25 Apr 2015

Sampdas on Jayantilal Parekh’s Article on Sri Aurobindo Ashram

It is no surprise then that the  Wellwishers of the Ashram Trust, knowing too well which side of the bread is buttered, have no qualms about keeping quiet when Sri Aurobindo himself is derated, but take up cudgels and loudspeakers on behalf of the Trustees. The guidepost for them is that those who question the wrong actions of the Trust are necessarily heretics and their actions are blasphemous. However, on their part, they are prone to take the easy path of “we see no wrong, we hear no wrong, we speak no wrong” on the actions of the Trust. They expect that wrongs against the Divine and sadhaks be not addressed at all by chanting the rhetoric, “the Trustees can do nothing wrong and people should accept everything that they do with the non-questioning maxim of conduct that “thou shalt not think or reason or question the Trustees even if they are wrong.” Their fundamental fallacy owes to the misplaced identification of the administrative outfit of the Ashram Trust with the Ashram itself. [extract – read full article below]
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19 Apr 2015

Comment by an Ashram inmate who has been deeply pained by the Heehs Affair

The problem is not so much with the likes of Heehs and Doniger. Born in an alien culture, fed by the staple diet of Freudianism or else serving the cause of a militant Church, they are true to their dharma not caring about what the world may say about them. But what about us Indians who neither read nor think for themselves? Look at what happened with the Heehs issue.
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17 Apr 2015

“The Hindus: An Alternative History” by Wendy Doniger ― Review by Ali Sheikh

There you have it. Weird Hindu doomsdays. Sex-crazed kings. Cruel gods. Men marrying dogs. Phalluses everywhere—some erect and some flaccid. Ladies and gentlemen, we finally have an alternative history of Hinduism. And yes, left uncontested, in all likelihood these are the “insights” a whole new generation of students and researchers might learn, internalize, and cite in future scholarly works. [Extract – read full review below]
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12 Apr 2015

Comment on Jayantilal Parekh's article on Ashram – by Shiva

On 14th March the League of Lost Logicians a.k.a. Well Wishers of Sri Aurobindo Ashram reproduced “The Sri Aurobindo Ashram and its Administration”, an article published in Mother India in June 2001, which was “explicitly written in the backdrop of adversely critical articles that were being planted by anti-Ashram elements in the various newspapers and journals in order to malign the Ashram”, by which it means the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust (SAAT) of the day. The article, more rightly a brochure, was undoubtedly compiled-written by the self-appointed ‘archivist-scholars’ of the Archives & Research Department set up by Jayantilal Parekh and since it was based on his viewpoint, it was hung round his neck.
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7 Apr 2015

A Defence of Hinduism – by Amal Kiran

[Article approved by Sri Aurobindo and first published in Mother India on May 27, 1950]

Recently a well-known leader of the scheduled classes, announced his desire to embrace Buddhism because of the lot of the “untouchables” in Hindu society - a lot which seemed to him a pointer to a lack in Hinduism of the sense of human brotherhood. He also declared that if Hinduism bore the caste system for several centuries it had failed “to yield anything substantive”. According to him, Buddhism stands in striking contrast to this religion.

What shall we say to these highly “allergic” criticisms?
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2 Apr 2015

It is time to speak up against the Hinduphobia of foreign writers: Vamsee Juluri

March 29, 2015, 6:00 am IST Narayani Ganesh in Treasure Hunt | India | Times of India

Vamsee Juluri, professor of media studies at the University of San Francisco, speaks up for the anonymous Hindu who, he says, was silent all those years of colonial rule only to be criticized as an ‘oppressor’ post-Independence. His new book ‘Rearming Hinduism’ seeks to restore to the millennia-old faith its intellectual heritage by reintroducing Hinduism to Hindus. Juluri tells Narayani Ganesh that foreign ‘experts’ have only contributed to the misconceptions
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