Koenraad Elst
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Koenraad Elst is a Belgian orientalist without institutional affiliation and writer. He has authored fifteen books on topics related to Hinduism, Indian history, and Indian politics.
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He was born in Leuven, Belgium, on 7 August 1959, into a Flemish Catholic family. He graduated in Indology, Sinology and Philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven. He obtained a Ph.D. at the Catholic University of Leuven. The main part of his Ph.D. dissertation on Hindu revivalism and Hindu reform movements eventually became his book Decolonizing the Hindu Mind, other parts of his Ph.D. thesis were published in Who is a Hindu and in The Saffron Swastika. He also studied abroad at the Banaras Hindu University in India.
During a stay in India and at the Banaras Hindu University between 1988 and 1992, he interviewed many Indian leaders and writers.[1] He wrote his first book about the Ayodhya conflict. While establishing himself as a columnist for a number of Belgian and Indian papers, he frequently returned to India to study various aspects of its ethno-religio-political configuration and interview Hindu and other leaders and thinkers.
In 1989, Elst met Sita Ram Goel after reading Goel's book History of Hindu Christian Encounters. Elst later sent Goel a manuscript of his first book Ram Janmabhoomi Vs. Babri Masjid: A Case Study in Hindu Muslim Conflict. Goel was impressed with Elst's script: "I could not stop after I started reading it. I took it to Ram Swarup the same evening. He read it during the night and rang me up next morning. Koenraad Elst's book, he said, should be published immediately."[2] In August 1990, L. K. Advani released Koenraad Elst's book about the Ayodhya conflict in a public function.[3]
His research on the ideological development of Hindu revivalism earned him his Ph.D. in Leuven in 1998. He has also written about multiculturalism, language policy issues, ancient Chinese history and philosophy, comparative religion, and the Aryan invasion debate. Dr. Elst became a well-known author on Indian politics in the 1990s.
[edit] Opinions
Elst has written at length about fascism and totalitarianism in India and the West. His book The Saffron Swastika analyses the rhetoric of "Hindu fascism". He argues that "while one should always be vigilant for traces of totalitarianism in any ideology or movement, the obsession with fascism in the anti-Hindu rhetoric of the secularists is not the product of an analysis of the data, but of their own political compulsions."[4] In an article, he argued that the current tendency to accuse Hindu movements of “fascism” is nothing but a "replay of an old colonial tactic."[5]
[edit] Influences
Elst has published in English and Dutch.He contributed for example to the conservative magazine Nucleus [6]. He is also a contributor to the "conservative-libertarian" internet magazine The Brussels Journal, the Flemish satirical weekly 't Pallieterke and other Belgian & Dutch publications. He has also written for mainstream Indian magazines like Outlook India. He wrote a postcript to a book written by American neoconservative and middle-east scholar Daniel Pipes ("The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West"). He has also been accused of connections to the far-right Vlaams Blok by Sanjay Subrahmanyam (a professor at University of California, Los Angeles) in the Times of India.[7] He has also published critiques of Islamism in the West.[8] .His articles on Wahi have been translated in Tamil வஹி : இஸ்லாத்தின் அமானுட அடிப்படை - ஒரு பார்வை
He has described himself as "a secular humanist with an active interest in religions, particularly Taoism and Hinduism, and keeping a close watch on the variegated Pagan revival in Europe."[9]
He seems not to have changed his religion, for he said: "I am neither a Hindu nor a nationalist. And I don’t need to belong to those or to any specific ideological categories in order to use my eyes and ears." [10] And he wrote: "However, I do readily admit to being a “fellow-traveller” of Dharmic civilization in its struggle for survival against the ongoing aggression and subversion by well-organized hostile ideologies." [11]
Elst had for some years a leftist phase, and had also some interest in the New Age movement, though he writes that by 1985 he had had enough of the "superficiality and flakiness" of the New Age scene.[12] In the 1990s he became interested in the European Neopagan movement, and wrote for some Neopagan publications until 1998.[13]
[edit] Bibliography
- Dr. Ambedkar - A True Aryan (1993)
- Ayodhya, The Finale - Science versus Secularism the Excavations Debate (2003) ISBN 81-85990-77-8
- Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002) ISBN 81-85990-75-1
- Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991) [2]
- BJP vis-à-vis Hindu Resurgence (1997) ISBN 81-85990-47-6
- Decolonizing the Hindu Mind - Ideological Development of Hindu Revivalism, Rupa, Delhi (2001) ISBN 81-7167-519-0
- The Demographic Siege (1997) ISBN 81-85990-50-6
- Indigenous Indians: Agastya to Ambedkar, Voice of India (1993)
- Gandhi and Godse - A review and a critique ISBN 81-85990-71-9
- Negationism in India - Concealing the Record of Islam (1992) ISBN 81-85990-01-8
- Psychology of Prophetism - A Secular Look at the Bible (1993) ISBN 81-85990-00-X
- Ram Janmabhoomi vs. Babri Masjid. A Case Study in Hindu-Muslim Conflict. Voice of India, Delhi 1990.
