Battle for Indian History: How to fight it, and how not (part 1) – Virendra Parekh

1 – A history in service of rulers

Indian history is a battlefield. Hindu nationalists fight off invading colonial canards and Marxist mumbo jumbo of materialistic interpretation of history. Secularists, alarmed by the saffron surge, sound shrill warnings against communalization of history writing. Stalinist activists masquerading as historians girdle up to resist intrusion of sundries (i.e. anyone outside their clique) onto their turf in media, academia and research institutions. Muslim scholars resist attempts to portray Islam and Muslims as villains. Academic historians raise their hands in despair at politicization of the past to serve current needs. And the new generation just wonders why there is so much fuss over an age that is dead and gone.

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Sri Aurobindo was a Terrorist, says Peter Heehs – by Krish Patwardhan

Sri Aurobindo was a Terrorist, says Peter Heehs, in his book Nationalism, Terrorism, Communalism – Essays in Modern Indian History, published by Oxford University Press in 1998. The fourth impression of the book was published in 2011 and the present administration of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, has been quietly sitting back enjoying the vilification of Sri Aurobindo by an American inmate of the Ashram. 

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Sri Aurobindo and the Hindu-Muslim problem – By Prof. Kittu Reddy

There is widespread belief among a certain section of intellectuals and historians – both Indian and abroad – that Sri Aurobindo was responsible for the partition of India and the consequent blood letting and other problems that followed. The reason given to justify this position is that Sri Aurobindo during his active political career stressed heavily on Hinduism and on Hindu nationalism and this provoked a natural and inevitable reaction among the Muslims; this reaction led ultimately to the formation of Pakistan. [extract]

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An Atrocious Biography – by RY Deshpande

|| The Lives of Sri Aurobindo || 

An Atrocious Biography 

is now available on Amazon at

https://www.createspace.com/4992004

 

A Preview
An Atrocious Biography by RY Deshpande

[This is a book critiquing Peter Heehs’s The Lives of Sri Aurobindo published by the Columbia University Press, US, in May 2008.]

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Analysis of the Preface of Peter Heehs’ "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo" (Bio-2 – part 5) – A Zombified Disciple

Murders in the Land of the Naïve – 7

Heehs wrote Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography, OUP, 1989 (Bio-1), The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, CUP, 2008, (Bio-2) & much else in the same vein.[1] I analyse his prefaces using his device critical openness of a seeker of truth & his diktat: Biographers must take their documents as they find them…, paying as much attention to what is written by the subject’s enemies as by his friends, not giving special treatment even to the subject’s own version of events. Accounts by the subject…need to be compared against other narrative accounts…that do not reflect [his] point of view. The pseudonym ‘Marcher’ is a fusion of his forebears Catherine Mayo (1867-1940) & William Archer (1856-1924), though Marcherism – degrading the Sanatana Dharma & vilifying the greatest children of Mother India – was born centuries before Mayo-Archer. The entire credit for his thriving at the expense of his subject and his ashram goes to his Daemon, a special emission of “the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule the earth-Nature”.[2]

All text in Italics is from Bio-1, Bio-2 & their prefaces; all in Roman is mine. I have often interspersed my comments in Roman within Marcher’s text which is always in italics.

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Analysis of the Preface of P. Heehs’ The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, CUP, 2008 (Part 4) ― A Zombified Disciple

Murders in the Land of the Naïve – 6

Heehs wrote Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography, OUP, 1989 (Bio-1), The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, CUP, 2008, (Bio-2) and much else in the same vein.[1] I analyse Bio-1 and 2 and their prefaces using his device critical openness of a seeker of truth and his diktat: Biographers must take their documents as they find them…, paying as much attention to what is written by the subject’s enemies as by his friends, not giving special treatment even to the subject’s own version of events. Accounts by the subject have exceptional value, but they need to be compared against other narrative accounts, more important, against documents that do not reflect a particular point of view.

All text in Italics is from Bio-1, Bio-2 and their prefaces; all in Roman is mine. I have often interspersed my comments in Roman within Marcher’s text which is always in italics.

