By Prema Kurien
This chapter discusses how context has shaped the public projection of ‘Hindu-ness’ in the US by Hindu organisations. It expands on ideas in my 2007 book, A Place at the Multicultural Table: The Development of an American Hinduism, where I discussed the relationship between the beliefs and practices of the mass of Hindus and the articulation of Hinduism by Hindu umbrella organisations that claim to transcend sub-tradition and caste divisions and speak for all Hindus. The book argued that Hindu umbrella organisations in the US were often ideologically linked with Hindu nationalist organisations in India and drew on the Hindutva platform in their campaigns to challenge and rectify the racial, social and political marginality of Hindu Americans in the US. My research showed that although the mass of Hindu Americans were apolitical, there was also a tacit acceptance of many central tenets of the Hindutva platform among this group; lay Hindu teachers, parents and members of the second generation often turned to Hindutva organisations and websites for information and support.
Since my book was published, I have talked at conferences to scholars engaged in the study of Hinduism in Canada and the UK, and learned that the public manifestations of Hindu-ness in their respective countries are quite different from those in the US. Specifically, they maintain that there is less evidence of support for overt Hindu militancy among lay Hindus and Hindu organisations in their countries. These discussions set me thinking about how the characteristics of the US, when compared to those of Canada and Britain, might have shaped the public presentation of Hindu-ness by Hindu American umbrella organisations. The focus of this chapter, then, is on explaining the unique features of the US context and its relationship to the development and articulation of public Hinduism. Briefly, I argue that the invisibility and marginalisation of Hindus in the US, together with the traditions of activism of other successful immigrant religious groups in this country and the emergence of the US as the focus of Islamic terrorism explain the differences between the activism patterns and strategies of Hindu groups in the US when compared to those in Canada and Britain.
After a brief introduction to the migration patterns and demography of Indian Americans, I examine some ways in which the US context is different from that of Canada and Britain. Finally, Hindu American organisations are examined to see how the unique characteristics of the US have shaped the public presentation of American Hinduism.
According to the 2007 American Community Survey, individuals of Indian origin in the US numbered 2.77 million, of which around 26 per cent were native born and 74 per cent were foreign born. Although there were some Indian immigrants from the Punjab province of colonial India who arrived in California at the turn of the 20th century, most Indians arrived in the US after the passage of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which did away with the national origins quotas that had restricted migration largely to Europeans.
Post-1965 Indian immigration to the US can be divided into four categories. In the initial period after 1965, there was a group that arrived under the ‘special skills’ provision of the act. They were mostly highly educated, fluent English speakers from urban backgrounds who entered into professional and managerial careers. These immigrants sponsored the migration of the second category of immigrants: those who came under the family reunification provisions of the 1965 Act. Many in this second category did not have the same educational or professional status as the early immigrants. Beginning in the 1990s, there has been a third type of Indian immigration, a large influx of computer data programmers on H-1B visas and their families (Indians comprise the largest single group of H-1B visa holders) to meet the demands of the information technology boom in the US. In addition to these three groups of immigrants, education has been another primary entry route for a significant proportion of Indian Americans: Indians have been among the largest groups of international students in the US for decades (Rajghatta, 2002, 2009). Most of these students get jobs in the US and remain in the country. These migration patterns explain why Indians are among the wealthiest and most educated foreign-born groups in this country (Kibria, 2006: 211–12, citing the US census data).
Indian Americans constitute the overwhelming majority (around 88 per cent) of the population from the Indian subcontinent (including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) in the US (Kibria, 2006, citing the US 2000 census data). Since the US census does not collect data on religion, there are no official figures on how many of these South Asian immigrants are from a Hindu background. According to the 2007 US Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Forum, Hindus (including non-Asians) made up 0.4 per cent of the US population. However, this figure is much lower than other estimates, namely, that they composed around 60 per cent of the Indian American population in the late 1990s (see Kurien, 2007: 45). Consequently, it seems likely that the Pew Forum figures on Hindus are an underestimate, probably because the survey was conducted only in English and Spanish.
What are the features of the US context that might explain the distinctive public presentation of Hinduism in this country when compared to Canada and Britain? I argue below that it is probably due to the following interrelated reasons:
1. While individuals of Indian and of Hindu background constitute a higher proportion of South Asians in the US than in Canada and Britain, South Asians are a relatively small, racially invisible and dispersed group in the US. This is different from their size and location in Canada and Britain.
