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    Rohan Murty says American Indologist Sheldon Pollock to stay

    Synopsis

    Murty said that Sheldon Pollock will continue to oversee the translation of Indian classics into English for several more years.

    ET Bureau
    BENGALURU: Rohan Murty has come out swinging in favour of an American Indologist who has raised the hackles of a group seeking his ouster as the editor of a classical library he has funded.

    In his first public comments on the issue, Murty, the son of Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy, said that Sheldon Pollock will continue to oversee the translation of Indian classics into English for several more years.

    “It is quite rich to sit in the peanut gallery, pass comments and throw empty shells at those who are actually rolling their sleeves up and working on the ground,” said Murty, 33, a junior fellow at Society of Fellows at Harvard University. Murty was responding to an online petition addressed to him and his father.

    The online petition has been signed by 132 academics and public figures, including former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami.

    The group started its petition to oust the Columbia University professor from the Murty Classical Library of India (MCLI) on change.org on Sunday.“

    Pollock has been critical to the success of the library, and Harvard and I look forward to having him on board for many years to come,” said Murty, whose project has so far published nine translations of ancient Indian texts. Four more volumes are due next year.

    “I doubt if these people have read even a single book that we have published. I want to hear in which book we have published, in which line or page there is a problem, and in what context, and why,” said Murty, who for about a year was executive assistant to Narayana Murthy during the latter’s comeback to Infosys. “I think that is a more constructive, positive way, rather than saying that this is a conspiracy theory.”

    MCLI was launched by Murty with an endowment of $5.2 million in 2010 with the objective of producing high-quality translations of ancient Indian classics every year.

    Several signatories The petition, which has several IIT professors as signatories, alleges that Pollock “has deep antipathy towards many of the ideals and values cherished...in our civilisation”.

    But considering that Pollock has been at the helm of the effort for six years, the immediate provocation for circulating the petition seems be that he was a signatory to recent statements of international academics condemning the “actions of JNU authorities and the government of India against separatist groups…”Murty said not one of the signatories had approached him since he launched the library and questioned the timing of the petition instead.

    “What stopped any of these people from getting in touch with me? Not one single person came forward, which is incredible,” he said. Murty, who is also the cofounder of Catamaran Ventures, said the library only commissions the “best possible scholar for that particular language. We will not judge on nationality, gender, race, creed or colour”.

    The root of the problem, he said, is that there aren’t more scholars in India capable of carrying out such translations from ancient literature. “What can we do to address this? Everything else is just noise.”\

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