[Reader-list] Apologies to Pawan Durani

[shuddha at sarai.net]

Dear Pawan, dear all, 

I owe Pawan Durani and all on the list an apology. 

He is right, his mail did not state that I am a member of an "ML type of organization". It was wrong on my part to have accused him of having done so. His statement amounts not to a categorical statement but to an insiniuation - (secular parties that I am supposed to 'love' even though they 'may be aligned with a ML type of organization') - and one cannot mistake an insinuation for defamation. 'May be' is not 'is'. And it is incorrect and unfair on my part to say Pawan has said 'is' when he has only said 'may be'. On this score, I plead guilty.

So the question of defamation does not arise. My raising the questions of defamation and libel were uncalled for, and I am unconditionally sorry to have subjected everyone on the list, including Pawan to this discussion.It only goes to show that I should be more careful in responding to mails. I have no hesitation in withdrawing the remarks pertaining to defamation and libel.

What Pawan said, referring to me, as he has rightly pointed out, was - "Each time you talk of secular parties which you love even though they may be aligned with a ML type of organisation and at the same time you need an anti-allergic tablet if BJP is called secularist as well."

Having delivered my apologies, and withdrawn my earlier stupid, and over-reaching outburst at Pawan, I still fail to see which exactly are the secular parties aligned with an ML type of organisation that Pawan Durani says I love. 

I am unaware of these strong feelings, (Love, is a strong feeling) and am oblivious to who the recipients of these strong feelings might be.

Also, when exactly have I talked about them? 

Would anyone care to enlighten me? 

regards, and apologies again

Shuddha

PS. I am glad that Pawan has responded, belatedly to my annotations on the history of iconoclasm. However, his respons,  tepid as it is, does not address the substance of what I said in those four set of postings. Readers will recall, that my discussion of KIlam and Kaul's books  (which are the only references that Durani has responded to in his last mail) were only in the final posting. 

The first three postings are devoted mainly to a discussion of evidence gleaned from primary sources, especially Kalhana's 'Rajtarangini'. As for Advaitavadini Kaul's book, my criticism of its invocation by Rashneek Kher did not rest primarily on the Indian nationalist viewpoint of its publishers. 

Rather, I was concerned to establish that Advaitavadini Kaul had not in fact stated that Buddhist shrines were not destroyed by Hindu rulers in Kashmir (as Kher had asserted that she had) . Rather, she had simply avoided discussing the issue of pre-Islamic iconoclasm in Kashmir. This ommission, or elision, I repeat, I find surprising, given that having been KIlam's editor, and a scholar of the Kashmiri Sanskrit canon, she (Kaul) cannot but be familiar with the body of textual material that points repeatedly to instances of pre-islamic Iconoclasm in Kashmir.