WENDY'S HINDU-PHOBIA

Withdrawal  of Book & Anti-Hindu Propaganda

After deliberation  for nearly four years, Penguin India compromised on February 4, 2014  in an out of court settlement to withdraw and pulp within the next  six months the remaining copies of US Chicago Professor, Wendy  Doniger's book, 'The Hindus: An alternative history.' Failure  to settle with the litigants Dinanath Batra of Shiksha Bachao  Andolan, India could have led to the arrest of the Western author,  the Chief Executive of Penguin India, the publisher and/or a ban from  entering into India per Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860

Notwithstanding  the moral and legal defeat, the powerful propaganda machine of  Doniger and Penguin has unleashed one of the most vicious, abusive  and negative campaign against India’s Dinanath Batra, Indian Penal  code and Hindu scholars/academics (challengers) in India and  overseas. Though the book is not banned in India, ever-obliging  anti-Hindu media in the Western world and India has been ranting a  dooms day scenario of India becoming a fascist state without the  right of freedom of speech. Surprisingly, the same Indian Penal Code  was acceptable to the Western Academics when the British were ruling  in India, but now these votaries of freedom of speech are damning it.

Distortion  & Denigration of Hinduism & Indian History by British  Colonialists & Missionaries   

George  Orwell has rightly said: “The most effective way to destroy a  people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their  history.” The British colonialists mastered that practice after the  conquest of India so as to govern their crown jewel with minimum  challenge! They funded the departments of Indology and Sanskrit to  rewrite the Indian historical narrative primarily from a victor’s  perspective by erasing the rich heritage, traditions, culture and  history of India and Hinduism. The East India Company went to the  extent of hiring the German missionary, Max Muller, with rudimentary  knowledge of Sanskrit, to translate Hindu scriptures in a manner that  would uproot Hinduism from India and spread Christianity in its  place. It is no secret that the missionary work to convert Hindus to  Christianity by the Evangelists and Churches continues unabated in  India by fraudulent methods used earlier by Francis Xavier  (16th century),  Robert Nobili  (17th), William  Carey, the Baptist and Max Muller even now over 66 years after the  departure of the British colonialists.

The  British employed native Indian ‘Sepoys’ in the British army to  rule and carry out Her Majesty’s nefarious and most barbaric  policies in India.  These Sepoys fought on the side of the  British colonial rulers to subjugate their own fellow people for  pittance rewards from their masters.

Nexus  of Western academia & Missionaries Promoting Neo-colonialism in  India

Western  academia have stepped in from where the British rulers left India and  have continued in modern times to follow the tested old modus  operandi under the new garb of academic freedom and failed theories  of Psychoanalysis. The Western ‘experts on Hinduism’ seem to be  in league with the Christian evangelists to subvert and demonize  Hinduism, its traditions and culture and thereby destroy the only  surviving ancient civilization in the world.  Some American and  western businesses also have ventured to use symbols and pictures of  Hindu Gods and Goddesses in clothing as Bikinis and shoes and  sandals.

It  almost appears as if the American academia, in the field of the  religious studies, is a very close-knit ideologically driven cartel,  which emphasizes only distortion, denigration and belittling of  Hinduism and forbids any dissent against their one-track scandalous  motives. The  adversarial scholars in this case are extremely powerful, entrenched  groups who occupy tenured positions in academia, the American Academy  of Religion, and its journals.   Some examples of such misdirected but calculated endeavors are Paul  Courtright’s (Emory University) book: “Ganesa-Lord of Obstacles,  Lord of Beginnings” (Oxford University Press) and Jeffery  Kripal -Kali's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and  Teachings of Ramakrishna (Chicago 1995).

Exactly  a decade ago, on February 18, 2004, a group of Hindu American  scholars and community leaders challenged the distortions in the book  by Emory University Professor Paul Courtright whose book "Ganesa:  Lord of Obstacles" went overboard with offensive interpretations  of the physique of the most revered deity of Hindus, Lord Ganesha.  “That a baby elephant's trunk is a metaphor for a limp phallus,  that sweets are metaphors for oral sex, that a mango is a metaphor  for asking children to have sexual intercourse with their (Hindu)  mothers. …Etc.” are some examples of pornography being pedaled in  Courtright’s book. It is universally known that Wendy Doniger is a  long time mentor and a guide for Courtright and in fact she provided  the Foreword/Introduction of his ill-conceived book.

The  Concerned Community challenged the shoddy scholarship of Courtright’s  book and asked the Dean of Emory College to look into what they were  teaching in their Hinduism courses. Initially, our endeavor was met  with unbelievable arrogance bordering on racist bigotry with  Courtright who was supposed to defend his book, cleverly absenting  himself from that meeting with the Emory administration. By the time  the meeting got over, one could sense the embarrassment that  Courtright had landed Emory University into, the insult as peddled by  Courtright’s book to the practicing Hindus. As for the  self-proclaimed Indology/Hinduism Scholars, they got a taste of what  they deserve. The book was sidelined in USA, pulled off from the  markets in India and Courtright was switched to teaching Islam at  Emory till passions subsided.

