Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Saffron tagging

Sir, — I refer to G.S. Iyer's letter (Jan. 17) on the subject of Amartya Sen's mention that Panini was `Afghan': he did this to underline his contention during the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas plenary that we should avoid the pitfall of exclusivism and not attempt to trace each and every knowledge source as having a Hindu/Vedic origin.

Though it is universally acknowledged that the Vedic contribution to the entire body of knowledge has been considerable, it is by the present political dispensation's penchant for putting a saffron tag to each and every `discovery and invention', scientific or otherwise, (and thereby attempt to gain political mileage to win over the hearts and minds of our educated middle class) that the whole discourse gets distorted and leads to intellectual short-changing.

S. Basu,
Chennai

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