I read through the thread this morning and I quickly realized that engagement with each and every poster is redudant and will not further this discussion. That that end, these are some thoughts I wanted to get off my chest. For the sake of simplicity, since Malhotra likes to address his devotees using his yahoo group, from now on I will refer to them as Malhotra's Yahooligans.

1. What is plagiarism? Most of the Yahooligans are nitpicking the definiton of plagiarism. It is very clear and this point has been made repeatedly throughout the thread that plagiarism is the idea of taking someone else's work as passing it off as one's own. Not attributing citations properly and directly lifting lines meets this universal defintion, plain and simple.

2. What are our standards for plagiarism? Richard Fox Young made clear in his initial tweets why he was using Princeton standards. Malhotra is from the city of Princeton, NJ and he has actually claimed the city as part of his aura of credibility. Princeton University is a globally renowed academic institution with guidelines as good as any. If one looks up any academic or publishing guidelines, they would find consistency with Princeton's guidelines. The burden of proof does not fall on Young or some others on this thread to show how Malhotra meets the definition of plagiarism by EVERY standard. In fact, the burden falls on Malhotra's Yahooholigans to show by which academic or ethical standards Malhotra's transgressions stand up against.

3. So what? Malhotra's Yahooligans have fallen back on the argument that this is a very minimal transgression at worst, akin to forgetting to dot the i's and cross the t's. This is incorrect. In the words of Rajeev Malhotra himself, plagiarism is an unethical act which steals from others. If the readers of this are not convinced by the intrinsic ethical problems with plagiarism, I don't think I'll be able to convince them. This plagiarism is not a mistake, it is a consistent transgression across his works.

4. Why should Malhotra follow the standards of academic "sepoys"? One, these are universal standards that apply to non peer-reviewed journals as well. Newspaper writers, college students, speech writers and those who give public addresses are held to the same standard. Two, Malhotra is a participant in the academic community- he writes books, speaks at conferences and seeks to be a scholarly voice for Hinduism. He CANNOT have his cake and eat it too. If he wants to be accepted as a voice in the academic or even Hindu community, he cannot run away from universal standards.

5. This isn't Malhotra's fault- blame the publisher This one is simple. An author takes responsibility for what he publishes. He derives the benefit from his works and he is responsible. Moreover, the arguments that "quotes and citations" distract the reader are nonsensical and do not hold any water in any capacity.

6. A comment on attack tactics It is frightening to see the type of language used by Malhotra. Not only is he attempting to use the race card and trying to belittle his opponents as "sepoys" but the use of militaristic language is most concerning. This morning, Malhotra tweeted, "We use folks like RFY for target practice." The use of violent phrasing is unacceptable, unbecoming of an intellectual and reflects poorly on Malhotra's maturity. Malhotra's Yahooligans fall under the same guise of American tea party members at best and conservative Islamist extremists at worst. They refuse to listen to other opinions, deningrate others and resort to unsubstantiated, ad hominem attacks ie sepoys, the white man, western christians etc. Screenshots from yahoo available elsewhere on this thread demonstrate the strategy of the Yahooligans in plain light. I quote the Yahoo thread, "we need different tactics 'gutter tactics' to deal with them." The stated goal of the Yahooligans is to shut down discussion.

7. A conclusion Malhotra is showing his true colors. He is hiding in his Yahoo group riling up his Yahooligans in a militaristic manner while sending off random tweets. He is resorting to name-calling, ad hominem attacks and doing everything to distract from the greater issue that he is a plagiarist. I do not blame him for his response. A thief tries to get away when he is caught and this is no different. This has the potential to end Malhotra's career, lead to intellectual property lawsuits, and his relationships with his publishers. If Malhotra were a true academic, he would welcome debate. If he wants to retain anything good in his work, he must take responsilbity and move on, otherwise this will catch up to him and his Yahooligans will not be able to protect him.

This post will likely get downvoted by the Yahooligans who have joined Reddit and that's fine. Downvotes and ad hominem attacks will not change the truth. My reddit karma might be low, but unlike Rajiv Malhotra and his followers, I'm not worried about my real karmic balance.

Tl;dr: Malhotra is showing his true colors, riling up his pseudo-militaristic supporters ie Yahooligans. They are not interested in debate, they just want to ignore everything, name-call and set up ad hominem attacks on others, and shut down discussion. Don't bother to engage them. Some people's minds can't be changed.