Incidentally,  whoever dares to correct or criticize their religious/historical  anti-Hindu theories are severely ridiculed and branded with all kinds  of calumnies! Branding them as ‘Hindu fundamentalists’,  ‘chauvinists’, ‘fascists’ or ‘politically motivated’ is  the critics’ response to challenges posed by Hindu scholars.

Doniger  and her clan would not dare to denigrate and sexualize the scriptures  and prophets of Islam and Judaism because they are fully aware of the  brutal consequences thereof. However, western academics know that  Hindus are a soft target and easy game because most Hindus are  tolerant and peaceful and try to keep away from controversies.

Taking  a cue from the British colonialists, the Western academics have also  now employed a new breed of Indian ‘Sepoys’ who for crumbs will  help them to do their ‘hatchet’ job of subverting and destroying  the Indian ancient civilization, traditions and culture. The cabal of  the Indian ‘Sepoys’ is made of Marxist historians,  pseudo-secularists, journalists, academics and even politicians. They  also have on their payroll some Indian American ‘Sepoys’ who are  willingly ready to sell their souls for material gain and  self-centered agenda.   

Doniger’s  Erotic Book

Doniger’s  750 page book, The Hindu: An Alternative History, is written with a  biased and agenda driven scholarship. By sexualizing and eroticizing  every aspect of Hinduism, the book reads like a semi-pornographic  novel, rather than a scholarly history of Hindus pretty much on the  expected lines and as she has trained her graduate students  researching under her guidance and assistantship.

Her  book too is full of factual inaccuracies, innuendoes, distortions and  selective use of primary texts of Hinduism.  Her racial  profiling of Hindus and denigration and demeaning of Hindu Gods and  Goddesses transgress all the universal codes of ethics and morality.  Had Mahatma Gandhi been alive in present times, he would not have  hesitated to also label it as a “drain inspector report” as he  did then to Katherine Mayo’s book ‘Mother India’

Here  are some out of many of the pornographic and erotic gems (smut)  from her book:     
1. Depiction of Krishna on the cover jacket of the book as riding a horse made of bodies of naked women is an epitome of vulgarity and misuse of the holy symbol with ulterior motives to denigrate Hindu faith. 
2. Doniger denies that the images in the Indus-Saraswati Civilization were sacred or ‘the source of Hindu images.” Mother Goddesses are just big-breasted women, “Big breasts are as useful to courtesans as to goddesses”. Once again with the malicious intent of      sexualizing our Goddesses!
3. “But    Kunti already had one son secretly out of wedlock. When she was still a young girl, she had decided to try out her mantra, just      fooling around. The sun god, Surya, took her seriously; despite her vigorous protests and entreaties, he raped her and afterward      restored her virginity. (1.104; 3.290-94; 5.144.1-9)” (p.295).
4. Another example of the perversion and sexual mindset of the author: “Dasharatha’s son is certainly lustful” is a key phrase. Rama      knows all too well what people said about Dasharatha; when Lakshmana learns that Rama has been exiled, he says, “The king is perverse,      old, and addicted to sex, driven by lust (2.18.3)”. (P.225)…
5. She says that Ramayana teaches incest. Just one comment on these erotic, smut samples of Wendy's book: Ramayana is read as a book of prayer in many Hindu households every day. This is not because Ramayana teaches incest but makes the devotee mother and the members of the household remember that Rama whose story is narrated was an embodiment of Dharma. One example of what Rama said to Surpanakha (Ravana's sister) should suffice; he told her that he had to be faithful to his wife and hence could not accept Surpanakha's loving advances to him.

It is surprising  that a fevered mind of Wendy Doniger sees incest in a sacred  scripture, which has defined Hinduism for generations. Ramayana has  been the guiding light for almost every Hindu. Even in the Islamic  countries like Indonesia and Malaysia Ramayana is adored and  respected. It is a sacred text. Even the state is expected to follow  the path of Rama by establishing Ramarajya, a state of justice and  social, moral responsibility bound by dharma, the inexorable ethic.

Scholarly  Criticism & offer for dialogue from Hindu intellectuals  ignored:

As  the amount of denigration, distortion and negative portrayal of  Hinduism by the western academia started rising alarmingly, the Hindu  academics and scholars (in India and elsewhere, especially USA) have  been raising objections to the unfair and callous treatment of the  faith of over a billion Hindus. Majority of these handful Western  scholars of Indology are generally non-practitioners of Hinduism with  limited knowledge of Sanskrit, language of Hindu scriptures, but  still they claim themselves as experts on Hinduism - a religion/  faith flourishing over centuries even before the birth of the  Abrahamic religions and Indology.

