The Battle for Sanskrit: Is Sanskrit Political or Sacred, Oppressive or Liberating, Dead or Alive?

by Rajiv Malhotra

There is a new awakening in India that is challenging the ongoing westernization of the discourse about India. The Battle for Sanskrit seeks to alert traditional scholars of Sanskrit and Sanskriti - Indian civilization - concerning an important school of thought that has its base in the US and that has started to dominate the discourse on the cultural, social and political aspects of India. This academic field is called Indology or Sanskrit studies. As the author avers, from their analysis of Sanskrit texts, the scholars of this field are intervening in modern Indian society with the explicitly stated purpose of removing 'poisons' allegedly built into these texts. They hold that many Sanskrit texts are socially oppressive and serve as political weapons in the hands of the ruling elite; that the sacred aspects need to be refuted; and that Sanskrit has long been dead. The traditional Indian experts would outright reject or at least question these positions, he says.

The start of Rajiv Malhotra's exploration of where the new thrust in Western Indology goes wrong, and his defense of what he considers the traditional, Indian approach, began with a project related to the Sringeri Sharada Peetham in Karnataka, one of the most sacred institutions for Hindus. There was, as he saw it, a serious risk of distortion of the teachings of the peetham, and of sanatana dharma more broadly.

Whichever side of the fence one may be on, The Battle for Sanskrit offers a spirited debate marshalling new insights and research. It is a valuable addition to an important subject and, in a larger context, on two ways of looking. Is each view exclusive of the other, or can there be a bridge between them? Readers can judge for themselves.

Genres: Nonfiction, India, History, Politics, Philosophy, Hinduism, Language

488 pages, Hardcover

Published September 20, 2016

About the author

Rajiv Malhotra is the founder and president of Infinity Foundation. An Indian-American entrepreneur, philanthropist and community leader, he has devoted himself, for the last ten years, to clarifying the many misperceptions about Indic traditions in America and amongst Indians.

He is an active writer, columnist, and speaker on a variety of topics, including the traditions and cultures of India, the Indian Diaspora, globalization, and East-West relations. Rajiv has been appointed to the Asian-American Commission for the State of New Jersey, where he serves as the Chairman for the Education Committee, which was created to start an Asian Studies program in schools. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Red Cross and has volunteered in local hospice and AIDS counseling.

Reviews

[Sathyanarayanan D · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Reflections on “The Battle for Sanskrit” written by Shri. Rajiv Malhotra

Ever since the superimposition of Westphalian concept of nation state on a formerly colonized state or newly liberated territory (i.e., India) from colonial subjugation, the debate whether this land is a single nation state or a state of many nations was kept alive by some forces. Such questions have always helped entrench the alien rule in India primarily by pitting one Indian against the other in the past. These false notions were cleverly constructed by the invaders and were spread systematically through their proxies.

A nation, whose populace is psychologically weak and is a victim of inferiority complex can be enslaved easily. Islamic & Christian subjugation of other cultures was done with relative ease, but when it came to India the foreigners could not apply the same methods with this civilizational state which they have applied elsewhere successfully. Hence, the Christian invaders systematically studied Indian (Hindu) civilization and manufacture perverted interpretations of sacred traditions of India to prove that Hindus were/are a bunch of barbarians and such barbarianism is inbuilt in their tradition.

The sacred tradition has been a single focus of attack for both the invading Abrahamic faiths from since their arrival though the means employed by both of them is different. Leftists have joined the forces only recently and are doing a good job indeed. Islamic invaders employed a more violent method, mainly converting the local population through threat & coercion, or simply eliminate them if they resisted conversion to Islam. Swami Chinmayananda in one of his interviews to a group from Australia said that, “for 400 years Muslims have been demolishing temples in their attempt to destroy Hinduism but they have only grown their biceps and could not destroy Hinduism”.

But the Christian missionaries developed sophisticated methods specific to Indian scenario. Missionaries have realized that if they ever have to destroy this tradition they first have to appropriate its important language which is central to their civilization, i.e., Sanskrit. Hence, a large group of scholars were sponsored by British to understand India’s culture through learning Sanskrit.

Even though the foreign colonial masters are no more in effective political control, their manufactured histories and vulgar interpretations have been continuously used by anti-national forces to disrupt India’s growth and unity. Among such groups, the political left is a peculiar one. Ever since the death of soviet empire their focus has been to divide India on some pretension or the other to make sure that their broader ideological goals are met. It is these communists who have helped Muslim league in partition of India in 1947. They have learnt from the erstwhile colonizers that to de-stabilize a healthy civilization it is required to understand the central components of its culture and tradition, only then it is possible to attack it.

Shelden Pollock is considered as a pioneer of a peculiar type of leftist school in which India’s so called liberals are active members. This school’s main task is to prove through their interpretations of Sanskrit texts that Hindu Civilization is inherently backward & primitive which encourages barbarism. So, they prescribe a special type of cleansing and claim that only they can do it.
It is in these trying times, Shri. Rajiv Malhotra - Indian-American researcher & scholar has mounted a formidable defense through his well-researched new book – The Battle for Sanskrit countering the arguments of a powerful leftist lobby. I have just finished reading it and cannot explain the sunshine I have experienced in words. Thanks to him, we now have a clarity on the subject.

Shri. Malhotra sets his agenda by posing a list of questions he is going to address in this work as a part of the title itself. So, reader has a clear idea and proper motivation to read it further.

Is Sanskrit:
Political or Sacred?
Oppressive or liberating?
Dead or Alive?

While outsiders like Shelden Pollock want to prove that it is political, oppressive and Dead, insiders are not doing enough to respond that it is sacred, liberating and alive. This work is primarily to awaken traditionalists (or Insiders) to rise up to the situation and provide intellectual responses to questions raised by the opposite side and highlight inconsistencies in Pollock’s scholarship.
Before delving deeper it is fundamental to understand the difference between term/s insider and outsider. In my reading it is clear that whoever believes Sanskrit is Sacred, liberating and Alive shall be considered as Insiders. It is entirely possible that the insiders can be foreigners and outsiders Indians. Outsiders share some other common characteristics, they are predominantly atheists, secularists and Communists (actually hardcore believers of Marxism). If we have to assess their commitment to the ideology, i.e., Marxism or communism they are no less than Jihadists or ISIS (Islamic State), just that Jihadists employ murderous violence whereas leftists employ subtlety and obfuscate their ulterior intentions behind liberal notions like democracy, human rights etc., when not in power. But don’t hesitate to indulge in violence when they command absolute power, China (Cultural Revolution) & Stalinist Russia are couple of examples of the recent past.

Shri. Rajiv Malhotra has done a great service by coming up with this work at a crucial time to provoke traditionalists to take up the task of doing Purva-Paksha, in which they were once experts. Though author identifies some 18 issues at the end of the book on which traditionalists ought to focus, I have picked a set of points that shall be of a great interest to all. All positions of outsiders on these items shall be intellectually challenged. Here they are:

1. The insistence to fit Indian civilization in to European experience: Scholars who are trained in western political thought superficially apply it to Indian civilization. Hence they are forced to uncritically use modernity, medieval, post-enlightenment & secularism and other irrelevant terms to explain historical events occurred in this civilization, which often leads to wrong interpretations.

2. Pitting Buddhists against Hindus: It is a lie which British colonialists manufactured to pit one group of Indians against others, to deepen their rule. Often Ambedkar is quoted as an authority and his experience & scholarship is cited as example to say that Hindu civilization encourages violence against Shudras. The million dollar question is why Ambedkar chose Buddhism instead of Islam & Christianity? Leftists feign ignorance on this topic.

3. Aryan-Invasion theory: Among a bunch of lies East India Company perpetuated to create a conflict between North and south Indians, this had a lasting effect, especially in the politics of Tamil Nadu. As a result of which a hate campaign was carried out by some political parties against a group of citizens. This theory has been scientifically debunked by many mainstream scholars, the foremost among them in my opinion is Shrikant G. Talageri who nails it completely, point by point. Pollock school continues to harp on this false theory for its convenience. The Word Dravida is used in Soundaryalahiri. Adi-shankara described himself as Dravida-shishu when he visited North, i.e., child of the land that is surrounded by water on three sides. No literature of India of thousands of years in any vernacular talks about this Aryan-Invasion theory. There is no corroboration from any other sources outside India to this effect. The argument that Aryans came from Central Asia and driven out Dravidians from north to south is a blatant lie.

4. Discounting the violent impact of Christianity and Islam on Hindu civilization: The genocide which Christian missionaries committed in Goa and a systematic elimination of Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh in recent times offers us a glimpse of impact Christianity and Islam had on our civilization. When Pollock says that Muslim or Islamic invaders should not be blamed for India’s cultural degradation, it only highlights his prejudice against Hindus and selective blindness among other things.

