Being Different

Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism

Author	Rajiv Malhotra
Language	English
Publisher	HarperCollins Publishers India a joint venture with The India Today Group
Publication date	2011
Publication place	India
Pages	474
ISBN	978-9350291900
OCLC	769101673

Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism is a 2011 book by Rajiv Malhotra, an Indian-American author, philanthropist and public speaker, and published by HarperCollins. The book reverts the gaze of the western cultures on India, repositioning India from being the observed to the observer, by looking at the West from a Dharmic point of view.

About the book

Malhotra explains that he seeks a dialogue where the world civilizations are not merely seen from the viewpoint of the West but by placing them side-by-side and allowing the other side the opportunity to take its own view. Malhotra says:

The dialogue I seek is a process of challenge and response in which civilizations engage in purvapaksa and uttarapaksha with one another, in an atmosphere of equality, and without pulling their punches. It is time for the native to talk back in his own terms and be prepared to face the charge of “essentialism.” Such talking back is imperative if we are to evolve towards a multipolar world in which the present-day West becomes one of the provinces but not the center.

Malhotra summarizes his rationale for treating Dharmic traditions as a family, contrasting the family of Dharmic traditions with Abrahamic religions, and viewing their differences from the perspective of the family of Dharmic traditions (hence reversing the gaze).

Being Different posits that diverse dharmic schools share a core set of differences from Western universalism, and hence these dharmic schools comprise a family. It sequentially examines specific aspects of Western traditions, and illustrates how Dharma differs in areas such as: the separation of Smriti from Sruti, the contextual nature of Smriti, the complete absence in Dharma of a central corporate authority that is equivalent to the Church, and the special status accorded to enlightened masters of Dharma traditions during their lifetime. Such “otherizing” of the West is the purvapaksa methodology (reversing the gaze) of identifying a common dharmic substrate without essentializing Dharma into any categorical definition in absolute terms.

Malhotra clarifies that he is not replacing a West-centric view with a Dharma-centric view by proposing the reversal of gaze. Malhotra says:

The technique of gaze reversal does not necessarily imply that the one who is now gazing is making his own claim to universalism. I reject any universalism, be it of an American, European or Indian variety.

Malhotra explains why this gaze from the other side benefits the West:

The West itself stands to gain a great deal from being gazed at by an external lens—just as a psychologist’s external lens can provide the client with new insights into himself. The Dharma family of worldviews is arguably the most sophisticated outside the West which can lend itself to the purpose of providing an external critique. Such an external gaze is never comfortable.

Malhotra calls for mutual respect as a higher standard for pluralism than tolerance. Mutual respect does not call for acceptance of beliefs held by others, only to have genuine respect for difference, because, beliefs are not facts (There is no need to show respect for 2 + 2 = 5). Malhotra writes:

It is fashionable in interfaith discussions to advocate "tolerance" for other faiths. But we would find it patronizing, even downright insulting, to be "tolerated" at someone's dinner table.

Religious tolerance was advocated in Europe after centuries of wars between opposing denominations of Christianity, each claiming to be "the one true church" and persecuting followers of "false religions." Tolerance was a political "deal" arranged between enemies to quell the violence (a kind of cease-fire) without yielding any ground. Since it was not based on genuine respect for difference, it inevitably broke down.

It is disingenuous for any faith leader to preach one thing to her flock while representing something contradictory to naive outsiders. The idea of "mutual respect" poses a real challenge to Christianity, which insists that salvation is only possible by grace transmitted exclusively through Jesus.

Overview

Malhotra states that in Being Different, he "hopes to set the terms for a deeper and more informed engagement between dharmic and Western civilizations."

Malhotra states that in Being Different, "'Dharma' is used to indicate a family of spiritual traditions originating in India which today are manifested as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. I explain that the variety of perspectives and practices of dharma display an underlying integral unity at the metaphysical level...." He adds that

In making these arguments, I may be accused of using broad definitions, generalizations and extreme contrasts. When I speak of 'the West' vs 'India', or of the 'Judeo-Christian religions' vs the 'dharma traditions', I am well aware that I may be indulging in the kind of essentialism that postmodern thinkers have correctly challenged. I am also aware that such large categories comprise multiple traditions which are separate and often opposed. I view these terms as family resemblances and guides, not as reified or immutable entities.

