Below are a few resources for enabling Hindu-American parents to understand the landscape of Hinduism in the west.
This is another article from her worth reading. It talks about the modern nuisance of wokeness.
By Vamsee Juluri – Saving Hindu Children: Why are they Defenceless Against Anti-Hindu Propaganda? (Feb 2020)
.. and of the pseudo-seculars, pseudo-liberals, media biases and, above all, the corrupt academics. Before the CAA protests, it used to take some research to identify the hypocrisy and deceit of all these people. Now, they are out in their full glory, not just on social media, but out on the road.
There is absolutely no basis for any protests against CAA. On the contrary, this legislation should have been brought decades ago, just like the legislation on abrogation of Article 370 on Kashmir.
Why I say so is explained eloquently in this long interview of Arif Mohammad Khan.
I agree with every word he said and the summary of the judge at the end.
I will add one more thing. People say that measures like CAA increase the Hindu-Muslim divide. May be it does so. But the fact of the matter is that this divide has existed since before the Mughals. It was effectively exploited by the Britishers, and even more so, post-independence, by the Congress. How to heal this divide is a difficult question, but certainly appeasement of Muslims and institutional Hinduphobia are not part of the solution.
Additional reading
Ishkaran Singh Bhandari (video)
This video is from the high profile Harvard India Conference in Feb 2019 at Harvard. It was organized by Indian student body at Harvard. Sadhguru was first questioned by a panel of three students (two from Harvard Business school and one from Kennedy public policy school) and it was followed by audience Q&A.
This post is about the attitude of these students, the crème de la crème of India and the world.
First, I think it would be fair to say that Sadhguru has likely accomplished a lot more than any students in the panel or the audience, even if you exclude the spiritual angle, which, of course, is Sadhguru’s greatest contribution. I am talking about “measurable” achievements like number of people educated, treated, trees planted, impact on education and environment policy. The number of people that Sadhguru has positively impacted is more than the whole population of most countries in the world. And he has done all this primarily through volunteers. So one would think that the Indian students at Harvard would recognize these contributions and be proud of a global leader of Indian origin, especially given that the forum is India conference. And they would treat it as a master class and have an attitude of, well, students!
Far from it.
The panel and the questioners later seemed more interested in conducting a trial of Sadhguru with an aim of “exposing” him and, by proxy, the deep problems of India which, of course, Harvard understands far better than an uneducated guru. Indeed, the MC kicked off the session by asking the panel to take Sadhguru “to task”! I think Sadhguru sensed this early on because his responses were uncharacteristically hard hitting.
So what were the students interested in?
The conversation started with “philosophical” questions. No, not to explore the philosophy which has driven Sadhguru’s incredible public service. Not also to explore Sadhguru’s spirituality. The goal seemed to be to point out holes in Hindu philosophy. In the very first question one panelist said that Gita teaches karma karo fal ki chinta mat karo (do your work without caring for the results) and points out that she finds it non-sensical.
I wonder if the questioner would be able to tell the names of five chapters of Gita, or even how many chapters and shlokas it has, forget reading it. Most likely all she knows about Gita is from hear say (read whatsapp university). But her limited knowledge does not prevent her from casting doubts on the Gita with such certitude.
By the way, I have read Gita and karma karo fal ki chinta mat karo is not the lesson I got from it.
This is a common trend among educated Indians. I have seen my friends mock the Vedas, Ramayana and, of course, the manu smriti even though none of them have read any of it. A friend said to me – I would rather watch a Netflix series than waste my time on reading Hindu scriptures. So he hasn’t read and won’t read but yet he is certain that these scriptures are worthless.
This is chutzpah — confidence in spite of ignorance.
Later someone from the audience asked – why should a youth like me care about religious celebrations like Maha Shivratri? (By the way, people should check out the amazing 2019 Maha Shivratri celebrations of at Isha foundation, Coimbatore.) Again he likely has no idea about the origin and significance of Maha Shivratri. The fact that millions have been celebrating it for thousands of years means nothing to him because he has already concluded that anyone taking part in this festival seriously is obviously deluded and superstitious.
The rest of the questions pretty much followed the clichés and talking points of BBC, NYT, Economist and NDTV — india is a rape capital, it is full of discrimination, intolerance, regressive religious practices, etc – essentially propagating what RM calls the caste, cows and curry caricature of India.
The amazing thing is that such hinduphobia is rampant in people who grew up in India in a Hindu household. Hindu bashing for them is cool and progressive. Again, their cynicism is only matched by their ignorance.
