Academic Hinduphobia: A critique of Wendy Doniger's erotic school of Indology

by Rajiv Malhotra

The departments for the study of ancient India (Indology) and South Asian Studies in the West are the last bastions of colonialism today. In the name of scholarship, which is often hatred and racism in disguise, Hindus are routinely characterized as misogynists, oppressive, anti-minority, irrational, violent and debauched. The author terms this mass-produced hate-mongering literature as 'Atrocity Literature'. Indian culture, he says, is reduced to 'cows, caste, curry, sati and dowry.' If these scholars are to be believed, several sections of Hindu society are apparently in need of being 'saved' by those bearing the white (wo)man's burden even today. This volume is a compilation of several path-breaking essays, most of which were published online at the turn of the century.

Genres: Hinduism, Religion, Politics, Nonfiction, India

464 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2016

About the author

Rajiv Malhotra is the founder and president of Infinity Foundation. An Indian-American entrepreneur, philanthropist and community leader, he has devoted himself, for the last ten years, to clarifying the many misperceptions about Indic traditions in America and amongst Indians.

He is an active writer, columnist, and speaker on a variety of topics, including the traditions and cultures of India, the Indian Diaspora, globalization, and East-West relations. Rajiv has been appointed to the Asian-American Commission for the State of New Jersey, where he serves as the Chairman for the Education Committee, which was created to start an Asian Studies program in schools. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Red Cross and has volunteered in local hospice and AIDS counseling.

Reviews

[Aditya आदित्य]

This book is a collection of numerous articles and interviews published on the web during the first such upheaval in the Hindu Studies arena in USA in the early 2000's. Rajiv Malhotra has since then attained a huge following here in India and in my opinion, the intellectual courage and scholarly acumen with which he has been operating deserve serious acknowledgement from academicians and wider audiences alike.

Rajivji is not a polemic, unlike the gratuitous portrayals in a few news outlets, and despite being trained in the technical field has a masterful understanding of the teaching of humanities in America and the West in general. After gaining a lifetime of experience in IT and Corporate world, it is astounding that Rajivji gives such compelling criticism of the study of Hinduism and India, a field so far removed from the area of his own expertise.

Rajivji offers a truly distinct perspective in the study of Religion and Cultures from far away, geographically but at the same time, practiced in American households. He raises some serious issues faced by the Indian immigrant community in USA, without raising the bogey of "hate-crimes" or jumping in the outrage bandwagon.

The concerns presented in this volume are of a larger Hindu community in India as well, and not just Indian-Americans. In his other books Rajivji elucidates how the Hinduism "constructed" by incompetent (or, insidious?) scholars cause severe harm to India. Therefore every concerned citizen should get a glimpse of the world of India studies or Indology and this book, replete with references to numerous scholarly articles is a good start.

P.S.
I personally felt that the stark contrast between the "scholarly" work on Hinduism and the public persona of the Academicians in question is quite disturbing. Some of the videos of the public lectures by the said professors are utterly dishonest given the vicious lies peddled as scholarly writings by them.

[K. Jaya Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

The line between academicians and propagandists is perhaps very thin. For people who ostensibly teach and have not yet realised the truth of the statement "You hypocrite! First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye. This verse continues the metaphor of a person with a plank in their own eye who criticizes someone for a speck in their own eye." Mathew 7:5 - We have somebody who has interpreted a different culture and context through wild twisted sexual imaginations and innuendoes that are indicative of the saying above. Calling this weird worldview - the erotic school of indology is perhaps being far far more charitable to this worldview (& its adherents), than it deserves. We might as well call Playboy & Hustler as being The American school of relationships between men and women. However the book again demonstrates how people from the culture can and should speak up against such wanton acts of cultural violence in which people , claiming to be scholars, project aspects of their own internal space in areas where they totally lack expertise!!

[Surender Negi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Academician in Ancient Indian heart holds high stature. The Ancient Indian Proverb declared that “Guru (Teacher), must consider greater than God itself.” This can be seen in the resonant Indian culture of Guru Shishya parampara (teacher-student tradition) of India and Verse from “Kabir Vani” (Saying of Saint Kabir).

“गुरु गोबिन्द दोउ खडे काके लागूँ पाँय, बलिहारी गुरु आपने गोबिन्द दियो बताय”

Guru and God both are here, to whom should I first bow
All glory be unto the guru, path to God who did bestow

-:Saint Kabir.

“Academic Hinduphobia” is account and act of western gurus, who had broken all the limits to pollute such Indian notion of Guru’s Garima (Honor of teachers). It is very painful for me to write about Academician which could change the face of Hinduism if they haven’t chosen a subvert version of politics and favouritism to maligned Hinduism.