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Analysis of the Preface of P. Heehs’ The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, CUP, 2008 (Part 3) – A Zombified Disciple

Murders in the Land of the Naïve – 5

Peter Heehs wrote Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography, OUP, 1989 (Bio-1), and The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, CUP, 2008, (Bio-2), and a life-sketch.[1] My attitude and approach to Bio-2 Preface is empowered by its own diktat: Biographers must take their documents as they find them…, paying as much attention to what is written by the subject’s enemies as by his friends, not giving special treatment even to the subject’s own version of events. Accounts by the subject have exceptional value, but they need to be compared against other narrative accounts, more important, against documents that do not reflect a particular point of view. I take this preface at face value, compare it against other narrative accounts and facts that do not reflect its version of events, and analyse it with its device – critical openness of a seeker of truth. In the resultant exposé, Lives of Marcher, ‘Marcher’ is a fusion of his forebears Catherine Mayo (1867-1940) and William Archer (1856-1924), though Marcherism – degrading the Sanatana Dharma and vilifying the greatest children of Mother India, was born centuries before Mayo-Archer. Peter Marcher Heehs first encountered Sri Aurobindo in 1968. To encounter means to meet face to face, defy, oppose, confront. Of the too few exposed Marchers, ours alone continues to thrive at his subject’s expense. But its entire credit goes to his Daemon, a special emission of “the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule the earth-Nature”.[2]

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Analysis of the Preface of Peter Heehs’ The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, CUP, 2008 (Part 2) – A Zombified Disciple

MURDERS IN THE LAND OF THE NAÏVE – 4

Note: In this analysis, as in the previous, Peter’s words are in Italics and mine are in Roman.

Peter’s Attitude and Approach–D): (1) I first encountered Aurobindo [in an April 1950 photo] in 1968 in a yoga center on 57^th Street in Manhattan…I did not find it particularly remarkable…. A few months later…I found myself in another yoga centre…on Central Park West. Here there were just three pictures on the wall, one of them the standard portrait of Aurobindo (Figure 1). I was struck by the peaceful expanse of his brow, his trouble-free face, and fathomless eyes. It would be years before I learned that all these features owed their distinctiveness to the retoucher’s art…. (2) Figure 2 is photograph of Aurobindo taken around the same time as Figure 1. Note the dark, pockmarked skin, sharp features, and undreamy eyes. (3) As far as I know, it did not appear in print before 1976, when I published it in an ashram journal. (4) To me Figure 2 is infinitely more appealing than Figure 1. (5) There is hardly a trace of a shadow between the ears, with the result that the face has no character. The sparkling eyes have been painted in; even the hair has been given a gloss. As a historical document it is false. As a photograph it is a botched piece of work. (6) But for many, Figure 1 is more true to Aurobindo than Figure 2. (7) In later life, his complexion became fair and smooth, his features full and round. Figure 2 thus falsifies the “real” Aurobindo. (8) It is the task of the retoucher to make the photograph accord with the reality that people want to see. Hagiographers deal with documents the way that retouchers deal with photographs. Biographers must take their documents as they find them.

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Bireshwar Choudhury Replies to "World Union"

[Bireshwar Choudhury has replied to the comments of a netizen who calls himself “World Union” – may God bless the latter in this great endeavour! His comments were made in reference to the previous post on this site, “An Analysis of the Preface of Peter Heehs’s “The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, CUP, 2008 ― A Zombified Disciple”.]

Bireshwar Choudhury: I am facilitating the World Union by pointing out the differences of opinion between self-respecting Indians and spiritually insensitive Westerners like Peter Heehs. These Westerners assume that everybody thinks the way they do, and when Indians disagree with them, they immediately dismiss them as fundamentalists because they generally have no other answer.

World Union: Since this controversial book has come out and your site created, you've written long, extremely long posts trying to counter Peter's book. You are free to have your viewpoint just as anybody else. I'm sure you're free to write a book just like Peter did.

Bireshwar: I am also free not to write a book and continue this fight on the Internet if it pays more dividends. The Internet is much more accessible to us and others.

World Union: Instead of pouring out all your anger on your site, I suggest you write a whole book countering Peter's book and proving through it how great Sri Aurobindo actually is, for it seems you believe that the world needs to be proved how great Sri Aurobindo is.

Bireshwar: If you call what we write merely the expression of anger, then why don’t you stop reading it and complaining about it?

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An Analysis of the Preface of Peter Heehs's "Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography", OUP, 1989

MURDERS IN THE LAND OF THE NAÏVE — 1

Peter Heehs wrote two biographies: Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography, OUP, 1989 (Bio-1), and The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, CUP, 2008, (Bio-2). He also planted a life-sketch of Sri Aurobindo in an anthology of Indian saints, maybe to test the tactic used in Bio-1 and imply Sri Aurobindo’s rank among them. This part of my article scrutinises Bio-1’s Preface, the second will scrutinise that of Bio-2. The third part will compare a few of the facts and interpretations in both vis-à-vis relevant facts from what Peter calls variant accounts.