- The Saffron Swastika - The Notion of Hindu Fascism. (2001) ISBN 81-85990-69-7
- Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate Aditya Prakashan (1999) ISBN 81-86471-77-4
- Who is a Hindu? (2001) [3] ISBN 8185990743
- Linguistic Aspects of the Aryan Non-Invasion Theory, In Edwin Bryant and Laurie L. Patton (editors) (2005). Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History. Routledge/Curzon. ISBN 0-7007-1463-4.
- The Rushdie affair's legacy. Postcript to Daniel Pipes: The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West (1990), Transaction Publishers, paperback (2003) ISBN 0-7658-0996-6
- Gujarat After Godhra : Real Violence, Selective Outrage/edited by Ramesh N. Rao and Koenraad Elst. New Delhi, Har-Anand Pub., 2003, 248 p., ISBN 81-241-0917-6.
- “The Ayodhya demolition: an evaluation”, in Dasgupta, S., et al.: The Ayodhya Reference, q.v., p. 123-154.
- “The Ayodhya debate”, in Pollet, G., ed.: Indian Epic Values. Râmâyana and Its Impact, Peeters, Leuven 1995, q.v., p. 21-42. BJP Hindu Resurgence. Voice of India, Delhi 1997.
- The Ayodhya debate: focus on the "no temple" evidence, World Archaeological Congress, 1998
- India's Only Communalist: In Commemoration of Sita Ram Goel (edited by Koenraad Elst, 2005) ISBN 81-85990-78-6
- The Rushdie Rules Middle East Quarterly, June 1998
- Foreword to: The Prolonged Partition and Its Pogroms Testimonies on Violence against Hindus in East Bengal (1946-1964) by A. J. Kamra.
- India's Only Communalist: an Introduction to the Work of Sita Ram Goel. In "Hinduism and Secularism: After Ayodhya", Arvind Sharma (ed.) Palgrave 2001 ISBN 0-33 79406-0
- "Banning Hindu Revaluation", Observer of Business and Politics, 1-12-1993,
[edit] Notes
- ^ Elst, K. Negationism in India
- ^ Goel:How I became a Hindu. ch.9
- ^ Goel:How I became a Hindu. ch.9
- ^ Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991)
- ^ Was Veer Savarkar a Nazi? [1]
- ^ bharatvani.org op.cit.
- ^ Sanjay Subrahmanyam in the Times of India, August 22, 2006
- ^ The Rushdie Rules, by Koenraad Elst, Middle East Quarterly, June 1998
- ^ bharatvani.org op. cit.
- ^ Elst interview
- ^ Voice of Dharma review
- ^ Hinduism, Environmentalism and the Nazi Bogey
- ^ Hinduism, Environmentalism and the Nazi Bogey
[edit] See also
- Voice of India
- Michel Danino
- David Frawley
- Robert Spencer
- Ibn Warraq
- Srđa Trifković
- Oriana Fallaci
- Andrew Bostom
- Swapan Dasgupta
| Brahmo Samaj · Prarthana Samaj · Arya Samaj · Ramakrishna Mission · Gandhism · Hindutva · Sri Aurobindo Ashram · Parisada Hindu Dharma |
| Topics |
| Bhakti · Caste · Indian independence movement ·Persecution of Hindus ·Shuddhi ·Women in Hinduism |
| Important Hindu reformers and Hindu revivalist writers |
| Sri Aurobindo · Ananda Coomaraswamy · Alain Daniélou · Koenraad Elst · David Frawley · Sita Ram Goel · M. S. Golwalkar · Mahatma Gandhi · Harsh Narain · Gedong Bagus Oka · The Mother · Srila Prabhupada · Raja Ram Mohun Roy · Ramakrishna · Dayananda Saraswati · V. D. Savarkar · Keshub Chandra Sen · Swami Sivananda · Arun Shourie · Ram Swarup · Debendranath Tagore · Rabindranath Tagore · B. G. Tilak · Vivekananda · Yogananda |
[edit] External links
- Articles and Books by Dr. Elst
- Quotes by Koenraad Elst
- Koenraad Elst at the Brussels Journal
- An Interview With Koenraad Elst
- Interview with India Currents Magazine, Feb. '96
- Hinduism vs. Buddhism in the West: the Belgian case (2004)
- Pondering Pagans Hinduism Today
- Reviews
Controversies
- Mohammed Habib's History Rewriting Elst's response to a critical essay by Amber Habib
- Petty Professorial Politicking in The Indo-Aryan Controversy
- Hinduism, Environmentalism and the Nazi Bogey
- Mail exchanges between K. Elst and Prof. R. Zydenbos about the '"Aryan Invasion Theory"
- A case study in AIT polemic About Robert J. Zydenbos article “An obscurantist argument”
- Criticism and review of Elst's positions on 'revivalism'. "Koenraad Elst--Sangh Parivar's Apologist" by A. Khan
- A reply to A. Khan (above) by K. Elst
