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Bias in South Asian Studies

My apologies for leaving a harsh-sounding message, in general talk pages are used to discuss edits in an article. May I recommend you head over to the Indology article's talkpage and discuss any issues you may have there.

You can find the removed content here

All the best,

Sfacets 03:41, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

(Copied from my talkpage)

You could ask to be reviewed Misplaced Pages:Deletion_review, however it is important that a neutral tone and content are maintained in an article... it seems unlikely seeing the amount of contreversy surrounding this issue that you would be able to re-open the article.

Regarding the slanderous tone, not much can be done, unfortunately... unless a user/users have been behing a personal attack.

Perhaps you could elaborate any criticisms you have concerning the issues regarding bias in South Asian Studies in the indology article as a section - once the section attains a certain size and relevance (cites unbiased and relevant sources and backs up any criticism made) then it could always eventually be re-instated.

Don't hesitate to ask if you need any further assistance, I will also be keeping an eye on any bias appearing on the Indology article.

Sfacets 09:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Letter and response

Dear Ms Rosser:

Thank you for your letter, which, compared to some of the things that are said to me regularly on WP, was relatively mild. I am reproducing your letter to me on my talk page and my response below, for your convenience. I hope you find your way around WP soon, and start editing yourself. You will find that the effort involved in finding compromise makes one re-examine one's own assumptions. Thanks! Hornplease 04:10, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: "Bias in South Asian Studies"

Dear Hornplease,

You have written untruths about me that have no resemblance to reality. You then used that incorrect information to determine the outcome of a Misplaced Pages page. This is a transgression of the faith that Misplaced Pages editors profess. You manufactured biased data about me as a person and scholar and then you shouted down all objections from your fellow editors concerning the Misplaced Pages page “The Bias in South Asian Studies”, which was eliminated due mostly to your efforts. Your persuasive discussion relied on highly biased sources far removed from NPOV, the most cherished aspect of Misplaced Pages. You wrote on the editor’s discussion page that you had “spent a little time reading Rosser. She is absurdly biased.” What did you read? You did not indicate. I have not written anything that is “absurdly biased.” You did not reference the source of your allegations. Your allegations fly in the face of facts, but you asserted them with a zeal that was as unprofessional as it was unsubstantiated.

You could have done a little more research and located some of my writings that are available on-line. But instead you just threw out labels without any references. Your methodology is as far from NPOV as imaginable! Misplaced Pages deserves better.

Belatedly, and in lieu of your own shortsighted search, I can point you to several of my related publications (which you obviously did not read since they are in no way “absurdly biased”):

“The Clandestine Curriculum: The Temple of Doom in the Classroom”, Education About Asia, Volume 6, Number 3, Winter 2001 (Association of Asian Studies) --discusses common stereotypes found in teaching about India and suggests corrective pedagogical strategies. See: http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/s_es/s_es_rosse_EAA_frameset.htm

Also: “Internationalizing Teacher Education: Preparedness to Teach About India”, Teaching South Asia, ed. Karl J. Schmidt, Project South Asia, Missouri Southern State College, Fall 2001; See: http://www.mssu.edu/projectsouthasia/tsa/VIN1/Rosser.htm

Then, Hornplease, you wrote this absurd lie that is really libelous. You wrote, “Further, I have got in touch with some people at UT Austin, where she was a grad student, and I discovered that in the well-regarded South Asian programme she was not permitted to finish her PhD and had to go on to submit it in the department of curriculum and instruction. (it was about the revising of textbooks by bjp state govts.)”