* * *

Preface of Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography, 1989, (Bio-1)

This is a masterpiece of well-sculpted elusiveness. Peter’s full positions on specific points are cut up, altered, implanted in unrelated arguments or explanations. To unravel a full position and weave the pieces in an unbroken paragraph, I had to repeat and remerge them with their soul-mates in several passages. In the section “Peter’s attitude and approach”, his text is in Italics and mine in Roman, hoping to make the overall reading smooth and comprehensible.

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The Curious Case of Peter Heehs, Indian Historians and Media

Nearly two months back, on the 15th of April [2012], the Indian media swayed with ecstatic joy singing paeans of Justice and liberalism. Why, what happened? Did the Supreme Court pass orders to hang Modi or was Sri Sri Ravi Shankar sent to an asylum in the forests of Africa or had US moved a resolution in UNHRC for s in Gujarat, Kashmir or Assam or had the Govt of India declared Ramachandra Guha as The Jewel Of India? No, a new star from the west had risen on the horizons of India and Indian Civilization, a star that had outshined Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Paramahansa, Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and for that matter anyone whom millions of foolish Indians had been calling as Avatara till date. A new discovery was made, a discovery that has outsmarted Newton and Archimedes and that is supposedly to change the very destiny of India. This discovery happened after 40+ years of research work in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. Once the discovery was made, as is the convention, it was sent to scientists who have authority over the subject like Ramachandra Guha, Ashish Nandy, Sagarika Ghose, Arnob Goswami, Nidhi Razdan etc and finally on the 6^th of Feb in the esteemed CNN-IBN Laboratory for the Decimation of Indian Spirituality and Spiritual Leaders, it got the approval from the senate and Peter Heehs, the scientist, got acknowledged all over the world. The magnitude of the impact of this discovery can be gauged by seeing the effusive reception with which the Historians and Indian media received him in jubilant chorus on 15^th April. Since then pantheons of India’s vibrant democracy have written a plethora of articles enlightening how this discovery shall change the course of world. The more I have been reading these articles, the more my respect for these guys has been increasing, and now you see it has reached its boiling point and is finally bubbling here in this article. 

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The Book that Bombed -- by Krish Patwardhan

On reading the Lives, you get the impression of a monkey who plays to the audience by constantly jumping from one branch of learning to another without assimilating anything. The monkey often breaks some of the branches in a fit of rage, sometimes the very branch on which it was sitting a few minutes ago, and is so restless that it cannot settle anywhere on the tree!

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An Excerpt from Swami Tyagananda’s Rebuttal of "Kali’s Child"

[Here is an excerpt from Swami Tyagananda’s brilliant rebuttal of Jeffrey Kripal’s Kali’s Child (1995) on Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa. The filth in Jeffrey Kripal’s book is perhaps more shocking to us than Peter Heehs’s Lives of Sri Aurobindo. But there is one interesting similarity between them – both cheat with their documentation. It is not only the distasteful topics they discuss (the alleged homosexual relationship of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa with Swami Vivekananda or Sri Aurobindo’s romantic relation with the Mother), but also the way they arrive at these preposterous conclusions on the basis of flimsy and wrong documentation. The first objection to their lack of taste and refinement can be dismissed as a cultural difference between the East and the West (though even here I would disagree), but how can you dismiss the second? Proper historical documentation and intellectual honesty go beyond cultural barriers and are indispensable for writing the history of any great men. There is no such thing as a Western and Eastern (or Indian) method of historical documentation. The fundamental rules of scientific documentation apply everywhere, whether in the East or the West. This is how Swami Tyagananda stumps Jeffrey Kripal in his rebuttal. Likewise, many of the articles on this site have exposed Peter Heehs’s wilful misrepresentations of Sri Aurobindo’s life.

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The Jinxed Book – Dr. Jitendra Sharma

Peter Heehs, without any academic qualification, 

has written the jinxed book

American writer Peter Heehs, without any academic qualification, has written the jinxed book “The Lives of Sri Aurobindo”. He dons the garb of a researcher, a devotee and an impartial biographer. He writes a few pages in the book insinuating that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had a romantic relationship and Sri Aurobindo’s personality had some elements of ‘schizophrenia’, inherited from his mad mother, which were the root causes of his mystical yogic powers and supernatural experiences.

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The Trust's Declaration and its Falsehood ─ Ranganath Raghavan

The Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust has put out a declaration in public which includes this passage:

The considered view of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust is that it does not project itself in the role of dictating to readers and followers of Sri Aurobindo, as to what they should read and what they should not read. Each person is at complete liberty to decide for himself whether he finds any book to be meaningful and useful, or whether he does not find it to be so, and Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust respects and has full faith in the intellectual and  spiritual discernment of the readers. No one should or needs to force his personal opinions on any other reader in general, and more particularly on the followers of Sri Aurobindo.

