The Egyptologist Jan Assmann has passed. His work is indispensable for anyone interested in the rise of monotheism and its relationship to polytheistic “primary religions”, specifically “Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism” and “The Price of Monotheism”

https://twitter.com/steffen_siegel/status/1759919548482936931

From the Intro of The Price of Monotheism, where Assmann draws a useful distinction between “primary” and “secondary” religions. He also calls the latter “counter religions”

Fanon, from WOTE, on the failure of the post-colonial bourgeoisie to support national consciousness:

“This fight for democracy against man's oppression gradually emerges from a universalist, neoliberal confusion to arrive, sometimes laboriously, at a demand for nationhood.“ “But the unpreparedness of the elite, the lack of practical ties between them and the masses, their apathy and, yes, their cowardice at the crucial moment in the struggle, are the cause of tragic trials and tribulations.”

Being in India has naturally given me a chance to reflect on my previous trips here, in particular my visits in 94 and 97 when I was all of 5 and 8 years old, respectively. My memory of 94 is spotty, but I recall a fair amount from my visit in 97. In any case, the memories are sufficient to form a composite image, since the visits were basically identical. As is the case for most Indian Americans, these visits follow a standard formula: visit elderly relatives, visit other relatives, trek to a couple of temples.

Not sure I’ve ever been to a tourist destination with more squandered potential than Jodhpur. The fort is a genuine marvel, and the old city features a remarkable number of beautiful havelis. And yet, the attractions are overshadowed by filth, traffic pollution, and bad roads The city center where most of the hotels are is also quite bad. Truly can’t understand how a state so dependent on tourism revenue can be so indifferent.

From Oberoi’s “The Construction of Religious Boundaries”:

Although the EIC was in the early days generally reticent to allow too much missionary activity lest it disrupt commercial operations, in Punjab “the Raj and the church advanced side by side.” By the 1880s, the entire province of Punjab “was covered with mission establishments” and presses churned out millions of pages of Christian literature in vernacular.

The BJP was originally seen as purely an urban party, but its success in UP— India’s largest state— has been driven by rural and “rurban” voters. According to Mehta, the BJP “has become the default party of the village” in UP In 2019, 68.9% of the BJP’s Lok Sabha (lower house) MPs were non-“upper caste”, a fact that “flew in the face of assertions in recent political science research on India that claimed a significant resurgence of upper-caste dominance between 2009 and 2019 within the BJP”

The fear of the "hindoo" bringing caste to America goes back to the early 20C, when the number of Indian immigrants in CA was in the hundreds. In those days, anti-immigrant activists argued that caste was integral to the "Hindoo" and would preclude assimilation 1/n

https://twitter.com/razibkhan/status/1600605603445051392

Although motivated by economic concerns about low-cost Indians displacing American labor, the rhetoric played on well-established tropes regarding the "Hindoo" that had been circulating for over a century. 2/n

https://twitter.com/HindooHistory/status/1417965145221779463?s=20&t=Skl0tsJJhZk9CPZspTKCVw

I've read this twice and now can confirm that it is in fact one of the stupidest things I've read. The basic takeaway appears to be: Modi & other BJP leaders congratulated the Shrimad Rajchandra Mission on opening a new hospital serving the underprivileged, ERGO they are hindutva

https://twitter.com/StevenMVose/status/1597982678347051008

And then there's this gem: the ashram's founder posting about hindu festivals is a case of "hindu centrism." Imagine being a scholar of "south asia" and being this ignorant about Indian culture.

I've long since given up trying to understand the incomprehensible drivel published by south asianists. It's far more interesting to try and understand their psychological position, i.e. a implicit desperation to convince themselves that they're not neocolonial stooges 1/n

https://twitter.com/themodsisyphus/status/1595464124351348737

The desperation of course betrays their own paranoia. There was another way. All they had to do was acknowledge that-- yes-- the academy, media, and activist class in the west have a history of being anti-Hindu that is well documented and it should be addressed. 2/n

"One model that people routinely have is that pagan resistance to Christianization was inevitable. On a microlevel this seems correct, but on a macrolevel for Northern Europe, Christianity was the only metaethnic high culture transnational religious identity that was on offer."

https://twitter.com/gnxp_posts/status/1595346802613833730

" At some point, the Northern European proto-states were going to become Christian. It was a matter of when. We see this in Ireland, where the Christianization process was entirely endogenous and occurred gradually and piecemeal."

