Born in 1950, Rajiv Malhotra is a world renowned researcher, writer, speaker and public intellectual on current affairs as they relate to civilizations, cross-cultural encounters, religion and science. He studied Physics at St. Stephens College in Delhi and went for post-graduate studies in Physics and then Computer Science to the USA. Rajiv served in multiple careers, including: as a software development executive, Fortune 100 senior corporate executive, strategic consultant, and successful entrepreneur in the information technology and media industries. At the peak of his career when he owned 20 companies in several countries, he took early retirement at age 44 to pursue philanthropy, research and public service.
He established Infinity Foundation for this purpose in 1994. Rajiv has conducted original research in a variety of fields and has influenced many other thinkers in India and the West. He has disrupted the mainstream thought process among academic and non-academic intellectuals alike, by providing fresh provocative positions on Dharma and on India. Some of the focal points of his work are: interpretation of Dharma for the current times, comparative religion, globalization, and India’s contributions to the world. He has authored hundreds of articles, provided strategic guidance to numerous organizations and has over 700 video lectures available online.
To best understand Rajiv’s thoughts and contributions, his books are a good resource. Besides Invading the Sacred, in which Rajiv is the main protagonist, he has authored the following game changing books: Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism, Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines, Indra’s Net: Defending Hinduism’s Philosophical Unity, The Battle for Sanskrit: Is Sanskrit Political or Sacred, Oppressive or Liberating, Dead or Alive? and Academic Hinduphobia: A Critique of Wendy Doniger’s Erotic School of Indology.
Currently, Rajiv Malhotra is the full-time founder-director of Infinity Foundation in Princeton, NJ. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Center for Indic Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and is adviser to various organizations. Infinity Foundation has given more than 400 grants for research, education and community work. It has provided strategic grants to major universities in support of pioneering programs including: visiting professorships in Indic studies at Harvard University, Yoga and Hindi classes at Rutgers University, research and teaching of nondualistic philosophies at University of Hawaii, Global Renaissance Institute and a Center for Buddhist studies at Columbia University, a program in religion and science at University of California, endowment for the Center for Advanced Study of India at University of Pennsylvania, lectures at the Center for Consciousness Studies at University of Arizona and numerous others.
Rajiv Malhotra inspired the idea of Swadeshi Indology Conference after the release of his seminal work The Battle for Sanskrit. The first ever Swadeshi Indology Conference was held at IIT, Chennai in 2016. The conference was the start engine for a series of conferences, each with a separate focus. The aim of these conferences is to attempt to turn the gaze on the West with a Bharatiya drishti and re-write the civilizational story of this ancient land using indigenous lenses. For long, the discourse on Bharat had been controlled by the West and it has been the consistent and constant endeavour of Rajiv to: on the one hand disrupt the discourse by reversing the gaze on the West and on the other, to build the true story of Bharatiya civilization.
Another major initiative of the Infinity Foundation is the HIST series. The HIST (History of Indian Science and Technology) series is a compilation of multi-Volume History of Indian Science and Technology based only on solid academic scholarship, and not on wild extrapolations. To accomplish this, each volume was subjected to rigorous peer reviews. The following volumes have already been published and printed as part of this IF project: Marvels of Indian Iron Through the Ages Indian Zinc Technology in Global Perspective Water Management and Hydraulic Engineering in India History of Metals in Eastern India and Bangladesh Harappan Architecture and Civil Engineering Beginning of Agriculture and Domestication in India History of Iron Technology in India Indian Beads History and Technology Himalayan Traditional Architecture Animal Husbandry and Allied Technologies in Ancient India Harappan Technology and Its Legacy Reflection on The History of Indian Science and Technology Chalcolithic South Asia: Aspects of Crafts and Technologies Traditional Water Management.
Rajiv Malhotra has an active and high impact social media presence with a Facebook following of close to 7.3 million followers.