Dear Vivek,

As a reply to your thought-provoking piece, let me add one question, some reflections, as well
as a few suggestions. The italicized portions refer to the segments from your piece for
reasons of clarity I have added the scare quotes as well.
1. Question:
If there is a common denominator to the various domains (such as biology,
psychology, sociology and culturality) which you seek to combine, viz. the Frege
puzzle or paradox, and, since the Frege paradox is part of a question in logic, then,
why dont you try to present this common core, which you describe as the three
mutually exclusive options available, namely reflection (Indian culture),
normativity (Western culture) and theoretical knowledge, in more abstract terms,
e.g. like the Hegelian trinity of thesis, antithesis and synthesis? In other words,
why do you insist on a similar degree of exclusivity between 1. the third option
and 2. the first two, as you have drawn between the first two? It seems to me that,
while your analysis is largely correct, precisely because of your perseverence in
drawing a sharp distinction between two different cultures, the West, and the East,
this very same distinction renders the core of the problem, the abstract centre, so to
speak, more opaque. Why? Hint: How to reflect on experiences one does not
have (as yet)?
2. Reflections:
1. The only reference we have of the caste system is that it is a fourfold
system (varna), which unifies diversity through the harmonic structuring of
actions, whereby the actions of so-called lower castes are balanced by
the actions of higher ones and vice versa. We notice that there is an
explosion in the number of castes throughout the centuries and this process
seems to take the form of an exponential function, i.e. the further down the
road, the faster the differentiation seems to go. Still, the same kind of
moral rules, even though applied in an exceedingly creative manner, are
set in place to regulate those differences.
We observe the same process, it seems to me, with regard to the tensions
between the various communities: they seem to expand - the original
schism, viz. the one between indigenous traditions and religious (mainly
Christian, and increasingly, Muslim) traditions, while still very much in
place, is now exported to the indigenous traditions in themselves (caste
discriminations and subsequent moral atrocities) - as well as to diversify:
family twists, spiritual incongruencies a multiplicity of schools, each one
contradicting the other(s), culminating in fairly absurd discussions about
what to do when faced with the ethical dilemma of helping insects over
dying humans (Jains) and what-have-you. An even more intriguing
matter concerns the colonizational force of the Jewish tradition. Here a
one-word question will do: Rothschild?

Therefore, the dilemma of the neutrality of the state becomes not only
intelligible, but increasingly so, an important question to resolve, if a. the
state will remain hopefull of keeping up appearances, if I am allowed for
the sarcastic syntax and b. if the culture aspires to redirect its energies
towards its own (prophecised, by the way-!) re-invention/restoration (the
latter notion(s) not being used intendedly contradictory - , but, contrary so,
in a very complementary sense instead, here).

2. The discussion of caste discrimination brought home to me the urgency of

initiating, nourishing and sustaining certain kinds of reflection in order to
understand and resist the dangers of the normative stance. This reflection
minimally involves looking at facts, acts, practices unflinchingly without,
as I said, moralizing them, but also much more, but what that more is
cannot be found in a manual, and has to be learned by practice. Again, by
experience nothing mystical or mysterious is meant, but it too will acquire
greater depth and resonance as we find structures to deepen our reflection.
And it is becoming more and more obvious that such reflection must take in
different domains and sites. One such essential site is the past, how we
relate to it, what we want to learn from it, whether history is the only
access to it. As I tried to show above, Sufiyas own material can be used to
reflect on what history does to the past and our relationship to it. This kind
of reflection seems both pointless and undesirable once the normative
stance is assumed and one starts looking to normative political theories to
lay down what the state ought to do.
Let us explore this a little more. In my earlier post, I dont think I brought
in the idea of preserving experience. It is, however, an idea well worth
thinking about. All organisms, especially the human ones, have experience
(unless we want to argue that zombies without experience are conceivable,
and if they are conceivable.). Its a different matter altogether what
cultures do with experience. It has seemed to some us that the energies of
Indian culture went into organizing and structuring reflections on
experience. To the extent the past was important for such a reflectionin
fact, one could perhaps make the case that the past for Indians is a
dimension of the present, rather than being an alien or distant territory
the cognitive structures organized by stories and Puranas which enabled
both acting in the world and reflection on it also included the past in their
scope, as it were.
Perhaps the past is more accessible to the Indian traditions because of
this same simple fact that it is a human past, meaning here that there has
been and there still is, a causal link between that past and the present,
namely by means of their radically humanistic approach to knowledge: the
knowledge is intimately related to human beings and their experiences and
in this sense preserves this bond, even despite severe external obstruction.

