Rohan Murty picks strong words to ridicule online petition – says Sheldon Pollock will stay at classical library for years

March 3, 2016, NewsCrunch

Harvard scholar Rohan Murty has rejected an online petition to replace American Indologist Sheldon Pollock as the editor of classical library.

Murty Classical Library of India (MCLI) was launched by Rohan Murty with an endowment of $5.2 million in 2010.

A petition at change.org has over 13,000 signatures; over 130 noted academics are behind the campaign to oust Sheldon Pollock.

NewsCrunch had noted on Wednesday that Rohan Murty had decided to stand by Sheldon Pollock.  But, he chose surprisingly harsh words to trash the petitioners, according to a report published by The Economic Times on Thursday.

He was categorical in rejecting the demand to oust Sheldon Pollock. “Pollock has been critical to the success of the library, and Harvard and I look forward to having him on board for many years to come," he said.

He challenged the petitioners to point out problems in the books released by MCLI instead of just saying it was a ‘conspiracy’.

“I want to hear in which book we have published, in which line or page there is a problem, and in what context, and why," said Murty.

Deciding to hold noting back, Rohan Murty said "I doubt if these people have read even a single book that we have published.”

He further ridiculed the petitioners for sitting in a ‘peanut gallery’ and throwing “empty shells” at those doing the hard work.

The petitioners say Sheldon Pollock had a delivered a biased lecture against Indian classics at HeidelbergUniversity. They are also upset that he had signed a petition in support of JNU students.  They would like to have someone committed to swadeshi Indology at the helm of MCLI, rather than outsourcing it to American academics.