Ten Heads of Ravana: A Critique of Hinduphobic Scholars

by Rajiv Malhotra, Divya Reddy (Editor)

For long, a handful of scholars and intellectual sites, whose understanding of Bhārata is disjointed from tradition and often inimical to the Dhārmic way of life, have controlled India’s civilizational narrative. They analyze Bhāratīya sanskriti through a Western gaze while discarding native models. Embedded in powerful ecosystems, gilded Lankas, they are increasingly replacing traditional guru-s and ācārya-s as the modern adhikāri-s of Indian knowledge systems. In contemporary Indian scholarship, eminent personalities like Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, Shashi Tharoor, Ramachandra Guha, Sheldon Pollock, Wendy Doniger, Devdutt Pattanaik, Kancha Ilaiah, and Michael Witzel are at the forefront of such India studies. Ravana was a scholar par excellence, but he was on the wrong side of Dharma. Hence, Śrīrāma waged a war against him to prevent a breakdown of society. Similarly, today’s embodiments of the historical Ravana—academically influential personalities, but grossly mischaracterizing the Dhārmic way of life and history of Bhārata. In this collection of essays, authors Dr. K.S. Kannan, T.N. Sudarshan, Dr. Sharda Narayanan, Anurag Sharma, Divya Reddy, Manogna Sastry, Subhodeep Mukhopadhyay and Dr. H.R. Meera have brought to light, through rigorous evidence-based research, numerous factual inaccuracies, wilful misrepresentation and deliberate distortions in the scholarship of many such intellectual heads of the modern Ravana.

380 pages, Paperback

Published February 6, 2023

About the author

Rajiv Malhotra is the founder and president of Infinity Foundation. An Indian-American entrepreneur, philanthropist and community leader, he has devoted himself, for the last ten years, to clarifying the many misperceptions about Indic traditions in America and amongst Indians.

He is an active writer, columnist, and speaker on a variety of topics, including the traditions and cultures of India, the Indian Diaspora, globalization, and East-West relations. Rajiv has been appointed to the Asian-American Commission for the State of New Jersey, where he serves as the Chairman for the Education Committee, which was created to start an Asian Studies program in schools. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Red Cross and has volunteered in local hospice and AIDS counseling.