5. Recklessly determined to discover barbarism in Sanskrit texts: This is an important plane on which our Home team has to engage outsiders thoroughly. Socialization of these outsiders in a different setup or simply because of being a victim of some ideological dogmas they could not or they don’t want to see the residual sacredness in Sanskrit texts. Let’s consider an example to understand what I am saying. How the death of Karna in Mahabharata can be interpreted by two groups? One could use it to inculcate values to all, this is a sacred approach whereas the others, i.e., outsiders would say that it encourages violence against Dalits and shudras. Sri. Saibaba of Puttaparthi describing the importance and values of good company says that “ it is only with good company you will come in contact with good qualities not with a bad company” he further says that “bad company is deadliest than a venomous snake, a snake would only bite when you step on it accidently or try to tame it, but a bad person injects venom every time you come in to contact with him, look what happened to Karna – The MahaYoddhha who is more powerful than mighty Arjuna, it is just because of his bad company ie., Duryodhana and sakuni he met a tragic end” (This is a loose translation of his speech that is published by Sanathana Sarathi monthly, Hindi edition, December 2015) But the same event will be interpreted by outsiders to say that since Karna was from chariot riders class Arjuna and Krishna killed him due to prejudice again lower class or castes. Hence, Mahabharata encourages violence against lower castes and Dalits etc. It is against lopsided interpretations such as these the insiders have to mount a collective defense. After all in a globalized world, how others think about us also matters.

6. Labelling the efforts to revive Sanskrit as Hindu revisionism: It is incorrect to say that Sanskrit encourages violence against minorities. There is a very big hypocrisy here. If we have to accept the arguments of Pollock school that any attempts to underscore the violence carried out by Islamic rulers for centuries against Hindus, it might turn Hindus against Muslims in the current day, because Muslims of the day have got nothing to do with those who have actually committed violence, then is it also not the case that the leftists effort to unearth atrocities of the past or blowing certain events out proportion will turn Dalits against Brahmins and other social groups within Hindu fold? If this is not hypocrisy then what else is?

7. It is important to show that Politics & sacredness are intertwined in Sanskrit and samskriti: The emphasis of sacredness is only to highlight the importance of morality & probity in conducting politics. If Gandhi says that he cannot imagine politics excluding without religion he is essentially referring to sacred aspects of our Samskriti that is embedded in Sanskrit. It is important to note that barring few bare minimum things there is no insistence on following instructions, it is left to the choice of follower or seeker. Shri. Rajiv Malhotra says in Hindu civilization there is no central authority like Pope in Christianity and Caliph or Mullah in Ummah to enforce religious dogmas. Such an independence only proves that our Samskriti is not only sacred but also politically progressive and liberal.

8. It is important for the insiders to realize that they need not fear English language: It can be self-taught through focused study in short period. It is an underdeveloped language and relatively weak in vocabulary. Forget Sanskrit, it is not even qualified to be compared against some of the vernaculars of India which are highly evolved and rich when it comes to vocabulary and literary strength. For eg: Tamil and Bengali are such powerful languages, if learnt fully the beauty of expression by using them would put Shakespeares of the world to shame.

I totally support the author’s view that we should engage outsiders with all the respect they deserve, which is true to our tradition. It is only through a sustained dialogue we shall be able to fight the powerful cartel of outsiders who occupy a significant space in academia, media and other outlets that controls means of expression and act as gatekeepers of Indian knowledge.
Finally, insiders should learn to read between the lines, and understand true intentions of outsiders. If Pollock refines his responses to a specific audience and praises Sanskrit we should be able to comprehend as to what he really means. In the age of Kali, the fight between Dharma & Adharma is a constant one. Like a relay race if one has completed his lap the other followers of Dharma should pick up the mantle and do their bit. My concern is who will uphold the legacy of Shri. Malhotra and continue with the tradition of Purva-Paksha after him? This is a question all insiders should ponder over. The fact that insiders have not risen to such a standard so far is a matter of serious concern. The hope is that at least now insiders will heed to the clarion call of Shri. Rajiv Malhotra.

[Siddhartha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a path breaking work of scholarship, that should serve as a template for future Indian academic writers exploring the subject of the euphemistically named "South Asian Studies" in the western universities. A well researched work with about 100 pages of notes and Bibliography, staying true to the spirit of Purva-Paksha (systematic study of opponent's position) the author emphasizes.

The subject is a study of the perspective of American Orientalists, especially one Sheldon Pollock, a prominent face of American Indologists with deep connections in India, on the language of Sanskrit and the implications of it in the interpretation of Indian traditions.
Rajiv Malhotra starts with an introduction of Indian studies by Westerners beginning in late 18th century when Warren Hastings hires William Jones to codify Indian texts so Indians could be told they were being governed by their own laws, absolving the colonials from accusations of 'moral turpitude'. Thus began an entire era of studying India with the purpose of codifying it for the west.

Codifying it for the west has been a theme of Indology ever since, more so with Pollock, as this book painstakingly explains. Pollock, to his credit does not claim to be a neutral ans is an avowed Marxist who is on record saying his objective is "we need a new past and ways to make better sense of it".

In a way, this book is as much a respectful counter argument to a hardworking but biased and bigoted scholar, it is a damning indictment of the following:
1. The whole "South Asian Studies" establishment in US and to some extent, Europe, which for all practical purposes, functions like an old boys club with scant regard to due process, academic rigor and rational approach to theorizing. A few examples:
a) Pollock's entire life's work is based on the singular and ridiculous assumption that Oral traditions in Sanskrit are not important. Really ? If a flood destroys every single written word, both digital and analog in the world, only the Vedas will survive it, and can be reproduced as they were, unchanged for a thousand years. And this oral tradition does not count ?And he does not get questioned ?
b) Pollock uses Philology, Anthropology (however anachronistic), Sociology(even if far removed from Indian context) in his interpretation of Veda, Shastra and Kavya, all the while ignoring that Veda is the basis of the oldest spiritual tradition in human history and no one in the academia deems that odd ? It is impossible to separate Iha-Para in the Indian context.
c) Pretty much every major conclusion proffered by Pollock is disclaimed by an acknowledgement of counter references, and an immediate dismissal of them by calling them "insignificant" , "marginal" , "invisible" (whatever that means), "unintentional and entirely irrelevant" etc. Not only that,he acknowledges choosing an interpretation that is in line with the thematic significance of his work. Is this luxury afforded to all social and religious studies or is reserved only for "Hinduism Studies" ? We all know the answer to that right!
d) He makes sweeping statements like "the social and grammatical orders are related by their very nature" without any proof. Again, accepted as a 'theory' at face value.
e) He often contradicts himself. Like when he claims that Sanskrit spread all over South Asia because the people there were primitive and had no culture and Sanskrit occupied a vacuum and in the next few pages, blames Sanskrit for arresting local literary traditions. Again, no eyebrows raised.
2. The academics, media and Indian and American millionaires happy to fund his projects in return for the connections and networking opportunities it provides.

Rajiv Malhotra studies Pollock's corpus of work, which, for all his talk about "liberation philology" and rescuing Sanskrit from elitism, is strewn with archaic idioms and words like 'Empyreal' , 'Cosmogonic Speculation' , 'Morpheme' , 'Mythopoesis', 'Protocommunist Revelations' etc. I am not saying its wrong to show off ones English language skills, i am just saying one should not play liberator while doing so.

From what Rajiv Malhotra quotes of Pollock's works, I found Pollock's modus operandi to be work back from a conclusion, offering selective references to support it, and oftentimes simply base it on an assumption with no evidence to back it. Also seee 1, c) above.

Pollock's understanding of the basics of Hinduism and Indic traditions is regretfully simplistic, for instance, he uses the term 'Sacredotal Isolation'to imply Vedic rishis were only about chanting Mantras while performing Yagnas. He totally misses the fact that most Vedic Rishis were Grihasthas (married householders), who had to deal with famines, hunger pangs and other worldly problems like any Grihasta. He also calls Vedic people primitive and mystic. Does "Let noble thoughts come to us from all directions" sound primitive ?

One of Pollock's significant theories is Indians were fatalistic, they had no concept of progress and they could not produce new knowledge without ascribing it to the Vedas. He offers Shastras as a proof of this theory. Yes. Multiple Shastras. As a proof that no new knowledge can be produced. Just because they ascribe the content to the Vedas ? If this is not Hinduphobia, i do not know what is.

Yet another of Pollock's theories is that Sanskrit is inherently oppressive. For a moment let us not ask that an A/B test be performed for this theory and prove that this theory applies uniquely to Sanskrit and not to any other language, that would be too much for the "South Asian Studies" folks. Lets just examine the arguments against Sanskrit.
1. Did Sanskrit prevent anyone from learning it ? No.
2. Did Sanskrit lead to oppression, genocide and other colonial evils in all the foreign countries in South East Asia it had a prominent place ? No.
Pollock tries to link Nazism to Sanskrit. He goes to the length of trying to associate an influential Greek and Hebrew scholar, Paul Lagarde, who is said to have inspired Hitler with Sanskrit, unsubstantiated and wholly fictional affinity of course. So secure he is in the knowledge that he wont be questioned as long as his conclusions are useful.
His attempts are studied minutely and refuted by a German scholar, Reinhold Guenendahl.
Of course, Pollock is a poster boy of Marxist controlled liberal media all over the world. So no one knows about Guenendahl.

Pollock's interpretation of Ramayana is another topic that deserves its own review, but i will just say that the process of working back from a conclusion describes it perfectly.
His understanding of Ramayana and its characters is driven by his Marxist pathological need to find an oppressed, an oppressor and blame Brahmins while at it. Never mind that it was written by a tribal turned Brahmin and its main antagonist is a Brahmin by birth. Remember "thematic significance". It is applied here.
Just one example: "The status of junior members of the Indian household was, historically, not very dissimilar to that of slaves" says Pollock because Rama goes to forest in Ayodhya Kanda,
while completely ignoring the fact that Rama disobeys Dasaratha's direct order twice in order to uphold Dharma in the same Kanda.

