Petitioners angry after Sheldon Pollock gets Rohan Murty support – may stay on as Murty Classic Library editor

March 2, 2016, NewsCrunch

Rohan Murty seems to have rejected a petition to remove noted academic Sheldon Pollock as the general editor of the Murty Classic Library of India.

The Murty Classic Library of India is publishing Indian classics from various languages with the help of a $5 million fund from former Infosys chairman Narayana Murthy’s son Rohan Murty.

Pollock, a noted Sanskrit scholar, teaches at ColumbiaUniversity.

Over 100 academics, mostly from India, have written to Rohan Murty urging him to drop Pollock, who they say is not "politically neutral".

The petition cites a 2012 lecture delivered by Pollock at HeidelbergUniversity's South Asia Institute. In the lecture, the petitioners allege that Pollock echoes the contemptuous views of Macaulay and Max Weber on the Indian shastras. However, their interpretation of the lecture has been challenged by many academics.  

When The Telegraph contacted Rohan Murty, he reportedly forwarded the full text of the 2012 lecture.

"This is the data that will demonstrate the truth. Please read the actual speech to see what was actually said," Rohan wrote to The Telegraph in an email.

In the speech titled "What is South Asian Knowledge Good For? Pollock disagrees with Macaulay’s contention that Indian languages and knowledge were useless and false, notes the newspaper.

But Rohan’s stand does not seem to have gone down well with petitioners.

One of them, Ramesh C Bhardwaj, reportedly told The Telegraph that "like-minded academicians" would oppose any effort to supply the Murty Classic Library's books to public libraries in India.

"It is our national duty to prevent these books from reaching public libraries. These books give misleading interpretation about Indian heritage," Bhardwaj was quoted saying by The Telegraph.

Bhardwaj is the head of Sanskrit department at the DelhiUniversity. K Ramasubramanian from IIT Bombay, Sanskrit scholar V. Kutumba Sastry and former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami are among other signatories of the petition.

The petition seeking the removal of Sheldon Pollock as Chief Editor of Murty Classical Library has received over 13,000 signatures on Change.org.

The petitioners have also sought an element of "Swadeshi Indology" in the Murty Classical Library. They had asked the project to reflect 'Make in India' ethos and not be outsourced wholesale to American Ivy Leagues.