People like Audrey Truschke are not rare in Western academia. What is rare, however, are Western scholars willing to view Hindu civilization sympathetically or discuss the Islamic period in India from a Hindu civilizational perspective without immediately being branded “majoritarian” or “Hindutva.” And Hindus themselves bear part of the responsibility. In the rush to oppose “Hindutva,” many Indian intellectual circles ended up exporting an aggressively anti-Hindu narrative to the West. Add to this the endless Hindu fault lines of caste, language, region, sect and Western academia found an ecosystem where attacking Hindu civilizational claims became intellectually fashionable and institutionally rewarding. When a civilization’s own elite constantly delegitimizes its history, identity, and grievances, outsiders eventually begin treating that narrative as objective truth. It is not that there is no counter views on various aspect of history in other societies like China for example, which can somehow demean their civilizational pride. History by its very nature can be speculative at times specifically distant past, but if a majority view that in a certain way and that form is not perceived as attack on one section of society then it is mostly accepted. Western scholars' long detailed thesis can't really harm the notion. Chinese have done that and Indians exactly the opposite. We created theories out of thin air which exploited our faultlines and argument counter arguments internalised. Western academia with the active help of of Indian leftists exploited this massively. There is no western academia to see it from unitary Hindu POV. What do you guys think?
