Book reviewed: Rastram: Hindu history in United Indian Ocean States, by S. Kalyanaraman

Book reviewed: Rastram: Hindu history in United Indian Ocean States, by S. Kalyanaraman

The United States of Indian Ocean Nations: Is such a union ever possible?

I have strong interest in the ancient civilization of the Near East during fourth and third millennium BCE, and the birth of the first Indo-European language; and a proto Indo-Iranian religion that eventually led to the Vedic culture in India. Having read many publications from this author at the online journal Academia.Edu, I thought this work refers to a discussion of social and economic union of the three major civilizations of Asia during the Bronze Age. But this book is about the future; towards the unification of nations along Indian Ocean, for political and economic benefits, similar to European Economic Community (EEC). The title of the book is somewhat misleading, since the European Union is failing, and no one would ever think that it is possible for very diverse nations along the Indian Ocean would ever go through the economic and political unification like EEC. Nations of South Asia, Egypt, parts of the Middle East and Eastern Africa, South East Asia and Australia are as diverse as one can be. Differences in race, culture, religion and political instability in many of these nations ring alarm bells before one can effectively strategize EEC style unification. In recent years, Asia has to cope with a rapidly changing external security environment with the rise of China as a power player. Other challenges include rapidly changing economic opportunities, the regional war against Islamic terrorism and boundary disputes among Asian countries are very troubling. The author is giving the wrong message at the wrong time when experiments with European Community is measuring up to be a disaster with failing nations like Greece, Portugal and Spain. People in many member nations are calling for an end to the European Union.

The discussions in this book are sparse and diffused; it needs some focusing. Reparations for the wrong done by British and Islamists in India are a bit farfetched. There are extensive references to dharma found in Hindu literature, and using dharma as the guiding force to govern the new union is untenable. The book quotes many scholars about the wisdom contained in the ancient texts of India but rarely refers to the original publications in the professional journals: The book also cites numerous references to articles of Wikipedia. I would rely more on original publications.

The author is a frequent contributor in the field of the etymology and semantics of Meluhha, the name for the Indus civilization found in Mesopotamian texts. Meluhha is an important historical source about the movement of people, goods, language, art and written communication between these two regions during the fourth to second millennia BCE. Despite the author’s contributions in this field, the book is poorly written. I have a friendly advice to the author; he has to summarize his arguments and discussions at the end of each chapter so that the reader understands the gist of the discussion. The final chapter must include the overall message of the book to make it clear to the reader that his arguments set forth in the introduction may be achievable through his discussions in various chapters. There must be a “take-home” message for the reader that sums up the book.