Via Secular Right, I found this piece on the NYT.

Primary Red observes:

Mr. Mishra doesn’t really address his subject line. In fact, as he sees it, Indians don’t reconcile Hindu values and Biotech at all — instead, they abandon Hindu values to pursue technology. This is a ridiculous perspective by an author seemingly grasping for cheap publicity by damning his own people.

I’ll expand on these observations.

Pankaj Mishra is a House Nigger par excellence. A past Master. In the first few lines of this piece, he gushes about the goodness of the American scientists and businessmen while seemingly damning them but he really damns Indians.

American scientists and businessmen note enviously that religious and moral considerations do not seem to inhibit Indian biotechnologists.

“note enviously” is meant to kindly damn the Americans but what follows is really a heinous implication that Indian scientists are neither religious nor moral. There you go: White man hate native because native bad; me good native, me also hate native; White man happy, me Rich!

Indeed, most evangelical Christians, who believe that the embryo is a person, may find more support in ancient Hindu texts than in the Bible. Many Hindus see the soul - the true Self (or atman) - as the spiritual and imperishable component of human personality. After death destroys the body, the soul soon finds a new temporal home. Thus, for Hindus as much as for Catholics, life begins at conception.

Another evidence of me calling him a past Master. Note how neatly he equates Hinduism with Catholicism/Christianity, the former a highly developed system of philosophy while the latter is nothing but organized religion. I don’t decry the commonalities that exist between the two but just these are not enough to equate the two. Hinduism does recognize the embryo as a person; in the same wavelength it does recognize the existence of a soul in animals, birds, bees, aquatic beings, a blade of grass… in stark contrast to Christianity which says that animals and even women do not have a soul.

The other remark about life begins at conception is wholly erroneous. For Hindus there’s something called a Cosmic consciousness to which all of us have to return, of which we all are products, and the realization that it exists within us is supposed to be the goal of life. In fact, life does not “begin” (sic) at conception: the whole concept of life is to move to a state that is Beyond Life, to be free from the cycle of birth and death. In fact, how a being is conceived depends on its previous karma. That Mishra who tries to pontificate on comparitive religions in this article doesn’t know this basic tenet of Hindu philosophy is really notsurprising.

In one of its famous stories, the warrior Arjuna describes to his pregnant wife a seven-stage military strategy. His yet-to-born son Abhimanyu is listening, too. But as Arjuna describes the seventh and last stage, his wife falls asleep, presumably out of boredom. Years later, while fighting his father’s cousins, the hundred Kaurava brothers, Abhimanyu uses well the military training he has learned in his mother’s womb, until the seventh stage, where he falters and is killed.

Please, Mr. Mishra! I find it hard to believe that this is a product your fabled wide and in depth reading. One, the original Mahabharata has no mention of this flight of fancy: Vyasa’s epic doesn’t say anywhere that Arjuna described this strategy to his pregnant wife. All that is said on this subject is said by Abhimanyu himself, “I learnt it from my father.”

As a (lengthy) digression, I present the following:

Abhimanyu managed to penetrate the imposing Chakravyuha formation amid a scene of fierce fighting. The only way in a war, to saw your way inside an enemy formation is by killing those who guard these formations. The common version of Abhimanyu’s combat is like Mishra says, that the lad wound his way in but couldn’t get out. Logically it is absurd. A person who can travel the path forward can just as easily retrace his steps in the same route. Why couldn’t Abhimanyu do the same? His journey–if he wanted to flee, that is–would have on the contrary, been easier as he had killed all those who had guarded the formation. So why was he killed? Not certainly because as Mishra says, he “faltered” (sic).

The original says that Abhimanyu was killed because he was consciously isolated by the enemies and singled out for a combined attack from such stalwarts as Drona, Aswatthama, Kripa, Karna, Kritavarma, and Salya. Abhimanyu’s death was the result of foul play that transgressed all established battle rules of the day. He was attacked from behind, his horses killed–at Drona’s command–his charioteer killed, his weapons shattered by multiple enemies: in short order, he was attacked simultaneously from all directions. That and the fact that Jayadhrata prevented Bhima and others to come to Abhimanyu’s rescue.

I’m back on track.

Indian proponents of stem-cell research often offer this story as an early instance of human cloning through stem cells extracted from human embryos.

The word “often,” also has the connotation of “frequently.” If it is so frequent, why doesn’t Mishra name but one scientist or mention/link a report as evidence?

Ultrasound scans help many women in India to abort female fetuses; a girl child is still considered a burden among Indians.

The script, the template, the boilerplate! There it is: the Elements of Style for Indians Writing about India for a Western Audience:

• Thou shalt at least make one passing reference to female infanticide even if it happens once in 10 years
• Thou shalt uphold the Grand Canon that Indians are superstitious (the girl child-burden bit)
• Thou shalt make references to bride burning (provided not more than 50 articles published in the past year contain the same reference; overdoing something pisses off readers but it helps to reinforce their perceptions once a while; maintain a delicate balance)
• Thou shalt also uphold the Virtue of Condemning the Caste System (This shall earn you a bonus. The bonus is doled out provided only if you yourself belong to an upper caste and have since come to hate it.)

(Inspiration: Richard Crasta)

Stem cell research is also expensive, and seems glaringly so in a country which does not provide basic health care for most of its people.

Slam India. Again and again. The fact that India has hardworking folks and the set up necessary to enable stem cell research isn’t seen as a plus point. Instead, it is used as a stick to warn scientists and entrepreneurs “not to go there.” Because you see, Mishra and his fellow-worthies couldn’t prevent the telecom revolution and the IT success story, which has made India a power that the world has been forced to notice. I guess they thought nothing harmful would come out of a few coolies typing away. More than a few decades later, their collective socialist souls were stunned that this actually led to India’s prosperity, which is what they hate. An Elysian India is anathema to their form of socialism. This therefore, is their way of preempting, who knows, something which may herald much better prospects. Hey but Mishra himself answers in the next line:

The advanced treatments promised by biotechnology are likely to benefit the rich, at least for the first few years.

Anything that will potentially benefit “the rich” even in the imagination should be stopped at the gates. I wonder why? I recall a familiar refrain in the angry-young-man movies, where the hero an oppressed man is damning the rich, kyon, mazdoor/garib log kya kum insaan hai? (are the poor and the toiling any less human?) Mishra and Company seem to be bent upon reversing this. Picture a scene where a fabulously wealthy–but ailing–seth slowly gets out of his Ferrari and begs of the huge crowd of poor people, kyon, gaadi mein jaane waale mujh jaise ameer log treatment nahi lesakte? hum bhi aap hi logon ki tarah insaan hai. (aren’t people like me who travel in cars entitled to medical care? after all, we are also like you, humans.) I admit that’s far fetched–the rich guy will simply fly to a nation which has these facilities–but such a scene would surely delight the likes of Pankaj Mishra. On the other hand, I wonder why Mishra should be complaining, for he’s surely rich enough to be able to afford these advanced treatments and sponsor a couple of poor people who need it. That would demonstrate precept in practice more aligned to the principles of Dharma, which among other things also states that a person should donate at least a tenth of his earnings for charity/noble causes. It’d find an echo in Mishra’s brand of social equality.

Note the usage of “likely to;” he doesn’t say it with certainty. Is there enough data/evidence to show that the poor can indeed afford these treatments? With any technological innovation, it takes time for the benefits to even out so that everybody can afford them. In my college days–10 years ago–a music CD used to cost at a minimum, 600 rupees. Why, just 3 years ago, cellphones–handsets–were relatively expensive. Subscription tariffs used be 16 rupees per outgoing call and 8 rupees for an incoming call about 10 years ago. But why bother with all this? Just insert a “likely to.” If biotechnology does result in cheap treatment, then Mishra will find something else to slam…

In the meantime, the poor may be asked to offer themselves as guinea pigs.

Why does this one sound suspiciously close to the Verbal Terrorist’s writing style and her way of offering “arguments”?

[...]for Gandhi’s belief that “civilization consists not in the multiplication of wants but in the deliberate and voluntary reduction of wants.”

And why doesn’t Mishra, whose adoration for Gandhi is evident follow this principle of reducing his wants? For a change, why doesn’t he chuck his lucrative job and take to the streets like the Mahatma did? I’m sure with his overflowing sympathy which his writing demonstrates, he’ll be a huge hit with the masses.

They subscribe to a worldly form of Hinduism - one that now proves to be infinitely adjustable to the modern era, endorsing nuclear bombs and biotechnology as well as India’s claim to be taken seriously as an emerging economic and scientific superpower.

Fortunately for Mishra, the Western–specifically, the US–audience is ignorant of Hinduism. Hence he, like the biotech companies he derides, is using them as guinea pigs for unleashing his morbid version of Hinduism which exists only in his imagination. Prithee, what exactly is this “worldly form of Hinduism?” Wait a minute! his implication is that Hinduism has two forms: a worldly one and an un-wordly (?) one. Right. Pigs can definitely fly.

In any case, Mishra has made his Bosses proud again. After all, not everybody gets regularly published in the NYT.

Richard Crasta was right, after all.