Malhotra explains: There are two different, and often competing, ways of arriving at spiritual truth: (A) via historical narratives (about “holy” events, for example), and (B) via adhyatma-vidya (inner “science” or esoteric processes) which tends to be direct and ahistorical. The methodology by which truth gets discovered, debated, validated, and accepted, becomes a central part of the core competence of the tradition, and the basis for its continuity. In contrast to Dharmic traditions which rely on adhyatma-vidya, Abrahamic religions rely on God's interventions in human history.

Malhotra identifies four core dimensions that he argues clearly show irreconcilable incompatibilities between Dharmic traditions and Abrahamic religions. Malhotra argues that understanding these four core dimensions is crucial to recognizing the fallacy of facile sameness arguments and to understanding senselessness of inculturation efforts. The four core dimensions are:

1. History-centrism
2. Integral versus synthetic unity
3. Order versus Chaos
4. Specific semantics of non-translatable Sanskrit words

Difference 1: History Centrism

For followers of history-centric (Abrahamic) religions, truth-claims based on history are more significant than the scriptural message itself. History-centric dogma such as original sin and resurrection become critical beliefs and no compromise can be made on their acceptance. This explains the centrality of Nicene creed to all major Christian denominations. Followers of history-centric religions believe that the God revealed His message through a special prophet and that the message is secured in scriptures. This special access to God is available only to these intermediaries or prophets and not to any other human beings.

Dharma traditions do not hold history central to their faith. Gautama Buddha emphasized that his enlightenment was merely a discovery of a reality that is always there. He was not bringing any new covenants from any God. The history of the Buddha is not necessary for Buddhist principles to work. In fact, Buddha stated that he was neither the first nor the last person to have achieved the state of enlightenment. He also asserted that he was not God nor sent by any God as a prophet, and whatever he discovered was available to every human to discover for himself. This makes Buddhism not History-Centric.

Malhotra explains how history-centrism or lack of it has implications for religious absolutist exclusivity vs. flexible pluralism: "Abrahamic religions claim that we can resolve the human condition only by following the lineage of prophets arising from the Middle East. All other teachings and practices are required to be reconciled with this special and peculiar history. By contrast, the dharmic traditions - Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism -- do not rely on history in the same absolutist and exclusive way. This dharmic flexibility has made fundamental pluralism possible which cannot occur within the constraints of history centrism, at least as understood so far."

Difference 2: Integral vs Synthetic Unity

Both Western and Dharmic civilizations have cherished unity as an ideal, but with a different emphasis. Here, Malhotra posits a crucial distinction between what he considers a "synthetic unity" that gave rise to a static intellectualistic Worldview in the West positioning itself as the Universal and an "integrative unity" that gave rise to a dynamically oriented Worldview based on Dharma. While the former is characterized by a "top-down" essentialism embracing everything a priori, the latter is a "bottom-up" approach acknowledging the dependent co-origination of alternative views of the human and the divine, the body and the mind, and the self and society.

Difference 3: Comfort with Order and Chaos

Dharma philosophical systems are highly systematized in their approach to understanding ultimate reality and in carefully addressing what one can know through various means of knowledge. However, this rigor does not restrict their freedom in being comfortable with social organization. Indians exhibit remarkable openness to self-organization and decentralization. Malhotra explains the basis for this openness:

Hinduism weaves multiple narratives around the central motif of cooperative rivalry between order (personified as devas) and chaos (personified as asuras). A key myth shared by all the dharma traditions — the 'churning of the milky ocean,' or 'samudra-manthan' — shows the eternal struggle between two poles. The milky ocean is the ocean of consciousness and creativity, which is to be churned in order to obtain amrita, or the nectar of eternal life."

Dharma actually recognises the need for both Order and Chaos to co-exist in the universe. In the story Prajapati attempts to create the Universe keeping Order and Chaos in dynamic balance. His initial attempts fail because they're too 'Jami'/homogenous or too 'Prthak'/different. Finally he gets the combination just-right by using the principle of 'Bandhuta/Bandhu' i.e. binding together dissimilar things by what is common across all things in the entire creation.

