How can North American Hindu temples help in fighting
‘Hindu phobia’ in the American classrooms?
By Dhiru Shah
Following the Hindu Dharmic traditions, Hindu temples have been used for thousands of years not only as sacred meeting place for the
community to practice spirituality, but also as centers of social, political,
economic and intellectual activities. Most Hindu temples in North America today
are doing an admirable job in offering a wide range of activities to their
devotees besides spiritual services.
While primarily temples are meant for worship and perform
Dharmic rituals, the Hindu temple management needs to realize that Hindu
children growing up in America today are struggling to find their own identity
in a multicultural but predominantly Judeo-Christian society. Further, in the
American classrooms, they face anti-Hindu biases in their textbooks leading
to their becoming victims of bullying and harassment.
Following the neo-colonial orientation, the Western
academics define India and Hinduism in terms of caste, cow, curry, Sattee, dowry
murders, "devil worship" and immorality. Whereas Judaism, Christianity and Islam
are treated favorably and in positive terms in classroom books, Hinduism does not get a fair and equitable positive treatment and
is presented inaccurately and in a biased manner. A couple of quotes below from the Sixth grade books in
California will show how Hinduism is negatively projected in the American
classrooms:
"One custom shows how the lives of Indian men
were considered to be more important than the lives of Indian women. In India,
people were cremated, or burned, when they died. When a man from a prominent
family died, his wife was expected to leap into the flames. This practice was
called suttee. If the wife resisted and did not kill herself, it was a great
shame. Everyone would avoid the woman from then on." (Glencoe, Discovering
Our Past Ancient Civilizations, Chapter 4, Early India, p. 245)
" A dedicated Hindu believes that the people in a higher caste are superior and
that they are supposed to be on top." (Glencoe, Discovering Our Past
Ancient Civilizations, Chapter 4, Early India, p. 248)
A vast number of
books and articles depicting Hindu Gods and Goddesses in the most vulgar and
offensive manner get churned out by high profile non-Hindu academics. Some of these academicians represent the
prestigious Ivy League American universities. In 2004 a committee of ‘Concerned
Hindus’ from Atlanta submitted a critique to Emory University on the sexualized abusive representation of a Hindu God in a book, ‘Ganesa: Lord of Obstacles, Lord of Beginning’ authored by Prof.
Paul Courtright in the department of religious studies. A few quotes from this "reference book" for the university
students studying Hinduism will show how perverse and insensitive it is:
* “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.” (P.121)
* “Although there
seems to be no myths or folktales in which Ganesa
explicitly
performs oral sex; his insatiable appetite for sweets may be
interpreted in
an otherwise ascetic disposition, a hunger having clear
erotic
overtones.” (P.111)
Another blatantly abusive and biased anti-Hinduism
scholarship comes from Prof. Wendy Doniger of Chicago University in her
780-page book, “The Hindus: An Alternative History” (Penguin 2009). She has
sexualized and eroticized passages from the Hindu epics and scriptures. She
finds in the sacred Rig Veda incest and adultery with a pregnant woman in a
verse praying to God for protection and safe delivery. In ‘Philadelphia Inquirer’ Prof. Doniger once
commented: …”throughout the
Mahabharata…Krishna goads human beings into all sorts of
murderous and self-destructive behaviors such as war… The Gita is a dishonest
book; it justifies war.”
Such negative attitudes and stereotypes about Hinduism can
have a devastating impact on the tender psyche of young Hindu students. It makes minority Hindu
students in a class filled with predominantly Christian students feel embarrassed and ashamed of their ancestry. As a result,
not only Hindu students face hate crimes and bullying in their schools, but
also it gives them a sense of insecurity and inferiority complex and in some
cases mental depression. Some of them start hating their own faith believing ‘Hinduism
is a ‘filthy’ religion, or that Hindus worship the devil’ and get converted to
Christianity in order to get acceptance in the main stream America.
According to the results of a bullying survey of 230
middle school and High school students (grades 6 to 12) conducted by Hindu
American Foundation between August 5 and Sept.30, 2015: “(1) one in three Hindu students have reported being bullied in
public school classrooms due to their religious beliefs and approximately half
indicated that they felt socially isolated. (2) Many of those surveyed
highlighted a sense of alienation for being a different religion; particularly
one not understood well in
most US classrooms or textbooks. As a result, some respondents said they hid
their religious identity in order to prevent or stop bullying. In addition, one
out of every four students surveyed said she/he was put on the spot or singled out
by a teacher when the section on Hinduism was discussed”.
While a few Hindu/Indian organizations supported by a handful
of Hindu temples have been engaging state education boards like California,
Texas and Virginia to rectify inaccuracies and negative portrayal of Hindu
Dharma in classroom textbooks, their efforts alone will not be sufficient to
defeat the well orchestrated anti-Hinduism campaign led by the Western
academics and supported by several anti-India and anti-Hindu entities. The need
of the hour is to awaken the Hindu society to join in this battle. It is here
that temples can play a very positive and active role by harnessing the
collective strength of their devotees
In order to create this collective mass awareness to
protect Hindu children from the Hinduphobic classroom curriculum, the temple
management needs to include the following additional activities in its routine
programs:
1. Organize regular monthly talk by Hindu scholars and academics
familiar with anti-Hinduism curriculum in school textbooks and advise parents
how to engage school management to correct any biases about Hinduism.
2. Encourage young parents to carefully study their children’s
social science and history textbooks that may contain distortions and
denigration of Hindu traditions and culture.
3. Conduct regular classes for young devotees and students to teach
them the basics of Abrahmic religions (Judaism, Christianity & Islam) as
well Indic Dharmic religions like Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Such
comparative religious study will help children to fight back against bullying
in classrooms and outside.
4. Encourage devotees to support actively Hindu organizations,
scholars and activists who are engaged with various state educational
authorities to correct the schoolbooks curriculum.
Such activities mentioned above are not considered as
‘political’ in nature and therefore they will not affect their non-profit
status with IRS. All other religions too conduct such activities openly and do not
face any IRS penalties.
The time has come for temples to follow the famous verse: "Dharmo
rakshati rakshitah” meaning “Dharma protects
those who protect Dharma”. In the
long run, refusal by temples to participate in the defense of Hindu Dharmic
traditions, culture and history considering it derogatively as political activity will eventually hurt the temple movement in
America. It will not be too long before the next generations of Hindus start
abandoning their faith, leaving temples to become only showpieces like historical
museums.
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Author is President of India Awareness Foundation,
Director/Treasurer of World Association for Vedic Studies and President-elect
of Global Indian Business Council with 40 years of International Business
experience
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