Kishwar supports plagiaristic 'freedom of speech'
In an interesting turn of events, writer-activist Madhu Kishwar is running a campaign against those who were demanding that Rajiv Malhotra's books be 'pulped' for outrightly plagiarising several western scholars. Western scholars Richard Fox and Andrew J Nicholson have pointed out the verbatim plaigerism in Malhotra's books. Madhu Kishwar has started an online petition for Malhotra for his "freedom of speech".
Who is Rajiv Malhotra?
Rajiv Malhotra is an Indo-American author and Hindu activist who speaks "on the character and place of Hinduism in the globalizing world." He opposes the western scholarship that defames tradition and "undermines the interests of India."
Campaign against plagiarism by Malhotra
Richard Fox Young, Princeton's associate professor of the History of Religions alleged that writer Rajiv Malhotra has used crucial passages of the work of Andrew J Nicholson from his book Unifying Hinduism. Young has been running an online campaign "#Message4Rajiv" to highlight the examples of 'plagiarism' in Rajiv Malhotra's books: Breaking India (2011) and Indra's Net (2014).
In the name of defense
Defending his call to not use quotation marks, Rajiv Malhotra said that they were a 'Western convention' and that the Sanskrit language did not have them. Malhotra in his end note had written that sections were taken from "author XYZ" saying it was "global acknowledgment" and "it suffices by all norms". Malhotra defended the plagiarism accusations saying that the verbatim quotes were "cosmetic" errors.
Malhotra's rebuttal to Fox Young's claims
Deriding Young's campaign author Rajiv Malhotra said that he had indeed 'cited' Nicholson wherever it was needed. He further claimed that 12 out of the 30 endnotes referred to Nicholson. Moreover Malhotra blames Young for misleading people, claiming to be a Princeton professor when in reality he is a teacher at "Christian Seminary that happens to be located in the town of Princeton."
Malhotra gets 6,500 signatures in support
According to Rajiv Malhotra while the campaign against him, #message4rajiv got 192 signatures, the petition supporting him on Change.org had garnered 6,500 signatures.
Plagiarism charge on Malhotra: win for Wendy Doniger
Many academics of Western Indology see the attack on Malhotra's book as revenge from Wendy Doniger, since Malhotra has been Wendy's vociferous critic since 15 years. In 2014, withdrew all published copies of Wendy Doniger's The Hindus after a petition that collected over 10,000 signatures, decried that the book was filled with mis-translations and factual errors.
