François Gautier
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François Gautier | |
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Panchjanya's Nachiketa Awards , Bipin Chandra Pal Award | |
Website | www |
François Gautier (born 1950) is a
He is also the founder of a private museum which seeks to portray Indian history in a nationalist manner. Gautier has written books on the history and Indology; he has established NGO namely Foundation for Advancement of Cultural Ties.
Life
Early life
Francois Gautier was born in 1950 in
Gautier came to India at the age of 19 in 1969, as part of a trans-world journey, along with the first wave of Auroville-migrants.[2][1] He was accompanied by the son of Charles François Marie Baron, Pondicherry's last French governor.[2] Deeply impressed with Sri Aurobindo's writings, he chose to reside over Sri Aurobindo Ashram where his encounters with Mirra Alfassa influenced him to further prolong his stay.[2] Gautier went on to stay over there for about seven years.[1]
Personal life
François Gautier is married to Namrita Bindra Gautier, whose mother was a
Career
Journalism
After arriving in India, Gautier stopped writing for many years and focused on other activities.
He served as the South-Asia correspondent of Journal de Genève, a Geneva-based newspaper before switching to the same post at Le Figaro in 1993.[1] He stayed over there for about 8 years before shifting to Ouest-France and then, La Chaîne Info.[3]
Gautier used to write a regular column for
Writing
Gautier became interested in Indology when he began to travel outside Auroville. Sita Ram Goel contacted Gautier after reading some of his articles in a magazine called Blitz and asked for permission to reprint the articles in his book. Gautier instead wrote the book The Wonder That Is India. Later, the website Hinduism Today republished it online. Following this, Gautier wrote several other books. Gautier is also working on two books, one about Kalaripayattu, an Indian martial art from Kerala, and another on French influence in India, with the help of photographer Raghu Rai.[1]
In 2010, an anonymously authored novel titled Hindutva, Sex and Adventure was published that featured a foreign radio journalist who came to India and became a Hindutva supporter—it was considered to be a satire of BBC reporter Mark Tully.[9] It was speculated that Gautier may have been the author, but he denied the allegation.[9][10]
Photography and painting exhibitions
Gautier has established the Foundation for Advancement of Cultural Ties (FACT), a NGO dedicated to portraying Indian history in a "correct" manner.
In 2012, the Shivaji Maharaj Museum of Indian History was established by FACT.
Views and opinions
Gautier, who is
Gautier contends that India, through the exercise and spread of
A front-line
Gautier accepts the
He has criticized the United Progressive Alliance government (2009-2014) and claimed that terrorism continued unabated whilst Muslim mullahs were allowed to preach freely and Hindu gurus were being targeted by the media and police.[6] He has earlier criticized the usage of the term "Godman" by Indian media to describe self-proclaimed Hindu gurus proposing that Indian journalists often were not proud of their culture and had called for imparting a more fairer treatment.[29][30]
Reception
Manisha Basu, writing in The Rhetoric of Hindu India, deems him to be part of a suave derivative of Hindutva and notes of his consistent attacks upon left-liberal commentators—people who have supposedly leveraged their social privilege to dominate the socio-political consciousness of the "Anglophone national bourgeoisie" for long enough—in the process of becoming one of the few self-appointed interpreters of the Indian Right.[31] Malini Parthasarathy too notes him to be a prominent voice of Hindutva,[18] others have noted him as an ideologue as well.[32] Basu remarks of his attacks against the constructs of Brahmanic privilege (and other intersectionalities) along with the radical perspectivising of proper historiography to be mere statistical extensions of first-hand-experiences have a high degree of similarity to Jay Dubashi's writings and his broader views about the journalistic model of history.[18] Scholars have rejected his theories of a Hindu-Holocaust and have deemed him to be Islamophobic.[33][34]
He was subject to severe criticism after having objected to the proposed induction of
In 2017, Gautier claimed over a blog at The Times of India to have come across a hitherto-hidden manuscript of Nostradamus in a trunk, that (successfully) prophesied the statesmanship of Narendra Modi.[40][41] The claims were reported across multiple news-outlets.[40][41] Earlier he had asserted of Nostradamus to have established the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, an Indian Hindu nationalist organisation.[40] Other claims included that Nostradamus had successfully prophesied the chances of a possible nuclear war between India and Pakistan, the construction of Ram Mandir and the Hindu domination of world affairs after 2014.[42][41] He later said in an interview that this had been a "spoof",[43] but it was taken in earnest by some leftist commentators who accused him of having tampered with the original passages for fulfilling his political agenda.[42][41] At one case, he used the same passage over his blogs across the course of a few years but changed the name of the subjects to keep up with the political currents.[42] Gautier has been accused by rivals to have propagated fake news over other occasions through left media outlets.[44][45]
Awards
- 2003 Panchjanya's Nachiketa Awards: The Bipin Chandra Pal Award, named after the historical figure Bipin Chandra Pal, was given to Gautier.[46] He donated the money to FACT.[2]
Bibliography
- The Wonder that is India. Voice of India. 1994. ISBN 978-81-85990-17-0.