Rajiv Malhotra investigates historicity of many academicians which hail from the prestigious Institute of the world. This cradle of education, enlightenment, investigation, intellectualism is part of the world which generally invisible to the normal people. But ideas and thought pressed by them take shapes in world perception slowly but surely. It used to amuse me when people argued that Ravan was much better than Lord Rama or Dhuryodhan was much better than Arjuna. These question which investigates the negative understanding of scripture has some starting point in Hinduism. Rajiv Malhotra through works investigates the deep roots of such thoughts. Rajiv Malhotra’s this book is basically a compilation of his essays in Sulekha.com and various intellectual e-groups. His Journey of understanding American academia through the critical approach given him the wisdom to understand the power structure of the academic class.


Read full review here

[Sunil Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, informative. Although this book is dated somewhat, touching on debates that largely took place two decades before( early 2000s), it still remains relevant in raising issues Indians largely ignore due to complacency and apathy. Have we travelled even more on the apathy route or is there a scope for resurgence is an open question

[Sajith Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rajiv Malhotra is a lone knight fighting for the honour of everything Indian – our culture, language, religion and way of life – in the western world. If gullible Indians can be metaphorically thought of as an old man with poor eyesight and Western scholarship on India as a book with a very fine print, Malhotra is the magnifying glass which sharpens the vision of the naive and also exposes what is written between the lines which one cannot see otherwise. This book explains about the secret agenda of woke scholars of Sanskrit and how they deconstruct India’s religion and philosophy to make it appear exploitative and repressive. Another deviant trait observed in Western scholars such as Wendy Doniger is the excessively overt and bordering on the vulgar sexual vocabulary which permeates their work but which does not faithfully describe the original. Such pathetic exposition of Hinduism and Sanskrit is a clever strategy of these neo-colonial academicians to drive away new initiates and to create revulsion among practicing Hindus about their religion which would make them ashamed of it as a first step to further long-term targets like conversion on a massive scale. No other major world faith is studied by outsiders with the same authority, power and negative perspective as Hinduism is. All academic conferences and seminars are dominated by Western ‘experts’ rather than practicing Hindus. The distortion caused by these influences are identified by the author and presented in a clear and easily understandable form. This is a collection of various essays and articles written by the author against specific books and authors as a part of argument and counter-argument. The period of activity is generally the first decade of this century.

Malhotra identifies the fundamental problem of Indological studies as compared to other cultures. Even though Indians routinely occupy high positions in science, technology, business and other professions, Indology remains the last stronghold of colonialism. It is only a layer of elites from within the colonised culture who are groomed to become proxies for the tradition. They often consider biases against Indic traditions as a great compliment to their own sense of modernity and also as a great Western gift to the Indians. When this mental colonialism is pointed out to them, it evokes severe anger and defensiveness. This engenders a peculiar situation in which a culture is being represented by people who are mentally alien to it. In the West, neo-colonial scholars and their Indian proxies have created a playground which is unfairly tilted against India. To have a genuine dialog of civilizations, the ‘other’ side must be present as itself and not in proxy. It must be able to use its own framework to represent itself and must be free to criticize the dominant culture without fear of undue censorship or academic reprisals. But in the West, especially the US, leading professors of Sanskrit wield tremendous power over the students in controlling their career both pre- and post-college such as withholding research grants or denying the chance to participate in academic conferences which are handsomely financed. This makes all the students to toe their guide’s line. This is analogous to the sepoys and coolies trained and employed by the English East India Company in colonial times to do their dirty work.

It is essential to understand the origins of this estrangement of Indian elite with Sanskrit and the ritualistic practises of Hinduism. This developed in the colonial period when the British faced an urgent necessity to understand Sanskrit scriptures. However, these texts were detached from the realm of secular scholars who were immersed in the prevailing court language of Persian in all the Muslim states. This left only a few priests or religiously-minded people who had mastered the Sanskrit texts available to the British. The British stepped into the shoes of the secular scholar, mastered the ancient rule books and statutes and reinterpreted them to suit their immediate need to administer the country without upsetting the delicate socio-religious pivot. Due to reasons of presumed racial superiority or evangelism, they continued to harbour a clear disdain to the philosophy at the same time. This was in turn taken up by secular Indian scholars after independence. On the political front, the British managed the native states and facilities for the Indian princes. Likewise, they also became trustees of scholarship and thereby to control the intellectual representation systems of India. The technique was to master Sanskrit texts first, then to translate Indic texts while reinterpreting them using the Western narrative. It ensured to maintain the aura of authenticity by using enough Sanskrit verses. Even now, Indians show great respect and favour to Westerners who read or chant Sanskrit hymns and assume them to be masters in a language which they have neglected to learn. This is the primary source of exploitation for agenda-driven scholars such as Wendy Doniger.