This is nuts! To whom did you supposedly speak at UT? Please let me know who told you this. The information is totally incorrect. You obviously did not consult the two professors in South Asian Studies who were my advisors for my master’s thesis-- Professor Robert Hardgrave and Professor Les Kurtz. My MS Thesis was an analysis of the content on India in secondary World History textbooks used in American High Schools. The article mentioned above, published by Professor Karl J. Schmidt is based on that research. Where in the heck did you get the information that I was “not permitted” to finish my PhD? I never started a PhD in South Asian Studies. I transferred to Curriculum Studies after the Masters. (BTW: This article was published when I was working on my MA in Asian Studies: "Pervasive Pedagogical Paradigms," SAGAR (South Asian Graduate Research Journal), Vol. 3, No.1 Spring 1996 http://inic.utexas.edu/asnic/pages/sagar/SAGAR3.r.html ) You are free to ask Dr. Kurtz, who can be located in the UT (Austin) directory. He will tell you that the head of the Curriculum Department. Dr. JoAnn Sweeney, invited me to do my dissertation under her. I became friends with the Education Department in connection to my job as Outreach Coordinator in the Department of Asian Studies. I worked in that capacity just after I began grad school in 1994 until 1996 when I transferred to Curriculum Studies. This decision was based on my credentials and interests, since I had a BA in South Asian Studies (1980) and secondary certifications in English and Social Studies, I decided to accept the invitation from Dr. Sweeney and move to Curriculum Studies for the PhD. So, Hornplease, those are the names and the dates that disprove your erroneous and libelously mean-spirited supposed research about me. Dirt really, rootless dirt that might fly back in your face, if you won’t rectify the slander. I am writing this much belated note to you to give you a chance to apologize for lying about me.

Then, My dear Horn-usedipper-please, you made another wacko mistake, claiming some kind of absolute authority, but ridiculously off-base. You wrote that Rosser’s dissertation “was about the revising of textbooks by bjp state govts.” This was not the topic of my dissertation, which was an analysis of contested historiography in the Subcontinent, titled “Curriculum and Destiny: Forging National Identities in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh”. I have several publications that have resulted from this work (nothing about the BJP):

“The Islamization of Pakistani Social Studies Textbooks” - Chapter 6: What Shall We Tell the Children?’ International Perspectives on School History Textbooks, Stuart J. Foster and Keith A. Crawford, Editors, Information Age Publishing, London: 2005. “Cognitive Dissonance in Pakistan Studies Textbooks: Educational Practices of an Islamic State”, Journal of Islamic State Practices in International Law, Vol. 1, Issue 2, June 2005, pp. 4-15, http://www.electronicpublications.org/catalogue.php?id=71 “Pakistani Textbooks -Teaching Cognitive Dissonance”, The Friday Times, Lahore, Pakistan, 3/2005. “Contesting Historiographies in South Asia”, Religious Fundamentalism in the Contemporary World, Santosh Saha, ed., Lexington Books, 2004

Indoctrinating Minds: Politics of Education in Bangladesh, RUPA, New Delhi, 2004
Islamization of Pakistani Social Studies Textbooks, RUPA, New Delhi, 2003

Horn-please-use-dipper-ji, you then wrote that I am not “an academically acceptable source.” But you neglected to point out why you have slandered be as academically unacceptable. Your research is drivel -- hate-mongering hear-say without substance. Yet you lob this crap at me, behind my back and use it to promote xenophobia. Then you continue in the same misinformed vein contenting that I “was funded by the vhp”. This is a total fabrication. I have never been funded by the RSS or the VHP or the CIA or the FBI. Are you? I have done several research projects about different schools of historiography in India and related issues, but there was certainly no funding of any kind from one side or another. That would be unprofessional. Why are you on such a soapbox?

Hornplease, it seems to me that you are not a very free-thinking or clear-thinking person to have manufactured such hateful lies about me. And then you got away with using these lies to eliminate a very valid dictionary page of Misplaced Pages concerning the Bias in South Asian Studies. I discovered this bias when I became a High School history teacher in 1982. At that time, I already had a BA in South Asian Studies and I was stunned at how wrong the textbooks were. If you do not believe that there is a bias in South Asian Studies, let me refer you to these links:

For an excellent analysis of the textbook treatment of women in Hinduism, please see this essay, Women and Hinduism in U.S. Textbooks, written by David Freedholm, a high school history teacher: http://www.sulekha.com/blogs/blogdisplay.aspx?cid=4564

See Beliefnet: U.S. Hinduism Studies: The Critics Speak What's wrong with Hinduism studies in the U.S.? Plenty, say non-scholars and scholars critical of the academy. http://www.beliefnet.com/story/146/story_14686_1.html

