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.

APPENDIX ADDED 12 January 2026:

A mutual friend asked me why I am so agitated about this issue and making it a personal issue. So let me spell it out (even if not exactly “in words of one syllable”):

Anyone and everyone has a right to their opinions, and obviously this includes Koenraad Elst. But this kind of repeated troll-like behavior from Koenraad in the matter of Jijith’s work vis-à-vis mine cannot be ignored by me as just one more opinion by one more person.

Firstly, there is a strong personal element here which makes it completely different from interactions with anyone else. I have known Koenraad Elst since 1992 (i,e, over 33 years now). In fact I met him first on 7^th December 1992, the day after the Babri Masjid fell, in Sita Ram Goel’s office in Delhi, and in the next few days he read the prints of my first book before it was published. Likewise he has read every single book of mine before it was published and has been my constant intellectual companion since that day, through the phone and email (and occasional meetings in conferences and whenever he visits Mumbai), discussing in detail every point on which he had doubts or questions to ask. And we have jointly been the objects of attack by critics, and I have stood behind him every time he was personally attacked.

Secondly, Koenraad, in discussions of everyone else’s work (except Jijith’s) and in discussions on twitter or anywhere and everywhere else on the social media or in seminars and discussions and in his books and talks, always claims to arrive at conclusions based strictly on facts, data, evidence and open and honest discussion, and criticizes those who keep airing subjective personal opinions not backed by these requirements.

In these two circumstances, his constant claims (and here very specifically stated), that Jijith’s work “for the first time ever” clarifies Vedic history and Vedic relationship with the Epic-Puranic data, and (in the light of my exposure of all the clearly wrong things written by Jijith) that his work is “revolutionary and totally unrefuted”, are a direct attack on me.

As I said, it would be justified if he pointed out in detail, and with data, how all my criticisms of the nonsense written by Jijith are not correct. Or even if he simply stated openly and in specific terms (without even bothering to give arguments for his agreement) that he agrees with Jijith’s views 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.

But Koenraad seems to prefer discussing things in the air when it comes to issues concerning Jijith’s work. I believe someone even asked him on twitter exactly which new and revolutionary things have been brought out by Jijith, to which he has not bothered to clarify. On the other hand, he participated for months (in spite of my repeated clarifications and challenges on the matter) in Jijith’s disinformation campaign which claimed that I had located Manu in Ayodhya and Divodāsa and Sudās in Kashi. Even Witzel, who criticized my work as being based on “Puranic conceptions” and an “Amar Chitrakatha” outlook, did not make such specific and easily disprovable false claims.

So yes, I consider what he has written about Jijith (“for the first time ever” and “revolutionary and totally unrefuted”) as an unprovoked and unsubstantiated personal attack on me, and yes I feel personally betrayed by this.