Twitter and Reddit turned battleground for the cultural Right and Left yet again with an American academic pointing instance of possible plagiarism and stark similarities between Rajiv Malhotra’s books and works by other scholars.Since July 1, Richard Fox Young (@RichardFoxYoung) has been running a consistent campaign using #Message4Rajiv to ‘expose’ instances of ‘plagiarism’ in Rajiv Malhotra’s books Breaking India (which he co-authored with Aravindan Neelakandan) published in 2011 and Indra’s Net which was published in 2014.Running into several hundred tweets, and with laborious meticulousness, Young lists out several instances of possible plagiarism by Rajiv Malhotra from the works of Wilhelm Halfbass, Maurice Olender, Andrew Nicholson and several other western authors.In a Reddit thread, the username ‘americanvedic’ has put out at least 14 alleged instances of plagiarism from or similarities to works of other authors. Malhotra’s online support base, or ‘intellectual kshatriyas’ as some of them like to call themselves, have put up a vigorous defence of Malhotra, stating that he has only referred to the work of other scholars and has indeed provided attribution in his books. Malhotra himself has called the allegations ‘a bunch of nonsense’, calling Young a ‘chamcha’ ‘leading a hit job’ against him. Rajiv Malhotra has put up the following defense on his Twitter timeline:End note saying "This section draws heavily on Author XYZ" suffices by ALL norms. No need to restate after each para https://t.co/2z3Pm4usf3 — Rajiv Malhotra (@RajivMessage) July 9, 2015No publisher or academician worth his salt cites SAME AUTHOR/BOOK after each para. Just once up front is enough https://t.co/A8fYz6astr — Rajiv Malhotra (@RajivMessage) July 9, 2015Originality in my work is the THESIS I ARGUE. The supporting data is compiled from many sources & citing them makes my case stronger — Rajiv Malhotra (@RajivMessage) July 9, 2015On July 9 however, ‘americanvedic’ on Reddit put out the following update: