The South Asian Experts

The "South Asian Expert" is a special category which I shall elaborate some other time. Here is an article by one such "expert", Paul Brass.

Paul Brass spent 40 years of his life studying one city, Aligarh, which contains the Aligarh Muslim University -- the "university that created Pakistan".

Paul Brass has written an article which easily falls into the category of "gutter inspector report".
... as the militant Hindu movement began to gather force, so did the intensity and scale of collective violence ...
We all know which way this going: the usual rss bashing, blaming the hindus, condoning muslim violence.

... there existed in these towns what I called "institutionalised riot systems." The ex-DM, who knew very well how riots were organised, nevertheless reacted with an uncomprehending look.
These "experts" think they know more about India than the residents.

I was somewhat discouraged by his reaction, but ultimately found in my data from interviews, official and non-official reports — but not from the media — that the existence of such systems was to my mind incontrovertible.
The key word here is "found". He "found" the data to support his theory, although the theory looked ridiculous to anyone but the experts.

Moreover, it was much more highly developed and elaborately organised within the network of militant Hindu organisations radiating out from the RSS than from any comparable network of Muslim organisations, at least in northern India.
Here comes the RSS bashing stuff. Interstingly, the terrorist outfit SIMI is based out of Aligarh, but the author does not think it deserves mention.

Moreover, it was also now clear enough to me that what have been called Hindu-Muslim riots in India of the past several decades are misnamed ... taken the form of genocidal massacres and local ethnic cleansing as well.
This paragraph is a clear attempt to fit data into a theory which is in vogue today. If 25 years of the author's data shows that the government and police are to be blamed for riots, then all the blame must squarely lie with Congress. Dropping the words genocide and pogrom beside "Gujarat" is a pathetic attempt at shifting the blame towards the target group.

... Pseudo-science substituted for ethnographic research. ...
The author's poor attempt at projecting his intellectual prowess. The Paul Brass style of research: field work in one town is sufficient to claim universal expertise; collect data which fits into the preconcieved theory; write few gutter inspector reports; receive rave reviews from cohorts and once again claim universal expertise; stick to the in-thing, never mind the data and proposed theory.

(Partition violence is) a twentieth century form of genocide and ethnic cleansing, planned and organised, but made to appear wholly or mostly spontaneous or blamed upon various easy targets ...
Planned and organised violence -- loaded words. made to appear --> by whom? How could this author ever dare to make a claim to scholarship. Does he have any idea what he is talking about here. Partition violence is a Hindu-Muslim conflict. The skirmishes that might have occurred due to greed, survival or ethnicity are just that -- not in any way comparable to the riots. To try to look at it from any other angle is to shy away from the truth. The motiviation for partition is unambigous; it is religion, islamic seperatism.

... blamed upon various easy targets such as Lord Mountbatten or the British policy of "divide and rule."
Frankly, this came as a surprise to me. I did not expect the author to attempt to do so much in such a short space. Ok, now we are told the British are spotless. Next what!

I have provided extensive, detailed accounts from my own interviews over many years, as well as from other sources, concerning the misuse of curfew in India as a device for the victimisation of the Muslim population during riots.
Petrodollars speaketh. I feel like I am reading a radical Islamic website. Well, I actually am.

I figured out what the entire purpose of this article is; the "expert" is trying to push for his "Institutionalised riot systems" theory. He has to propose this theory within the correct political parlance if he wants to stay alive and see his kids grow up. So, and this is the funny part, he blames rss for the institutionalise rioting system of muslims. CBCNN, being so fond of Islamic terrorism's apologists, gives prominent space to this "expert".