2. In contrast to Canada and the UK, the US is a highly religious and highly Christian country with a significant number of evangelical Christians and a strong Christian Right. Most contemporary immigrants to the US are Christian. Unlike Britain, there are no mandatory religious education classes in the US, which means that most Americans are ignorant about or have strong negative stereotypes regarding Hinduism.
3. Although the proportion of Jews in the US is relatively small (1.7 per cent of the population, according to the 2007 US Religious Landscape Survey), they have been a very successful and influential group, largely responsible for developing and maintaining the strong support of the Israeli state by the US. Consequently, many US ethnic groups, from Cubans to Arabs, seek to emulate the Jewish model of organisation and mobilisation.
4. Multiculturalism in the US is different from that in Canada and Britain in that it is an outgrowth of civil rights and ethnic movements of the 1960s. This has played an important role in shaping the patterns of mobilisation of Indian Americans.
5. The events of 11 September 2001 had a catastrophic impact on the US and resulted in a change in the public profile and mobilisation patterns of several organisations representing groups from the Indian subcontinent.
Indian Americans and those of Hindu origin constitute a much larger proportion of the South Asian population in the US when compared to Canada and the UK. First, there is a much higher proportion of Sikhs in Canada and Britain when compared to the US (they were 0.9 per cent of the population in Canada and 0.6 per cent of the population in Britain in 2001, while in the US they were such a small number that they were not counted in the Pew Forum survey or any of the other surveys).1 The proportion of other South Asians in Canada and Britain is also much higher than in the US due to the large proportion of Sri Lankans in Canada and the sizeable numbers of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in Britain. Muslims also constitute a larger proportion of the population of Canada and Britain (2 per cent and 2.7 per cent, respectively, in the 2001 census of both countries) than in the US (0.6 per cent in the 2007 Pew Forum survey). Since Hindu nationalism promotes the idea that India is a Hindu country and is also hostile to Pakistan and Islam more generally, it is likely that such ideas face more opposition in Canada and Britain (from Muslims, Hindu Sri Lankans and Sikhs) than in the US.
Unlike Canada and the UK, where South Asians constitute one of the largest ‘visible minority’ groups (at around 4 per cent and 5.7 per cent, respectively),2 the South Asian population in the US only accounts for around 1 per cent of the total US population.3 They are vastly outnumbered by the other ‘visible minority’ groups with much longer histories in the US such as African Americans (12.4 per cent), Hispanics (15.4 per cent) and even East Asians (around 2.5 per cent).4 Although they are classified as ‘Asians’, in the US context, the term ‘Asian’ refers generally to East Asians who have a longer history in the country. As a result, people from the Indian subcontinent are often not considered Asians and are frequently mistaken for Hispanics or African Americans, two groups in the US that have been racialised and stigmatised. Consequently, an important part of the public presentation of Indian Americans is to try to distinguish themselves from these two groups, as high-achieving ‘model minorities’. Their racial invisibility is also due to the nature of Indian American residential settlement. Indian Americans have been the most dispersed immigrant group in the country (Portes and Rumbaut, 1996: 40). This is in contrast to Canada and the UK, where South Asian immigrants are residentially concentrated in a few areas of the country.