My take
I think two things are going on here.
First, is the elitism and arrogance of the Ivy league. That is universal and not limited to Harvard and Yale. We all know people from IITs, IIMs, etc who behave like they are a gift of God to humanity. I am not too concerned about this elitism because the sensible ones usually get over it once they come out of campuses and enter the real world.
The other thing is more deep rooted, harder to correct and malicious — it is hinduphobia. It is no longer limited to the humanities students in JNU but has also infected the science and engineering colleges. The weird and dangerous aspect of it is that hinduphobia in India is not restricted to badmouthing the Hindu spiritual leaders like Sadhguru and Baba Ramdev who are the obvious targets. It extends into every section of society including media and education.
[by the way, I loved Sadhguru’s response to “a monk like Yogi Adityanath ought not to hold an important political position like that of chief minister”. The response was essentially — what is your bloody problem?! Yogi is a citizen of India and followed due process to get where he is. He didn’t get any special treatment – forget political favors, he reminded people that a Hindu monk in India can’t drive without a license or take a flight without a ticket .. he has no special privileges! Then why should he not be able to exercise his political rights?]
So, why is hinduphobia so wide spread in India?
Here is my theory — Indian culture even as it is today does go back continuously for thousands of years to the pre-christian times. Many religious ceremonies and metaphors in Indian languages today can be traced right back to the Vedas. As a result, it is not possible to separate religion (hinduism) and culture in India. Of course, I don’t feel the need for such a separation. But on college campuses it is cool to be anti-religion or, at the very least, SBNR (spiritual but not religious). And since Hinduism is the dominant religion in India, and also far less assertive and more tolerant than the abrahamic religions or, for that matter, the Richard Dawkins brand of atheists, Hinduism becomes a natural and a soft target.
You can find many more examples of this in Sadhguru’s Youth and Truth series with college students on campuses across India.
You will find hinduphobic chutzpah all around you. Pay attention.
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Isha or Harvard.
In my other post, I explained that mind sciences is at the core of the Yogic world view and can be considered the organizing principle for the Indian civilization. Various Dharmic schools (including Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism), Sanskrit, Yoga, meditation, Pranayaam and Ayurveda were all developed to create an ecosystem for exploring the mind. Needless to say this is not generally appreciated, not even by Hindu Indians, forget the rest of the world. I myself didn’t appreciate this until a few years back while I was still an IBCD!
Why so?
One of the reasons is the systematic decoupling of the Indian mind sciences from Hinduism and, consequently, India. RM’s talk in this earlier post (India’s (unacknowledged) contributions to Mind Sciences by Rajiv Malhotra) presents numerous examples of famous westerners indulging in this appropriation and digestion. They are all from recent times (last 100 years); some are around today. I think I have found one more who can be added to this list — David Chalmers, a professor of philosophy and a cognitive scientist in NYU and Australia.
I came across this episode of NPR’s TED Radio Hour titled the Unknown Brain. Last segment of the show is on the below TED talk by Chalmers. With over 600,000 views, this is one of the most popular TED talks. Watch it before reading further –
Amazing, isn’t it?! It could hardly have been grander. With his following two crazy ideas, Chalmers is sketching the outlines of the next scientific revolution which might well be much more fundamental than quantum mechanics and relativity combined (!):
Idea 1: consciousness is fundamental – in the same sense as space, time, mass and charge are; he calls it HIS postulate.
Idea 2: consciousness is universal – everything is conscious, even the rocks. There is even a word for it — panpsychism!
I was stunned when I heard this talk. Stunned not in the least by the grandness of his vision or the originality of his ideas. Even a casual reader of Vedanta would recognize the ideas as the core tenets of the Vedanta, as I explain in the other post using references to a talk by Sadhguru. In fact these ideas would not be novel to any one who knows about the philosophies of any of the Indian-origin Dharmic traditions. Still, all that Chalmers says about the eastern connection is a casual side comment – these ideas are not all that alien to people from the eastern traditions. But an unsuspecting viewer might not pick it up and may well get the impression that these are radical new ideas and that Chalmers has pioneered them!
At this point, you may say – all right, he is not crediting the source adequately. What’s the big deal? A friend of mine actually said this to me. And he is not one of the JNU-type who are constitutively Hinduphobic. He is just confused – my target audience!