Pollock also has a bizarre reason to date Ramayana after Buddha. He calls it 'Ashokan spirit' in it, whatever it is. I think it is the old Marxist love for Ashoka, the first king in entire world to declare a state religion. But because that religion was not Hinduism, Ashoka is a qualified secular.

The most insidious objective of Pollock and his theories is his political project of winning India for the left. In collusion with the Indian media, most of which is leftist, he helps create a narrative where Hindus are oppressive, Muslims are the oppressed and the Marxists are liberators. Needless to say, Indian leftist journos quote him ad infinitum irrespective of the context to give their narrative a western stamp of approval.
There is more, i will need a second reading too, this is a dense subject.
There is an urgent need for Indians to read this book and engage political opponents in a spirit of Adi Sankaracharya.
Thanks to Rajiv Malhotra for this book. Must read.

[Vineet Menon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for everyone who loves India and it's sanskriti. Rajiv explains how European social science theories which have no relevance in Indian context are changing the topology of Indology and Indic studies including secularism, subaltern studies, marxism, feminism, class struggle, political philology etc.

Using imported theories and substrate, foreign social scientists (including Sanskrit scholars) along with their desi sepoys are widening the fissures and created new ones as well.

He very adeptly explains how and why foreign studies really matters to us Indians and must not be summarily rejected, as happened in Indus-Saraswati Civilization studies and Aryan Invasion Theories, a European indology product lapped up and consumed by mainstream Indian politics.

This book is Malhotra's clarion call for all the traditional sanskrit scholars for writing 'uttara-paksha' for these 'videshi-indology' using his book as a bridge.

[शिखा · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second book of Rajiv Malhotra sir that I read, first one being, Indra's Net. As I turned each page, I began to realize under what great threat our culture is, today. The author has done extensive research in this field. Every true Indian must read this book and contribute to revival of Samskrit thereafter.

[Deepa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Must read for all Indians and others who value history and tradition.

The

[Pradeep T · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read book for every Indian who is a courtesan of Sanskrit. Rajiv Malhotra has established an authoritative argument in this book by enunciating the rejoinders and refutations in the most erudite way and confronted the western narrative of the language Sanskrit.

This book “Battle of Sanskrit” discourses the very same dispute in a comprehensive manner. Apparently, this is a significant work for the many Indologist scholars that are doing their research on Sanskrit since several years. Atrocity literature is not a new phenomenon for our country. It has been an instrument for most of the westerners, politically leftists and communists to perpetrate the abhorrence towards some class of people. Here in this book, the author refers to those westerners that has worked relentlessly to tarnish the importance of Sanskrit and devalued the language as oppressive, politically incorrect, and dead.

This book is not a rabble rousing of Grammar or literature. It is about the politicization of Sanskrit scholarship. It reveals and studies the production of knowledge and intellectual control mechanism in a globalized modern western world. It documents the vested interests of the American orientalists that are wielding control over the Sanskrit tradition from the helpless Indian pundits and thereby break the backbone of Hindu tradition. From the Pollock’s argument it seems clear enough that, Sanskrit is something Nazi. He argues that, Sanskrit in fact encouraged the Hitler of Germany to perform the Jew holocaust.

Read the full review HERE

[Surender Negi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Battle For Sanskrit" is an eye opener book for Indian traditional's, People of India and student of future India. I would like to suggest the readers of this book, pls spread a word abt this book to your children, mate and friends in simplistic manner. This book beautifully defined the future attack by Indian Left, orientalist and UK/US trained secular who want to destroyed this culture for shake of Western Universal-ism. Why should this book need to be read..

1) For understanding the idea behind western universal-ism and their role in digesting Indian culture.
2) For Understanding the our position against this falsely claim about our traditions and history
3) For Understanding the political infiltration through showing Hindus oppressive and primeval
4) For Understanding the western double meaning theory for Sanskrit/Tradition/Rituals/hindus.
5) For Understanding and raise a voice against those who are hinduphopic and want to change our history for some lunatic purpose.

I have decided to educate school children in my approach to teach abt this book and its idea. It will help them to critically think abt western ideology and raise their confidence on Sanskrit and sanskriti. Last thanks to Shri Rajiv Malhotra for writing such vibrant and eye opening book to Indian people like me.

[Praveen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book Rajiv Malhotra has described, with scinitillating clarity, about what is ailing Western Indology these days. He has picked up one representative of what he calls "American Orientalism", the new avatar of erstwhile British Orientalism.
The one Indologist that Rajiv picks up is Sheldon Pollock Sheldon Pollock, probably the strongest proponent of the modern day philology and Orientalism.
I came away with a strong impression that the absence of Indian stakeholders has left the field open for the wildest sort of interpretations of the Indian contexts and texts. Pollock accuses Sanskrit, of all things, of having generated - racialism, Colonialism and Nazism!...Yes you heard it right...
My fellow Indians, in case you were not aware, it was Sanskrit which gave rise to all the evil doings of the Western man...now the White man can let go his burden and sleep with a clear conscience, for he knows now that, when he came to India after conquering half of the world and having started human slavery along the way, he learnt all of this from Sanskrit!
Every Indian needs to be aware about what is going on in the name of Indology!

[Karthik Vaidhinathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book that sumnarizes Pollock's views on samskriti, from an insider's perspective. while I felt Mr. Malhotra could have gone into more details in his response, as he himself says, this is intended as a conversation starter. hoping to see Pollock's response and an expanding of the kshetra with more scholars coming into it on either side.

[Yogi Yogi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating : 10/10

Overview of Content: The book is well structured and runs into 11 chapters. Also adding to the voluminous nature of the book are the detailed appendixes and superb footnotes.

The book starts off by giving a background to the creation of the book i.e. the deal of the North American wing of Shringeri Matha with Sheldon Pollock and its implications for Hindus worldwide. To those who have not heard Rajiv Malhotra’s online talks, the deal would have made Sheldon Pollock the custodian and official voice of this great Hindu matha ( setup by Adi Shankaracharya no less).This puts into perspective the nature of the new (and old) Western Indological attack on Hinduism. Chapter 2 gives a brief but good overview of the previous major assaults by Western thinkers and scholars, mostly late 18th and 19th century and contrasts this with the new assault coming from the US of A. The nayak or hero of the book, Sheldon Pollock makes his appearance towards the end of the second chapter.

Chapter 3 onwards every chapter deals with one aspect of Sheldon Pollock’s work.eg. Chapter 5 shows how Pollock views Ramayana as an oppressive text and also explains the theory he uses to portray it as oppressive (Aestheticization of power). Chapter 7 deals with Pollock’s attempts to show that Bharatiya regional languages are locked in a perpetual state of conflict with Sanskrit. Hence Sanskrit is a villain who needs to be reformed. And how is this reformation going to happen? By getting rid of all that is scared i.e. anything which springs from the Vedas etc. Chapter 8 presents Malhotra’s view on how things can be viewed from our perspective. In this chapter the views of traditional Hindu scholars such as Prof. Satyanath,are presented to refute Pollock’s arguments.

Chapter 9 is very interesting as Pollock’s motivation behind declaring Sanskrit as a dead language are explained in detail. Chapter 10 dissects the hero of the book i.e. Sheldon Pollock. It makes a sad but unsurprising read that the clueless Indian elite gave Pollock the Padma Sri and he is a feted speaker at the secular gatherings such as the Jaipur literature festival. Chapter 11 is the concluding chapter where Rajiv Malhotra offers ideas on the way to rejuvenate Sanskrit and thus decolonize our minds. Some of the recommendations have been made previously by Dharampal etc.



My comment:

I have read nearly all of Rajiv Malhotra’s (RM) books, bar one (Indra’s Net). He is what I would call an “Iterative Kshatriya”, someone who fights, learns and fights again. And gets better and better with each battle. I am a lay reader and not knowledgeable enough to comment on his conceptualisation of Uttarapaksha, Purvapaksha etc. Many would be aware that there is quite a lot of heated debate going on between RM and traditional scholars. A quick Google search will educate you on the various aspects of the debate. One point that has been raised is that RM is not right in his conception about our side of things. But the book is primarily an exposition of a key enemy generals tactics. Whatever discussion occurs representing our side is really to give a contrast between our position and theirs.

The book has to be seen in the overall perspective of the other books RM has published. RM is a reconnaissance scout who is tracing the contours of the intellectual kurukshetra. The key value of the book is that it identifies one of the key shadow enemy generals of this intellectual “Kurukshetra” i.e. Sheldon Pollock. And dissects in minute details the main weapons, strategies and firepower possessed by Sheldon Pollock. Of course with the publication of this book, Sheldon Pollock is probably the most well-known “Sanskritist” and not in a good way either.

Translating Sanskrit or regional language texts into English is a risky affair as Malhotra has demonstrated with the example of the critical edition of the Ramayana. What happens next is that Western Indological vultures descend on the text and pick and choose the bits they want. The crucial aspect is that the ownership of the texts automatically passes from Hindus to the Westerners once a text is translated in English. Consider this situation: India manufactures a path breaking missile, however very generously we decide to give the blueprints (or the Intellectual property) to Pakistan and of course the USA. Without exaggeration this is what happens when our manuscripts are translated into English. The damage that the western distortions of our culture has done and continues to do is immense both in human, cultural and financial terms. We have been undergoing a cultural genocide especially in the last 200 years, which has intensified post-independence.

If we imagine the intellectual world to be a kurukshetra where weapons are words and books, we are now fighting on the enemy’s turf and on his terms. Western Indologists will draw their Hindu opponents deeper into the chakravyuh by escalating the verbosity and absurdity of their theories and analysis. These are semites- they have over 2000 years’ experience of fighting on words. This situation is another reason why the Indology practised in the West and that practised in India has radically differing aims and outputs.