Hindus in Canada and Britain comprise a larger proportion of the national population, around 1 per cent (2001 Canadian census and 2007 UK Annual Population Survey), than in the US. Although their numbers in these two countries are relatively small, it is likely that their racial visibility and residential concentration results in a greater awareness of the culture and traditions of Hindus in both these countries (particularly in the UK because of its long colonial history with South Asia) than in the US, where there is very little understanding or knowledge about Hinduism. A survey commissioned by a Hindu Leader’s Forum in 2001 found that over 95 per cent of Americans had little or no knowledge of Hinduism and that 71 per cent had no contact with a Hindu of Indian origin. Of more concern to the leaders of the Forum, 59 per cent indicated that they had no interest in learning more about the religion (Srirekha, 2001). A detailed, government-sponsored report on Hindus, of the type described by Zavos (Chapter 6 in this volume) in the UK, seems very unlikely in the US. In fact, the first attempt to include a Hindu in the US administration’s religious outreach activities came only in 2009, when a Hindu Indian American, Anju Bhargava, was nominated to President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
The lack of understanding or interest in Hinduism in the US is also due to the distinctive religious context of the country. A 2005 Gallup poll showed that 55 per cent of Americans considered religion to be ‘very important’, compared with 28 per cent of Canadians and 19 per cent of Britons.5 Evangelical Christians make up 26.4 per cent of the US population (2007 Pew Forum figures), and Hinduism has sometimes been the target of attack of evangelical leaders. Again, unlike in Canada and Britain, where recent immigrants have largely been from non-Christian backgrounds, most recent immigrants to the US have been from Christian backgrounds (mostly from Central and South America), and many tend to be quite religiously conservative. The US also has a strong and politically influential Christian Right. In short, there is a strongly conservative Christian environment in the US in contrast to Canada and the UK.6
In the UK, discussions about the changing nature of national and religious identity have taken place in the wake of the contemporary immigration, and in Canada, French-Canadian nationalism provided the spur to do the same. In the US, however, the reconceptualisation of American identity has a longer history and has been an evolving process shaped by the activism of new immigrant groups. The religions of different immigrant groups have been incorporated by a process whereby the religious canopy, and correspondingly the national religious identity of the nation, has been gradually expanded. Thus, the immigration of Irish and European Catholics in the 19th century and their involvement in the public sphere expanded the religious mainstream from ‘Protestant’ to ‘Christian’, and the civic and political activism of Jews in the 20th century expanded it further to become ‘Judeo-Christian’ in the post–World War II period (Prothero, 2001).
In the recent period, Jewish Americans have become the epitome of a minority group that was discriminated against but was able to rise to prominence through its activism. The professional achievements of Jews in the US and their ability to successfully lobby on behalf of the state of Israel are viewed enviously by other groups like Cubans, Greeks, Armenians and Arabs, who try to imitate Jewish patterns of organisation and mobilisation (Ahrari, 1987; Smith, 2000). The events of 9/11 also resulted in a change in the activism patterns of several groups from the Indian subcontinent, including Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus, who became the target of hate crimes in the wake of 9/11. Much of the public expression of Hindu nationalism took place in this period, as it appealed to Hindu Americans concerned about being mistaken for Muslims and also created the opportunity to exploit the rise of anti-Islamic sentiments in the US.
A variety of scholars writing about the religion of South Asian immigrants in the West have emphasised the role of multiculturalism in shaping the public articulation of the religion in the contemporary period (Dusenbery, 1995; Kurien, 2007; Rajagopal, 2000; Zavos, 2009). But as Christian Joppke (1996) points out, while there are many similarities between the multicultural philosophies and policies of countries like Canada, Britain and the US, there are also differences due to ‘distinct traditions of nationhood’ as well as the particularities of the immigration streams to these countries. For instance, multiculturalism in the US is primarily an outgrowth of the civil rights, feminist and ethnic movements of the 1960s to challenge discriminatory laws, give voice to minorities and claim a place within the educational curriculum in schools and colleges. Consequently in the US, the main battleground of multiculturalism has been in education (Joppke, 1996: 462). This is in contrast with Canada, where multiculturalism developed out of French-Canadian nationalism and the official acceptance of bilingualism, and the UK, where it was a result of the racial diversity ensuing from immigration of members belonging to former British colonies.
To summarise, my argument is that the invisibility of Hindu Indian Americans, the conservative Christian environment in the US, the negative stereotypes of Hinduism and attacks by Christian evangelicals as well as the lack of acknowledgment of the Hindu presence by the administration have all contributed to the feeling of Hindus that they are an embattled minority (see Kurien, 2007), probably to a greater extent than in Canada and UK. The elite nature of Hindu migration may mean that this marginality is felt more keenly, but even more important is that the community is able to galvanise intellectual, financial and social resources to combat it. The establishment of Zionist activism in the US and the legitimisation provided by contemporary multiculturalism have spurred Hindus to mobilise to correct misperceptions against their religion and to obtain recognition and respect. Since multiculturalism in the US manifests itself primarily in the educational sphere, it is no coincidence that the most of this activism has manifested itself in this arena. Finally, the events of 9/11 and more recent threats of Islamic terrorism have provided the context for Hindus to enter into the public arena on an anti-Muslim platform.
I have argued that the political activism of Hindu Indian Americans in the US is not just a reflection of ‘homeland politics’ but that it is also ‘made in America’ as a response to the realities they confront in the US (Kurien, 2007). In this section, I will show how the public portrayal of Hinduism has been shaped by the characteristics of the US context described above.
