Were the signatories of the petition alarmed that Buddhist women poets have been allowed to be heard in that series? The same cannot be said of the new appointees, who are taking major Indian institutions in directions that are not necessarily dedicated to the production and promotion of knowledge. When the “review” denounces the book’s “stinky logic of provincialising the otherwise wide-ranging cultural nationalism or Hindutva”, we realise that even intelligibility has become a dispensable virtue in such excoriating attacks. He recognised, in short, the intellectual importance of engaging with those whose views he may have cordially disliked, even opposed. By turning universities and institutions of learning into places of unquestioning worship, we run the risk of being brought to our knees, in more ways than one.

Source: The Hindu September 11, 2016 18:33 UTC