From: bkannan@HO12.ENG.UA.EDU (Balaji Kannan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Yet more Excerpts
Date: 14 Apr 92 18:17:34 GMT



>>From: ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Arun K. Gupta)
>>Subject: Re: Yet more excerpts
>>Date: 14 Apr 92 14:24:47 GMT


>From: rags@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Raghavan Jayaraman)
>Subject: Re: Yet more excerpts
>Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 14:17:16 GMT
>
>Let us see! One exhumes the [objective?] excerpts of  someone from an institute>without any stated reason [or is it the magic word "discrimination?"].
>With couple of criticisms of course from Hindus [obviously], the poster
>withdraws nonchalantly. Then suddenly he sees the light on the other side
>and starts addressing both the sides righteously.



>>My analysis is slightly different. I posted these articles in the hope of
>>reasonable analysis and criticism. Instead I see: oh, this author lives in
>>Saudi Arabia, or is in the Aligarh Muslim University, so all he writes is
>>obviously rubbish.

>>There, I presented what I thought was a reasonable counter to some of the
>>arguments in the essays. However, if I wanted to talk to myself, I needn't
>>have posted all this. I do hope people will have more meaningful things to
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>say than to be picky about the place of employment of the authors (quite
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>irrelevant, IMO) and rather pick out the flaws in their arguments, as well
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>as what may be regarded as truth.



 Let's for the sake of argument consider this:
 

                           Mr. Adolf Hitler writes a paper "1001 Myths
 about the Holocaust" or "Nazis and their Racial Tolerance" sitting in
 Germany(Institute of Objective Studies at Hamburg),getting a couple of 
 facts straight(like names of places and names of some of the Jews),
 everything else is chaff; then pleads with the Jews to patiently pick 
 out the Wheat from the Chaff and give intelligent rebuttals to historical
 misrepresentations. One needn't be a soothsayer to predict how the Jews
 (including the otherwise intelligent ones) would have reacted.
 

 This analogy might not be precise because the person used in this analogy
 is a personification of "all that is evil", but even a scaled down
 parallel(1000 times?) should strike a chord.

 The point is this: The credibility of the author, the circumstances under
 which he writes, the place from where he writes all do matter.It is difficult 
 to accept that it can be otherwise.

 If it were a M.K.Gandhi writing a similar paper on tolerance, it would not
 probably matter where he sits down to write. It is entirely possible that 
 he may even get some of the records wrong in his analysis. But people would 
 be willing to pick the wheat from the chaff or might even ignore the chaff
 if there is no gross misrepresentation.
 
 Or let us say, that Saddam Hussein  prepares a report on "Human rights
 abuses of the American Security forces against minorities", it is easy for 
 the Iraqi. Govt to request  its American Counterpart to pick out the 
 wheat from the chaff, discard the dirt and the dust, and keep a cool
 head while arguing over the report. Is it so difficult to imagine how such
 a report would be treated by Americans?

 The "Credibility factor", the "Halo effect or the lack of it" all subconciously
 influence the way we react to such reports. Mr. Mohammed Nejatullah Siddiqui
 being neither a Hitler nor a Gandhi, makes it all the more difficult
 to pass judgements on what he writes. But the University in Saudi Arabia
 in all probability will knock-off his Fellowship if he wrote a paper nailing 
 down Muslims as the primary cause of riots in India and exhorted the Muslims
 to come out of their "seige-mentality"(assuming it is true that  a certain
 Meerut riot was caused by Muslims). Will this guy have the freedom to write
 about "Democratic Reforms in Islam" in Saudi Arabia? I think not. He might 
 be forced to board the next flight to Aligarh before they come for his
 throat.
 
 If this same report had been written by a M.J.Akbar or say a M.A.K. Pataudi,
 people(including Hindus) would be willing to give it atleast a patient reading
 and argue on the merits/demerits of what they have written.
 
 So, IMO, there isn't much to be unhappy about the reaction (the basis on which  it was rejected) this paper has elicited.
 
 
>raghavan

>>-arun gupta
>>ag3L@andrew.cmu.edu


  Balaji Kannan

Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian