The question never was about bringing “subaltern voices”. Her scholarship is inherently dishonest. Read any of her books (I had the misfortune of reading a few chapters of “Erotic Shiva”, it is out there in Google Books) and many things she wrote are twisted mis-representation or just plain fabrication. What happens if I fabricate some dis-tasteful stuff about your life or character and then claim to introduce some “subaltern voices” in your life story, how are you going to feel about it?
“Do you honestly think that the Hinduism of today always was?” – Do you know when Hindusim came into existence? It is bad enough that we have been reduced to call ourselves Hindu (a term that Doniger’s ideological predecessors invented) instead of Dharmic. The traditions can change over time, how Shiva treated Parvati would not change over time.
Our cultural tradition contains good dose of erotic material as any self-confident well-developed culture can have without worries of moral policing. But her re-presentation is plain wrong. If she has the right to write whatever she wants, we have the right to protest her dishonesty.
The only people who comes to defend Wendy, are either her students or the people who do not know about “Hinduism”, but are fascinated with her erotically charged mis-representation that often finds a rhythm with their ’sexually-liberated’ opinion of how an ancient ‘pagan’, ’semi-civilised’ culture should be. Your argument of sub-altern voices is a great attempt at obfuscation. But that does not cut it. We are seriously unwilling to negotiate on Wendy’s trashy tradition.

>>>”A 50-year fad, I guess!”

Progressives call themselves modern as well – and they seem to have been around for about a 100 years.

>>>”…rather that she wanted to bring to light certain subaltern voices in some of the major epics.”

…and have you ever read what Hindus have to say about themselves. In mainstream western academia Hindus represent one of the biggest subaltern groups themselves – voicesless and denied agency over discourse own their own culture and identity.

>>>”…tradition is continually negotiated”

Isnt that universalizing assumption. What if some people work hard keep parts of their tradition immutable. What if instead voicing of what the tradition means to them – only an outsiders views are presented and presented as truth. This is what is happening with Ms Doniger.

“..don’t pretend to be objective about it.”

Well people trying to protect what they perceive is thier tradition need to be politically correct about being objective about it – but someone outsider claiming spokesmanship of subalterns in Hindu society and culture are exempt from these otherwise stringent requirements of objectivity. Absolutely amazing.

“…she is extraordinarily kind”

Not long ago there was a mild mannered schoolmaster-ish chicken farmer named Himmler who tried to annihilate the entire Jewish race through his holocaust project. Point is personal appeal has nothing to do with entrenched ideological positions and biases.

I agree with Larissa about her “fad in modern scholarship” supposition. But I also winder if there is also a sociological trend that has brought down scholarship. Feminism, “social engineering” oriented policies have led to increasing numbers of women in academia. Women outnumber men in grad schools in the USA; increasingly, more husbands are becoming unemployable; boys get the shaft or less attention in primary/middle schools in the USA and so on. Associated with this is the rise of ambitious and opportunistic women who find paths or careers of least resistance. Call it niche areas that will fetch them huge dividends in the shortest time with least resistance. As a result, we have increasing mediocrity.

Don’t jump on me yet: the above trend is NOT because women are inferior. It’s because Orientalism is not not such a popular or fetching ($) subject and perhaps only the mediocre bottom feeders are left to choose it. Stoically speaking, in the larger sense, perhaps this is the way it was meant to be: women have been BS-ed for so long that it’s their turn to “come on top” any which way. (No, Wendy, don’t read anything into that expression; no pun intended at all)

“In closing, Wendy Doniger is a classic illustration of what happens when somebody is confronted with a superior culture. The initial state of dumbfoundedness gives way to irrational hatred towards the thing that such a mind cannot comprehend.”

A “superior culture”? Perhaps, but you’re arguing along lines of ideology as much as, if not more, than Doniger ever did. I read all of The Hindus and did not get the impression that she was especially sex-obsessed, but rather that she wanted to bring to light certain subaltern voices in some of the major epics.

“Tradition” is continually negotiated. Do you honestly think that the Hinduism of today always was? Do you think it has been unchanging?

You’re obviously working hard to defend your notion of “tradition”, whether it be against Western academics or the dreaded Islam… which is fine, but don’t pretend to be objective about it.

And please, please don’t act as if Wendy Doniger is some sort of hateful demon… though I don’t know her well, I took a class with her and she is extraordinarily kind, whether or not she may be wrong at times.

Why only the West. Take a look at the way India is headed where most new political experiments are a copy of what happens in the West with no real understanding of their implications…
My thinking is that the original Western civilizations (without the influence from the three Mid-East religions)–this is, the Greco-Roman one, was not incompatible with that of the Hindus and Buddhists. Look at the Hellenic-Buddhist civilization in Afghanistan–it was syncretic and very harmonious–but look at Afghanistan after the arrival of Islam–became a civilizational wasteland. This is something that Hindus don’t seem to realize.
Similarly, look at Kashmir before Islam–it produced art, learning, poetry, literature, philosophy (both Hindu and Buddhist)–look at it today? Does anything more need to be said? Does any trace of Hindu and Buddhist civilization remain in Kashmir valley?
What would have worked in India’s favor would have been a kind of Meijii type restoration that occurred in Japan (1867-8) when it modernized in response to external challenges while yet retained whatever culture it had–creating a harmonious transition to modernity. India got stuck with the naive idealism of people like Nehru.
Don’t say that “secularism” is the West’s problem–given that India copies unthinkingly most things–the problems of the West in a cultural sense will also become India’s problems, they have already become so when it comes to urban life.