Several Hindu umbrella organisations have sprung up in the US. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA) was the earliest Hindu American umbrella organisation and was founded in 1970 on the East Coast. The VHPA founded the Hindu Student Council (HSC) as its student wing in 1990. There is also a parallel organisation to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), called the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), with chapters around the country. Additionally, there are support groups for the Bharatiya Janata Party. Although these organisations are branches of the Sangh Parivar in India, they claim to be ‘independent’ organisations in the US.
There is also a large number of other Hindu umbrella organisations, both regional and national, that are not directly connected with the Sangh Parivar. Some of these organisations identify as ‘Hindu’, but there are also other labels adopted by those groups interested in promoting Hinduism. For instance, many Hindus who were interested in challenging the academic portrayal of their religion and culture mobilised under an ‘Indic’ identity. Other Hindus who were interested in emphasising the distinctiveness of Hinduism and contrasting it to Abrahamic religions organised around a ‘Dharmic’ identity. There are also several ‘Vedic’ organisations. One of the most respected contemporary sources of authority on Hinduism from the 1990s has been the Hindu periodical Hinduism Today. The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) is now the best known and most active Hindu umbrella organisation in the US. The HAF is also the first Hindu umbrella organisation to have a professional organisational structure and full-time staff.
Even though there is a large number of organisations to promote Hindu interests, they are interlinked in many ways and there is overlap in terms of key activists. These organisations hold annual or biennial conferences such as the Human Empowerment Conference, World Association for Vedic Studies (WAVES) conference, the Hindu Dharma summit, the Dharma Association of North America (DANAM) conference and the Hindu Mandir executives’ conference where Hindu American leaders meet to discuss issues of concern. Frequently, these conferences are also attended by Hindu leaders from India.
The central spokespersons of Hinduism in the US have not been traditional ascetic religious leaders or teachers, as in India, but instead have been educated lay Hindus. Until recently, they have almost always been first-generation men who used their accomplishments in the professional and business world to legitimise their religious authority within the Hindu community. With the formation in 2003 of the HAF in Washington D.C., this profile has shifted, since the HAF is led mostly by second-generation Indian American Hindus and both men and women are represented among its spokespersons. Since the organisation is led by American-born Hindus, they argue that they have brought a ‘paradigm shift’ to their national and international advocacy on behalf of Hindus in that they adopt a ‘wholly US-centric approach’ (S. Shukla, 2008: 26). However, they admit that the bulk of their funding comes from the first generation, since most of their 3,000 members are immigrants (Melwani, 2009). Consequently, it is hard to imagine that they would be able to ignore the interests of the immigrant generation. Its location in the nation’s capital has allowed the HAF to become well linked with governmental and policy offices and attain national visibility. Aseem Shukla, a co-founder of the organisation, regularly contributes a column from a Hindu perspective on the ‘On Faith’ section of the online edition of the Washington Post.
Due to the lack of recognition and understanding of Hinduism in the US, the negative stereotypes faced by Hindus and the absence of a required religious education curriculum in American schools, the first major task facing Hindu American organisations has been to educate Americans about Hinduism. Hindu American leaders have focused on simplifying, standardising and codifying the religion to make it easier to understand, articulate and practice. The websites of Hindu American organisations summarise the ‘central beliefs’ of Hinduism or the ‘basic principles of Hindu dharma’. In the US, the Bhagavad Gita is generally defined as the central Hindu text. In the process, an encapsulised, intellectual Hinduism is created, very different from the diversity of ritual practices and observances that are characteristic of everyday Hinduism in India.
For instance, Hinduism Today provides answers to frequently asked questions about Hinduism and Hindu practices (for example, Hinduism Today, 2000), guidelines on how to be a good Hindu and to raise children according to Hindu precepts (Hinduism Today, 1977) and articles detailing why Hinduism is ‘the greatest religion in the world’ (February and March/April 2000 issues). They also have booths at major Hindu and Indian American festivals and conventions around the country, where they give out tracts summarising the ‘nine Hindu beliefs’, the ‘four facts’ and the ‘twenty restraints and practices’ that make up ‘Hinduism’s code of conduct’. Similarly, the HAF offers a Hinduism 101, a Q&A booklet explaining the central briefs and practices of Hinduism as well as a media toolkit detailing the top five ‘misrepresentations’ of Hinduism in the US media on their website.
