The Indian Identity - Part 1

This series of posts is inspired by the talk I attended on 1st October at IISc on "U-Turn Theory: How the West Appropriates Indian Culture" by Shri. Rajiv Malhotra. It provided an insightful and glaring picture of Intellectual plagiarism by the West. The speaker is the Chairman, Center for Indic Studies, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth and the Founder-Director, Infinity Foundation, Princeton New Jersey.
More details on Shri. Rajiv Malhotra can be seen here.

The abstract of the U-Turn Theory-(Source: http://www.deeshaa.org/2006/02/16/rajiv-malhotras-u-turn-theory/):
Westerners appropriate Indic ideas through a process which Rajiv Malhotra has called the U-Turn. In its basic form the U-Turn Theory states that a member of the dominant Western culture first whole-heartedly learns the Indic tradition. He or she, for a variety of reasons, then repackages it and projects the knowledge gained from India from within his/her own culture. The next thing you know is that s/he claims these ideas were always an integral part of Western culture. Some, but not all, also start demonizing the source Indic traditions using a lot of pretexts, such as calling them “world negating” or accusing them of “human rights” abuses. As an example, Malhotra has examined on how Jung appropriated much from Indic thought - including key ideas of collective unconscious, archetypes, and synchronicity - but did the classical U-Turn from Indic thought. In all, Malhotra has done 50+ case studies of such U-Turns, and each has its own story as to why and how it was done. U-Turns have played animportant role in shaping Western ideas, literature and popular culture; yet they are typically ignored in discussions on the history of ideas. The U-Turn Theory also explains that many Indians internalize the Western adaptations of Indian culture and re-import them into India: For instance, Tantric healing is more fashionable as “energy healing” or as reiki; yoga’s return to India’s Westernized middle class owes a lot to the West’s adoption of it; and Western research on cognitive science and neuroscience includes yogis who are mere “subjects.”

He went in detail explaining several examples of such a U-Turn and what should "we" do about it. The areas he covered mainly are:
- Cross Cultural Dynamics, Asymmetric Cultural Exchange
- How Indian Ideas get "Westernised" - The process
- Mainstream Press Examples
- Civilizational Darwinism
- The U-Turn Theory
- Stages in the U-Turn Theory
- Case studies of U-Turn on Ayurveda and Yoga
- Why People U-Turn
- What can we do about it
He ended his talk with a comparison of the state of India under the British Raj and now under a similar Intellectual onslaught from the west.

Each of these topics need a long discussion. I would post my comments on these topic after some thought. Meanwhile you can think too!

He is working on a comprehensive book on U-Turn theory which is scheduled to be released by mid-2009. Another book titled - "Invading The Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America" is also available.

More details on this book here.

He stressed the significance of such U-Turns to Indian Civilization. Such an appropriation, if continued for a long time, will even lead to the complete destruction of the Indian Identity.

More on it shortly.

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