American Academy of Religions Challenged

Petition to American Academy of Religion (AAR) : To appoint Ethics Committee to Probe Distortion of Study of Hinduism in Western Academia.

Western academy continues to take its cues from colonial scholarship even in modern times. India’s historical narrative has been primarily written by its colonists from a victor’s perspective of erasing the rich heritage, traditions, culture and history of ancient India.The amount of denigration and negative portrayal of Hinduism in the Academy is alarmingly high. This is not surprising! Western scholars of Indology are largely non-practitioners of Hinduism. Sometimes they are trained in Divinity schools which provide inadequate tools to understand beliefs, traditions and interpretations of practicing Hindus.

The situation has to change, as more and more practicing Hindu professionals settled in the US raise objections to unfair treatment of their faith. We hope that the Academy will be sensitive to their critique and help advance more appropriate scholarship. A few out of many examples of the distorted narratives/books by Western scholars are provided in this Petition and as below:

Dr. Wendy Doniger of University of Chicago:

A very good example of biased and agenda-driven scholarship is represented by Dr. Wendy Doniger’s latest book, The Hindus: An Alternative History, Penguin, 2009.

Excerpted below is a critique of the book by Dr. Aseem Shukla, a Surgeon at the University of Minnesota, originally published at Washington Post under “On Faith,” March 17, 2010. Doniger’s unscholarly response to the critique is also available there through Google search!

Hindus know that Doniger was derailed before. In 2003, Microsoft retracted a chapter on Hinduism written by Doniger for its online encyclopedia after a heavily publicized internet campaign protested factual and interpretive errors in her essay. In the end, a Hindu writer, providing the emic, or insider’s perspective, wrote an entry that depicted Hinduism in the light that practitioners would actually recognize. . ……

Doniger’s 780-page tome is set as her rendering of Hinduism’s history based–we are to assume–on her own interpretations of scripture, her own biases and inclinations. Infamous for her penchant to sexualize, eroticize and exoticize passages from some of the holiest Hindu epics and scriptures–often invoking a Freudian psychoanalytic lens–

Doniger has been accused of knowingly polarizing and inflaming. She does not disappoint………

Doniger represents what many believe to be a fundamental flaw in the academic study of Hinduism: that Hindu studies is too often the last refuge of idiosyncratic and irreligious academics presenting themselves as “experts” on a faith that they study without the insight, recognition or reverence of a practicing Hindu or even non-Hindu–striving to study Hinduism from the insider’s perspective. …….

Factual inaccuracies in her latest book were also detailed by a lay historian, Vishal Agarwal. . . (Details and other critiques of Doniger are printed in Portrayal of Hinduism in Western Indology, WAVES, 2010; available on request.).

It is not just that there are documented errors in fact predicated on errors in interpretation and context, but Hindus argue that Doniger seems to delight in celebrating the most obscure and arcane of anecdotes or stories from the hoary expanse of Hindu epics and scriptures. Privileging the absurd–dissembling it as an alternative–comes across as a specious exercise of a motivated author seeking spice to sell books.

Parallelisms in her book conjure up obsolete anecdotes comparing the sacred stone linga representing Lord Shiva to a leather strap-on sex toy, and Lord Rama, one of the most widely worshiped deities, is psychoanalyzed to have acted out of fear that he was becoming a sex-addict like his father. Agarwal shows, Doniger’s prose is replete with cutesy, perhaps, but offensive and jejune turns of phrases. Her interpretations of the Rig Veda, the most ancient of the Vedas that Hindus consider sacred, Doniger sees incest and adultery with a pregnant woman in a verse praying to God for protection and safe delivery. Here are some more out of many of her factually incorrect, derogatory, bizarre quotes/misrepresentations as pointed out by Agarwal from her book:

Pg 40 – “If the motto of Watergate was ‘Follow the money’, the motto of the history of Hinduism could well be ‘Follow the monkey’ or, more often ‘Follow the horse’.”

Pg 571- It is alleged that in a hymn from Saint Kshetrayya’s poetry, ‘God rapes’ the women devotees.

A Danish cartoonist would be hard pressed to match the disturbing parodies of a believer’s faith that Doniger offers throughout the book. The great Hindu yogi, Patanjali, cautioned in the 2nd century BCE against falling into the trap of false “meaning making” when reading scriptures that contain subtle, esoteric meanings as well as moral edicts. Doniger’s book, then, could be read as an idiosyncratic exposition that is “meaning making” out of profound revelations perhaps not meant for the spiritually untrained, untempered, and non-seeking mind……….. .

Recall that publication of the Jewel of Medina was abruptly dropped by Random House last year when fear grew that a story about one of the wives of the prophet Muhammad would spark violence from the Muslim community.

Doniger has tended to dismiss criticisms from Hindus as politically motivated, chauvinistic, sexist, casteist–the list is long. It is as Vamsee Julluri, Professor of Media Studies at the University of San Francisco, wrote: “The academy has gone almost directly from the Orientalist myth of Hindu superstition to the postmodern concern about Hindu fundamentalism, without even a notice of the great Hindu religion in between, and what it means to its followers and admirers. The academy must engage with Hinduism more positively.” Academic freedom is sacrosanct. But academic legitimacy in the eyes of the public sets a much higher bar.

Doniger should face scrutiny about her latest book, “The Hindus: An Alternative History”. An online petition asking Penguin Press, the publishers of the book, to apologize for the insensitivity and to hold publication and demand revisions has already crossed 10,350 signatures.

Petition can be viewed at http://www.petitiononline.com/dharma10/petition-sign.html

Likewise, when her book was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, Hindu scholars and professionals wrote numerous concern letters about her shoddy scholarship and some activists even staged a protest outside the award ceremony in New York. It was saving grace that her insulting and inaccurate account/scholarship of ancient Hindu history was not the recipient of the NBCC award.

