Western societies have always been averse to Indic cultures and traditions. They consider Hindus inferior and bigoted enough to be reprimanded and hated. In the words of Rajiv Malhotra ji, American universities and academicians have always had “serious biases against Hinduism - not mere acts of ignorance but also deliberate misrepresentations and outright lies intended to harm the tradition”. One of the most widely read Hindu scriptures globally -- Bhagavad Gita -- was termed “a dishonest book”. To West scholars, Hindu deity Lord Rama was nothing but a male chauvinist and Sita an abused wife.
For a couple of decades, there has been a systematic effort to build an entire ecosystem of scholars, funders and journals aimed at producing Hinduphobic scholarship. Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Chicago have been among the main academic centres to distort Indic traditions and philosophy. In the words of Rajiv ji, “the number of Hinduphobics has shot up across South Asian Studies on dozens of campuses, and collaborations established between white American scholars and their Indian sepoys”. He uses the term sepoy for Indians, who have sold out to serve the white scholars out of sheer inferiority complex.
To western media, Hinduism is a human rights nightmare. Not only this, they consider it to be the cause of every problem in India. They have a notion that women are abused specifically because of Hinduism. Apart from this, they think that caste problems and the plight of minority religions are entirely the fault of Hinduism. To them, all Hindu gurus are quacks and abusive. They don’t even spare those political leaders and public intellectuals who practise or express sympathy toward Hinduism and are demonised by these so-called intellectuals. They attack those who attempt to reclaim Hindu heritage.
With the help of leftwing media, think tanks, and government policymakers in various countries, legislation and adverse campaigns have been launched against the core tenets and exemplars of Hinduism. Even the grammar of Sanskrit has been declared abusive in its very structure.
However, in recent times, things have changed. Hundreds of social media channels and tens of thousands of Hindus in their individual capacity have started pushing back. Not only this, a countermovement of scholars, activists, media personalities has started mushrooming. Litigation is around the corner.
Dismantling Global Hindutva is the brainchild of Audrey Truschke, a Hinduphobic professor at Rutgers University. She is known for her deep rooted hatred for Hindus, Hindu deities and Hinduism. She has made a career based on picking fights with Hindus by insulting their deities and accusing them of killing Muslims. On the other hand, she has been found hands in gloves with Pakistanis and anti-India activists in India. It is also being assumed that the event is being organised by ISI of Pakistan. Her hate for Hindus can be imagined by the instance when she portrayed Aurangzeb as one of the noblest and most benevolent rulers who helped Hindus. In her writings, she has always portrayed Hindu kings as abusive.
She was the one who along with a group of Hinduphobic group of South Asian scholars developed a “Hindutva Harassment Field Manual” The manual quotes sources that have called for dismantling Hinduism, disparaged Hindu traditions, and declared Hinduism as equivalent to slavery.
Talking about the speakers, most of them are India-based Hinduphobics, widely famous for their deep seated aversion towards Hinduism. Above all, not a single person among them is a scholar of religious studies, atleast of Hinduism. What’s more fascinating is that most of them are not even academicians because they do not have academic posts. They work as NGO activists and political operatives of anti-Hindu groups and parties. Despite all this, the event is being portrayed as an “academic” conference.
What’s worrisome for Hindus that the conference is deliberately timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the 11 September attacks by Islamist terrorists against the USA. Their nefarious endeavour is to try and portray Hinduism as the same kind of violent religious ideology as that practised by the Taliban.
However, the assertiveness of Hindus has begun producing good results. Stanford University, one of the universities among stated 40 universities, distanced itself from the event. It issued a notice declaring “the University is not a co-sponsor of this event, nor supports it”. The following day, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced, “Opinions or actions by individual faculty members or academic units do not represent the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.” Apart from this, a trustee of Rice University informed that the university was approached for support, but it declined.
Not only this, many university presidents have expressed their displeasure that no due process was followed before using their universities’ names. This is nothing but a clear message that they were upset at being dragged into the dirty politics in the guise of academic freedom.
After all the hullabaloo, it’s also necessary that the Indian government also express its discontent because the majority of this country follows Hinduism and the conference is a direct attack on the majority of Indians. Also, Hindu watchdog groups need to be established and work together with advocacy groups on a regular basis. There is an immediate requirement for Hindu gurus to show leadership by making statements condemning such efforts.
Apart from this, our ministries including the external affairs ministry, ICCR and the Nehru cultural centres need to put out strong statements rebuking such hate-based initiatives. Hindu business leaders can also play a crucial role. Those leaders who have close associations with academia need to openly denounce such conferences, which have nothing to do with academia and a lot to do with politics.
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