Zydenbos launches personal attacks on me, on Jakob De Roover, and on those coming from the University of Ghent. He tries to make my credentials appea… - S. N. Balagangadhara

If this is true, it also helps us understand why both ‘conversion’ and the notion of ‘secularism’ jars Indian sensibilities. Somehow or the other, Nehruvian ‘secularism’ always connotes a denigration of Indian traditions; if you look at the debates in the EPW and SEMINAR and journals like that, one thing is very clear: none of the participants really understands what ‘secularism’ means. In India, ‘secularism’ is counter posed to ‘communalism’ whereas ‘the secular’, in European languages, has only one contrast—‘the sacred’.

Modern psychoanalysis of India, beginning with Carstair’s ‘The Twice Born’ through ‘The Oceanic Feeling’ of Mussaief-Masson (another Indologist using psychoanalysis to understand Indian religions), had already told our tale: Indian culture was ‘narcissistic’ (in the sense of ‘secondary narcissism’) and thus pathological in nature.

Brahminism is an invention of western Indology. Indology which is fond of ‘-isms’ has created quite a few: Brahminism, Vedism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and so on.