SAJAforum

BOOKS: Wendy Doniger's "The Hindus: An Alternative History"

The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger fills a significant gap: It is a scholarly but mostly accessible book that recounts millennia of South Asian history, as much as possible, through the eyes of non-elites. The book has garnered both praise and sharp criticism, as Doniger’s work often does, and has spawned a feisty but confusing New York Times review by Pankaj Mishra.

Doniger (bio) is the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. To match her hefty title, Doniger’s curriculum vitae weighs in at 39 pages. For better or for worse, she is one of the most influential American scholars of Indian religion.

Blogging for The Washington Post, Doniger explains her purpose in writing the book:

My narrative is alternative both to the histories promulgated by some contemporary Hindus on the political right in India and to those presented in most surveys in English—imperialist histories, all about the kings, ignoring ordinary people. But the texts tell us not just who was the ruler but who got enough to eat and who did not.

The reviews that appeared recently in The Washington Post and The New York Times could not be more different. The former is simple and unsurprising while the latter is convoluted and apparently looking to pick a fight.

Michael Dirda’s review in the WP summarizes the book and argues that it is “probably too scholarly and specialized for readers looking simply for an introduction to Indian philosophy and religion” but still recommends it for people who already know the basics.

In contrast to Dirda’s by-the-book review, Pankaj Mishra wrote a more interpretive piece in the NYT that was destined to be misinterpreted. The first three grafs invoke a hodgepodge of references: the novelist E.M. Forster, the colonial preference for the supposed clarity of Islam over the supposed muddle of Hinduism, and the claim that “the first British scholars of India went so far as to invent what we now call ‘Hinduism.’”

MEDIA: Q&A with media critic Sevanti Ninan on the Mumbai attacks coverage

[ See SAJA's full coverage of the Mumbai attacks, including our webcasts ]

In the immediate aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, we asked Sevanti Ninan, media columnist and editor of The Hoot, to give us her thoughts on the coverage. At the time, she was too busy, but the uproar over the Indian media's coverage hasn't subsided so we put some questions to her last week.

Some background: There's an ongoing debate in India over whether the government should impose greater controls on the media. Additionally, several prominent journalists are under constant attack from people who felt the media either did a poor job, or even worse, aided the terrorists during the operation by broadcasting sensitive information.

NDTV's Barkha Dutt, who seemed to report nonstop throughout the ordeal, has been taking constant heat since the attacks, from prominent pieces in The Telegraph and the Christian Science Monitor to a Facebook campaign ("Barkha Dutt for worst senior journalist on the planet" has 1,748 members now). She also has lots of fans who have come to her defense, but recently another controversy emerged over Dutt/NDTV's threats of legal action against a blogger who criticized her. As this Hoot article makes clear, the blogger retracted his original post and conceded that it had been "untrue and defamatory." Dutt and NDTV have been accused of trying to stifle free speech.

In that context, we caught up with Sevanti Ninan. We also asked her a couple questions about the state of the Indian media, which is now seeing a downturn after a period of intense growth.

SAJAforum: What do you think are the more constructive criticisms to have emerged of the media, in the wake of the Mumbai attacks?

NINAN: That it should be far more restrained in its live coverage, that it should be aware of the import of the information it is dishing out in an unfolding crisis, that its editorial bosses should be in the studio directing sensitive coverage and not out in the field reporting breaking news, because no one  in the studio is  senior enough to rein them in when they go overboard. That it is neither the place of  TV reporters and anchors  to editorialise constantly while reporting, nor to war monger or promote ridicule of politicians.And that there should restraint in labelling the news, and trying to queer the pitch with slogans like "enough is enough."

EXPERT WATCH: Swaminathan Krishnan, quake expert

This week's controversial news about possible weaknesses in Los Angeles high-rise buildings' ability to withstand an earthquake has been widely covered.

At the heart of the story is groundbreaking (sorry, couldn't resist!)  research by Swaminathan Krishnan of Caltech. From the LAT:

Standard building design formulas rely on the average effects of earthquakes recorded worldwide, said Swaminathan Krishnan, an assistant professor of civil engineering and geophysics at Caltech who led the modeling. But information on earthquakes the size of the one modeled -- a magnitude 7.8 on the San Andreas fault -- is sparse, he said.

Read about Krishnan's research here.

More about Prof. Krishnan, a graduate of IIT-Madras; Rice University and Caltech - on his personal site, http://krishnan.caltech.edu/krishnan/

Post your comments below.