Difference 4: Sanskrit Non-translatables

Malhotra identifies various non-translatables in Sanskrit that have been mapped into Abrahamic religious concepts. These mis-translations then are used to draw sameness arguments or to denounce Hinduism. Malhotra explains that

In the fashionable search for sameness in all religions, Holy Spirit in Christianity is often equated with Shakti or kundalini in Hinduism. However, these terms represent different, even incompatible cosmologies. Christianity assumes an inherent dualism between God and creation. This necessitates historical revelations along with prophets, priests and institutions to bring us the truth. But Shakti, being all-pervading, obviates dependence on these; its experience can be discovered by going within through yoga.

Reception

Several reviews of Being Different have been published in academic periodicals, that include reviews by Campbell and Wiebe. A special issue of the International Journal of Hindu Studies was dedicated to discussing Being Different, and included articles by Nicholas F. Gier, Shrinivas Tilak, Gerald James Larson, Rita M. Gross, Robert A. Yelle, and Cleo McNelly Kearns, as well as a nearly 40-page response by Malhotra.

In February 2012, Patheos Book Club hosted a discussion of Being Different on their website.

International Journal of Hindu Studies

Gerald James Larson

Gerald James Larson is critical of Malhotra's presentation of "differences":

Although admittedly (and to his credit) he refers again and again to the many differences within the Indic traditions, he glosses over the differences in almost every instance, or to use his own idiom, he "digests" the differences and reduces all of them to a grand "integral unity" that is little more than a Neo-Vedanta or Neo-Hindu reading of the Bhagavad Gita documented with numerous citations from Aurobindo. He fails to see that he is undermining his own argument for "being different" by obliterating the vast differences between and among the various religious and philosophical traditions of India.
Put another way, what Malhotra presents is what Wendy Doniger has provocatively called the "Brahmin imaginary", that is, the standard Brahmanical view of Indic religion and philosophy in its Neo-Hindu garb.

To this charge, Malhotra responds as follows:

Being Different's position is that multiple Dharma systems can each have integral unity and yet have different and even incompatible metaphysics. The fact that each has integrality and yet is distinct from the rest is akin to several different objects being yellow—that is, the common quality of yellowness gives a family resemblance without making all the yellow objects the same. A more direct analogy is as follows: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share the characteristic of reliance upon historical prophets, without all the prophetic revelations being homogeneous. Their family resemblance is that prophetic revelations in history are the ultimate means to access religious truth, and yet there is immense diversity within the family. One could identify the very distinct systems of Judaic, Christian, and Islamic prophetism; one might even discern sub-branches such as Mormon and Ahmaddiya prophetism. Criticism that Being Different somehow reduces all Indian belief systems into a single homogeneity is equivalent to an argument that by demonstrating the differences between Judaism and Christianity, one claims to have debunked their shared principle of prophetic revelation. An integral unity, likewise, may be expressed through Mådhyamika, Advaita, Visistadvaita, Tantra, Aurobindo and many other forms, each of which is distinct. Being Different goes to great lengths to explain that different Dharma systems disagree on many key points, yet each adheres to the common standard of integral unity proposed in the book.

Gerald James Larson is critical of integral unity as a view of a small group:

When one recalls that Brahmins comprise only 3.5 percent of the population of India and that the Sanskrit language is an elitist medium of expression that is known to very few, it begins to become clear that the "Brahmin imaginary" is just that, an imagined "integral unity" that was probably little more than an "imagined" view of the religious life that pertained only to a cultural elite and that empirically speaking had very little reality "on the ground", as it were, throughout the centuries of cultural development in the South Asian region.

To this charge, Malhotra responds as follows:

Only a tiny fraction of one percent of all Christians have been theologians who made any kind of impact upon Christianity; indeed, that a minuscule percent of Westerners have been sufficiently gifted to formulate the ideas which significantly influenced the course of Western science or philosophy. One does not question the legitimacy of theoretical physics, for instance, based on the fact that an extremely tiny percent of the general population has participated in formulating its precepts. In any society, and regardless of culture or discipline, it is only a small fraction of thinkers who nucleate longterm change and who are equipped to propose the concepts that wider segments of the population may eventually absorb and institutionalize through a process of selection. Larson needs better arguments than this to support his criticisms.

