The Cartel's 'Theories'

I had planned a second part to my earlier article (The Peer-ReviewCartel) to explorethe cartel issue in further depth. But given the misunderstandings reflected in Vijay’s response (Po-Mo, Neo-Lib...And Shoddiness) I shall restrict this piece (and its companion) to responding to it. 

Vijay complained that"Rajiv jumps on another horse," because I moved between discussing political issues of peer-review andissues of Western-centric cultural theory. However, these are indeed two distinct though interrelatedcriticisms that I make, one challenging the academic cartel’s discriminatory practices due to the power ofcertain vested interests and the other questioning the shortcomings of certain "theories." Both phenomenareinforce each other. Theories sustain and privilege the established power structure. Conversely, the dynamicsresulting from this asymmetrical structure tend to cultivate "theories" that justify and preserve theunderlying power relationship. The cartel flies on both wings.

I clarify this dualist nature in The Peer-Review Cartel with the following statement: 

"There are twolevels of abuse: the general blindness of the episteme, as Foucault would put it, and the incestuous powerrelationships that prevent even people who know better from blowing a whistle. One is an intellectual problemof method and perspective, and the other is a "governance" issue within academics. Both are pernicious,but they are not the same. The former requires the guild to open itself up, while the latter requires dealingwith in-house corruption."

To correct the misperceptions apparent in Vijay’s article, I have structured my response into twoseparate articles: This article deals with issues of theory, and a separate one in parallel deals with issuesof power imbalance and non-transparent academic governance. In this article, I will address Vijay’smisunderstandings by clarifying the following:  

a) The theories I criticize are literary theories dealingwith culture and are not scientific (as in the natural sciences). Vijay drags in science as a diversion fromthe discussion on cultural theories. 

b) On science (even though it is off-topic), I have opposed the project of"Vedic Science" / "Hindu Science" very publicly, and this was after considerable debate beforelaunching our own History of Indian Science and Technology project (i.e. the Needham project for India). Yet,Meera Nanda (whom Vijay quotes as his authority) has foisted false allegations on me. Furthermore, Nanda’scritique suffers from her ignorance about the academic discipline called "Science and Religion" that isprominent in Western universities. Just as I reject "Vedic Science," I also consider notions like "LeftistScience" to be equally nonsensical. I shall point out that Nanda’s error is the result of a confusionbetween correlations and causation.

c) The theories I deal with in my critique of the cartel are not merelyabout postmodernism, but cover the entire tool-box of literary/critical theories that are the staple inliberal arts.

d) The scholars of Indian culture cannot claim to be using "empiricism," if that term is tobe judged according to the standard of science. It is just another example of liberal arts scholars wanting toassociate with symbols (in this case from science) to upgrade their personal symbolic portfolios. 

Inessence, I will take the position that science is neither "Vedic", nor "Western", nor "Leftist,"nor to be mixed up with "cultural theory". This will hopefully free us from this diversion to return todiscuss the cartel’s cultural theories. Vijay misses the point of my use of Sokal’s Hoax. I explainedin my prior article that using that example had nothing to do with one’s philosophical positions. I wrote:"This essay does not take any stand on either side of the universalism/relativism debate in philosophy [ofscience] that Sokal is involved in." Therefore, Sokal’s loyalty to the left or to any epistemology isirrelevant to his demonstration that theories often blind the editors of prestigious journals in liberal arts.While Vijay may try to disown this example as not pertaining to his own ideology – sort of like saying, "thisdoes not happen to us leftists because we run fool-proof journals" – it is illustrative of the academicsystem in liberal arts/social sciences at large. 

Science is neither "Vedic," nor "Western," nor"Leftist" 

I have rejected theories of "Hindu" or "Vedic" science. I have given one of theproponents of these theories my list of what he must produce in a concrete and verifiable manner in order tohave any scientific case at all. He has yet to come back to me. But Meera Nanda gives them far too much creditfor understanding the philosophy of science and postmodernism. 