Is it then surprising that Sheldon Pollock is advocating a scenario similar to the East India Company’s strategy- hire an army of native sepoys, who are brave and resourceful and let them do the dirty work. These sepoys who are fluent in Sanskrit and English will then wreak havoc on the traditional way of life. Knowledge of English will then become the arbiter of expertise in Hindu studies.

Those working at various Indological institutions in India (MS, LD, BORI etc.) are genuine scholars and researchers. However purely based on the verbosity and control of English, Western Indologists become the superior arbiters of our heritage.

To nullify this situation we need to practise an “Area Denial Strategy”. The best option is to choke the supply of English translations and kick start the process of publishing commentaries/translations in Sanskrit and regional languages. Extracts of these are then published in local newspapers and plays performed on them. Thus both oral and written aspects are respected. This process was interrupted by the Christian occupation of India since 1800’s. This will have multiple advantages:

It will breathe new life into the regional languages which are now being choked by the weed that is English (a Congress weed).
The re-Sanskritisation of regional languages will also reciprocally enrich Sanskrit.
Gradually the popular vocabulary of the masses will also be rid of the English infestation.
But most importantly in terms of the intellectual kurukshetra, we will have formed our own chakravyuh, where we can intellectually cut them to pieces. Their expertise in our languages is a “gained” one which can easily by disputed by a competent Hindu scholar. Essentially the situation now consists of fighting a defensive holding action (what Malhotra and others are doing) and creating a new battle in this ongoing Mahabharata. This is the stage where we take the offensive.

As a vast corpus of Sanskrit texts is outside India, we don’t have much control over what happens outside. But we can control who comes over here and then accesses the manuscripts. And most importantly we can intellectually tear apart their faulty and agenda driven interpretations.

Another concurrent step (one repeatedly suggested by RM in his talks) is to setup an indigenous ecosystem of journals. And make them the final word on the subject. The papers, in my opinion, should be written in regional languages and Sanskrit and should include a critical evaluation of work done by Westerners. To gain acceptability and credibility, scholars would need to publish in our desi journals. And as a rule quoting Westerners should no longer be a badge of honour.

Sidenote : I told a budding western Indologist some years back, that the study of Bharata should be done by Bharatiyas not foreigners. He was little bit outraged at that.

The book’s typesetting, binding, paper are all industry standard and the font chosen is quite pleasing to the eyes. Overall a high quality product in content and aesthetics. Sometimes RM does get a little repetitive in his writings (found this in previous books as well), but this might be to reinforce the message.

Typo: One aitihasik typo in the book: on pg. 192, Vikramaditya VI is identified as ruler of empire of Karnatas (Vijayanagara) empire. There was no such king. Probably it refers to the Chalukya kings. RM is citing Pollock here, so it might be a gaffe in Pollock’s book.

[Nikhil Pimputkar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before reading this book, I had read 3 books authored by Rajiv Malhotra; namely Breaking India, Being Different and Indra’s Net. Anybody who’s read the author’s works knows that though each book
deals with different issues, each book focuses on 3 kinds of transformations.
-Perspective on history: You unlearn some (false) history and learn (true) history
-Perspective on philosophy mainly philosophy of dharmic traditions.
- Adhyatmika awakening
This book, the 4th one, is no exception.

The story behind the book:
Although it’s a long story narrated in the book, I’ll make it short for the reader. Some wealthy NRIs, teamed up with top administrative leaders of The Sringeri Sharada Peetham established by
Adi Shankar, decided to set up a university chair in the name of Adi Shankar. The academic committee set up to manage this chair was headed by Sheldon Pollock. None of these decision making people seemed to have read any work of Sheldon Pollock. I’ll come to why this is not in our (Indians’) interest later. The book was written to expose Mr. Pollock’s views to Insiders (people
who are living this tradition) and to stop Sringeri Sharada Peetham from funding the chair.

What the book is about:
The subtitle of the book gives some idea of what the book is about. ‘Is Sanskrit Political or Sacred? Oppressive or Liberating? Dead or Alive?’ There are two sides discussed in the book. One side look at Sanskrut from secular lens. They study ancient Sanskrut texts and apply some totally irrelevant theories developed 200-300 years back to the texts. They are not part of living tradition. They think Sanskrut is political, oppressive and dead. The author has called these people ‘Outsider’ . The label ‘outsider’ is irrespective of one’s nationality, race, mother tongue, gender etc. An Indian having above views on Sanskrut is an outsider. The American Academia on Indology is filled with Outsiders. The other side looks at Sanskrut from dhamic lens. They study Sanskrut as it is. They are part of the living traditions called as ‘Sanskriti’ which cannot be separated from Sanskrut. Just like ‘Outsider’, the label ‘Insider’ is not only for ‘Indians’.Although anybody in the world, who thinks of Sanskrut as Sacred, Liberating and Alive is Insider, it’s obvious that most of the Insiders are Indians. The author is an Insider.
The book first gives you brief introduction to European Orientalism and then turns to American Orientalism. The author has taken on Mr. Sheldon Pollock as Mr. Pollock is the strongest player
from the Outsider camp. The author has explained different innovative theories peddled by Mr.Pollock and then given his own rebuttals.

My thoughts on the book:
Born and brought up in India, I was unknown to the myths peddled by Mr. Pollock under the label of academic studies. For example, he says Sanskrit was used by Kings to oppress people. I don’t
know what her meant by ‘oppress’, but it’s not surely slavery and genocides as happened in the West. Take another example, Mr. Pollock said Ramayan was written in post buddha period. He conviniently ignores all the archeological evidences.
One more; Pollock argues that German Indologists of the early 20th century borrowed idea of racial purity and ethnic violence from their study of Sanskrut. This infulece, according to him
contributed the ideology that prompted the Nazi holocaust against the Jews. (page 169). It gets as absurd as it can.
There are many other false theories. I won't go into the details as you'll find details in other reviews.
Just like many others, I used to think "It doesn't matter what they think of us. What we think of our self is important". I was wrong. If you don't oppose them, then they keep on repeating same thing. They build their careers based on one another's work. Cite one another's work in their books. Then some useful idiots, sepoys, in India find such stuff useful and fit for their narratives. Finally it becomes part of our history textbooks. They did this with Aryan Invasion/migration theory. They have successfully created'Upper Caste people have been oppressing lower caste people in India' story. We have framed some our laws based on this. I don't know if Pollock's work has (or had?) similar potential to do same damage but his vast body of work needed to be studied from Insiders' point of views.
At the end of the book, the author has emphasized on the need to have 'Home Team' to counter the Outsiders and more.
This book has helped me just like the other books written by the author did. I unlearned some history and learned more history. e.g. British broke the backbone of Indian education system by closing more than 700000 gurukuls. The book also has a few gems of thoughts which help sadhaks fine tune.
Do read this book to remove 'the burqa on your mind'.

[Bala · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tread with Caution and Curiosity:

Usual supremacist-rant showcasing entire Indian civilization as one sanskriti mono-culture (that's a sly ingenuity I must say - using 'sanskriti' to refer to muti-cultural Indian civilization) while sweeping syncretism and rich argumentative tradition ( between diverse sects or philosophies in India) under the carpet. Not to mention the pseudo-science claims that West is appropriating 'mind-sciences' of India.

One common tactic seen is to brand any liberal humanist approach on human-rights as 'Western', 'Outsider', 'Secular', without inquiring into details of what they are seeking to highlight. Of course, this 'Us vs Them' is the most common weapon in the right-wing toolbox to obscure further inquiry. Or to label any Indian (Hindu or any religion) who seeks to understand the *birth-based or gender-based hierarchy, as missionaries-driven or post-modernist.

While the author is keen to pin the 'West' as trying to accentuate differences among Indians (arising from Caste hierarchies) he doesn't bother to introspect at prevailing poverty and vast inequalities (seen between different strata in Indian society). His favorite refuge is to cry wolf and use 'Hinduism' to deflect any difficult conversations around manipulative social-hierarchies which traces back to scriptures. I'm sure his troop must have played an instrumental role in popularizing the word 'Hinduphobia' such that Indian Hindus naturally get defensive when these difficult topics surface.

When it comes to tracing origin of Sanskrit and migration theories, author would do well to develop some scientific mindset rather than repeating same old tripe that the aryan-migration hypothesis is a foreign ploy to divide and rule. Given that anyone with access to self-publishing can publish self-serving theories online, a random concoction of dubious anecdotes - like the approach usually seen in Indian right-wing media - don't suffice to establish or discredit a theory. As more genomic studies surface these days, audience would be better off referring to peer-reviewed research-articles published in international journals of academic repute (e.g. Nature) to understand peopling of India over many millennia.

Sanskrit ought to be taken back from the clutches of supremacist protectionists (on the right who try to control India's vast intellectual legacy) for the benefit of Indian populace who are interested in understanding good and bad of India's past, through an intellectually honest approach.

* Refer RigVeda Purusha Sukta and Gita 9:32 verse

[Shravan Mishra · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eye opener for every Indian insider, who considers Indian culture and it's tradition as well as Sanskrit to be a heritage. The writer in this book highlights many issues concerning existing threats to Sanskriti and Sanskrit.
Indian liberals and marxist's obviously find this book to be some kind of personal vendetta against Sheldon Pollock but Rajiv Malothra has nowhere in this book unleashed any personal attack on him, rather Rajiv critiques the works of Sheldon Pollock.
This book will surely get you pondering over the identity crises among Indians and will give you an idea as to why do Indians feel a sense of inferiority complex over their Indian identity.
Sanskrit is not just any language, it has deep significance pertaining to our culture and heritage. It is also the source to study our rich ancient past.

