Greg Bailey

Indology after Hindutva

The collection of essays included in this issue of South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies deals with a subject that, in the early months of 2014, commanded public attention on two counts: firstly, the decision of Penguin India to remove from sale and pulp Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus: An Alternative History; and secondly, the appointment of Professor Y.S. Rao to the chairmanship of the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR). Both events are related in that they were immediately connected in the minds of interested parties with the anticipated and then achieved victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the elections for the centre held in April and May 2014. Of these events, the first relates directly to the dissemination of scholarship in Social Sciences and Humanities as they apply to India, whereas the second concerns how this scholarship will be undertaken under the auspices of state funding. They are interrelated to the extent that they potentially embody a new paradigm in the study of Indian history and religion, one that could have implications outside India itself. Whilst these events were telescoped into a six-month period—and, therefore, seemed to have a heightened impact—they may be regarded as a climax of shifts in cultural attitudes that became quite explicit when the BJP first came into government centrally in 1998. This was also about the time that diaspora Indians became more vocal about the way historical aspects of their culture and religion were communicated in the West and in India itself. Amongst the first casualties of this were the books on Shivaji by James Laine in 2004 and on Ganẹ sa by Paul Courtright in 2003, both of which were withdrawn by their publishers. From a different perspective, the development of subaltern approaches to history and post-colonial theory— both in essence the same—has melded theoretically with the desire to provide an ‘authentic’ Indian voice for Indian/Hindu culture. Obviously, there is a difference between the two groups: the forces behind the push to remove Doniger’s book assert that it is full of distortions about Hinduism which are offensive to believers (even where their Hinduism is an artificiallyconstructed synthesis of popular Advaita and the teachings of the Bhagavad Gıta), whereas the subalternists are concerned that lower-class and marginalised voices should be heard, stripped away from the Brahmanical and colonial garb in which they have been communicated. In short, attempts to define a new paradigm for studying Indian history have been advanced by both sophisticated theorists and crude ideologues and are being buttressed politically, with the financial and moral support of diasporic Indians.

Book Reviews : ANITA RAINA THAPAN, Understanding Ganapati: Insights into the Dynamics of a Cult, New Delhi, Manohar, 1997, 304 pp

Ganapati is a deity whose popularity dates from the fourth century of the Christian era and while there are many tantalising suggestions of deities associated with the elephant and/or bearing traits later found associated with Ganega in the Mahapuranas, no scholar would be prepared to describe this god as a Vedic deity. In spite of the huge amount of literary and iconographic material associated with Ganega/Ganapati dating from the early Gupta period, and especially in the last

On the de‐construction of culture in Indian literature: A tentative response to Vijay Mishra's article

(1989). On the de‐construction of culture in Indian literature: A tentative response to Vijay Mishras article. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 85-102.

On the object of study in Puranic research: three recent books on the Puranas

A. Bock, Der Sagara–Gangavatarana–Mythus in der Episch–Puranischen Literatur, Alt– und Neu–Indische Studien 27, Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden, Stuttgart, 1984. T. Coburn, Devi–Mahatmya: The Crystallization of the Goddess Tradition, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1984. L. Rocher, The Puranas, A History of Indian Literature, Volume 13 fasc 3, Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1986.

Secular and religious in Indian literature: A comparison of writings on the theme of love in the Gitagovinda and the Caurapancasika∗

(1981). Secular and religious in Indian literature: A comparison of writings on the theme of love in the Gitagovinda and the Caurapancasika. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 1-14.