Jawaharlal Nehru University has announced US-based author Rajiv Malhotra has been appointed a honorary professor to its Centre for Media Studies, triggering unease among some academics. Critics of the decision cited Malhotra's alleged remarks against minorities and accusations of plagiarism against him.
Taking to Twitter on October 29, Malhotra informed, “As a visiting prof at JNU, I will deliver my first lecture on 2nd Nov afternoon.” Malhotra, a physicist and computer scientist by training, has been a popular proponent of Hindutva-related causes and has written multiple books.
Malhotra's books include Indra's Net: Defending Hinduism's Philosophical Unity, Battle for Sanskrit and Academic Hinduphobia: A Critique of Wendy Doniger’s Erotic School of Indology. Key themes that Malhotra has espoused include promotion of Sanskrit and opposition to perceived bias in Western academic circles in the study of Indian history.
In 2015, Malhotra was accused of plagiarism by historian Richard Fox Young, who alleged that the author had quoted verbatim from other works and picked ideas without acknowledgement. Malhotra has been a critic of American indologist Wendy Doniger, whose works he claimed presented an overly “erotic” view of Hinduism. One of Doniger's books, The Hindus: An Alternative History, was withdrawn by its publishers in 2014 after opposition from a Hindu group.
Audrey Truschke, an American historian, criticised Malhotra's appointment in a series of tweets. She referred to Malhotra's appointment as “another nail in the coffin of Indian higher education” and referred to Malhotra as a hate monger and plagiarist without academic credentials.
Leftist historian Irfan Habib called Malhotra's appointment an “insult” to JNU. In a tweet, Habib referred to Malhotra as being a “pretender, a plagiarist and Hindutva proponent”.
In August, Malhotra was severely criticised for a tweet that exhorted people to donate to Hindus affected by the Kerala floods as Christians and Muslims worldwide were raising money to help “their own people”. Malhotra deleted the tweet after severe criticism.
(With PTI inputs)