Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project

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Vinod says
"Further , Romila Thapar was given the award even though her research has demonized Hinduism and demolished the sense of Indian civilization.  Her co-recipient Peter Robert Lamont Brown meanwhile, according to the authors Malhotra & Neelakandan is a historian of early Christian monasticism and his work has brought out a positive picture of Christian monasticism that is equivalent to the Indian spiritual culture which Thapar herself has condemned as life-negating escapism. Thapar twice declined the Indian government’s highest award, the Padma Bhushan perhaps she didn't want to be seen as politically aligned to a particular ideology or government, but she gladly accepted the $1 Million prize with Peter Robert Lamont Brown,  why dual standards here?"

She specifically covers this
"It’s only to be expected that a Narendra Modi government will not mean acchey din for historians like Romila Thapar.Thapar butted heads with the previous NDA regime as well about changes made to her textbook on ancient India. She has complained about “an attempt to replace mainstream history with a Hindutva version of history.” It’s only natural that when an ideological shift happens in government, its reverberations will be felt within the intellectual class. Different think-tanks, different intellectuals, even different artists will come to the fore and enjoy newfound clout."

"But for some reason, it is the 80-plus Romila Thapar who has emerged as the whipping girl of the sins of the old order. First Subramanian Swamy, in a moment of fiery hyperbole, and hopefully no more than hyperbole, suggested her books should be set on fire. Now Swapan Dasgupta sniggers in The Telegraph that the “real complaint” of Thapar was the “grim reality of change” that has left her feeling irrelevant. Dasgupta writes that “(f)or the first time in their living memory, the privileged ‘progressives’ of Delhi find themselves cut out.”What Dasgupta is implying is when Romila Thapar warns in a lecture about the “narrowing of liberal space in the last couple of decades” or the dangers of “organisations and institutions that claim a religious intention but use their authority for non-religious purposes” or the pusillanimity of intellectuals who “prefer not to confront authority even if it disbars the path of free thinking” -- what she is really upset about is that she is out in the cold. All her anxieties and worries and warnings are nothing more than the pique of a maharani who has suddenly lost not just her crown but also her privy purse."http://www.firstpost.com/india/whipping-girl-of-the-right-attack-romila-thapars-ideas-not-her-integrity-1792173.html



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