Ok, so what is the big deal? For starters, using an idea without crediting the source is considered academic misconduct. Chalmers, being a professor, ought to know this. Perhaps he is not aware of the Vedic philosophy? Possible, but unlikely. He is a philosophy professor, after all! So yes, I do suspect that he has plagiarized from Indian thinkers, but I can’t make that claim just based on a 15 min video. I am raising a red flag, just like RM raised a red flag for Wendy Doniger, Sheldon Pollock, Devdutt Pattanaik and many more. Readers should investigate further. But certainly, if Chalmers ever applies for a patent for a product (say a new “mindfulness” app!) based on these not-really-that-crazy ideas, I hope the patent office consider Vedic mind sciences as prior art. (Related – Dr Mashelkar on The Turmeric Patent Battle and KSRI, Chennai)
Now, whether or not Chalmers has plagiarized from Indian thinkers or is “inspired” by them is not really my main concern. Ignoring the ethics for a bit, look at this from the point of view of one of the TED talk viewer who likely has no exposure to Hindu philosophy but is curious about meditation, brain, mind, etc. I happened to be in that category until recently but lately, I have been listening to an (authentic) lectures series on Patanjali’s Yog Sutra, the master text for meditation. And I am completely awe struck by the depth, sophistication and rigor of it. Patanjali, unlike Chalmers, is not iffy about things. He does not use words like “postulate” or “crazy” to describe his theories, presumably just to be safe, in case they turn out to be wrong later! Patanjali has developed the whole thing from theory to application. And by the way, Yog Sutra is just one of the many Hindu theories of the mind.
My point is that, not only is Chalmers not original, his formulation is likely also crude. So, a new student would be well advised to refer to authentic Hindu material along side Chalmers and see which makes more sense. For me, Patanjali’s Yog Sutra is the real deal. Why would you go for something like scotch when scotch is available; or, since it is mango season now, why go for any other mango when Indian mangoes are available?! RM has often commented – the digested versions of Indian traditions are invariably inferior to the original. And it is not always due to an ulterior motive. For a westerner, it may just be due to a lack of context.
Now, let us change the point of view to that of a nation or civilization. Imagine a TED talk which starts with these words: Imagine if we could cure diseases without any chemical drugs or surgery .. just by poking on your skin with micro needles. We call this technology micropoking! And on and on for 15 min without any mention of acupunture or China. Anyone, even an IBCD, would smell something fishy. The fact that people do not associate meditation with Hinduism, in the same way as they associate acupunture with China, or, for that matter, cheese burger with the US, shows how India has squandered her greatest soft power. Even in India today, Vedic mind sciences are not given enough attention in school curriculum nor in medical training. The centers of excellence in mind sciences are all in the west and that is where most innovation (new apps, courses, etc) is taking place. The situation is very much like that of yoga 25-30 years ago. India had nearly lost the adhikaar on Yoga till PM Modi intervened a few years back. Different matter that the intervention may be too little and too late. Ayurveda and meditation are fast heading in that direction.
Finally, I think I should make a disclaimer which should really not be necessary for those who have read the rest of this blog. But then, this is on the internet and people have short attention spans! Some of you might be asking – so, you think all of modern neuroscience — fMRI based brain mapping, human-computer interfaces, artificial intelligence, moon shot projects like BRIAN — are all pointless? I never said that. And I don’t think so. But I am asserting that the Vedic mind sciences are useful and have relevance today. The object of study for both the Hindu rishis and modern neuroscience is the same – the human mind. The two approaches have to be complementary, not at conflict with each other.
Note to reader: Hindu, Vedic, Yogic and Dharmic are used interchangeably.
Further reading:
This is a one-and-a-half hour long lecture delivered on 20 March 2018 at the iconic India International Centre in New Delhi.
RM has often talked about grand narratives of other civilizations but more as a side note. The central thesis of this lecture, which is a sneak preview of an upcoming book, is the Indian Grand Narrative. Anyone new to RM should start by watching this lecture as, I think, it provides the context to all of RM’s work so far.
Now, some of my comments:
Hope that is enough motivation not just to watch the lecture in its entirely but also to reflect on it.
[19 Mar, 2018] I am assuming that you have watched the two videos mentioned in my other post. Did you find anything that Rajiv Malhotra said that might be inappropriate for a public talk on Oxford campus? Did RM make personal attacks on any student or faculty of Oxford? Did he ask for burning or banning any books? Did he call for violence of any sort?
I don’t think so.