Prof. Paul Courtright of Emory University:

Another glaring example of insensitive and biased scholarship of Hinduism is represented by Paul Courtright’s book, Ganesa: Lord of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings, OXFORD University Press, 1989-PBK. It is noteworthy that Dr. Wendy Doniger provided her endorsement/ Foreword to this derogatory book.

The following critique was prepared by a committee of Atlanta concerned Hindus and submitted to Emory University in 2003.

Quote: “…..We have been sorely disappointed at the lack of sensitivity Prof. Courtright has shown towards Hindu faith as reflected by assertions in his book. The following few quotes from the 1989 edition of the book will demonstrate our contention.
“Its (Ganesa’s) trunk is the displaced phallus, a caricature of Siva’s linga. It poses no threat • because it is too large, flaccid, and in the wrong place to be useful for sexual purposes.” (Page 121)

“So Ganesa takes on the attributes of his father but in an inverted form, with an exaggerated limp • phallus-ascetic and benign- whereas Siva is a “hard” (ur-dhvalinga), erotic and destructive.” (Page 121)

“Both in his behavior and iconographic form Ganesa resembles in some aspects, the figure of • the eunuch, ……. Ganesha is like eunuch guarding the women of the harem.” (Page 111)

“Although there seems to be no myths or folktales in which Ganesa explicitly performs oral sex; • his insatiable appetite for sweets may be interpreted as an effort to satisfy a hunger that seems inappropriate in an otherwise ascetic disposition, a hunger having clear erotic overtones.” (Page 111)

“Ganesa’s broken tusk, his guardian’s staff, and displaced head can be interpreted as symbols • of castration” (page 111)

“He (Ganesa) remains celibate so as not to compete erotically with his father, a notorious • womanizer, either incestuously for his mother or for any other women for that matter.” (Page 110)

“Feeding Ganesa copious quantities of modakas, satisfying his oral/erotic desires, also keeps • him from becoming genitally erotic like his father.” (Page 113)

“The perpetual son desiring to remain close to his mother and having an insatiable appetite • for sweets evokes associations of oral eroticism. Denied the possibility of reaching the stage of full genital masculine power by the omnipotent force of the father, the son seeks gratification in some acceptable way.” (Page 113)

Unfortunately, none of his distorted characterizations of Lord Ganesa have any scriptural validity according to Hindu tenets or eminent Hindu scholars. ………….. “ Unquote.

Other sample denigrations by Western Academia:

1. “Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna” By Kripal Jeffrey

Distorted, sexist (non-falsifiable Freudian psychoanalytical) researches on Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (in his Ph.D dissertation) by Jeffrey John Kripal (Ph. D., University of Chicago, 1993), now the J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religious Studies and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.

2. Motivated interventions by over 40 academics led by Michael Witzel, Harvard Univ. Sanskrit Department in the California Textbooks case – 2005 – (also commonly referred to as the Harvard Donkey Trial) to link up the social organization of jaati in India with Hinduism and present myths such as Aryan Invasions/Migrations/Trickles-in as history of Hindu civilization in sixth grade school textbooks. Such distorted presentations made about Hindu civilization in textbooks, are not made in the study of other civilizations such as Judaism or Islam or Christianity which are intended to instill a sense of pride among school children about their heritage and cultural identities.

3. Running anti-Hindu hate groups camouflaged as pseudo-academic Indo-Eurasian Research (IER) or Religions in South Asia (RISA) or Comparative Mythologies mailing lists or egroups or annual conferences.

4. “Kiss of the Yogini: Tantric Sex in its South Asian Context” by Prof. David Gordon White

5. “All the Mothers are one” by Stanley Kurtz

Insensitive and perverse books/writings neither advance our knowledge about Hinduism nor foster interfaith dialog so badly needed in the current global, social and political environment. Such malicious distortions, sooner than later, are bound to cause worldwide condemnation and become an embarrassment to prominent academic universities such as University of Chicago and Emory University and to the American Academy of Religion (AAR). Imagine the wrath of people of some other religions if the icons of their faith were belittled!

We have a moral obligation to respect practitioners of all religions and ensure fair representation in the Western Academia. We are hoping the Universities of repute will consider review of their policies on tenures of shoddy religious scholars who misrepresent other faiths by use of selective quotations from obscure and non-original, peripheral and ignorant or poorly researched references with a bizarre emphasis on sexuality and eroticism.

It’s about time that academic groups such as AAR set up an Ethics Committee with guidelines transparently spelled out to inquire into the accuracy and the propriety of the derogatory depiction of Hinduism by Western Academia and for the aggrieved parties to present their concerns for redress.

Our appeal is for your Academy to fulfill the socio-religious responsibility, enforce the high ethical and moral standards expected of a Religious scholar and partner with the Hindu Community to take steps ensuring the process of interfaith respect.

We will be happy to coordinate further, on behalf of the Hindu Community, on the concerns raised in this Petition and help arrange a dialog that the Hindu Community is seeking.

We can be reached at :

[email protected].

Sincerely

Subash Razdan; Dhiru Shah; Vasav Mehta; Sneha Mehta; Ram Sidhaye; M. L. Goel; Basant Tariyal; Amitabh Sharma (Partial list of signatories of the Core Group)

Readings:

Invading The Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America, Rupa & Co 2007. Editors: Krishnan Ramaswamy, Antonio de Nicolas and Aditi Banerjee

Portrayal of Hinduism in Western Indology, World Association of Vedic Studies, 2010. Editors: TRN Rao and S Kalyanaraman.

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