Siddhartha Deb has a great piece on Those mythological men and their sacred, supersonic flying temples in The New Republic. Subtitle: "What tales of ancient Vedic aircraft tell us about India’s place in the modern world."
Excerpts won't do any justice to the piece. So, go read the whole thing!
ReplyDeleteThe problem with several of these popular articles is that they
short-change facts in favor of rhetoric. The VS is scintifically
bunkum, and this is is its biggest critisicm. But, in trying to
belabor an already strong case , Deb would additionally have as
believe that "In this paradise of the past, there are no Buddhists or
Muslims or Christians or Jews or left-wingers or women.", including
the word "Jews" perhaps to arouse in his western readership the
specter of a Nazi-style racism, when the facts on the grounds say that
anti-semitism has never held sway in India on any side of the
political divide. Then, somehow, without any arguments being made to
support that conclusion, the motivation of trying to maintain "caste
laws" is ascribed to the author of VS.
By trying to manufacture "evidence" of caste-bias or anti-semitism in
a text that is essentially fantasy, the author only weakens his own
(otherwise very good argument).
For an example of how not to manufacture facts and yet produce a engaging story on an important subject, one only needs to look at Frontline's story on the shenanigans at ISI. The facts against the actions of Arun Shourie and the government are strong, and the author succeeds in producing a good story without indulging in unsubstantiated innuendos or manufactured theories.
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