[Srikanth · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a great read.The distorted views on Sanskrit and its origins has been exposed.

[Lk Pal · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for all those who have any concern for Indian sanskriti.

[Shivoham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read.

Must read for every Hindu and those who want to study Hinduism. Great work by Rajiv ji in awakening us, Sanatan Dharam followers.

[Rohit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful book on a complex topic.

[Ramaprasad KV · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book to be read by all Indians - I hope to post a more detailed review later. Could have been better.

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 1 out of 5]

Не сегодня, Жозефина. Эта книга - результат неверно понятого названия. Она не про язык, а натурально про подковерную академическую борьбу против назначения на пост завкафедрой какого-то хрена (не индийца), которому хватило мозга обвинить санскрит в браминской спеси и возложить на язык вину за британский колониализм и нацизм. И это примерно третий том на подобные темы (в предыдущих наш улыбчивый автор борется с чем-то другим, мне лень разбираться). Урок здесь разве что в том, что современные "рощи акадэма" решительно невозможно воспринимать всерьез. Но про борьбу - не шутка и не красное словцо: 470 страниц с предметным указателем про то, когда кто с кем встретился и что кому сказал. Кажется, даже отмечено, что они при этом ели.

[Dhaval · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a casual reader then this is not a book for you.

Picking up a Rajeev Malhotra book is always a challenge for me as its not just a book its an arduous intellectual journey that he takes his readers on. You also need to some basic understanding of Indian culture and its history.

This book is no different, he has once again taken a topic close to Indian heart and unearthed systematic misappropriation being undertaken by the neo-colonialists as well as our own Westernized Indian intellectuals who are in position of power every where.

It is painful to see a detailed account on how our culture is deconstructed and repackaged and sold back to us as a component of the grand western narrative.

Mr. Malhotra creates a compelling case on why we need to create a strong home team to taken on this narrative and bring the traditional Indian view to the fore which is much needed as a lot of western ideas and philosophies run out of steam.

As a famous management guru said “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”, so when our culture is being eaten for breakfast we better wake-up and fight for it!

[Anand · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rajiv Malhotra has done great purva-paksha on Shellon pollock. The poster boy of American new orientalist projecting as postmodern liberation.

Rajiv exposes american hegemonic discourse in intellectual/academic world of american.
And Red flags like new Sepoy's PhD's in Sanskrit from american universities, nexus leftist/communist media's with Sheldon Pollock Sepoy's. Spreading venom's on Ramayana under umbrella of as Master in Sanskrit.
And foolishness of Indian billionaire(Murty Classical Library Of India) supporting Sheldon Pollock without doing proper purva-paksha on Sheldon pollock work & his political activism.
Exposing/Red flag's of this work.
"this means the texts are going to be edited and freshly interpreted" as per outsiders, how don't have any emotional bond with Hindu drama. For simple analogy can be "As European/American done for colonized countries & Native american's at intellectual level" done in orientalist times 18th & 19th century.

Book givens idea's counter the existing problem.

"Yah kriyanan sah panditah" Change can be brought about only through action, not by armchair pandits~ page 373

[Himanshu Chauhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rajiv is an intense writer. Battle of Sanskrit is a book to understand the western gaze on Sanskrit which is leading to appropriation and derogation of Indian identity by western scholars through the same lexicography which made colonisation a morally recommended project.
Reading through the book, I realized that though Rajiv is not truly objective. However, this book as explained in the beginning itself is an insider perspective of the Dharmic traditions. It is a must read for all those interested in indology and linguistics.
The arguments are clear and concise, which is hard to expect from other writings of the genre and makes for a great slow read to absorb the intensity of concept and material.

[K. Jaya Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing view at both the macro level and micro level battle being fought by the west to strip other cultures of their intellectual achievements and outputs and claim them as their own. Sanskrit is front and center in that battle (closely flanked by the Aryan Invasion theory, the Dravidian fairy tales, the complete supression of information about the transmission of knowledge areas like structuralism , mathematics etc to the west, the stripping away of the sacred element in sanskrit and its integral unity with all indic traditions - through shallow theories of dubious applicability under the guise of volumes of pompous sounding verbiage from what are in essence centers of propaganda dissemination) - and Rajiv lays bare this battlefield for people to understand!!

[Amith Vikram · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a joke. Rajiv, a thief, is no scholar. Neither does he know Sanskrit nor does he understand the epistemology. He rants about how he has pioneered for Dharma, or that he alone has understood Pollock etc. It is more like an adolescent wannabe thinking highly of himself. He could not tolerate the criticism of Shatavdhani R Ganesh and proceeded with his personal attacks against him.

Rajiv is a scoundrel who should be barred from entering the domain of Traditionalists. People should be careful. Interested people may read Anantanand Rambachan's rebuttal to Rajiv's Indra's net.

[Diwakar Narayan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book clearly captures the political attempt to depreciate Sanskrit, its historical relevance and its studies in India, along with so many key points revolving this subject. This is a must read if you are interested in Indian culture and sanskriti.

[Dharmapedia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rajiv Malhotra's book is an important work and critique on American orientalism, focusing in particular on the work of Sheldon Pollock.

[Tarun Rattan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book by Rajiv Malhotra brings out into the open, the existential threats facing Vedic civilisation today. This battle for Sanskrit has to be fought tooth and nail by every Hindu, better would be to wage an outright war against these divisive forces who’re hell bent on destroying our civilizational values and heritage. These destructive forces lay bare their own impotence by attacking Vedic ethos and beliefs as these are far superior than anything they can claim as their own. In August 2014 the author became aware of a sinister attempt by American Indologist, Sheldon Pollock that could have compromised the integrity of Sringeri Sharda Peetham, one of the most sacred institution for Hindus. A group of wealthy NRI’s were being beguiled by Pollock to team up with the top administrators of Sringeri Peetham in India to setup a Columbia university chair in the name of Adi Shankara, an 8th century Hindu sage widely attributed to the revival of Advaita Vedanta. The sanctity of Sringeri Peetham has been carefully safeguarded for more than a thousand years. The adhikara (authority) to represent the Peetham and speak on its behalf has always rested solely with the acharyas, who are groomed from childhood and lead an austere life to assume this responsibility. This was alarming for author to see this university chair created in name of Peetham as it would’ve amounted to giving up control of the teachings and brand name of Sringeri Peetham to outside interests. The author concedes that the issue was not whether Hinduism or the teachings of Adi Shankara can sustain critique by outside authorities. In-deed he accepts that such critiques are necessary and healthy. Rather the issue was that, in this case, the critique would be put forth with the imprimatur of Sringeri Peetham. In author’s view the Peetham should shoulder the responsibility for answering the critics, not sponsoring them!

This book is a commendable attempt dedicated to the exemplary Dharmic debating tradition of purva-paksha and uttara-paksha. The author views his attempt, rather poetically as an intellectual yajna with mutual respect, but likelihood is that after reading this book readers would question if these divisive forces deserve any such respect. It would’ve been far more heroic for someone like Sheldon Pollock to really imbibe the spiritual tenets of Vedas and then work on the reformation of the staid Abrahamic traditions to plug the huge gap that exists between the two belief systems. Instead Pollock is only interested in making these puerile and conceited attempts to distort the Sanatani beliefs and to unseat Vedic tradition from its high pedestal earned through its superior logic and reasoning. By pursuing these vain attempts Western scholars like Pollock stand the risk of being discredited in the long run even if they might get some half-witted admirers on Indian left and liberal side in the short term.

The first chapter covers hijacking of Sanskrit tradition by Western orientalists who wish to side line its sacred dimension and ‘sanitise’ or 'detoxify’ it of what they see as its inherent elitism and oppressive cultural and social structures. The author successfully debunks these arguments and provide a pathway to celebrate Sanskrit’s enduring sacredness, aesthetic powers, metaphysical acuity and its ability to generate knowledge in many domains. Scholars wearing the Western lens regard Sanskrit's sacredness as a smokescreen for elitist and oppressive views. They either don’t understand the dense ‘paramarthika’ (transcendent) aspects of the tradition or wish to beguile the non-scholars. Like in Pollock’s case, he ascribes low cadence to Vedas & Shastras and without providing any logical reasoning tries to reduce these as mere hymnologies. He fails to acknowledge that Vedas are the first recorded statements of human reasoning, a foremost attempt to answers the big questions like who are we? where have we come from? why this world exists? No other world scripture even comes closer to articulating these arguments in such poetic and definitive manner. Pollock ascribes greater priority to the ‘vyavaharika’ (ordinary) texts like ‘kavya’ completely failing to comprehend that in Vedic tradition both ‘shastra' and ‘kavya’ genres are the opposite sides of the same coin, both deal with metaphysical aspects of the world, one just in a more formal way that the other. Another bogey raised by western scholars deflated in this chapter is that Vedas and Sanskrit are inherently hierarchical and oppressive leading to Brahmanical elitism. The truth which perhaps in beyond the grasp of Western scholars is that Sanskrit is a unique tool in Vedic tradition for liberation available to all humans. This chapter also dissects another far-fetched theory that Sanskrit oral traditions are not important and that written Sanskrit tradition came in force only with the advent of Buddhists that too of Scythian & Turkic origins and successfully discredits it too.

