"I do not contest that this top-down instrumental use for pure politics was being made to some degree; but to reduce the entire process of cultural evolution to a matter of politics betrays a profound misunderstanding. This view disregards the intrinsic appeal of the Sanskrit tradition, including for non-elites, and the various roles it played in the cultures it touched. In particular, to dismiss the entire symbolic discourse of Sanskrit as 'mystifying' is to apply a reductive Marxism that cannot account for sacredness in the lives of people."

“He then goes a step further and briefly imposes a Freudian reading on the text, a reading outdated and crude even in the current Western context of cultural criticism. He says the depiction of 'the other' in Ramayana can be understood as a projection of the unfulfilled sexual desires of traditional Indians. .... The motive of applying a totally alien framework, viz., the Freudian one, to a traditional Hindu text is something that is questionable.”

“Sharma speculates that a reason for India's downfall was the eclipse of the category of Chakravarti as mentioned in the Arthashastra. A Chakravarti's domain was from ocean to ocean; he was above all the other kings who were local. He feels that the Arthashastra at some point ceased to be taught for learning realpolitik. There appears to haven been an attack on it by liberal passivism. It is ironic, he says , that during British rule the Arthashastra text had disappeared until a copy suddenly surfaced with a farmer in Kerala in the early twentieth century. .. Sharma recommends introducing the study of Arthashastra in all schools in all languages. ....Some others suggest that Panchatantra ought to be taught at very young ages as a popular version of strategic thinking. It is interesting that the Arabs took the Panchantantra and translated/adapted it into their children's stories, which reached Europe as Aesop's Fables.”

“Wikipedia biases in my entry which it prevents being corrected. It is re-colonizing Indians.”

“One of his goals is to critique and expunge what he sees as deeply entrenched static social hierarchies, barbarisms and poisons. I do not see anything inherently wrong with this intention by itself; most Hindus welcome improvements and the evolution of their culture. The issue worth debating is that Pollock sees these ills as deeply rooted in the Vedas themselves and as requiring the abandonment of core metaphysical and sacred perspectives.”

“For example, Cambridge University established a prize named for an essay competition on the topic: 'The best means of civilizing the subjects of the British Empire in India, and of diffusing the light of the Christian religion throughout the eastern world.'”

“TBFS is a book about Sanskrit written in English by an author who is not a Sanskrit scholar. For such a book, to receive endorsements from some of the finest contemporary Sanskrit scholars from India is quite an achievement, even more so when some of them co-opt the terminology of the author in their endorsements. Any Indian Sanskrit author would love to get endorsements from scholars like Dayananda Bhargava, 45 Ramesh Kumar Pandey, 46 K. S. Kannan, 47 Sampadananda Mishra, 48 K. Ramasubramanian, 49 and Kapil Kapoor. 50 Co- opting Malhotra’s terminology, Bhargava, who has been interpreting Sanskrit works for the last sixty years, writes that the book ‘promotes a debate between the “insiders” and “outsiders” of our heritage’ and states, ‘... most insiders are either blissfully unaware ... or are living in isolation’. Kannan, who translated Malhotra’s Being Different into Kannada as Vibhinnate, says ‘the responsibility now lies squarely on traditional Indian scholars to take on the issues between insiders and outsiders which this book has framed’ and that Malhotra’s contribution is ‘this valuable role as the prime initiator of this dialogue’.”