Larson also criticises the use of the term "Dharma traditions" or "dharmic systems":

Equally reductive as the “Brahmin imaginary” in Malhotra’s work is the expression "Dharma traditions" or "dharmic systems," referring to all the Hindu, Buddhist, Jaina and Sikh traditions. Malhotra would have the reader believe that there is an "integral unity" underlying the various Dharma traditions, but, in fact, the very term "dharma" signals fascinating differences.

In responding to the accusation that coherence of family of Dharmic traditions is an "imagined view", Malhotra adds:

Through its assumption of a lack of internal consistency and unity of Dharma, the West is able to undermine any claim made on behalf of Dharma civilization. Any attempt to speak of such an entity in positive terms can be debunked by asking, “Which ‘Dharma' are you referring to?,” and thereby characterizing any attempt to establish coherence as being flawed, chauvinistic or even dangerous.

The characterization of Dharma as incoherent serves to protect Western hegemony. As noted earlier, the intellectual sophistication of Dharma offers a vantage point from which to decenter the West and its claim of universalism. Since this would pose a grave threat to Western universalism, it becomes important to undermine the legitimacy of Dharma as a coherent position from which to gaze upon the West.

Larson ends his review with the following recommendation:

In my view, the task for the future of Indic religion and thought is not to retreat into the "Brahmin imaginary" of some sort of vague "integral unity," but rather, to move in the other direction: toward a future in which "being different" truly reflects the complex and irreconcilable but fascinating "differences' in Indic religion and thought in a manner that challenges but also learns from the ongoing interactions with "the West." Then and only then will "the West" do more than "tolerate" Indic religion and thought.

Rajiv Malhotra responds:

Coherent theories of India and its civilization are often dismissed by falsely alleging that any such claim must necessarily imply an imposition of homogeneity. Larson makes this very allegation, but fails to acknowledge that Being Different repeatedly explains how the notion of unity in Dharma is based on internal diversity and not on internal homogeneity. As a corollary to the Western denial of a coherent foundation common across Indian schools of thought, there is the conclusion that Indians ought to simply deny themselves any unified positive identity based on their own past and must instead seek a common identity based on importing modern Western principles to an even greater extent than they already have. The very notion of a classical Indian civilization is seen as a disease, and the Western scholar is presented as a physician to cure Indians from it.

Just as the individual ego is the nexus of one's narrative about oneself, so also a peoples' collective ego centers upon its shared coherent narrative. The West's expansive collective self ascribes a teleological role to its own coherence. Because it finds itself coherent and views the other as incoherent, it seeks to digest the source of that perceived incoherence by breaking it into fragments and selectively mapping some of those fragments onto its own framework. Whatever it discards ends up being ejected as the waste product of the digestion process. This is why the act of bolstering one's own coherence, while undermining the coherence of others, is so central to the game of civilizational aggression.

Robert A. Yelle

Robert A. Yelle is highly critical of Malhotra's approach:

There is little, if any, original scholarship in the book. It is the work of a polemicist, rather than a careful, patient sifter of facts. The book recycles numerous old tropes about the evils of Western culture and the merits of Indian culture, while combining these tropes with elements of postcolonial scholarship, which Malhotra freely borrows from when criticizing the West but ignores when presenting a thoroughly nativist vision of dharmic traditions. The various criticisms of the possibility of a non-distorting knowledge of other cultures that have emerged since the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism have created the space in which a voice like Malhotra’s could emerge. But what Malhotra has given us is a mirrorimage of Orientalism, namely Occidentalism (cf. Buruma and Margalit 2004). Ignoring the warnings that postcolonial scholars have issued against essentializing traditions, he presents an image of both dharmic and Western traditions that is thoroughly monolithic, erasing all of the differences within these traditions in order to exaggerate the divide between them.

Malhotra responds:

Yelle rightly makes the point that Indian postcolonial scholarship already reverses the gaze on the West. But he fails to note that most such scholars have adopted Western theories and vocabularies (in part presumably because they depend on Western funding and institutions for their careers), and that they often simply lack adequate knowledge of and sympathy with their own native siddhanta (theories) to use as an alternative point from which to launch their critique. Their criticisms of the West do not qualify as legitimate purvapaksha through dharmic lenses in the sense that I am speaking of; rather they should be seen as part of the Western tradition of self-critique. This critique, I appreciate, is quite extensive and useful, but it is not a substitute for critiques rooted in a non-Western axiomatic system.