This is a groundbreaking work: Are Hinduism studies prejudiced? A look at Microsoft Encarta Sankrant Sanu http://www.sulekha.com/blogs/blogdisplay.aspx?cid=4499# The scholarship of certain sections of the academic community studying Hinduism has been controversial in the Indian community. In this article we try to examine whether there is truth to this controversy, and whether such academics influence the mainstream portrayal of “Hinduism” in standard sources. We use Microsoft® Corporation's Encarta® Encyclopedia as the reference in this study by: Sankrant Sanu on Sep 24 2002

Then, Hornplease, in the Wiki comments page, you go on to laud Witzel as if he is an Ivory Tower deity, you wrote, “Witzel has tenure at Harvard, just had dinner with the President of India last month”. Well, there is nothing subaltern about that image! But then you misinform the other editors that Misplaced Pages has “an article criticising his work before we have an article on the work itself!” Actually, there are several pages on Misplaced Pages devoted to Witzel. Not the least is the page showing his faulty translations and his continuing hyper-political use those mistakes.

I speak from first hand experience. I recently participated in a conference at Dartmouth where Professor Witzel attended. I was frankly stunned at the rudeness of Professor Witzel. Even the young lady operating the camera asked me after the second morning session, "Why is that man so vicious?" He attacked everyone. He reminded me of a snarling attack dog, without decorum or class. Sorry to say so, but I found him uncouth and unkind... cadaverous and vacuous.

He tore into Professor B.B. Lal, interrupting him three or four times. He told B. B. Lal that he "didn't know what he was talking about". He mocked him. B.B. Lal is an octogenarian--the "father of Indian Archeology". He was at Mohenjo Daro with Wheeler before Partition. He knows Sanskrit fluently, and is well published and greatly respected. I was stunned that Witzel spoke so crudely to him, especially over an issue that in another forum Witzel himself has admitted was an error.

Why in the world didn't he admit that he knew that he had been wrong and then go on, instead of defending his error and attacking Professor Lal? The error that was pointed out by B. B. Lal is so well known that it is even on Misplaced Pages...and STILL Professor Witzel yelled abuses at Professor Lal. (Go figure!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/Baudhayana_Shrauta_Sutra Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra The Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra (BSS) is a Hindu text. It was probably written in eastern Uttar Pradesh. It belongs to the Black Yajurveda. It was first published in English in 1904-23 by the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

BSS mistranslation controversy

Indologists and other scholars have noted that "there is no textual evidence in the early literary traditions unambiguously showing a trace of" an Indo-Aryan migration. However, a translation of one passage of the BSS has been invoked as definite evidence. This passage was the object of much controversy. It was called a direct statement in favor of the Aryan Migration Theory (AMT):

   Then, there is the following direct statement contained in (the admittedly much later) BSS (=Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra) 18.44:397.9 sqq which has once again been overlooked, not having been translated yet: “Ayu went eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru Panchala and the Kasi-Videha. This is the Ayava (migration). (His other people) stayed at home. His people are the Gandhari, Parsu and Aratta. This is the Amavasava (group)” (Witzel 1989a: 235).

According to historians like Romila Thapar this passage contained literary evidence for the Aryan migration theory. The historian Ram Sharan Sharma called this passage "the most explicit statement of immigration into the Subcontinent."

However, in 1998 the Indologist Koenraad Elst disagreed with Witzel's translation of the BSS passage and stated: "Far from attesting an eastward movement into India, this text actually speaks of a westward movement towards Central Asia, coupled with a symmetrical eastward movement from India's demographic centre around the Saraswati basin towards the Ganga basin." He noted that "the most precise endeavour to show up an explicit mention of the invasion turns out to be based on mistranslation." The passage was later examined by other Indologists like George Cardona, Hans Hock and Toshifumi Goto, who also disagreed with Witzel's translation.