‘Tolerance’ and ‘pluralism’ are defined as the ‘essence of Hinduism’ (for example, on the HAF website). The Rig Veda verse (1.164.46) ‘truth is one, sages call it by different names’ is constantly reiterated to make this claim. According to the Federation of Hindu Associations (FHA), an organisation based in Southern California that was active in the 1990s, Hinduism is the most suitable religion for the 21st century, since the modern pluralistic world ‘requires all religions to affirm [the] truth of other traditions to ensure tranquility’ (Singh, 1997), and only Hinduism fits the bill. Therefore, the FHA saw as its mission the safeguarding of Hinduism ‘for our children, for the world’ (Singh, interview, 2 September 1997). Many Hindu American leaders also refer to Hinduism as Sanatana Dharma (eternal faith) to make the point that it is the most ancient and universalistic of all religions. They also counter the negative American image of Hinduism as primitive by arguing that contrary to American stereotypes, Hinduism is actually very sophisticated and scientific. Many examples have been provided in Hindu American publications and websites to make this point, such as the Hindu conception of the history of the universe as billions of years old and ancient Indian knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, metallurgy and physics.
The content and meaning of a Hindu American identity have also been articulated by Hindu umbrella organisations. According to such leaders, Hindu Indian Americans are the proud descendants of the world’s oldest living civilisation and religion. Hindu Americans are characterised as a group that has been able to maintain the balance between materialism and spirituality, since they have been able to successfully adapt to American life and draw the best from it, without losing their inner values and cultural integrity. The model minority label is used explicitly by Hindu American leaders who attribute the success of Indians in the US to their Hindu religious and cultural heritage, which they argue gives Hindu Americans a special aptitude for science and math and makes them adaptable, hard working and family oriented. Community spokespersons indicate that all of these qualities, together with their professional expertise (particularly in the fields of computers, medicine and engineering) and affluence make Hindu Indian Americans a group that has an important leadership role to play in 21st century America.
Several Hindu leaders around the country have also spoken up against what they felt were fundamental misrepresentations of Hinduism within American society. These efforts have focused on three central issues: Hindu conceptions of the divine, the nature of the caste system and the position of women in Hindu society.
Many American Hindu spokespersons have objected to their religion being characterised as ‘polytheistic’ and ‘idol worshiping’. They point out that, although the Hindu pantheon consisted of an array of deities, many Hindus believe that all of these deities are different forms manifested by one Supreme Being. They argue that most Hindus worship a primary deity, and that some traditions (such as Vaishnavism) only acknowledge the existence of that primary deity. On this basis, they claim that Hinduism is in fact a monotheistic religion. Others maintain that essentially Western categories such as ‘monotheism’ and ‘polytheism’ are inappropriate to describe Hindu notions of the divine. Similarly, most American Hindu leaders find the English term ‘idol’ offensive, since it carries the negative connotation that the worshiper considers the graven image to be divine. They prefer the term ‘icon’ or ‘image’ and argue that these images are intended only to represent the idea of the divine and to provide the worshiper with a tangible mental focus.
Hindu Indian American leaders have also maintained that the caste system was never religiously sanctioned by Hinduism and is thus not central to Hindu practice.7 They argue that manuals such as the ‘Laws of Manu’, where caste prescriptions and proscriptions are emphasised, are not part of the sruti or the primary scriptural corpus of Hindus (which is believed to contain revealed wisdom) but are part of the smriti or secondary scriptures (which are not considered to be divinely ordained).
The position of women within Hinduism is another sensitive issue addressed by Hindu American leaders. They claim that Hinduism gives women and men the same rights, and that gender equality and respect for women are therefore integral parts of the Hindu tradition. To support their arguments, they point to the presence of several powerful goddesses in the Hindu pantheon. Furthermore, they contend that women are held in great esteem in ancient Hindu India. Many of them claim that the Muslim conquest of India was responsible for the subsequent decline in the status of women.