Chapter 2 provides a unique view into origins of Orientalism and how it evolved from its original European roots to currently in vogue strand of American Orientalism. The term ‘Orientalism’ and associated theory as propounded by Edward Said in 1978 discredited Western scholars by proving credibly that the way the western scholars ‘perceive the West and thereby defines East’ is inherently flawed. The author describes the rise of American orientalism and how it appropriated the Indian left and influenced post-colonial studies in India thus giving rise to the bogeys of Aryan invasion, marginalisation of Dalits & Muslims and anti-Brahmanical discourse in politics. This chapter also introduces Sheldon Pollock as the foremost pandit of American Orientalism and describes his collusion with Indian left. The author summarises the primary works of Sheldon Pollock in this chapter, in particular his publication ‘The language of the Gods in the World of Men’ where he tried to label Sanskrit as a dead language and also judged it as a primary tool of social oppressiveness in India. The author has tried to expose these works and has put forward an interesting viewpoint that Pollock can be located to the ancient Vedic Charvaka school of thought in light of his abhorrence to sacred.

Chapter 3 deals in depth with the obsession of Western scholars with ‘secularising’ Sanskrit. Here author provides excepts from Pollock’s works and debunks the fabricated interpretation of Sanskrit as against transcendence, against ritual/yagna, against Shastras and against grammar. Here author proves Pollock as overly influenced with the Italian thinker Giambattista Vito on his interpretation of transcendence and sacredness as representation of a primitive culture.

Chapter 4 is an argument against Sanskrit being a source of oppression as attested by Western scholars. Here author exposes the cunning attempt by Western scholars to come back into contention after a sound beating from Said’s Orientalism. The author first describes the flawed Pollock’s contention that the field of Indology is not something which helped oppressors but instead that ‘Orientalism as such had existed in Sanskrit itself long before the advent of European Orientalism.’ Then author exposes the inherent unsound nature of this argument and shows this as the clever ploy to boomerang the blame for oppression on Sanskrit itself and thereby exculpate the European Indologists. Then Author further disapproves of Pollock’s contention that the study of Sanskrit and its ancient texts hold clues to understanding oppression in Indian society today. Author claims that Pollock by justifying the domination built into Sanskrit and by his ardent wish to ‘liberate’ Indians from their own Shastras is only implying that the crown jewels of our civilisation i.e. Vedas and Shastras are not to be used as a means for producing new knowledge and thus making Indians intellectually dependent on West. The author lays bare this clever ploy by Pollock and his associates to justify his Anti-Shastras stand which runs through most of his works over several decades. The author’s contention is that Pollocks’ proposal would hand over the authority of Sanskrit studies to westernised scholars using his ‘political philology’, this would lead to western scholars like Pollock to call the shots and eventually become the proxies to understand the Indian culture and beliefs.

Chapter 5 deals with Ramayana which Pollock views albeit ludicrously, as a project for propagating Vedic social oppression. Here is the most far-fetched theory ever propounded by a Western scholar that Ramayana is a myth potentially inspired by a Buddhist Jataka tale about a man named Rama. Here Pollock appears to side-line the traditional view that the Ramayana reflects an actual event, conveniently ignoring the issue of historical evidence. According to him Brahmins co-opted the new literary Sanskrit developed by Buddhists in order to write the Ramayana as their first kavya. One of the Pollock’s fundamental views is that all the important sacred figures of the tradition lack individuality and fee will. He sees that the characters in Valmiki’s Ramayana as lacking agency and freedom of choice and therefore no control over their destiny. For him, this is the acceptance of suffering which means there is no justice referring to karma as a form of fatalism. The author deflates this attempt at equating Karma with the Western concept of mechanistic fate and argues that this is based on a profound misunderstanding. Author says it is better to see Karma as a system of causation in which a portion of the effect is time-delayed. Author also exposes Pollock’s intellectual dishonesty by proving that he has an agenda of political intervention while interpreting these ‘dangers' of Ramayana. Pollock’s political bias was apparent in his work ‘Ramayana and political Imagination in India’ written very soon after the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992.

Chapter 6 deals with the sinister attempt to politicise Indian literature. Here author exposes Pollock’s approach to consider all the important historical developments strictly from the point of view of politics and social domination. He ignores that any legitimate quest for spiritual wisdom could have driven these cultural developments. This chapter summarises Pollock’s seminal theory of kavya which ascribes the primary purpose of kavya being a tool used by kings to reinforce and perpetuate their power with no emphasis on the spiritual dimensions to avoid showing a non-political motive at work. Either Pollock thinks that Indians are dim-witted or innocent enough to be beguiled but this chapter shows the depravity of overall thought process in all Pollock’s works.

Chapter 7 continues with this dialogue but this time in the historical context. Here Pollock’s view of the rise of vernaculars and how power shaped these vernaculars is deflated. Pollock’s novel stipulation of Sanskrit cosmopolis model which insists that Sanskrit was driven top down by kings and Brahmins is discredited. The flaws in Pollock’s view, that Sanskrit was monopolised by Brahmins and that there was no writing before Buddhists came around 200 BC are uncovered. The author shows convincingly that Pollock rather naively superimposed the theory of aestheticization of power in most his works and this results in ill-conceived formalisation that Sanskrit grammar and kavya depend solely on the hold of royal power. Author does say rather harshly that it is dumb-founded to propagate this alleged link between grammar and social order and that Pollock compounds the confusion by saying that the king’s ‘philological judgement’ was an index of ‘correct political judgement’. According to author, Pollock does not seem to fully grasp the gist of Sanskrit grammar when he says that political was thoroughly pervaded by the poetical and the philological and above all the by grammatical. His example of word ‘varna’ used both in grammar (to mean a range of language sound) and as a social term (referring to individuals and groups with certain qualities) does not mean that it can be conflated to claim that politics and grammar of Sanskrit are causally linked. The author says that it is nothing but an example of ‘homographs’ which are words with more than one meaning and abound in all languages.

Chapter 8 provides an alternative to Pollock’s view on the rise of Sanskrit and its relationship with vernaculars. The author’s hypothesis is that there has been an organic process that respects the sacred dimension in people’s lives and their agency in bringing historical changes. Hence one cannot presume top-down politics as the sole cause for change and that it would be more accurate to assume that Sanskrit spread organically throughout India.

Chapter 9 refutes the Pollock’s paper ‘The Death of Sanskrit’ (2001) where Pollock lays bare his divisive agenda and condemn India’s latest attempts to re-popularise Sanskrit as 'political revisionism' in the service on nationalism. The author convincingly debunks the paper as latest in Pollock’s attempts to exploit dichotomies like Sanskrit versus the Vernaculars, Buddhists versus Hindus, Hindus versus Muslims and Dalit versus Brahmins. He says that this paper is nothing but adding a new dichotomy of Hindu nationalist attempts at reviving Sanskrit versus his own liberation philology approach that would detoxify it. The author points out that Pollock is using Hindu identity politics as an effigy to make a sweeping case against the efforts to promote Sanskrit’s viability as a spoken language.

Chapter 10 provides some more inputs on Pollock’s methodology and his use of ‘political philology’ and ‘liberation philology’. The author shows that Political philology is a largely a Marxist initiative to use philology for the specific purpose of posting at politics (i.e. power and exploitation) as the driver of culture. Liberation philology is Pollock’s recent term which he uses to describe his particular ideological lens. It emphasises on social activism to bring change with social engineering. Author raises red flags on this approach and points to an alternative approach to the study of Sanskrit.

Chapter 11 is the last chapter and in which author comes out with his own alternative approach of 'sacred philology’, a philosophy rooted in the conviction that Sanskrit cannot be divorced from its matrix in the Vedas and Shastras, or from its orientation towards the transcendent realm. Author believes that a wholehearted embrace of sacred philology would require not just that traditional Sanskrit scholars wake up from their hibernation and that a whole new and well-funded set of programmes be launched to support it and to develop a cadre of younger scholars.

In conclusion, this is a seminal book by Rajiv Malhotra and would go long way in initiating a genuine public debate and dialogue about the defence of Sanskrit.

[Sajith Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sanskrit has been the language that united India culturally and politically for millennia till the time of Islamic invasions. Though a thousand years of disuse since that episode had sapped some of its vitality in the political arena, Sanskrit continues as a link language for the spiritually minded. During British occupation, the whole genre of Orientalist studies was created to search India’s canons and texts in Sanskrit with a view to tweak the colonial regime to increase its efficiency. The ancient law books had to be translated into English which were then thought to act as the standard on which justice would be dispensed to Indians. However at no point in the growth of Orientalism was it concerned with the eventual replacement of English with Sanskrit. It co-opted some Indians trained in Western methods to translate Sanskrit works to English. With the fall of colonialism, scarcity of resources drove Orientalist research from Oxbridge to American universities, especially Harvard. Several American scholars gained a masterful grasp of Sanskrit and began to study the literature in detail. Most of the present-day Indians don’t know Sanskrit. Hence it fills them with immense pride with some gullibility to see a Westerner handling the ancient language pretty well even though it may be as short as reciting a couplet. Internal defences are lowered as an outcome and the Western scholar is poised to enjoy unlimited power in controlling the flow of patronage and resources from rich Indian businessmen and religious institutions. This book warns about the assault on our Vedic traditions coming from an American school of thought whose fundamental assumptions are dismissive of the sacred dimension of the language. We should not be naïve to hand over the keys to our institutions to outsiders to represent our legacy. The book also seeks to wake up traditional scholars of Sanskrit about an important Western school of Sanskrit studies whose scholars are intervening in modern Indian society with the explicitly stated view of detoxifying it of ‘poisons’ allegedly built into Sanskrit and to dismantle the ‘oppressive’ mindset against Dalits, women and Muslims. Rajiv Malhotra worked as a senior executive in the software and telecom industries before becoming a management consultant. He took early retirement in the 1990s at the age of 44 and established Infinity Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Princeton, New Jersey.

