Voice of India

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Voice of India is a publishing house based in New Delhi, India, that specialises in books about current affairs, socio-cultural and political issues, and challenges before India and its people from the perspective of Hindu culture, society and Hindu revivalism. It was founded by Sita Ram Goel in 1983 and later joined by Ram Swarup.

History

Sita Ram Goel's motive and objective, in his own words, behind founding the publishing house was to equip Hindu society with the information, knowledge and perspective necessary to combat and counter the constant state of ideological, cultural, political, psychological and physical aggression that, according to him, sought to undermine and destabilize Hindu society. Goel contended that there existed ideological and political forces inherently inimical to and predatory towards Hinduism- namely, radical Islam, evangelical as well as fundamentalist Christianity, and Communism, which he viewed as no less committed to aggression against Hindu society and no less doctrinaire for its fanatic adherence to dogma (in this case, Marxist dogma) than either Christianity or Islam, however deceptively it might cloak its violence under the veneer of "scientific socialism".[citation needed] Another fundamental objective in creating his publishing house, according to his own writings, was to contradict, in print and "scientifically", a refutation of the Indo-Aryan migration theory.[1][full citation needed]

Voice of India is notable for publishing English language books by eminent journalists, historians, social commentators and academicians such as Arun Shourie, David Frawley, Shrikant Talageri, Francois Gautier, Harsh Narain, Subhash Kak, Koenraad Elst, and N. S. Rajaram.[1][2] VOI has also published the official VHP evidence bundle in the book "History versus Casuistry, Evidence of the Ramajanmabhoomi Mandir". It has also published on the controversial Out of India theory.[1][2] Voice of India books are reportedly widespread among the ranks of the leaders of the Sangh Parivar.[1]

According to Pirbhai, Voice of India was established to provide the Sangh Parivar ‘a Hindu ideology of its own rather than live on borrowed slogans.[3] He also remarks that the most repeated statement in Voice of India writings seems to be that ‘the problem is not Muslims but Islam’.” [4]

Reception

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. According to Heuze, the Voice of India authors draw their inspiration from democratic texts, European thought and secular and democratic polemicists to justify their anti-Islamic "crusade" while simultaneously distancing themselves from everything that could be perceived as an endorsement of the extreme-right.[5]

Critics of Voice of India have claimed it is part of a "cottage industry", indulging in historical revisionism, as put forward by Michael Witzel and Steve Farmer in their debunking of the "horse seal," of The Deciphered Indus Script (by N. S. Rajaram and N. Jha, Aditya Prakashan, 2000) in an article in the Frontline magazine in 2000:[6] <templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

In the past few decades, a new kind of history has been propagated by a vocal group of Indian writers, few of them trained historians, who lavishly praise and support each other's works. Their aim is to rewrite Indian history from a nationalistic and religious point of view. [...] Ironically, many of those expressing these anti-migrational views are emigrants themselves, engineers or technocrats like N. S. Rajaram, S. Kak, and S. Kalyanaraman, who ship their ideas to India from U.S. shores. They find allies in a broader assortment of home-grown nationalists including university professors, bank employees, and politicians (S. S. Misra, S. Talageri, K. D. Sethna, S. P. Gupta, Bh. Singh, M. Shendge, Bh. Gidwani, P. Chaudhuri, A. Shourie, S. R. Goel). They have even gained a small but vocal following in the West among "New Age" writers or researchers outside mainstream scholarship, including D. Frawley, G. Feuerstein, K. Klostermaier, and K. Elst. Whole publishing firms, such as the Voice of India and Aditya Prakashan, are devoted to propagating their ideas.

Bergunder (2004) characterises Voice of India as:

In contrast to many other of their openly offensive teachings, the Hindu nationalists did not seek to keep the question of the Aryan migration out of public discourses or to modify it; rather, efforts were made to help the theory of the indigenousness of the Hindus achieve public recognition. For this the initiative of the publisher Sita Ram Goel (b. 1921) was decisive. Goel may be considered one of the most radical, but at the same time also one of the most intellectual, of the Hindu nationalist ideologues. His radical views ensure that at times even the cadres of the Sangh Parivar distance themselves from him, for his extremist anti-Muslim tirades are seen by them as an obstacle to experiencing wider social acceptance. Since 1981 Goel has run a publishing house named ‘Voice of India’ that is one of the few which publishes Hindu nationalist literature in English which at the same time makes a ‘scientific’ claim. Although no official connections exist, the books of ‘Voice of India’ — which are of outstanding typographical quality and are sold at a subsidized price — are widespread among the ranks of the leaders of the Sangh Parivar.

According to his own statements, from the outset one of the declared goals of Goel was to use his publishing house to contradict in print the Aryan migration theory. It is therefore above all thanks to his efforts that since the 1990s a mass of books with high printruns have appeared, each of which has the declared goal of ‘scientifically’ refuting the Aryan migration theory. All of these books are either published directly by Voice of India, or by Aditya Prakashan, a publisher currently run by Goel's son, Pradeep Kumar Goel. This massive media staging of a ‘scientific’ revision of the Aryan migration theory was crowned with notable success. The publications found wide distribution among the more educated followers of the Sangh Parivar. Gradually also a certain public awareness beyond Hindu nationalist circles was achieved. The increasing political influence of Hindu nationalism in the 1990s resulted in attempts to revise the Aryan migration theory also becoming known to the academic public.[1]

Bergunder recognises that not all authors published by Voice of India are on the extreme of the Hindu nationalist spectrum. He claims that most authors have no appropriate subject-specific study to show for themselves, naming Rao, who worked for the Archaeological Survey of India until 1980, as the single exception.