It has been claimed that Witzel reacted to the mistranslation controversy by giving misleading and mutually contradictory explanations. He asserted for example that it was a printing error that was due to the editor of the volume (George Erdosy). However, the mistranslation was an important part of his argumentation in favor of the AMT. The mistranslation was also published in three of his publications over a period of eight years (Witzel 1995, 1989, 1987). Vishal Agarwal commented that while everybody is entitled to make elementary mistakes in the translation of Sanskrit passages, "it was not appropriate for him to have made misleading statements not once, but many times, and in front of more than 600 specialists in the field." Elst noted that "the fact that a world-class specialist has to content himself with a late text like the Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra, and that he has to twist its meaning this much in order to get an invasionist story out of it, suggests that harvesting invasionist information in the oldest literature is very difficult indeed." ---end of wikipedia quote----

See also: http://vishalagarwal.voiceofdharma.com/articles/indhistory/amt/index.htm

Hornplease-usedipper, I must say there are not very many people on the planet that I don't like. I am a very liberal and approachable person. But there are two people I simple can't stand. I have the same negative visceral response to their arrogance. They remind me of each other: They are never wrong. If found to be wrong, they deny it or try to humiliate the person who pointed out the problem. They think that they are the final decider. The two people on the planet who emit the same vibes, and have similar hateful sneers, are G.W. Bush and Michael Witzel. They are passionately committed to their beliefs, even when proven wrong. They consider themselves to be the ultimate authority. If you go against them they will go after your family. Very closed minded, they will believe the same thing on Wednesday as they did on Monday, no matter what they learned on Tuesday.

I am not sure why Witzel scoffed so negatively when I mentioned that Pakhtuns are found in the Rg Veda. They are! Witzel mocked me when I said so, but he seems to mock everything even things that he knows are so... perhaps, just to be mean spirited. Attack dogs will go after rustling leaves and even their own shadows.

Pakhtuns in the Vedas: RV VII.19.7. Paktas (ancestors of Pakhtuns) are mentioned among the enemies of King Sudas. RV VIII.22.10. They are mentioned in a hymn to the Ashvins as allies of the great solar dynasty king Trasadasyu. RV X.61.1. In another hymn to the Ashvins, relative to the famous Vedic King Turvayana, who some regard as a Pakta.

They are mentioned mainly relative to western peoples like Druhyus and Parshus (Persians), but also have some connection to the solar dynasty (Ikshvakus). According to all accounts the solar dynasty king Mandhata conquered Afghanistan and some of the Paktas may have joined him. Raghu and other kings of the solar dynasty were also active in the region and the name Ram occurs as an important Persian deity. The Harayu in Afghanistan may have been named after the Sarayu in India.

I don't know why Professor Witzel is so hostile and aggressive. My friend who attended the conference felt sorry for him and surmised he had been abused as a child. Regardless, he is abusive. But, time wounds all heels. Sorry to be so frank.

(Credit goes to Steven Colbert for the Monday to Wednesday joke!)

Witzel exemplifies Truthiness.... the quality by which a person purports to know something ... without regard to evidence or ... intellectual examination.

Maybe the W in George W. Bush stands for Witzel?!

Please see this Press Release from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Center for Indic Studies

July 3, 2006

Scientists Collide with Linguists to Assert Indigenous origin of Indian Civilization

Comprehensive population genetics data along with archeological and astronomical evidence presented at June 23-25, 2006 conference in Dartmouth, MA, overwhelmingly concluded that Indian civilization and its human population is indigenous.

In fact, the original people and culture within the Indian Subcontinent may even be a likely pool for the genetic, linguistic, and cultural origin of the most rest of the world, particularly Europe and Asia.

Leading evidences come from population genetics, which were presented by two leading researchers in the field, Dr. V. K. Kashyap, National Institute of Biologicals, India, and Dr. Peter Underhill of Stanford University in California. Their results generally contradict the notion Aryan invasion/migration theory for the origin of Indian civilization.