Most of the discussion is based on the work and activities of Sheldon Pollock of Harvard and the group of scholars under his guidance. The author defines two categories of Sanskrit researchers. The Outsiders refer to people from Western academies and the Insiders denote the traditional scholars of the language. He warns that the Outsiders are highly vocal and public in championing their view. At the same time, some of the Insiders are so naïve that they feel flattered when the Outsiders show interest on them which is really intended to dismantle the traditional world view. These Western scholars are accused to have gone too far in prescriptive study rather than descriptive and are more like political activists representing a foreign perspective seeking to topple and demolish Indian sanskriti in its present form. The Outsiders are so powerful that they control many of the important international conferences on Sanskrit, the prestigious chairs of research activity, the best-paid academic jobs and the availability of grants for research work. It is to be specified here that the categorization of Outsiders and Insiders does not in any way infer ethnic or racial divide. It’s only the worldview of the groups that make the difference. Indian scholars who do their research in India but subscribe to the Western precepts also deserve the epithet of ‘Outsiders’.

Malhotra explains how the nucleus of Sanskrit studies was shifted from Britain to the US after the fall of colonialism and the development of a new American Orientalism. This differed in one more aspect with the colonial variety in that it was shaped by the white society’s conflict with indigenous tribes of America at the frontier and African slaves within. This victor-vanquished aspect was later extended to India. It applied the image of the ‘savage’ to those deemed ‘idol worshippers’, ‘primitive’, ‘lacking in morals’ and ‘prone to violence’ etc. It often stereotyped ‘savage’ culture as being oppressive towards its women, children and lower social strata, described as subaltern groups. The modus operandi of this American group is also explained. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Indian Left was stranded without a patron. Just as the CIA recruited the former Soviet nuclear engineers to work for the US, agencies such as the Ford Foundation appropriated them to serve the American academics in the humanities. These scholars quickly learned that a sure path to rapid advancement in the field was to produce research demonstrating that exploitation was built into Indian society. The idea that Western colonialism was a thing of the past is implicit in the term ‘post-colonial’ which they widely circulated. At the same instant, the concept that Sanskrit was still exploiting was given wide currency. Besides, the Indian Left lacked adequate knowledge of Sanskrit. Even eminent historians who interpreted ancient inscriptions such as Romila Thapar or Irfan Habib are ignorant of Sanskrit. This made them vulnerable to ridicule over silly errors in their treatises. This proved a serious handicap for Indian leftists against traditionalists. This gap is now filled by a group of politically charged American Sanskrit scholars with Marxist commitments. This book is, in fact, a battle cry against them.

What is truly shocking in the book is the author’s expose of Sheldon Pollock’s strategies – both overt and covert. Even though he is widely acclaimed as a great Sanskrit scholar, this book argues and proves that Pollock has a clandestine agenda to revamp Sanskrit heritage on the mould of American ‘woke’ values. Pollock criticised scholars who romanticized the Sanskrit tradition. He believes in the ethical responsibility of scholars to expose the oppressiveness he sees within the tradition and to eliminate it by re-engineering the tradition. He rejected the Vedic roots of the heritage terming them primitive, superstitious and discriminatory. Pollock superimposed on to Hinduism the Western divide between Biblical theology/liturgy on the one hand and the performing arts on the other. This was a failure to comprehend the dichotomy of Western art with its established puritanical religion as the former had originated from its ancient paganism. This was not the case in India. He sets out to decouple kavyas from the Vedas as belonging to a secular viewpoint and transcendence respectively. Malhotra asserts this to be totally wrong. A truly outrageous finding of Pollock is that Sanskrit is the source of Nazi evil. He claims that Nazism and British Indology were merely building on the socio-political oppression that had always existed in Sanskrit language. In effect, Pollock argues that Sanskrit is at the root of all evil in the world. Is this the indicator of a scholar’s love for the language he had studied for a lifetime? He then goes on to deny the originality of the ancient composers of Sanskrit. Vedic Brahmins are alleged to have copied the new literary Sanskrit developed by Buddhists and created Ramayana. According to Pollock, Ramayana is plagiarized from a Jataka story. He then claims that Ramayana was used by the Brahmin-Kshatriya aristocracy to arouse Hindus and demonize Muslim invaders from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries. In short, even resisting the fanatic Muslim conquerors – who erected towers of skulls of men they killed and took their women and children as sex slaves – is a sin the Indians had committed!

Malhotra successfully peels off the false arguments enveloping Pollock’s idea one by one and eventually reaches the core which is shockingly illogical and fallacious. Pollock refers to karma as a form of fatalism; but equating karma with the Western concept of mechanistic fate is a profound misunderstanding. Karma is the result of prior actions and its future can be altered by new ones. Pollock’s next attempt is to strike at the fault lines of Indian society and cleave it into many pieces. Pollock deconstructs kavya with a singular view to interpret it as an expression of the aestheticization of political power, which is only a ploy to make the power look glamorous to the subjects of the king and to keep them obedient. It was primarily produced in the royal courts by resident royal poets who were complicit in the socio-political stratification and oppression of Dalits and women. Hindu kings used Sanskrit grammar also as a tool of oppression is the next item in the charge sheet. Correct order and structure of language were thought to lead to correct order and structure in society. He brings in this argument in analogy with medieval Europe where laws were imposed on speakers of certain languages with the clear intention to oppress them. This European parable is not at all applicable to India as no Hindu king had banned any language.

A detailed analysis of the duplicitous nature of Pollock’s intellect is given in this book. In fact, he is widely regarded as a friend of India who has dedicated a lifetime of research to Sanskrit studies. The Indian government had conferred on him the prestigious Padma Shri in 2010. He is a close friend of the philanthropic billionaires in India and is the founding editor of the Murty Classical Library of India in the US which was set up with funds from the family of the Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murty. In fact, the author came into the foreground when the Sringeri Matha established by Adi Shankara was planning to finance a research effort by Pollock and his cronies which would have inflicted damage on the sacred tradition of Sanskrit. The author’s intervention was just in time to put a freeze on that decision. Malhotra alleges that in the mainstream media, Pollock projects great love for Sanskrit to impress traditional Indians and their government. Yet in his academic writings he claims that praising Sanskrit amounts to a ‘farcical repetition of myths of primevality’ (p.275). Pollock’s tirades even challenge the integrity of India. He claims that there was no Indian nation or even Indian civilization. He implored scholars to explore the historical contingencies that made nation-states of France and England but not of Tamil Nadu or Maharashtra (p.311). He seems to be troubled with the state of affairs that India did not disintegrate into multiple nationalities.

The book is excellently structured and brilliantly argued with logical pleas and descriptive examples. However, the author gets a bit carried away while dealing with traditional studies of Sanskrit and its oral tradition. It is claimed that mantras are understood as corresponding to vibrations ‘serving as keys to higher states of consciousness’. Hence writing them down and translating it defeats the whole purpose. This argument does not seem to be much rational. The author calls for new itihasas and smritis to be written in Sanskrit. He suggests the two long-lived traumatic events in the last millennium: the Islamic invasions which peaked with Aurangzeb’s rule and the British colonialism as subject matter of the proposed literary venture. What makes this volume priceless is its extra-sharp analytics of Pollock’s academic corpus. He takes great pains to explain and illustrate the theories of Pollock such as ‘aestheticization of power’ to make it understandable to general readers as well. Roping in the traditionalists to understand and respond to Pollock’s claims is another aim of this illustrative discourse. Criticism against Pollock made by other western scholars such as J. Hanneder is also included.

Rajiv Malhotra is a true nationalist who is ever on the lookout for movements against the nation. One of his immensely prescient books is ‘Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Fault-lines’ which was reviewed earlier here.

The book is highly recommended.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads # Hindutva, Indic

Malhotra’s *The Battle for Sanskrit: Is Sanskrit Political or Sacred, Oppressive or Liberating, Dead or Alive?* is not just another entry in his long catalogue of polemics; it is, in many ways, his intellectual centrepiece. If his earlier works, such as *Breaking India* and *Sanskrit Non-Translatables*, revealed his instinct for polemical attack and cultural reclamation, this book offers something closer to an ideological showdown, a duel between two ways of understanding a civilisational language.

For Malhotra, Sanskrit is not simply a classical tongue to be dissected in seminars, but the lifeblood of Indian civilisation, the vessel of its highest philosophical, poetic, and spiritual expressions. For his adversary in this narrative, Sheldon Pollock, Sanskrit is a corpus of texts deeply entangled with political power, hierarchy, and ideology.

The book thus stages a confrontation not just between two intellectuals but between two modes of being: one that sees tradition as sacred and liberating, another that sees it as historical and political. The result is a work that is at once exhilarating, exhausting, provocative, and deeply revealing of the anxieties and aspirations shaping the contemporary debate on Indian identity.