Excerpt from @jaycaspiankang's excellent book, "The Loneliest Americans":

"But what sets modern, assimilated Asian Americans apart is that our bonds with our 'brothers and sisters' are mostly superficial markers of identity, whether rituals around boba tea, recipes..." "or support for ethnic studies programs and the like. Indignation tends to be flimsy-- we are made when white chefs cook food our parents cooked, or we clamor about representation in Hollywood"

The desperate need to appeal to western liberal sensibilities is killing Indian intellectual culture. Does anyone with even an iota of familiarity with Bollywood actually believe that the industry has ever been "vauntedly liberal"? Where does the underworld financing fit in?

https://twitter.com/samanth_s/status/1579422208631656450

But even more offensive than this delusion is the notion that Bollywood as presently constituted warrants artistic respect. How many movies does the industry produce a year? What % of them are any good? 5%? Bwood is a hot bed of nepotism and mediocrity. Good riddance.

Naipaul's on Indian intellectual culture (2006):

"Sixty years after independence that problem is still there. India has no autonomous intellectual life. Of the many millions whom independence has liberated a fair proportion now look away from India fo ultimate fulfillment." "They look especially to the United States. Immigration rules have changed; but the place is still not crowded out with Indians. That is where the better jobs are, where Indians are well thought of, and that is where people of certain level wish to live and marry"

Malcolm X on his preference for Mao over Nehru

https://twitter.com/dabsquad_slank/status/1164726997605650432

“Nehru brought his country up in a beggar’s role… the role of India and its reliance upon the West during the years since it got its supposed independence, has it today just as helpless and dependent as it was when it first got its independence”

The depiction of the erect phallus is a pretty standard aspect of pagan religions, including among Native American religious traditions (e.g. Kokopelli). But of course the prof must know that, given his acute sensitivity to the plight of the natives whom he's displaced

https://twitter.com/mkhanpasha/status/1526978691473055747

Alternative hypothesis: This is the standard formula. For dead or dying polytheists, patronizing condescension and empty gestures of sympathy. For those still living, mockery and scorn.

With respect to the diaspora, my somewhat naive (i.e. based on personal convos and twitter) view is as follows: All dharmic peoples in America operate against a backdrop of a preexisting negative view of non-Abrahamic spiritual systems (cf. #HindooHistory) 1/n

https://twitter.com/omarali50/status/1520450364809510912

Add to this the underlying political incentive for newly arrived immigrant groups to create a strong identity for purposes of protecting and lobbying for their own interests-- however construed-- and latent antagonism (not all unjustified) towards the Indian state b/c of 1984 2/n

"INTERVIEWER: Why is sacrifice so important?

CALASSO: Maybe it’s simply because sacrifice brings us into dealings with the unknown. In the act of sacrifice, you establish a relation with something that you recognize as enigmatic and powerful."

bookhaven.stanford.edu/2014/11/robert… "Our collective psyche seems to have lost touch with it, although science is providing countless motives for being overwhelmed by the unknown. The unknown itself is in our own mind as well—our mind is in its largest part totally unknown to us."

“AT A DINNER party in Delhi, a young foreign academic, describing what was most noticeable about the crowds he had seen in Bombay on his Indian holiday, said with a giggle: ‘They were doing their ‘potties’ on the street.’” “He was adding to what his Indian wife had said with mystical gravity: she saw people only having their being. She was middle-class and well connected. He was shallow and brisk and common, enjoying his pickings, swinging happily from branch to low branch in the grove of Academe.”

"So, in particular, I say that Indians in diaspora can look into India’s rich past for new ways of fashioning themselves as participants in the ideal global conversation."

Richard Marshall interview w/ Jonardon Ganeri

3-16am.co.uk/articles/artha… "Those retrieved resources, though, are not exclusively Indian, any more than resources found through a study of European history are exclusively European..."

"AIMS TO FREE INDIA"

"Krishna-Varma Would Oppose Force with Violence"

"Chief of Conspirators"

"FOR POLITICAL ASSASSINATIONS" "The recent assassination of Sir William Curzon Wylie by the Indian student Dhingra has opened the eyes of all England to the dangerous condition of affairs existing in the Indian empire"

TIL Margaret Wilson-- daughter of Woodrow Wilson-- left America for India, where she joined the Sri Aurobindo ashram in Pondicherry:

Clip from The Evening Star, 1944 "Margaret Woodrow Wilson, 57, eldest of President Wilson's three daughters, died Saturday in the India religious colony to which she went four years ago with the announcement that she was seeking refuge from a troubled world..."