Underhill concluded “the spatial frequency distributions of both L1 frequency and variance levels show a spreading pattern emanating from India”, referring to a Y chromosome marker. He, however, put several caveats before interpreting genetic data, including “Y-ancestry may not always reflect the ancestry of the rest of the genome”

Dr. Kashyap, on the other hand, with the most comprehensive set of genetic data was quite emphatic in his assertion that there is “no clear genetic evidence for an intrusion of Indo-Aryan people into India, establishment of caste system and gene flow.”

Michael Witzel, a Harvard linguist, who is known to lead the idea of Aryan invasion/migration/influx theory in more recent times, continued to question genetic evidence on the basis that it does not provide the time resolution to explain events that may have been involved in Aryan presence in India.

Dr. Kashyap’s reply was that even though the time resolution needs further work, the fact that there are clear and distinct differences in the gene pools of Indian population and those of Central Asian and European groups, the evidence nevertheless negates any Aryan invasion or migration into Indian Subcontinent.

Witzel though refused to present his own data and evidence for his theories despite being invited to do so was nevertheless present in the conference and raised many questions. Some of his commentaries questioning the credibility of scholars evoked sharp responses from other participants.

Rig Veda has been dated to 1,500 BC by those who use linguistics to claim its origin Aryans coming out of Central Asia and Europe. Archaeologist B.B. Lal and scientist and historian N.S. Rajaram disagreed with the position of linguists, in particular Witzel who claimed literary and linguistic evidence for the non-Indian origin of the Vedic civilization.

Dr. Narahari Achar, a physicist from University of Memphis clearly showed with astronomical analysis that the Mahabharata war in 3,067 BC, thus poking a major hole in the outside Aryan origin of Vedic people.

Interestingly, Witzel stated, for the first time to many in the audience, that he and his colleagues no longer subscribe to Aryan invasion theory.

Dr. Bal Ram Singh, Director, Center for Indic Studies at UMass Dartmouth, which organized the conference was appalled at the level of visceral feelings Witzel holds against some of the scholars in the field, but felt satisfied with the overall outcome of the conference.

“I am glad to see people who have been scholarly shooting at each other for about a decade are finally in one room, this is a progress”, said Singh.

The conference was able to bring together in one room for the first time experts from genetics, archeology, physics, linguistics, anthropology, history, and philosophy. A proceedings of the conference is expected to come out soon, detailing various arguments on the origin of Indian civilization.

Bal Ram Singh, Ph.D. Director, Center for Indic Studies University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 285 Old Westport Road Dartmouth, MA 02747

Internet address: http://www.umassd.edu/indic

So, Hornplease, what else did you write that eliminated an important page? Your critique was “one-dimensional in both effect and intent.” You declared the very valid entry as “unsalvageable” even though there is much documentation to back up the bias described on that now eliminated page. Then you suggested putting the information “on the Doniger and Witzel pages” and you “would not demand their deletion.” You seem to have a God-like role in this mission to destroy all evidence of bias in South Asian Studies. Would you not have a page for anti-Semitism and only include the listing on the Hitler page? You are thoroughly pov infested and I do not think that you should have the power to eliminate an important and informative page (through the use of lies). 

Sorry if this message has been a little rude. I read you comments a few weeks ago and have not had the time to write to you until now. I hope that I have cleared up your errors and misconceptions.

Thank you.

All the best, Yvette Rosser yvetterosser@yahoo.com

Well. It would have perhaps have been better if all that was emailed to me rather than cluttering up my talk page, but thank you for taking the trouble, anyway.

I have been attacked in the course of my time on WP by Stalin-lovers, Nehru-haters, Hindu radicals, sympathisers with the Kashmiri militancy, and those who think I am socialist, liberal, capitalist, Macaulay-ite, overly Western, obscurantist Indian, inclusionist, deletionist and just plain snide, but this has to be the longest rant I've ever received, and that too for a POV fork WP page that was so comprehensively terrible and written in the worst faith possible.