Robert A. Yelle criticises Malhotra for his use of the term "dharmic traditions". According to Yelle,

The idea of "dharmic traditions" represents a choice to gloss over, whether for ideological or strategic reasons, the vast differences that exist among and even within the various traditions of India [...] These differences are invoked occasionally in order to buttress Malhotra’s argument for the pluralism of Indian culture, only to be erased as he presents as universal to dharmic traditions what is, in fact, easily recognizable as a thoroughly modern and homogenized ideal of Hinduism drawn from certain aspects of Vedanta philosophy and Yoga.

Malhotra responds:

Yelle is right when he says that, “Every tradition is in fact an amalgam, and retains the traces of its composite origins.” But he is wrong when he argues against my use of common features such as integral unity and embodied knowing, calling these “a thoroughly modern and homogenized ideal of Hinduism drawn from certain aspects of Vedånta philosophy and Yoga.” His concern about homogenization would have been legitimate if Being Different had proposed an integration of all Dharma traditions into a single new tradition. This is simply not my goal. Looking for commonality as a standpoint from which to gaze at a different family does not require us to relinquish the internal distinctiveness among the members of either family.

Malhotra points out that:

Integral unity differs from homogeneity by two cardinal criteria. First, integral unity does not mandate that any integral system need be homogeneous internally, and in fact the integral unity itself implies built-in multiplicity of certain kinds. This invalidates the claims that I advocate undifferentiated unity. Second, integral unity does not imply that every integral system must be in agreement with every other integral system on all matters.

Being Different’s position is that multiple Dharma systems can each have integral unity and yet have different and even incompatible metaphysics. The fact that each has integrality and yet is distinct from the rest is akin to several different objects being yellow—that is, the common quality of yellowness gives a family resemblance without making all the yellow objects the same.

Yelle ends his review with the following remark:

I see the history of the encounter between India and the West in very different terms. There has been a gradual improvement in Western scholars’ knowledge of Indian traditions followed by an overdue appreciation of the cultural damage perpetrated under colonialism and lingering, in some cases, in the categories of Western scholarship. To see Indians increasingly willing to assert their own traditions in robust terms should be taken as another positive development in the history of cultural dialogue and exchange. But the starting point for such a dialogue must be to look in the mirror. A searching self-criticism must be tempered by a realistic appraisal of one’s own and other traditions. The remedy for unjust comparisons cannot be more of the same, only with the gaze reversed.

Nicholas F. Gier

Gier criticizes Malhotra for ignoring profound differences between Dharmic traditions in seeing an integral unity. Gier writes:

Malhotra himself admits that there are ‘profound differences in theory and practice’ in the Dharma traditions, so this under- mines his principal claim that these philosophical schools are ‘integral’.

Malhotra responds by pointing to explanation in Tilak's essay in the same issue of the journal::

Shrinivas Tilak's essay provides further arguments to support my explanation of integral unity as it applies to each of a variety of dharmic systems. For example, in the case of Hinduism, Tilak explains integrality separately in the texts of bhedabheda, Vedanta, Samkhya, Vaisecika, Mimamsa and Patanjali's Yogasutras.

After showing how a variety of separate kinds of integral unity are found in the dharmic systems, Tilak argues that the notion of integral unity may be taken a step further and applied to the relationships among the four major Dharma traditions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism). As one example of what they share, he demonstrates how the non-translatable categories of prajna, prana, and prapanca, among others, serve as a common denominator in diverse cognitive, metaphysical and spiritual systems that comprise and constitute these traditions.

Cleo McNelly Kearns

Kearns writes:

One of Malhotra's purposes in Being Different is to provide some intellectual defense against such (Western) incursions. He does this by recounting [...] origins and development of Western claims to exclusive religious truth and the alliance of those claims with Western imperialism and Western universalism. These claims are reflected not only in theology proper but in the work of many of the major thinkers of the twentieth century, from G.W.F. Hegel to Karl Marx. It is in the course of tracing this [...] that Malhotra puts forward what I believe is his sharpest and most valuable challenge to Christian theology: his identification and analysis of that feature of Western Abrahamic religions he calls history-centrism.