When The Infinity Foundation started theproject to develop a twenty-volume set on Indian science modeled on Needham’s magnum opus, we took greatcare to exclude any scholar with the "Vedic Science" mindset. I raised the issue of "Vedic Science"with the team of scholars, just to make sure that we had common ground rules. We discussed that while Sanskritwas very important in many other contexts, in this particular project we would exclude any claim that wassolely based on Sanskrit texts, because it would introduce controversies about dating the texts, determiningthe geographical origins of the texts, and about interpretation. We would rather focus on compiling theenormous academic-grade material that already exists based on empirical (physical) evidence. We decided tostick to concrete areas like textiles, steel, medicine, agriculture, shipping, water-harvesting, etc., forwhich the primary evidence is archeological and not classical texts.  

I used the following example todrive the point home: If one day archeologists find an ancient spacecraft, then, for sure, it would be withinthe bounds of this project to inquire about the claims of space travel. Pending such a physical discovery,mere reference in a text about travel to other planets cannot be admitted as scientific evidence, becauseliterature could also be metaphorical, fictional, poetic or otherwise imaginary. 

We wanted the project’soutput to be credible among scientists of the highest caliber. The project team agreed on the followingposition, which is excerpted from the project web site:

 "Some writers have tended to exaggerate claims ofIndian scientific accomplishments, by stretching statements written in classical texts. Based on such textualreferences, for which there is no physical evidence as of now, they have concluded that there was space travelin the Mahabharata, along with nukes, intergalactic missiles, and just about every modern hi-tech item. Thishas justifiably earned them the term "chauvinists," and the entire activity of writing about Indianscience has become discredited, thanks to them. IF considers it very important to distance itself from suchdiscredited scholarship. This is why the series being described here is being built on solid academicscholarship only, and not on wild extrapolations. IF believes that researching unsubstantiated claims aboutold knowledge has its place, but that facts must be separated from unproven hypotheses. Therefore, IF’sproject does not include Puranas as scientific sources. There is no reason to cloud the issue..." 

MeeraNanda’s disingenuous juxtapositions: 

Unfortunately, however, Meera Nanda disregarded the rules ofevidence before drawing conclusions, and wrote [Postmodernism, Science and ReligiousFundamentalism]: 

"How do these postmodern arguments play in the construction of Hindu sciences?...First, the moresophisticated, Western educated ideologues among Hindu nationalists (notably, Subhash Kak, David Frawley, N.S.Raja Ram, K. Elst, Rajiv Malhotra and his circle of intellectuals associated with the Infinity Foundation),have begun to argue...that modern science, as we know it, is only one possible universal science, and thatother sciences, based upon non-Western, non-materialist assumptions are not just possible, but are equallycapable of being universalized."  

I posted the following response on-line where her article waspublished [15/11/2003]: 

I was surprised to see my name in this article, especially amongst thoseclassified as believing in Vedic Science. As a physicist by training, I am well aware that there is ONEuniversal set of scientific laws. I don’t believe in postmodernism or any form of cultural relativism whenit is applied to the natural sciences. There is neither any Vedic Science nor any Hindu science, just asNewtonian Laws are not Christian, and nor are Einstein’s theories Jewish laws.

At the same time, I do believe that there have been considerable Indian contributions to science that havegone unacknowledged. Therefore, The Infinity Foundation has launched a 10-year project to publish a 20-volumeseries similar to the seminal work by Joseph Needham on China, except that our series will be on Indianscience. What makes it Indian is not a unique epistemology but that it was Indians who did it. For details onthis project and its current status, please visit: Indianscience.org

A policy that was explicit clarified right up-front was that Indian science for our project does notinclude claims based on textual reference that "might" be interpreted as science. The acid test isphysical empirical evidence. For instance, the focus of the books so far has included: steel and metallurgy;ship-building; agriculture; medicine; water harvesting; textiles; civil engineering; etc. [nothing evenremotely linked to "Vedic".]