Several  Hindu academics and scholars suggested for a dialogue with Penguin  and Doniger (through direct letters to Doniger and also the President  of University of Chicago) to apologize and to rectify the factual  errors and remove the unwarranted sexuality and distortions from the  book. Even an online petition was submitted to Penguin and another  one to AAR (American Academy of Religion). Letters were also written  to the White House Interfaith section headed by Rev. Dubois. Doniger  was also invited to a round table panel on her book during the annual  conference of Association of Asian Studies (AAS) in March 31-April 2,  2012 held in Hawaii but she declined it and made comments to one  Hindu academic that: “I have moved beyond the Hindus.” Neither  fatwas nor any crusades were undertaken as characteristics of  disagreements by other faiths. A scholarly letter campaign by Hindu  intellectuals bore fruit when the NBCC refrained from giving her the  NBCC award for her book. Earlier, the  now defunct Microsoft Encarta pulled her article on Hinduism after  investigating complaints that the article had a racist tone.  

Having  exhausted all conciliatory and dialog efforts to persuade Penguin and  Doniger, Hindu scholars were left with no other alternative but to  take recourse to the Indian law.  The right of academic freedom  also demands acceptance of academic responsibility of not misusing  that freedom just as the journalists (and other professionals) are  encouraged to stay away from yellow and sensational  journalism. Academic “freedom” exercised without  responsibility or accountability is tyranny and should have no place  in a civilized society.

While  Hindus are denied the right to criticize the American academics for  their shoddy and objectionable scholarship under the pretext of  willy-nilly academic freedom, we recall Diana Eck of Harvard  University recently stopped Dr. Subramanian Swamy (an annual visiting  professor at Harvard), ex-central minister of India, from teaching at  Harvard because he wrote some controversial views on Indian Muslims  in an Indian Newspaper. She claimed: “Swamy has the right to his  opinion but not the right to be published.”  Would Diana Eck say  “Wendy has the right to her opinion but not the right to be  published?  If Diana says so, that will be a clear statement that she  does not indulge in double standards in the name of academic freedom.  Last year President of PA University forced the students of Wharton  Business School to withdraw the invitation to speak to Narendra Modi,  Prime Ministerial candidate of India’s leading opposition party the  BJP, because of opposition from a few leftist faculty members. This  shows how the American academia follows double standards when  claiming the right of academic freedom. The ‘Indian Sepoys’ and  Indian media like their western masters also kept silent and in some  cases even supported banning of Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’  and Naslima Nasrin’s ‘Lajja’ but are now busy criticizing the  Indian law, Hindu scholars and Dinanath Batra for Penguin, India’s  own decision to withdraw the book from India.

Devastating  Impact on Hindu Students, future generations & Hindu  Civilization  

Negative  portrayal and stereotypes about Hinduism and India originating from  the anti-Hindu perverted western academics, like Doniger/Courtright  etc, in the Indian and American classrooms have already played havoc  on Hindus students by lowering their self-esteem and pride in their  own faith, traditions and culture. Young Hindu  children/teenagers are tormented every day because of the negative  and distorted picture of Hinduism and India as presented by their  teachers in classrooms. How will a young Hindu child feel when the  teacher quotes from the textbook like: “The Monkey King Hanuman  loved Rama so much that it is said that he is present every time the  Ramayana is told. So look around - see any monkeys?” Or “However,  Hinduism also taught that women are inferior to men. As a result,  Hindu women were not allowed to read Vedas or other sacred texts”  (Fact: there were more than 20 sages women).

Seeing  the tremendous negative psychological impact on their children,  CAPEEM (parents’ organization) and HAF (Hindu American Foundation)  filed two separate lawsuits against California State Board of  Education to amend and rectify the middle class textbooks by  providing equal opportunities and representation to every religion  and culture. The court ruled in favor of both litigants and asked the  Board to follow strictly the guidelines of the California Education  act.

Such  distorted and negative portrayal of Hindus and Hinduism by Western  academics also gives US foreign policy decision makers an excuse to  interfere in the internal affairs of India under the pretext of  violence of human rights by the Indian government.

India  is already moving towards a cultural holocaust in which our new  generation will have intelligence and money but no wisdom, no roots  to keep alive their forefathers’ past values and traditions and no  pride in their motherland. What can save Hinduism and India from  these neo-colonialists is to defend with all vigor and hold fast our  age-old culture, values and traditions without any element of fancy  and distortion.

The  settlement in India may be of little consequence to Penguin  Corporation or Prof. Doniger's wallet, but has exposed their myth of  being infallible scholars and their unscholarly works, added pressure  on them to respect the laws of the land, and has provided a glimmer  of hope of providing deterrence for future.

Also  read
1. Interrogating Wendy Doniger
2. 'When Westerners make fun of our gods, they're instigating trouble' interview with Rajiv Malhotra
3. When    Caste was not a bad word
4. Indigneous Education in the 18th century by Dharampal

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