The question is, though and this refers to my original question about the
degree of abstraction involved -, why is it so obvious to you that
normativity automatically hinders reflection on experience, since the goal
of those reflections are, ultimately, scientific in nature, and therefore,
authoritative as well, also in a moral way? I am not simply referring to the
implicit authoritative stance which comes with scientific knowledge in
general, but in particular to the, largely unknown, ethical consequences of
theorizing the human domain, i.e. the special character of e.g. a science of
cultural differences, which you are evidently pointing toward. Whether
one likes it or not, human sciences are, at least potentially, infinitely more
complex than the so-called hard sciences; in other words, simply
dismissing this normativity or morality, even in the face of the facts, is
not only like digging ones head into the sand, but, even more so, throwing
away the baby with the bathwater, it seems to me.
So relation to the past was part of the effort to evolve structures to
preserve experience. When history enters here, we can expect that it will
get distorted either in the direction of Puranas (historical figure will
appear as figures in a Purana) or distort the latter into historicity (think of
Ayodhya).
While I can subscribe to your second objection (historicity), because of the
fact that the past is traditionally, and rightly so, rendered subjectively
(here in the sense of complementary, not mutually exclusive, to the notion
of objectivity) accessible by means of the idiosyncratic property of
stories, I cannot do the same with respect to the first one, since stories
evolve, in the sense that they transform, according to the needs of the
particular, i.e. historical, times they are submerged into: new stories come
into being and these transformations can include evend changes in form, as
I see e.g. their rendering of historical figures: these renderings occur
according the needs and say, contingencies of the times.
Either way, it will interfere with the preservation of experience. To use
the two frames idea, history will be the ally of the normative frame that
elbows out or drives underground the practical frame. So the selfconsciously secular histories may only be accentuating what all histories of
Hindus and Muslims in India will do. The important question then for
restoring reflection to this site would be, how do we bring to consciousness
the other practical way of belonging together, which certainly included
skirmishes, but which probably also had learning. I want to fall back here
on that lovely notion of Nugura that Kabir coins; that was reflecting on
experience.
Still, in the light of the foregoing, one thing should be added: since there
appear to be rational objections to your objection about the content (which,
in fact, is wholly form) of stories, the possibility of positive change
resulting from the Christian and Muslim influence cannot be excluded as
well. No reasonable person will deny the positive catalyst which has
ensued from, say, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, right?

3. In contrast, the West evolved structures that sought to preserve truth and
norm. History was entrusted with the task of preserving truth. History
represented the past, but it is unclear if we can speak of history providing
experiential access to the past. In fact, when people in the West turn to the
past for help, they enact necromancy, as Marx puts it in his scintillating
analysis of Louis Bonapartes coup. (they timidly conjure up the spirits
of the past to help them; they borrow their names, slogans and costumes so
as to stage the new world-historical scene in the venerable disguise and
borrowed language. Luther put on the mask of the apostle Paul; the
revolution of 179-1814 draped itself alternately as the Roman republic and
the Roman empire)
It is unclear here whether one is referring to 1. the dressing up of the
past, as the all-too-familiar way of rewriting history goes; 2. the application
of the new theoretical insights brought forth by Balagangadharas
hypotheses, onto the socio-political domain; 3. a combination of both,
which inevitably implies sarcasm, intentionality nothwithstanding; 4. your
pointing towards an even deeper domain of analysis, integrating, and in this
sense, overcoming the first three positions. Perhaps we are in need of some
clarification on thy part here. Point well taken though, even while
contradicting oneself (unless the footnotes, alas the footnotes! are included
see previous remark).
4. From what I have said so far, let me isolate the reflective dimension as
one frame and the place of norms (and of colonial consciousness) as
another frame. Although more needs to be done than what I have done
here by way of stage-setting, let me assume that you are with me so far and
use the metaphor of frames to throw into sharper relief the relationship
between reflection on experience, presence of norms and theory building (I
intend no connection between my use of that metaphor and either the
cognitive science frame problem or the frames in psychology). We can
now readily ask what happens to the frames in the West and in India: how
to discern them and how, in general, to use the frames to track experience
and access to experience?
The framing problem in cognitive science as well as in psychology should
indeed not bother us here, because the problem, as originally conceived by
thou, lies in the domain which underpins both of them, namely logic. Even
psychology is devotedly indebted to logic, Freud nothwithstanding. If we
take Nagarjunas view on logic as an example, we can see to what degree
of abstraction he is taking these, and, in the course of em, all problem(s):
four simple positions, viz. 1. affirmation 2. negation 3. conjunction 4.
exclusion. Why not start from here and use a four-fold logical structure,
based upon one of the exponents of this tradition of reflection on
experience, this great treasure of the Indian way. Again, we are
bordering on the edge of unintelligibility when it comes to attacking the
core of the problem, the very center.

