Koenraad Elst: I Challenge You To Either Prove Your Words or To Eat Them Rather Than Playing Politics and Verbal Games

 

Koenraad Elst: I Challenge You To Either Prove Your Words or To Eat Them Rather Than Playing Politics and Verbal Games

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

Someone just sent me a very interesting tweet just put up by Koenraad Elst. Apparently, someone put up a tweet saying he did not take Jijith seriously. And Koenraad replied:

https://x.com/ElstKoenraad/status/2001266760063033765

“Those are only Jijith's Twitter posts. To take his true measure, read his books. His historical assessments of scripture are revolutionary, & totally unrefuted. For the 1st time ever, the Vedas & Epics make sense against the background of *reality*.”

5:52 PM · Dec 17 2025

 

Really? His books are “revolutionary and totally unrefuted”, and “For the 1st time ever, the Vedas & Epics make sense against the background of *reality*.”?

Thank you for coming out in the open. At least you have taken one step towards speaking the truth (about your agenda), and also making very clear your (till now closeted) low opinion about the amount of “sense” that my own analysis of the Vedas “makes”. And also making clear your equally low opinion about my point-by-point factual and data-based criticism (in my review) of his extremely fictitious story-book “Rivers of Ṛgveda”!

But opinions have zero value without data-based arguments and evidence. Isn’t that the principled stand you always pretend to take in your twitter squabbles with your critics and with trolls? Why don’t you move one step ahead on the march towards openness and honesty and actually give your detailed point-by-point reply to the criticism of his book in my review of his book below, instead of playing politics and stonewalling the refutation, all the while pretending and even proclaiming that his books are “revolutionary and totally unrefuted”? Or at least admit (point-by-point) that you accept all his fictitious creations, starting with the five Sarayu rivers and the two mutually inimical Bharata tribes who are both the heroes of different hymns in the Rigveda?

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/03/a-review-of-rivers-of-rgveda-by-jijith.html

 

For many months you and Jijith were carrying on a grand and relentless disinformation campaign about my analysis of the Rigveda (Manu in Ayodhya, Divodāsa and Sudās in Kashi, etc. etc.) which remained unchecked even after I repeatedly clarified the points in public (and before that in discussion threads on the now closed-down Indic discussion group), until I had to remove my kid-gloves, abandon discretion and politeness, and openly call out your lies. I thought you had stopped your attacks, but this above tweet shows that you were only biding your time.  I do not wish to again indulge in mutual mudslinging.

Please keep the discussion (if you dare to have it) restricted to the data, and give your point-by-point data-based replies to every point of criticism of his first book that I have made in my above review. I address this to you, Koenraad, and wish to have nothing to do with Jijith himself (I cannot function at that level of inanity). Don’t shoot from his shoulders.

In any case, I have no genuine expectations of objective scholarship or honesty from you now, after your continuous display of being on the same intellectual level as Jijith. So I do not really expect you to behave like a scholar instead of like a person with an agenda.

ADDED 22 Dec 2025:

I am told Koenraad replied to someone (I don’t have that tweet) as follows:

https://x.com/ElstKoenraad/status/2002733803966759195

“Scientists sometimes propose hypotheses that don’t hold up in the end. It could even happen to Jijith. But that someone “prioritizes his imagination over facts” doesn’t apply to him at all. It’s a flippant allegation that clearly comes from someone w/out experience in research”.

7:02 PM · Dec 21, 2025.

Well, I don’t require a certificate from Koenraad or anyone else as to whether I for one am or am not “someone w/out experience in research”, or whether or not I am being “flippant”, but I have pointed out in detail how every part of Jijith’s book “Rivers of Ṛgveda” reeks of an imagination gone berserk with no basis in facts. Would Koenraad for starters (and just for starters) point out the “facts”, as opposed to a wild imagination, which indicate that the rivers Sarasvatī, Dṛṣadvatī or Haro were ever also known as Sarayu; or that there are two groups of protagonist  Bharatas in the Rigveda (called the “Tṛtsu Bharatas” and “Saṁvaraṇa Bharatas”), both being enemies in two different battles, with the former being the heroes (and the latter the antagonists) in the dāśarājña battle and the latter being the heroes (and the former the antagonists) in a separate battle called the battle of Asiknī?

Now when Koenraad squabbles with his foes on “X” and elsewhere, and preaches the ethics and logic of debate with them, he is definitely being flippant when he accuses them of failing to stick to facts and data. Perhaps their not being “scientists” as per his definition justifies his double standards?  In my thirty-three years of acquaintance with him, I never suspected him to be capable of such a degree of intellectual dishonesty and cowardice.