Kearns points out that Malhotra's approach has shortcomings, but also praises the challenges he offers:

Furthermore, at the level of method and substance alike, in stressing the dharmic difference from Western traditions so insistently, it seems to me that Malhotra finds himself to some extent in a cleft stick. He wants to persuade his readers that there is a sharp divide between dharmic and Abrahamic perspectives, with one side manifesting a flowing, embracive, relaxed sensibility capable of sustaining multiple points of view and the other displaying a rigid, exclusive, anxious and monolithic set of fixations. Yet, paradoxically, to the extent that he is positing and reinforcing this opposition, Malhotra may be in a sense cooperating with and furthering the very kind of binary thinking he deplores.

We are left here then, at least at the discursive level, with a number of problems as yet not fully resolved. That said (and much more might be remarked in this regard), Being Different offers and will continue to offer important challenges to comparative theology in the academy as well as to the understanding and self-understanding of Christians and those with dharmic commitments. In this sense, it follows in the train of such life projects as those of Raimondo Panikkar and Jacques Dupuis.

Rita M. Gross

Gross wrote:

Malhotra is concerned not only with reversing the gaze, but also with the dignity and integrity of “being different,” of not conforming to false universals or being forced to fit into them. In his focus on this theme, I would argue that Malhotra has located one of the most urgent tasks for human survival and for the well-being of the world's various cultures, namely, the ability to accommodate diversity without needing to determine superiority or inferiority, right or wrong, among diverse cultures, religions, economies, social organizations or value systems.

Shrinivas Tilak

Tilak is appreciative of the "counterreading" that Malhotra offers:

By reading the Orientalist discourses on India and Dharma "against the grain" as it were, Malhotra generates a counter-reading that gives voice to Indic subjects who have been silenced or transformed by nineteenthcentury and contemporary Indological filters. Being Different, in the process, has opened up a new approach that allows and encourages a dharmic perspective as an additional "tool" in the scholar’s toolbox. Using this tool, one can (1) strategically map Western culture and history using the properly dharmic categories to “provincialize” Western Universalism, (2) remove the filters and blinkers of Indology that impede Dharmadrsti, and (3) present the dharmic worldview as a viable alternative to Western Universalism.

Tilak uses the term Dharmacatuskam, "House of Dharma with Its Four Wings (Dharmas)", to denote the sense of integration that underlies the Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism traditions. According to Tilak,

Dharma as a substantive denotes "to sustain, uphold, support, or to wear." With the accretion of meaning over the centuries, Dharma has come to represent an underlying power and principle behind the order and rhythm of the cosmos that sustains the seasons, the planets and their movements, day and night, and the behavior of plants, animals, humans and the divine beings in a selforganized cosmos.

Tilak points out that Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism offer various approaches to dharma, which are "not unitary but composite":

The concept of Dharmacatuskam expresses the Indic way of life and sociality representing a unified cultural complex of four individual and differing expressions (dharma), each in turn constituting a blend of several elements so that as an ensemble a symphony of Dharma is produced in which the adherents (Hindus, Bauddhas, Jainas and Sikhs) participate, whereas the resonance of any one given pathway may be compared to a melody (dharma). Each of the four views is true insofar as it draws attention to an actual and indispensible aspect of Dharma. No one approach supersedes another, and contrary to the view of Georg W.F. Hegel (Malhotra 2011: 314, 324–25), none can be higher or lower than another. Each is an acceptable approach to Dharma, which is not unitary but composite: a quaternity of differences (catu‚kåtmakam vastu). Following Rodney Needham, Dharmacatuskam may be profitably viewed as an example of a "polythetic" group (a term borrowed from the natural sciences) where organisms sharing the greatest number of common features are held together, but where no single feature is either essential to group membership or is sufficient to make an organism a member of the group (based on Cort 2001: 187–88).