First of all, the AFD deletion debate that is being discussed is here . In the course of that debate, in which I voted to delete an article which I did not bring to AfD, I mentioned that the article we were voting on was structured in bad faith, that it prominently highlighted the views of people without stating what their links were to right-wing organisations. :Ms Rosser, my correspondent above, was simply one of those under discussion. Here's an extract, about Ms. Rosser in particular: "My information about this Rosser, whatever she may have 'founded' that exists on paper or not, is simply that she is not an unbiased scholar; you claimed I discovered her links to the radical rightwing VHP through some attack site. I did not. It is available online - on the VHP's own site, where they call her Ram Rani for some reason. The Rosser link is an opinion piece, unverified, without peer review, and not published by a known publishing house."

That was the result of looking at the first page of Google results on Ms. Rosser's name, and to my mind was sufficient to indicate the existence of a possible bias, concealed in the way that the article was structured. (Google "Rosser" together with "VHP of America".) I did not know anything about Ms. Rosser at the time, and before I weighed in further, I spent some time reading what she has written that is available online, and was startled by its virulence. If Ms. Rosser thinks this is not a representative sample of her work, then she should attempt to remedy that.

In some of the less virulent samples, which she has linked to above, and berated me for ignoring, she makes statements like the following "Throughout, the Indus Valley Culture is shown as a separate civilization and not a precursor to Hindu culture. In this and in most other world history textbooks there is a discontinuity between the ancient Indus Valley Civilization and later developments in Hinduism." (This is from an article that is supposed to evaluate the negative effect on South Asian Americans of Orientalisation of their origins in textbooks.)

I then sent an email to someone whom I know at the UT Austin South Asian department, asking if they knew of Ms. Rosser's position in the department, as that is a fairly major program, and she appeared to have got an advanced degree there. Their reply indicated that she was encouraged to transfer to another department. Thus, I wrote: "I have spent a little time reading Rosser. She is absurdly biased. Further, I have got in touch with some people at UT Austin, where she was a grad student, and I discovered that in the well-regarded South Asian programme she was not permitted to finish her PhD and had to go on to submit it in the department of curriculum and instruction. (it was about the revising of textbooks by bjp state govts.) That is not an academically acceptable source. Further, you miss the point that all i needed to know was that she was funded by the vhp to make the determination that she was not an independent source either!"

The sole point of the discussion of Ms. Rosser's work was to point out that the article we were discussing was sourced from people of doubtful academic antecedents, and written without good faith in that it concealed the publicly available record of links of quoted individuals to right-wing organisations in India.

I apologise on one count only, in that I misread the topic of her thesis. Rather than the revision of textbooks by Hindu fundamentalists, it was about the revision of textbooks by Muslim fundamentalists. In retrospect, I wonder how I could have, even in error, supposed otherwise.

About her claim that my statements were 'libelous', entirely aside from WP:NLT, please compare the statements that have been made by me, indicating that she switched departments at the request of the department she was leaving, and by her, indicating that she switched on the basis of "credentials and interests", when her undergraduate degree was from the department she was leaving. I have no interest in following this up further, or in mentioning the name of the person who got back to me in confidence. It is irrelevant to the main point, which remains that Ms. Rosser is a somewhat marginal, and I am afraid, possibly compromised voice; and further, the entire discussion of Ms. Rosser was completely peripheral to the actual discussion, which was whether the article was created and written in good faith or not.

The rest of Ms. Rosser's letter to me is an attack on Michael Witzel. This puzzles me, as in no way do I stand in defence of his personality (which is known to be difficult) or work. I merely indicated that he is internationally recognised as a very major figure in the field, as compared to many others who are given more coverage on WP, and thus is more a candidate for quoting. I did notice that the Indology page was practically a stub, but the 'Bias' page was relatively heavy. That is what I meant when I said WP was criticising work without an article on the work itself.

I do hope that Ms. Rosser realises that, regardless of this letter, which is, on the whole, relatively free from personal attacks, she has not proved - indeed, she has not argued - the case that she is sufficiently mainstream or unbiased to be quoted without qualification as an authority on any pages that deal with South Asian studies. That was the extent of the claim that I made during the deletion debate, which is the only time, till now, that Ms. Rosser has entered my life.

Hornplease 03:39, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I think Ms Rosser is much more qualified than Witzel.Bakaman _Bakatalk 18:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)