The author also tries to understand why such a discriminatory sheen was applied to religious studies in India, whereas in science and technology the country aspired for the best in the world. This deficit came about in post-independent India where religious studies were looked down upon on the basis of the ideal of secularism. The hallmark of a good education in an American liberal arts college involves the study of ancient Greek and Semitic thought, classical Roman, modern European and finally, American thought. This intellectual foundation is deemed essential regardless of one’s religious beliefs. The justification given for the study of Greek classics is not that they are perfectly correct in their worldview or that advancement in thought has not superseded them. These are rightly considered to be essential to understand the history of the Western mind. But Indian classics are equated with religion and hence shunned. Academics won’t touch them even with a very long pole. In the name of modernity and political correctness, Indian classics are virtually banished from India’s higher education. Malhotra comments that this policy would have made Macaulay – the British administrator who formulated the empire’s education system in India to create a set of zombies who would be ‘Indian in blood and colour but British in taste, opinions and morals’ – proud. This produced a strange circumstance in which one has to go to a British, American or German university to get an internationally competitive Ph.D in Sanskrit, Indian classics, Hinduism or Buddhism.

The book then goes on to dissect the works of some Western scholars who had made a mockery of their scholarly credentials by churning out outrageous assessments on their objects of study. The foremost in this group is Wendy Doniger whose book, ‘Hindus – An Alternative History’ created much indignation in India due to its salacious remarks about innocuous matters narrated in Indian sacred literature (reviewed earlier here). The author uses the epithet ‘Wendy’s Children’ to denote other scholars who follow her line. Doniger’s predilection for street language in Vedic translations/interpretations is widely criticized. She merely adds a Freudian coating to bring in a sleazy narrative. She is always obsessed with only one meaning for a Sanskrit term which would be the most sexual imaginable, obtained by stretching the imagery, overruling all other interpretations and varied aspects of meaning. Doniger’s books are fast-food like publications designed to attract attention, readership and sales but are devoid of meticulous scholarship or authenticity (one of her books which exhibit this point, ‘The Ring of Truth’ which purports to examine myths of sex and jewellery, was reviewed earlier. The areas of her real interest can also be gleaned from her book, ‘On Hinduism’ which was also reviewed earlier). Malhotra exposes the academic weaknesses of other scholars of Wendy’s genre such as Jeffrey Kripal, Sarah Caldwell, Paul Cortright and others. Kripal’s work, ‘Kali’s Child’ which portrays Ramakrishna Paramhamsa as a homosexual, works up only filth. Kripal doesn’t know Bengali and the author cites several fundamental errors.

Rajiv Malhotra postulates that the intentions of at least some of the Western scholars on attacking Indian belief systems and attendant philosophy are not so benign after all. He traces the parentage and source of funds of two prominent academicians to Western missionaries who worked in India or to Christian evangelical missions in the US. The Christian conditioning received as part of their religious education as a young student might have moulded their outlook of other religions. He points out a fundamental divergence in a critical aspect between Christianity and Indian religions. The Biblical myths subconsciously drive scholars’ behaviour. In the West, every human being is born sinner because of the original sin committed by Adam and Eve. Similarly, the cosmology of God vs Satan divides everything into Good/Evil essences that play out on earth. By contrast, the Self is the original divinity in Hinduism and so there is no external enemy. In the Mahabharata, the enemies are not evil but had only violated the dharma. Christianity glorified victimhood. Most Christian saints were martyrs who were killed by evil ‘others’. This also is a corollary of the good vs evil narrative. A good victim is glorified and becomes a role model. Jesus is history’s most famous victim. This archetype has played out in Western society in the form of praising victimhood as a sign of being good. These scholars’ denigration of sacred Indian symbols serves to embarrass impressionable Indians so that they feel pressured to dilute their Hindu identity. This does not mean that Indian society didn’t have its share of abuses or oppression like any other society does. The problem is when Western scholars point out Hinduism alone as the cause of this.