Malhotra sets the stage by identifying Pollock as the most influential Western Indologist of our time, a scholar whose translations, theories, and institutional networks shape how Sanskrit and by extension India’s civilisational archive are taught and understood across the globe. Pollock’s central claim, as Malhotra reads it, is that Sanskrit was not a neutral or purely sacred language but one that was implicated in the politics of domination. According to Pollock, the flourishing of Sanskrit literature coincided with the assertion of royal authority, and its decline was linked not to colonialism, as nationalists often argue, but to changes in patronage and politics within India itself. Malhotra seizes on this framing, arguing that it strips Sanskrit of its transcendental and spiritual dimensions, reducing it to a tool of oppression and ideology. What is at stake, he insists, is not merely an academic debate but the very dignity of Indian civilisation.

The rhetorical move here is characteristic of Malhotra: he does not approach Pollock as a scholar to be engaged but as a figurehead to be opposed. The book’s title is no accident. This is a battle, and Malhotra positions himself as the defender of tradition against an external coloniser armed with the weapons of critical theory. The terms of engagement are stark: is Sanskrit sacred or political, liberating or oppressive, alive or dead? Such binaries sharpen the polemic, even if they flatten the complexity of both Pollock’s scholarship and Sanskrit’s lived history. Yet they also give the book its power, for Malhotra writes not to nuance but to mobilise. He is not crafting an academic rejoinder but sounding a war cry, rallying readers to defend what he calls the integrity of India’s civilisational heritage.

The most compelling aspect of the book is the passion with which Malhotra defends Sanskrit as a living force. For him, Sanskrit is not merely an object of study but a subject with agency, a language that has shaped ways of being, thinking, and experiencing reality. Its concepts — *dharma, rasa, moksha, atman, shakti* — are not easily translatable into Western categories, and attempts to do so, he argues, inevitably distort and diminish.

This ties the book back to his earlier project in *Sanskrit Non-Translatables*, where he made the case for preserving Sanskrit terms within English discourse to avoid what he calls “digestion” into alien frameworks.

Here, however, the stakes are higher. If Pollock and his colleagues are allowed to frame Sanskrit as primarily political, then the very conceptual vocabulary of Indian civilisation risks being delegitimised. Malhotra insists that Sanskrit’s primary orientation is toward transcendence, beauty, and liberation, and that its history of use in power structures does not exhaust its meaning or value.

Where the book falters is in its tendency to caricature Pollock’s arguments. Pollock is, by all accounts, a serious and nuanced scholar who has spent decades immersing himself in Sanskrit texts, often with great sensitivity and admiration for their aesthetic power.

Malhotra’s reading of him, however, often reduces this body of scholarship to a one-dimensional narrative of hostility toward Hindu tradition. The complexity of Pollock’s arguments about the relationship between language and power, about the intersections of aesthetics and politics, is flattened into a strawman: Pollock as the outsider who sees Sanskrit only as oppression.

This reduction allows Malhotra to position himself more clearly as the defender of tradition, but it does a disservice to the debate. Readers unfamiliar with Pollock might come away convinced that his work is a relentless attack on Sanskrit, when in fact it is more ambivalent, combining critique with appreciation.

Yet Malhotra’s very excess is what makes the book significant. In inflating Pollock into the singular representative of Western Indology, he dramatises a larger anxiety: that the study of India’s classics is no longer in Indian hands. Where once pundits and traditional scholars held authority over Sanskrit texts, today global understanding of these texts is mediated through Western institutions, Western categories, and Western scholars.

Malhotra’s battle, then, is not just against Pollock but against the broader displacement of interpretive authority. He is fighting for intellectual sovereignty, for the right of Indians to frame their own classics on their own terms. In this sense, the book is less about Pollock himself than about what he represents: the hegemony of Western academia in defining India to itself and the world.

This is why the book resonated so widely despite its polemical flaws. For many Indian readers, Malhotra gave voice to a simmering resentment at the asymmetry of power in the production of knowledge:

1) Why should Harvard or Columbia define what the *Ramayana* means?

2) Why should the lens of power and oppression dominate the reading of texts that millions have experienced as sacred and beautiful?

Malhotra does not answer these questions with scholarly nuance; instead, he flips the table, insisting that the very act of applying such categories is a form of colonisation. His call is for a return to an insider hermeneutics, one that takes dharmic categories seriously rather than translating them into alien idioms. Whether or not one agrees, the provocation forces reflection.

Placed alongside Malhotra’s other works, *The Battle for Sanskrit* is the most intellectually ambitious. *Breaking India* was conspiratorial, *Snakes in the Ganga* accusatory, *Sanskrit Non-Translatables* prescriptive. This book, however, is confrontational at the level of theory. It is not merely about who funds whom or who translates what; it is about the nature of interpretation itself.

1) Can Sanskrit be studied as literature without reference to the sacred?

2) Can it be analysed through categories like power without reducing it?

3) Can a tradition be understood from the outside, or does true understanding require immersion within its worldview?

These are not trivial questions, and they echo long-standing debates in philosophy, anthropology, and postcolonial theory. Malhotra may not engage these debates with scholarly rigour, but he forces them into the public sphere in a way few others have.

Critics have often accused Malhotra of paranoia, of seeing conspiracies where none exist, of whipping up suspicion rather than encouraging genuine scholarship. There is truth in this: his tone is relentlessly combative, his arguments often one-sided, his reading of opponents ungenerous. Yet to dismiss him entirely is to ignore the real tensions he taps into. The fact remains that Western academia wields enormous influence over how non-Western traditions are studied, and that this asymmetry can perpetuate subtle forms of intellectual domination. The fact also remains that categories like “oppression” and “hegemony,” while useful in certain contexts, can obscure other dimensions of experience. Malhotra’s demand for intellectual sovereignty, even if expressed polemically, resonates because it speaks to a real hunger for self-representation in the postcolonial world.

Reading *The Battle for Sanskrit* is thus a paradoxical experience. On the one hand, it is frustrating: the polemical tone, the exaggeration of Pollock’s positions, the lack of generosity in debate. On the other hand, it is invigorating: a passionate defence of tradition, a refusal to cede interpretive ground, a reminder that languages and texts are not neutral but bound up with identity and power. The book may not persuade scholars who prize nuance, but it inspires lay readers who feel their traditions are under siege. In that sense, it functions less as a scholarly intervention than as a cultural manifesto. It gives people a narrative of struggle — a battle to be fought, a heritage to be defended.

What is striking is how the book mirrors the very categories it opposes. Malhotra accuses Pollock of politicising Sanskrit, yet his own book politicises the debate in equal measure. He rejects the reduction of Sanskrit to power, yet his own rhetoric frames the study of Sanskrit as a battlefield of power. In this sense, both Pollock and Malhotra converge, though from opposite sides: both treat interpretation as inseparable from politics, though Pollock does so analytically while Malhotra does so defensively. The irony is that the battle for Sanskrit becomes less about Sanskrit itself and more about the politics of interpretation.

The reception of the book also reflects this tension. Among traditionalists and sections of the Hindu right, it was hailed as a long-overdue pushback against Western domination. Among scholars, it was dismissed as amateur polemic. But in public discourse, it opened space for a wider conversation about who gets to speak for tradition. In this sense, Malhotra succeeded. He made Sanskrit part of the culture wars, dragging a classical language into the heart of contemporary debates about identity, sovereignty, and power. For better or worse, the battle for Sanskrit became not just an academic issue but a political one, shaping how people think about knowledge itself.

In reflecting on this book, one is reminded of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s call to decolonise the mind, or of debates in African and Latin American contexts about the role of European categories in interpreting indigenous traditions. Malhotra may not situate himself in these broader conversations, but his project belongs to the same family: a quest for intellectual decolonisation, even if his methods are uniquely polemical.

The question he raises — can we think in our own categories, on our own terms? — is universal, even if his framing is parochial. The challenge, as always, is to articulate this without sliding into paranoia or insularity.

Ultimately, *The Battle for Sanskrit* is not the final word on the subject, nor does it aspire to be. It is an intervention, a provocation, a gauntlet thrown down. It demands that readers take sides, that they decide whether they stand with Pollock or with Malhotra, with the sacred or the political, with liberation or oppression. This starkness is both its weakness and its strength. Weakness, because it oversimplifies a complex reality. Strength, because it galvanises attention and passion. No one who reads this book remains indifferent. It is the kind of work that divides a room, that sparks arguments, that forces people to ask where they stand. In this sense, it achieves what it sets out to do: to make Sanskrit not a dead language of the past but a live issue of the present.

In the end, the battle for Sanskrit is not just about texts or scholars. It is about the soul of a civilisation, about how India sees itself and how it is seen. Malhotra may not provide the most balanced or rigorous account, but he ensures that the battle is joined. For those who care about tradition, about intellectual sovereignty, about the politics of interpretation, this book is indispensable, if only because it makes visible the stakes.

One may disagree with Malhotra, even find him infuriating, but one cannot ignore him. And that, perhaps, is his greatest victory. He has ensured that the battle for Sanskrit is not over — that it continues to be fought, in classrooms and seminar halls, in books and debates, in the very act of reading and interpreting. To that extent, his polemic has succeeded in what he most wanted: to make us realise that the struggle over language is also the struggle over identity, and that battles fought in words are no less consequential than those fought in politics.

[Prabhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well-researched and cogently described purva-paksha of the arena for control of sanskrit studies. Having read a few other books by RM, this book provides deeper insight into the specific techniques used to control the narrative as well as the prodigious source material that sanskrit has. Highly recommended.