Now watch this till the end (there is an update at end as this is still a developing story):
This is not new for RM. He has faced similar attacks at Columbia University, New York and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, both premier centers of education and research which allegedly subscribe to the principle of freedom of speech.
Now, a plea to Indian students (and their parents) at western Ivy leagues — get to the bottom of this incident and don’t let go till the investigations are completed. Several questions remain answered — why exactly was the talk forced out of Oxford campus at the eleventh hour? Who exactly is threatened by issues raised by Rajiv Malhotra? What precisely are their objections? Rajiv Malhotra has consistently been inviting all his critics for a public debate. Instead of disrupting talks why don’t they engage with RM in a debate?
On this incident, Rajiv Malhotra posted this on his facebook page on 19 Mar, 2018:
Dear Udit Bhatia, this is to request an open & amicable dialogue with you to clear your misunderstandings and slander against me at Oxford India Society. Lets walk the talk about free speech in the open, and let the public decide. Namaste.
By the way, it is worth reflecting on the arrogance and hubris of Oxford. Rajiv Malhotra is not an amateur scholar whom Oxford can dismiss just because he is not in the academic system. Rajiv Malhotra’s books contain original research which has remained unchallenged for over two decades. He has hundreds of lectures on youtube and a huge following on social media. Did Oxford really think that they can get away with such disruption without giving an explanation?
In fact, it would have been lot more smarter for Oxford to just let the event continue uninterrupted because then they would have earned some free-speech brownie points and it was possible that the talk would have gotten lost among RM’s other talks. But now I am writing a whole post on it! Oxford should have learned a lesson from RM’s Columbia university talk (clip, full talk) which has now become exhibit A of academic hinduphobia. Now, Oxford will be exhibit B!
Updates
[Jan 2020] After Oxford, now it is the turn of Cambridge to display Hinduphobia. Watch this interview of Mrittyunjoy Guha, a recently graduated physics PhD student from Cambridge who is a proud Hindu and India supporter –
He also wrote an article in http://www.opindia.com on his experiences on campus
Finally! I have been hoping for a few years now for Rajiv Malhotra to expose Devdutt Pattanaik (DP). I had become suspicious of DP when he called Wendy Doniger his mentor because I knew the reality of Wendy Doniger from RM’s book Academic Hinduphobia.
The video is a conversation between RM and a Sanskrit scholar named Nityanand Misra who has studied DP’s work minutely from an authentic Dharmic perspective. It is a rigorous hour-long critique. This is enough evidence for me to conclude that Devdutt Pattanaik is a quack.
This post is primarily addressed to parents who are using DP to introduce Hinduism to their kids.
Ok, so one more quack. What is the big deal? The big deal is that this quack is considered an authority on Hinduism by many, including some in my family and friends. One thing that stood out for me in this video was that most of the errors and distortions by DP are not that sophisticated. I was stunned by the अ vs आ error and the insidious definition of आस्तिक. One does not have to be a big pandit to pick these out. So more than exposing DP, this video exposes the ignorance of the people reading DP. The high popularity of DP shows how widespread this condition (of ignorance and confusion!) is.
Ok, let’s say DP is toxic. But I don’t see any good alternative to DP. I have actually heard that from a friend whom I told that DP might be toxic. First, this is a ridiculous argument. Would you take poison if you are hungry and food is not readily available? Second, this is a lazy excuse. There is plenty of good material out there. You just have to seek it out. Lastly, you can’t preach something that you don’t practice. So before you try to teach Hinduism to your kids, you should first teach yourself. And I will be honest — for someone who has been preconditioned by the popular hinduphobic (pseudo) secular narrative, Hinduism is not easy to appreciate. First step to teaching yourself would be to do some serious unlearning. And only then put in some serious time into reading authentic material and reflecting upon it.
Alright then, forget it. I will drop DP … and hinduism! Neither do I, nor my kids have the time for this. The fact is that you are not dropping anything. You have ideas and opinions on everything, not only Hinduism but also every other religion. In fact, given how the world is changing you better know not only Hinduism, but also every other religion. For kids, this education is far more important than math and coding. I am not interested in converting anyone to anything. But if you are going to form opinions on Hinduism, do so based on authentic sources, not quacks like DP.
That is too big an ask. Still, even if I put in the effort to teach authentic Hinduism to my kids, how do I tell whether I am doing it right? There is actually a simple answer to this. While in school, as long as your kids don’t get the impression that all religions are the same, you might be fine. And by the time they are out of school, they should be absolutely clear as to why the Dharmic religions are fundamentally different from the Abrahamic religions. Note that I said different, not that any one is superior.
