Madhava Ghosh prabhu weighs in with a response to the Annotations issue:
As language morphs, the need to annotate will become greater if the desire is there to retain Prabhupada’s books in original versions. That may seem academic now, but will be a greater need as decades slip by.
Ghosh gives the example of the changed meaning of the word "gay" to illustrate the need for annotations. He also refers to the meaning of the "rape" in the example that is given in the GBC proposal. [Ed: this was mistaken - in fact he did not.]
The problem with this, is that this is not at all the intention of the annotations. The intention of the annotations is to deal with Prabhupada's statements where the meaning of words is not unclear, but the import of the statement is socially unacceptable to modern audiences both within and without ISKCON - statements like "women are less intelligent".
The meaning of the words in that statement are clear. The meaning of the phrase, however, is objectionable and "offensive" to some readers.
This is the issue that this proposal seeks to address. After proffering an example that no-one can disagree with, the 4th Canto rape quote, the proposal then off-handedly says: "the above quotes, and other such statements as determined by the BBT". This gives sweeping power to annotate. And reading Praghosa prabhu's comments on this issue on Dandavats make it clear that the motivation behind these annotations is not to clarify word meanings, but to strategically deal with challenges to our "social siddhanta" - Srila Prabhupada's take on social issues.
The way the proposal has been worded is designed to make arguments like Madhava Ghosh's about word meaning the focal point, and admit the power to "annotate at will", at which point the real agenda can be carried out - dealing with statements where word meaning is clear but social import is problematic.
I'm not a "member of GHQ" (that means a member of the ultra-right wing of ISKCON thought ;-) ). Both Krishna-kirti prabhu and Amara prabhu can vouch for that.
However, I am a conservative, in the sense that Akruranath prabhu described it: generally preferring to retain things as they are.
Orthodox at the core, innovative at the edge - write more books and commentaries. Don't change the existing books.
Madhava Gosh Point of
Madhava Gosh
Point of clarification; I did NOT refer to the example of 'rape" in my post -- I deliberately avoided it, trying to approach the issue from a neutral, more academic perspective.
Perhaps you were speed reading and assumed that it was there but it wasn't.
Regardless, words are not only words -- to understand how a word was used you have to understand the culture in which they are or were used.
For instance, in America, words designating bodily functions are considered curse words, but in other cultures they aren't. "Merde" in French translates literally as "shit' in English but the nuance is completely different -- it is more like saying "darn" or something, not really considered an expletive, whereas in English it is.
Annotations are not editing -- they don't change the books. Both annotated and unannotated books can exist simultaneously. One doesn't preclude the other.
We can understand that when SP used the word "rape" he was saying that some women like consensual "rough sex." but for a first time reader the context of the cultural expression of SP writing in a foreign culture in a second language does require some explanation.