- Rewriting Indian History. Vikas Publishing House. 1996. ISBN 978-0-7069-9976-1.
- Un Autre regard sur l'Inde (in French). TRICORNE. 2000. ISBN 978-2-8293-0215-2.
- Arise Again, O India!. Har-Anand Publications. 2000. ISBN 978-81-241-0518-4.[47]
- A Western Journalist on India: The Ferengi's Columns. Har-Anand Publications. 2001. ISBN 978-81-241-0795-9.[48]
- India's Self-denial. Auroville Press International. 2001. ISBN 978-81-87373-12-4.
- A New History of India. Har-Anand Publications. 2008. ISBN 978-81-241-1430-8.[47]
- The Guru of Joy. Hay House, Inc. 2008. ISBN 978-1-4019-2140-8.
- A History of India as it Happened: Not as it Has Been Written. Har-Anand Publications. 2013. ISBN 978-81-241-1762-0.[47]
- An Entirely New History of INDIA. Independently published. 2020.
See also
References
- ^ Rediff. 12 February 1999. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ Tribune India. 10 August 2003. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ a b c d "Nascent 'Holocaust' museum". The Hindu. 3 September 2003. Archived from the original on 11 April 2015. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- Rediff. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ "Let all Hindus come together". The New Indian Express. 16 May 2012. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ DNA India. 8 May 2012. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- Outlook India. 10 November 2008. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ "Sethu Samudram canal will affect Kerala coast". The Hindu. 17 September 2007. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ a b "An Irritant Foreign Body". The Indian Express. 8 April 2010. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 18 May 2019.
- ^ "Grim portraits of damage in the Valley". The Hindu. 15 July 2003. Archived from the original on 11 April 2015. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ "Looking back at history". The Hindu. 16 February 2007. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ a b c "Art for a cause! Whose?". The Hindu. 21 July 2003. Archived from the original on 25 August 2003. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj Museum Pune, retrieved 28 March 2022
- DNA India. 13 February 2012. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ "Tracing Tibet". The Indian Express. 30 July 2013. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ ISBN 978-81-241-0795-9.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-107-14987-8. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
- OCLC 60341451.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-107-14987-8. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
- )
- ^ "Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier". mid-day. 16 April 2019. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- ^ Outlook India. 17 November 2014. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ a b c "Rediff On The NeT: The Rediff Interview/ Francois Gautier". www.rediff.com. Retrieved 18 May 2019.
- ^ "In defence of the ancient culture". The Hindu. 7 November 2000. Archived from the original on 11 April 2015. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- ISBN 9781119118589
- ISBN 978-1-107-14987-8. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
- ^ "From Francois Gautier". Asian Correspondent. 21 August 2005. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- Rediff. 12 March 2001. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
- ISBN 978-1-107-14987-8. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
- JSTOR j.ctttsj7p.
- S2CID 6354010.
- S2CID 143765766.
- ^ "Javed Akhtar blasts columnist who questioned makers' choice to cast Aamir Khan in Mahabharata". Zee News. 22 March 2018. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- ^ "French-born BJP cheerleader blasted for communal rant against Aamir Khan". National Herald. 22 March 2018. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- ^ "Aamir Khan in Mahabharata? Javed Akhtar rips apart communal rant on Twitter". The Week. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- ^ Chhabra, Aseem (23 December 2014). "Actually, Hindutva was much more successful in getting films boycotted in the pre-Twitter era". Quartz India. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- ^ "Ashoka University slammed for teaching 'anti-Hindu, anti-Brahmin' book". ThePrint. 15 December 2018. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- ^ a b c "2017's Top Fake News Stories Circulated by the Indian Media". The Wire. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- ^ a b c d "Nostradamus: Did he really predict Modi's victories, Hindutva's rise and Sonia Gandhi's fall?". Firstpost. 29 March 2017. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- ^ a b c Sinha, Pratik (29 March 2017). "Fake Nostradamus passages invented by Francois Gautier and published in TOI, Zee News, for Modi publicity". Alt News. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- ^ "Francois Gautier, pro-Hindu Western journalist".
- ^ "Subramanian Swamy Shares Fake Email About Church in Lingayat Issue". The Quint. 11 May 2018. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- ^ Slayer, Hoax (8 May 2017). "Is Francois Gautier a Journalist ? Using fake website to defame genuine one". Swachh Social Media Abhiyaan. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
- ^ "Adhere to the truth, PM tells media". The Hindu. 11 May 2003. Archived from the original on 25 September 2003.
- ^ a b c "History And Politics". Har Anand Publications. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ "Also Published". Har Anand Publications. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
- ^ "An Entirely New History of INDIA". garudabooks.com. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
- ^ What Francois Gautier saw while covering Kashmir as Journalist from 1980s & 1990s, retrieved 28 March 2022