The intention is obviously to convey to the public at large how large-hearted and how catholic is their view, how open and wide-minded, how impartial, how devoid of parti-pris they are. They are literally advertising their “tolerance”. They want people to know how freely they let Ashramites exercise their freedom of speech, and how non-interfering their stand is.

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AEON Group of USA condemns Heehs’ Book and the Hypocrisy of Ashram Trustees

[References to names have been edited wherever they are not relevant to the main message. – General Editor]

Article by Robert E. Wilkinson

On

The Sri Aurobindo Ashram Reaps what it has Sown

From: "Robert E. Wilkinson" <robtw@sprynet.com>
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2012 10:57 PM
Subject: The Sri Aurobindo Ashram Reaps what it has Sown

Namaste,

This essay is being sent out to educators, writers, and students throughout the world who have distinguished themselves as supporters of the incomparable work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. By this time many of you will know that Peter Heehs has been quoted by CNN/IBN as saying that Sri Aurobindo was NOT an Avatar, merely another spiritual teacher. This is an outrage coming from a researcher and long term resident of the Ashram who is expected to be privy to information about Sri Aurobindo that others do not have. What is worse, the Trustees of Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's legacy who have a duty to protest against such a demonstrable lie sit by and do nothing. This clearly identifies the Board as being hostile to the very thing they pretend to uphold confirming Sri Aurobindo's own statement that some of his biggest disciples were Asuras. This cannot be allowed to go on. What is required for Sri Aurobindo's, the Mother's message to rise, take hold and endure is the final unmasking and expulsion of these retrograde forces from the occult seat of their work. This can only be done with irrefutable Knowledge. I hope you will join me in this battle for truth, for Sri Aurobindo's legacy, and for India and the World.

With Best Regards,

Robert E. Wilkinson

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The self-defeating Victory ─ by Dr. Alok Pandey

We must be a happy lot having won the victory of retaining Peter Heehs, the controversial author while ensuring that ambitious men like Sraddhalu, Deshpande, Sudha Sinha, Niranjan Naik have been rendered out of work, their services terminated from the Ashram precincts. After all freedom of Speech is only for the special few and in any case far more important than such outdated stuff like ‘work-offering’ which is mere eyewash for some stupid devotees whose mad brains have picked up words like sadhana, yoga etc. We have kept up the great Indian Tradition of fighting amongst each other while the outsider rejoices. We have also succeeded in distorting great Vedantic truths such as ‘All are one’ by eagerly rushing forward to defend what is false and perverse so that we can be seen as champions of liberal secular thought and be awarded a medal from the fairer race. Has not Peter finally conceded that India upholds freedom of speech? Oh how happy we must be to get this medal from him! We should be grateful that with this new weapon or dharma of freedom he will now write ‘two more encyclopedias on Sri Aurobindo’ as he has publicly declared. We poor Indians and an average illiterate ashram devotee will be enlightened once again with the light of darkness flowing from his powerful pen.  

[click on title for full text] 

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Historical Documentation

When you quote a person who was not there at the time of the event and who scribbles something on the basis of what he has heard from others (whose identity he himself does not know or does not reveal), then you are going against the very fundamentals of historical documentation.  

[extract - click on title for full text]

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Objectionable Extracts from the Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs

The following are the objectionable extracts which got circulated widely in 2008, after which the book got banned. Each extract is followed by a link to a major article refuting it. There are of course many more objectionable passages than those which have been included here; in fact the more closely you read the book, the more you come across the constant hostility (subtle and blatant) towards Sri Aurobindo. There has been a lot of hype about the scholarship that is behind the book. If there is, it is more of the negative kind, that of a scholar who has dedicated his life to denigrate Sri Aurobindo just because his fellow Ashramites adore their Master. And this is done on the basis of flimsy evidence, snipped documents, negative testimony provided by British Govt officials, and sometimes even speculation.  A standard knee-jerk reaction to this rather unflattering assessment is – “How can you dismiss a historian like that?” You certainly can if you have sufficiently studied the documentation of all the negative statements in this book! But how many have the patience and time to do that!

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Decontextualisation

The main defence of Peter Heehs has been the decontextualisation argument. Time and again he has accused his critics of quoting extracts from his book without the surrounding context. But did the adding of the context by him in his revised version of the Extracts change anything? No! Readers remained unaltered in their negative assessment of his book. Why? If the extracts were really decontextualised, then they would have changed their opinion. But let me get into the nitty gritty of this oft-repeat argument of decontextualisation.

[click on title to read the full text]

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