I came across this article titled A Vandalised Civilisation (published 01 Dec 2017) by PR Ramesh on the destruction of Hindu symbols by muslim rulers during medieval times, particularly in north India.
The wanton acts of vandalism and desecration by conquering hordes in evidence across north India is reminescent of the 2001 demolition—under orders of the then Taliban chief Mullah Muhammad Omar—of the globally-renowned Buddha statues at Bamiyan valley in central Afghanistan, 230 km northwest of Kabul.
This is the right modern analogy for the ruthless destruction of Hindu symbols in medieval times. Ironically, instead of acknowledging this as a fact of history ..
… the argument over this aspect of history has got sidetracked to whether claims of the count of Hindu shrines demolished by Islamic rulers are backed by evidence or have been overblown.
This is the power of narrative and the distortion that the leftists historians have propagated. The article is worth a read. Plenty of specific historical references for anyone to dig deeper on the Mughal period.
Starting from ancient times, history of India from every period needs to be revisited, but nothing is more relevant today than the British period. In that context, Shashi Tharoor’s book Inglorius Empire on the British Raj is a must read. In some places, Tharoor’s political leanings do color his narrative, but the research is of high standard.
Indian embassy in Washington DC kick started their Third International Yoga Day (2017) celebration with the below lecture by Rajiv Malhotra. The main theme of the talk was appropriation and digestion of Indian ideas and techniques by the west. It charted the developments in Mind Sciences in the West since Swami Vivekananda’s trip to the west. In one-hour Rajiv Malhotra mentioned all the people (in yellow), institutions (in red) and techniques/ideas (in blue) in the image above! That should be reason enough to watch the lecture!
Every time I hear RM speak on this topic, I realize something that I was overlooking earlier. Digestion clearly violates the ethics of academic and scientific research since the references are not properly cited and acknowledged. By weakening Indian culture and tradition, digestion also facilitates various Breaking India forces. I appreciated all this earlier.
However, all that is a problem for the Indian government and Swadeshi scholars. Should the aam aadmi care? How does it matter whether one gets the authentic version of a technique or the digested one? In other words, should it matter whether you learn Vipassana or it’s digested version of mindfulness; yog nidra vs lucid dreaming, Transcendental meditation vs relaxation-response? Rajiv Malhotra argues that it does matter because the digested versions are usually just a small subset of the source body of knowledge, and often are also substandard. He mentions that authentic Vipassana is much more advanced than mindfulness, yet mindfulness is projected as the “new and improved” version and is all over the town today. In a few generations, people may not even know that something called Vipassana even existed. I can easily imagine this. Indian scriptures and rituals can be very complex with many layers of meanings and symbolism. Same idea can often be interpreted and implemented in many different ways and combined with other ideas in numerous different ways. Once the source has been reduced to one or two digested forms, such experiments will no longer be possible. Paraphrasing from the talk:
digestion effectively plucks the fruit on a tree and leaves the tree behind to atrophy thereby eliminating the possibility of future harvests.
Another thing I realized is the difference between the way rest of Asia treated knowledge from India and how the west did it and is still at it. Buddhism spread to China, Japan and south-east Asia over millennia and steadily became less prevalent in India. Yet, Buddhist scholars and practitioners in those countries even today respectfully acknowledge their Indian roots. Western appropriators, on the other hand, go out of their way to avoid crediting India. RM gives a powerful analogy to illustrate this point:
it is like you run 100m faster than any one before and the credit goes to the guy with the clock who timed you and reported it to the world!
RM mentioned that he is writing seven books based on this talk. I can’t wait for it!
Finally there is some sign of sensible and urgently needed reform in JNU‘s humanities departments. But some intellectuals are not happy about it:
Sheldon Pollock, Columbia University
David Ludden, New York University
Lawrence A Kimpton, University of Chicago
Joya Chatterji, University of Cambridge
Mrinalini Sinha, University of Michigan
Francesca Orsini, School of Oriental and Asian Studies (SOAS)
K. Sivaramakrishnan, Yale University
I am glad that they expressed their opinion as it is a good indicator of a Sepoy. Ok, ok, I am not using Sepoy accurately here, since some of these are actually Angrez, not Indians employed by Angrez to shoot at fellow Indians.
Ok, so let’s call this post Sepoy and Lords-of-Sepoy alert! I will keep adding to the list.
This is Not Right Wing! 