We have distanced ourselves from claims of space travel in Mahabharata, atomic weapons and other exotic andfar fetched ideas that require extrapolating the Sanskrit texts with speculation. At the same time, we are notdenouncing such claims that others make, the fact being that they cannot be proven or dis-proven as of now. Sowe simply exclude them, rather going out of our way to denounce them as many writers have made a career doing.We simply wish to focus on the monumental task based on physical-empirical evidence we have set out to do.

Therefore, it was disheartening that Meera Nanda, with no empirical evidence or homework, made outlandishclaims about my position on these matters. It goes to show the sloppy and over-politicized state of Indianscholarship. It is the blind leading the blind, since the colonial masters seem to have built a wholegeneration of English language based babus and neo-brahmins, who can simply mug-up and copy the standard line,even without verifying the facts. They will, undoubtedly, be able to market their services and accents tocall-centers profitably.

Finally, I have no relationship with Frawley, Elst and the whole "Hindutva scholar’s" lot, and nor doI share in Hindutva political ideology.

Hopefully, Nanda in future will bother to establish contact with third parties and ask them for theirpositions directly, along with backup data, rather than insinuating based on her own wild extrapolations orfourth-hand information to brand people simplistically. It is dangerous to place everyone in a few fixedboxes, and Nanda seems good at doing that. There is a whole cottage industry of brown sahibs good with theEnglish language feeding whatever the dominant culture rewards them to dish out. Their criticism is sopredictable and now overdone. It’s time for their sponsors to send them new scripts. Why don’t they wantto have open dialogs with opponents, in forums where both sides get equal and fair time to respond? I would behappy to accept such an invitation. Why is Demonology the accepted methodology to avoid the real issues athand?

For any further details on my work please contact directly at: Rajiv.malhotra@att.net 

Unfortunately,by blindly quoting Nanda, Vijay goes down the slippery slope right behind her. Furthermore, Nanda does notlive up to Vijay’s view that leftists should be open to dialog with others, because she has not evenacknowledged my public comment above. (In her defense, I did notice that she removed my name in subsequentwritings from her list of scholars whom she accuses of just about everything political that comes to mind.) 

Nanda must first ask me (in the same above-board spirit as I started this debate by sending Vijay mylist of issues/questions) to explain my views on whatever topic she likes. It must be clear by now that I amhardly shy in expressing my opinions openly. Then she would have every right to criticize whatever I standfor. That’s the purva-paksha Indian tradition (which, by the way, is neither Vedic nor Hindu specific!), anddiffers radically from the tradition of opponent-is-evil demonology by the Indian Left. Clearly, she lacks abasic understanding of my views on these matters and merely imputes my positions based on hearsay andpolitical fads. Meera Nanda has fallen into the trap of hit-and-run politicized scholarship. 

Vijay’sremark about astrology in Indian colleges is a delayed echo of what I wrote years ago when the program wasannounced. I had felt strongly that this ill-advised program would discredit Indian science. I would haveliked instead to see a program introducing research on mental health and meditation, yoga and health, andAyurveda – each being actively researched at several mainstream institutions around the world for manyyears.  

The Kira Group

Let me also give the other side of this epistemological debate, of whichVijay may not be aware. Bas van Frassen (a professor in the philosophy department at Princeton University)sees nature as text that is being read by scientists. There is therefore the potential for the application ofsome literary theory principles to his philosophy of science. He develops non-dualistic theories withoutacknowledging the Vedantic or Madhyamika Buddhist influences that are fundamental to some of his work. One ofhis major postulates is that the subject-object mutually sustain each other rather than having separateinherent existences. Despite being one of the most eminent philosophers of science in the world, he isdiscouraged from such lines of inquiry by his academic peers. So he has a parallel intellectual life, using aprivate non-academic group (called The Kira Group) along with some other well-known academicians. Some yearsback, The Infinity Foundation gave a research grant to their group enabling its pursuit ofoff-the-academic-record ideas on the philosophy of science. This resulted in the creation of severalinteresting papers/discussions that eventually fed back into academic discourse.