5. Lets start with the West and ask if we can locate the first frame. When we
talked about the caste-system we noticed something that has a bearing on
this issue. We noticed that the frame that brings into being the caste-system
simply blocks out reflection on experience (or the first frame). This is odd
since if the second frame is to afford a theoretical perspective on what
presents itself as practical/reflective way of going about in the world, then
what we should be having on our hands is something like a Freges Puzzle.
(The puzzle is simply stated though the problems it gives rise to are
complex: Hesperus=Hesperus is a tautology but Hesperus=Phosphorous
is not though they refer to the same object. So a theory of sense/meaning
needs to explain the cognitive significance of both the latter. as well as the
former*) Admittedly this is a more complex version in that here the mode
of presentation is practical; still there is little reason to expect that the
second frame simply elbows out the first frame. But that is what seems to
happen when we stand in the second frame.
In fact, the first statement (Hesperus = Hesperus) is more crucial to Freges
puzzle than the second one, precisely because of it being so utterly
evidently tautological/nonsensical. In other words, we need to rethink the
meaning of tautology as well. As to the second statement, the puzzle seems
justified, certainly in conjunction with the first statement: because of the
opaque absurdity of the tautology, which simultaneously clarifies and
makes itself opaque (the essence of absurdity), the second statement
(Hesperus = Phosphorous) cannot appear but more absurd, while in fact it is
less. I am being (deliberately) deceitful myself here, therefore a word or
two in clarification might not be amiss.
The puzzle presents itself as a contradiction, while in factuality it is an
illusory one, thus being what is commonly referred to as a paradox. The
point I would like to make is that this logical exercise is applied, by Frege,
to language, and more specifically Western language. There are, apart from
the lexicological, grammatical as well as syntactical aspects of a language,
which already contain remarkable differences, Western compared to Indian,
also even more abstract ones, e.g. everything relating to sound
(physicophysiology) and pronounciation (right speech).
We no doubt remember Frits Staal in his characterization of cultural
differences in this regard: hard science in India is soft science in the
West and vice versa; therefore, to take the first statement (Hesperus =
Hesperus) as an example: while this statement would evidently be a
tautology in Western language, it would be less so in Indian terms because
this very statement needs to be spoken, performed in a very rigorous
sense and in no sense can any performance be exactly equal to another.
We are entering the domain of ritual here. Rules without meaning.
Structure without reflection: pure action. This is (positive) ritual: they can
last for millions of years, in extreme cases.

3. Suggestions:

Even though the reflections presented in your piece are very worthwhile, dense,
technical and fascinating, a lot of unseen and unintended side effects present
themselves as well. May I therefore confront you with the following suggestions:

1. In the domain of human sciences, it is not only advisable, but utterly obligatory
to take an interdisciplinary approach towards all questions and all matters.
2. Therefore, the question automatically arises as to what framework is ultimately
reliable as a stable basis to start from, since one simply cannot assume the
position of beholder of the perspective of all perspectives, the ideal position.
3. Balagangadharas hypotheses present themselves as a very reliable tool to
explore new horizons in this domain. What we have at our hands is not only a
tool, hypothesis, theory or whatever else the denomination, but the only
consistent one at the market place.
4. In this sense, your starting point is completely justified and the reflections
ensuing from this framework present themselves, creatively speaking, as
brilliant as one could possible get at this stage.
5. The ambiguities I have tried to point toward are nevertheless there, still. The
question of how to overcome these is not an easy one, this much I hope to have
unveiled as well.
6. My one and only suggestion would be to simply stick to the framework which
has been carefully, patiently and responsibly set in place, but to add a sense of
playfullness to it, meaning to be prepared to invert these claims and simply
watch ones reactions to this ongoing process.
7. One prediction would be to say that the emotionality, not the intellectuality of
these claims, will be the thoughest thing to deal with. The more evident,
natural the claim, the harder this inversion process will prove to be.
8. A second one concerns the interconnectedness of the claims: since all
hypotheses of a theory hang together as a unit, to attack or subvert one of them
amounts to the perversion of them all: this will be the intellectual challenge.
9. The realization of the deception shall ensue from the very depths of your
soul. Be prepared to face those.
10. There is a solution. This is Faith which presents itself as Certainty. The
Certainty is in eternal opposition to Doubt.