Criticism without Academic Substantiation

My article “How Egalitarian Is Indian Sociology?” raised a few ontological, epistemological and pedagogical issues in Indian sociology on the basis of empirical data. Hence it is not a personal attack on any one sociologist or a group of sociologists. Neither has it questioned the integrity of any sociologists. As a student of sociology I believe raising objective issues is part of the professional ethics and does not constitute personal disrespect to your elders. Let us learn to dissociate the professional from the personal.

K L Sharma’s rejoinder is full of conjectures, attributing motives, and is speculative without any substantiation of facts. He says “Vivek Kumar attempts,” “Vivek Kumar desires,” “Vivek Kumar is questioning,” “only job for Vivek Kumar is,” “His allegation is,” and “essential logic of Vivek Kumar” to quote just a few of his descriptions, which makes the rejoinder more of a personal critique of the author and less of an academic critique of the article.