I had first thought this book to be a critique on Indian academia which is an unfettered theatre of Left-Islamist activists masquerading as professors but exhibiting an equally strong, if not harsher, Hinduphobia than their American counterparts. But this volume is concerned only with Western universities and the prejudices being nurtured in their precincts. This work is a little dated too, as the action and events referred in the text happened in the years straddling the new millennium. Some ideas, which we take for granted because it is so common, are analysed by Malhotra which convince the reader how much leeway is being granted to scholars who want to wreck the Indian culture from within. These people refer to Hinduism as Brahmanism. The author points this out as a pejorative name because by the same token, Christianity should be referred as ‘Popeism’ or ‘bishopism’. A major part of the book is concerned with the author’s arguments and correspondence against or with anti-Hindu scholars and his defence against their attacks. Some of the articles are unfortunately directed at a personal level. Harping on the Roma (gypsy) ethnicity of Jeffrey Kripal and the sexually abused past of Sarah Caldwell are two cases in point. Besides, the author’s defence of New Age Hindu gurus in the US over their sexual abuse of devotees are not warranted just because they are also targeted by the anti-Hindu academia. This is more fitting for anonymous social media chatter than for serious discourse. The book also includes several caricatures and cartoon depictions of the points detailed in the book which is very enlightening.

The book is highly recommended.

[Rama Rao · Rating 5 out of 5]

The lapdogs are pillaging the Hindu traditions

This book is a collection of essays by the author on American scholarship of Hinduism. There are numerous errors in the interpretation of the Hindu sacred texts by leading academics such as the University of Chicago Professor Wendy Doniger, Jeffery Kripal, Paul Courtright and Sarah Caldwell. The one in particular is the use of Freudian psychoanalysis in hermeneutics of Vedic Dharma. Because Wendy Doniger does not have any credentials to make “psychoanalysis” of Hindu theological and metaphysical structure. In the current cancel culture and wokism, Sanatan Dharma is reduced to drinking cows’ urine, idol worshipping, and active practicing of the caste system in India and here in the Western hemisphere.

The work of many Western scholars is not gracious towards Hindu culture. This is not only offensive to the practitioners of the faith across the globe but also to ancient Indian traditions. In American academia the teaching of Hinduism and Indian literature is being supervised by Western scholars, and the Indian faculty member, in order to fit in become marginal member of the Western scholarship, and then taunt at Indian culture in the same manner as the English colonialists. This has radicalized the Muslim and Christian populations in India. The cultural appropriation occurs by first a Westerner approaches an Indian guru with some contempt, then studies under him, acquires the knowledge. Once the transfer of knowledge is complete, the former disciple progressively erases the original source, such as omission of the Sanskrit terms and their original meaning. The knowledge gets repackaged as the idea of their own thought and may even proceed to denigrate the Indian tradition. The traditional Indian knowledge is decontextualized and Christianized. In the final stage, the ideas are exported back to India by the former disciple and/or his followers for consumption as Western science or as 'superior' thought. The modern day reimportation of Christian Yoga into India serves as a good example.

American academia is consumed with Eurocentric perspective that evaluates the Indian culture to reflect on colonial domination. Their studies are based on the model of Abrahamic traditions which is disrespectful to ancient Indian traditions. The Hindu epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata are lot more interesting than Old Testament or New Testament or any work of Greek literature. They describe the complexity, a range of the metaphysical and theological ideas. The author is open and honest in evaluating the bias of Western scholarship that has demonized and disrespected Hindu traditions while ignoring the weakness of the Abrahamic texts and its practices.

[Ashish Iyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books that changed my perspective. I don't know why I took so long to read this book. It shows the kind of damages western indologists do to Hinduism and Indians. Books by Wendy Doniger, Sarah Caldwell, Jeffrey Kripal and David White have harmed Hindu's interest and they stereotyped us as Indian. It also gives us the better understanding of how western academia and their ecosystem works. It's high time we need to stop looking for Western validation and need to recognise Indian sepoys within us. Hindu diaspora needs to be more vocal about their dharma. They need to contribute towards their society to make awareness. It was interesting to note that some of these authors had no authority on Sanskrit and yet they wrote books on Hindus. It was quite disturbing the kind of translation they did and no one from our side even countered. The publisher and editor even approved such books.


Now we have Indian writers who are doing work of western. They are pushing those narrative. Devdutt, Volga, Anand Neelakantan, Arshia Sattar and many more. We Indians need to stop reading re-telling kind of stories and get back to original ones. Even avoid books by Murty classical library. It was started by Rohan Murty, son of Narayan Murty and Sudha Murty. Sadly he gave this library project to Sheldon Pollock. Sheldon Pollock should be avoided.

Rajiv Malhotra rightly said, "It is to be remembered that nearly all of the bullets fired and the police atrocities committed during the British Empire were done by Indian Sepoys under British command.

Today, the Indian Sepoy archetype, found in the Western academe and journalism, often does the dirty intellectual work. Their role on behalf of the dominant culture is to supply the myth of the "other" in a way that fits into the dominant culture's grand narrative of itself".

The book is thoroughly well researched. Point to point argument, no mud slinging.

[Jaspreet Kochar · Rating 1 out of 5]

slop