Tilak gives an overview how integral unity is present in different dharma traditions. He explains integral unity in Buddhism:

For a Bauddha the sense of unity lies in the inherent interconnectivity of everything. The notion of something existing by itself is a false one. This is called the absence of essences (sunyata), meaning that nothing exists ultimately as a separable entity, not even an idea, feeling, emotion and certainly not a physical object. Each thing has only a transitory, fleeting “apparent” existence; nothing endures in time, rather everything is constantly changing into something else. Each momentary existence is dependent on every other momentary existence, in an interconnected web of existence.

Other peer-reviewed reviews

Brian Campbell

In the Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, Brian Campbell wrote that

Ultimately, the book succeeds in fulfilling only one of its four goals. It gives a rather simplistic view of modern colonialism (goal 2) that is unlikely to satisfy most social scientists. The attempt to reverse the gaze and to apply dharmic categories to Western socio-cultural reality, the main contribution claimed for this book (goals 3 and 4), mainly reverts to comparing Western and Oriental structures of thought.

Nevertheless, Malhotra very skilfully traces the difference between Western and Oriental thought [...] He shows, in the end, that India still is a repository of important and strong knowledge that does challenge Western universalism. Such warnings, and Malhotra’s great skill in writing clearly and concisely, makes this book a highly recommended introduction to the politics of cultural translation. It will be of great interest to any scholars interested in globalization, (post)colonialism, contemporary religious belief and the construction of Indian and Western identities.

See also

• Rajiv Malhotra
• Breaking India
• Invading the Sacred
• Hinduism Invades America
• Hindu American Foundation

Sources

Printed sources

• Campbell, Brian (2012). "Review of Being Different: An Indian challenge to Western Universalism, by Rajiv Malhotra" (PDF). Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford. 4 (2). School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography (University of Oxford) and Oxford University Anthropology Society: 222–225. ISSN 2040-1876.
• Doniger, Wendy (2010), The Hindus: An Alternative History, Oxford University Press
• Gier, Nicholas F. (2012). "Overreaching to be different: A critique of Rajiv Malhotra's Being Different". International Journal of Hindu Studies. 16 (3). Springer Netherlands: 259–285. doi:10.1007/s11407-012-9127-x. ISSN 1022-4556.
• Gross, Rita M. (2012). "Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism". International Journal of Hindu Studies. 16 (3). Springer Netherlands: 323–334. doi:10.1007/s11407-012-9128-9. ISSN 1022-4556.
• Kearns, Cleo McNelly (2012). "Christianity, History and the Dharma in Rajiv Malhotra's Being Different". International Journal of Hindu Studies. 16 (3). Springer Netherlands: 349–368. doi:10.1007/s11407-012-9131-1. ISSN 1022-4556.
• Larson, Gerald James (201), "The Issue of Not Being Different Enough: Some Reflections on Rajiv Malhotra's Being Different" (PDF), International Journal of Hindu Studies, Volume 16, Issue 3, December 2012, pp 311-322
• Malhotra, Rajiv. (2012), "Author's Response: The Question of Dharmic Coherence", International Journal of Hindu Studies, Volume 16, Issue 3, December 2012, pp 369-408
• Tilak, Shrinivas (2012). "Differing Worldviews (Western and Dharmic) in Rajiv Malhotra's Being Different". International Journal of Hindu Studies. 16 (3). Springer Netherlands: 287–310. doi:10.1007/s11407-012-9130-2. ISSN 1022-4556.
• Springer (2012), International Journal of Hindu Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3, December 2012
• Wiebe, Donald (2012). "Review of Being Different: An Indian challenge to Western Universalism, by Rajiv Malhotra". Toronto Journal of Theology. 28 (1). University of Toronto Press: 182. doi:10.1353/tjt.2012.0011. ISSN 1918-6371., ISSN 0826-9831
• Yelle, Robert A. (2012), "Comparative Religion as Cultural Combat: Occidentalism and Relativism in Rajiv Malhotra's Being Different", International Journal of Hindu Studies, Volume 16, Issue 3, December 2012, pp 335-348

External links

Being Different

• Amazon.com
• Flipkart.com
• Being Different (book website)

Rajiv Malhotra

• rajivmalhotra.com
• The Infinity Foundation
• Huffington Post - Blog by Rajiv Malhotra