David Frawley, seven of whose books were published by Voice of India, finds nothing irrational in their publications.

"Their criticisms of Islam were on par with the criticisms of the Catholic Church and of Christianity done by such Western thinkers as Voltaire or Thomas Jefferson."[7]

Koenraad Elst, nine of whose book were published by Voice of India, stated [that it is]:

"...remarkable that all the writers who have published contributions to Hindu thought in the Voice of India series, are not members of any RSS front".[8]

Arun Shourie, who also had books published by Voice of India, including books co-authored with Sita Ram Goel and Ram Swarup, praised the work of Voice of India's authors, stating:

"One final reason for being confident is that because of the work of Ram Swarup, Sitaram Goel, Koenraad Elst, David Frawley, and Rajiv Malhotra the corpus is now reaching a critical mass. So, that we can think that within few years we will have a library for India and a library of India." [9][10]

The magazine Hinduism Today has for many years honored the views of Ram Swarup[11] in a number of its articles and publications, as it has also honored the views of Sita Ram Goel and the work of VOI.[12][clarification needed]

Partial list of publications

  • Agarwal, Vishal A case study in Eminent Historiography, in India's Only Communalist, ed. by Koenraad Elst (2005).
  • Chatterjee, Abhas, The Concept of a Hindu Nation, 1995.
  • Goel, Sita Ram
  • Elst, Koenraad on Ayodhya dispute
  • Elst, Koenraad on other topics
  • Rajaram, N.S.
    • The politics of history : Aryan Invasion Theory and the Subversion of Scholarship (1995).
    • Secularism: The New Mask of Fundamentalism : Religious Subversion of Secular Affairs (1995). ISBN 8185990344.
    • Hindu View of the World: Essays In the Intellectual Kshatriya Tradition (1998) ISBN 978-8185990521.
    • Profiles in Deception: Ayodhya and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2000.
  • Reprints
    • Vindicated by time: The Niyogi Committee report on Christian missionary activities.Madhya Pradesh (India)., Goel, S. R., Niyogi, M. B., & Voice of India. (1998).
    • The dead hand of Islam by Colin Maine (1979)
    • The Bible : what it says by Colin Maine (1985). New Delhi: Voice of India.
    • In the path of God : Islam and political power by Daniel Pipes
    • The Rushdie affair : the novel, the Ayatollah, and the West by Daniel Pipes; Foreign Policy Research Institute.
    • The Goa Inquisition : being a quatercentenary commemoration study of the inquisition in India by Anant Priolkar; Gabriel Dellon; Claudius Buchanan
    • Woman, church and state : a historical account of the status of woman through the Christian ages, with reminiscences of the matriarchate by Matilda Joslyn Gage
    • Mohammed and the rise of Islam by David Samuel Margoliouth
    • The life of Mahomet : from original sources by William Muir, Sir
    • Malabar and the Portuguese by K. M. Panikkar
    • Inner Yoga by Anirvan
  • Compilations
    • Freedom of expression : secular theocracy versus liberal democracy (1998). New Delhi: Voice of India.
    • Time for stock taking, whither Sangh Parivar? (1997). New Delhi: Voice of India.
    • India's only communalist : in commemoration of Sita Ram Goel (2005). New Delhi: Voice of India.
    • History versus casuistry : evidence of the Ramajanmabhoomi Mandir presented by the Vishva Hindu Parishad to the Government of India in December January 1990-91. New Delhi: Voice of India.
    • Tipu Sultan : villain or hero? : an anthology. (1993). New Delhi: Voice of India.
  • Translations
    • Un regard Hindou sur le Christianisme et l'Islam by Ram Swarup. New Delhi: Voice of India.
    • A Muslim missionary in mediaeval Kashmir : being the English translation of Tohfatu'l-ahbab. Translated by K N Pandit. New Delhi: Voice of India.

References

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  2. 2.0 2.1 Michael Witzel, 'Rama's Realm: Indocentric rewriting of early South Asian archaeology and history' in: Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public Routledge (2006), ISBN 0-415-30593-4, p. 205.[1]
  3. M. REZA PIRBHAI (2008). DEMONS IN HINDUTVA: WRITING A THEOLOGY FOR HINDU NATIONALISM. Modern Intellectual History, 5, pp 29.
  4. M. REZA PIRBHAI (2008). DEMONS IN HINDUTVA: WRITING A THEOLOGY FOR HINDU NATIONALISM. Modern Intellectual History, 5, pp 45-46.
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  6. Witzel, Michael and Steve Farmer. 2000. Horseplay in Harappa, Frontline, 17(20), September 30-October 13.
  7. David FrawleyHow I became a Hindu: My discovery of Vedic Dharma
  8. Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991) Footnote 311
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Sources

  • Hock, H.H. 1999. Through a glass darkly: modern “racial” interpretations. In J. Bronkhorst and M.M. Deshpande (eds), Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia – Evidence, Interpretation and Ideology, pp. 145–74. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora, Vol. 3, Harvard University.University.
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Further reading

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External links