholarship on the subject, here is what historians broadly agree on (see the work of Richard Eaton on the subject):

1. Were there temple desecrations? Yes. 
2. Did Muslim rulers destroy temples? Yes.
3. Were there thousands of temples destroyed? No. 
4. Did Hindu rulers also destroy temples? Yes. 
5. Why? Because destroying opponent’s temples were often a way to assert political domination, since rulers were usually the patrons of temples. 
6. Did Mughal rulers offer support and act as patrons to temples. Yes

Mr. Anand Vardhan states that he identifies with the Hindu project, and approves of making it more martial. Like Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and Swami Vivekanada from the late nineteenth century, he wants Hinduism to acquire a martial stance. Firstly I should point out Mr. Vardhan’s unfortunate association of “‘feminizing” with weakness, and valor with masculinity. But more broadly, the need to make Hinduism more muscular only reflects the insecurities of Hindutva supporters about their religion. But it reveals more about them than Hinduism. Hinduism certainly does not have any reason to feel this insecure. It is not the Hinduism I was born into or the one my family practices. This attitude is not only anti-intellectual, it also makes India, and Hinduism look narrow minded, brittle, and insecure.

But Mr. Vardhan’s views on the “Hindu Project” explains why he needs to believe in the myth of the evil Muslim ruler. It also follows, quite clearly, why he believes the Right in India should avoid intellectualism. But if he wants to completely ignore intellectual arguments and scholarship, he should make clear that he does not wish to back his assertions with fact. You cannot have it both ways. Either match serious scholarship with serious scholarship, or cede that you are opposed to specialists and don’t care about the truth, and would rather believe any theory that conduces to the building of a martial Hindu ethic. 

The past should not be litigated based on the present. It needs dispassionate analysis, like in every other academic discipline. I should add that I am not opposed to any conclusions that genuine scholarship might come to. For example, if there is new historical work that proves, with rigorous scholarship, that the medieval period in India was one of bigotry towards non-Muslims, then I am willing to reassess and even change my views. But I await that piece of scholarship. Till then, I will follow the evidence just as I suspect Prof. Rangarajan does in the lab, and the rest of the Hafta team does in their journalism.

 As an academic, I am skeptical of all cultural systems and religions. And historically speaking they all have blood on their hands. India has reason to be proud of its indigenous culture and religions. And I, as an Indian, am very proud of the richness of our long religious traditions. But no religion has a monopoly on vice or virtue.

Best wishes,

Nikhil Menon

PhD Candidate

Department of History

Princeton University