Other umbrella groups have focused on attaining public acknowledgement of Hinduism as an American religion. In September 2000, despite some opposition from conservative Christians, Indian American lobby groups were successful in having a Hindu priest open a session of Congress for the first time, an achievement reported with great pride in Indian American newspapers and websites. (A Hindu priest was also invited to open a Senate session in July 2007, but his prayer was disrupted by Christian demonstrators.) A second indication of Hindu Americans’ recognition by Washington came a month later, when President Bill Clinton issued a proclamation from the White House wishing Indian Americans ‘Happy Diwali’ (an important Hindu festival). Subsequently, President George Bush institutionalised the practice of having Diwali celebrated in the White House (although he did not himself attend) and President Obama personally attended the celebration in 2009. In the fall of 2007, on the urging of the Hindu American Foundation, the Senate and the House of Representatives passed resolutions (written with the input of the Hindu American Foundation) recognising the significance of the festival of Diwali (S. Shukla, 2008: 27). The HAF also took part, along with other religious groups, in court cases challenging the public display of the Ten Commandments in Texas and a state-funded Christian-themed licence plate in South Carolina, in both cases arguing that such public displays expressed an inherent government preference for Christians and Christianity over all other citizens and faith traditions that make up the US (ibid., 28). These activities have brought Hinduism to the attention of a wider group of Americans.
In the days after 9/11, America’s ‘Judeo-Christian’ sacred canopy seemed to stretch into an ‘Abrahamic’ one that included Muslims, as Muslim clerics (who repeatedly emphasised that they were part of the same tradition as Christians and Jews) were incorporated into the numerous interfaith services organised in different parts of the country. Hindu Americans viewed the enlarging of the American sacred canopy with alarm, fearing that it would further marginalise non-Abrahamic religions such as Hinduism. The Hindu umbrella organisation Hindu International Council Against Defamation (HICAD) and several hundred individual Hindus sent a petition to President George Bush emphasising that Hindus were a numerically and professionally significant part of the US and were model citizens who needed to be included within ‘America’s pluralistic and multicultural traditions’. The petition was to protest the exclusion of Hindus from the national prayer service organised in the wake of the events of 9/11.
Many of the themes mentioned thus far can be seen in the petition, such as a reference to Hindu monotheism (worship to the ‘One Almightly God’) and to Hinduism being a religion that is over ‘8,000 years old’; an emphasis on the exemplary intergenerational and gender relations among Hindus (‘We are a family-oriented people with low divorce rates ... we save for our children’s education and support our elders and extended families’); and repeated stress on the tolerance and pluralism of Hindus (descriptions of Hinduism as ‘peace-loving’, upholding ‘non-violence, pluralism and respect’ as central tenets). The petition also drew attention to the difference between Hinduism and Islam (by pointing out that Hindus ‘never threaten violence against our host country’ and that there was ‘no worldwide Hindu network of terrorists’).
Perhaps partly as a result of such Hindu American activism and the rising public profile of Hindu Americans in administrative circles, President Obama included Hindus under the American religious canopy in his inaugural address when he described the US as ‘a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers’, a description which overjoyed Hindu Americans since this was the first time they were so included.
As a consequence of their minority location and the negative stereotypes about Hinduism in the US, Hindu Americans frequently compare and contrast Hinduism with the Abrahamic traditions (particularly Islam and Christianity), positioning Hinduism favourably in comparison with these traditions. In interfaith and human rights forums around the country, Hindu American leaders have taken a public stand against the right of Christian missionaries to proselytise, arguing variously that such proselytisation violated the rights of members of non-proselytising religions like Hinduism to practice their religions without harassment (Sharma, 2000/2001); that it was unethical, since conversions were often carried out through the use of fraud, deception and material inducements; that the negative stereotypes of Hinduism promoted by the missionaries exacerbated communal tensions (Malhotra, 2000); and finally that proselytisation was an act of cultural violence, since converts were often asked to give up many of their traditional religious and cultural practices (A. Shukla, 2010b).
Hindu arguments against Abrahamic traditions were brought together by Rajiv Malhotra of the Infinity Foundation, an organisation promoting Indic studies, in an article on Sulekha.com that he circulated to several religious studies scholars and that also formed the basis for several of his presentations at academic venues (Malhotra, 2003a). Malhotra argues that Abrahamic traditions and Indic traditions are based on ‘two different, and often competing ways of arriving at spiritual truth’, with the Abrahamic traditions relying on historical narratives (about ‘holy’ events), and the Indic traditions relying on adhyatma-vidhya (inner ‘science’ or esoteric processes). He concludes that Abrahamic traditions are less scientific, since they are based on unique historical events that adherents believe in not because there is any compelling empirical evidence to substantiate the beliefs but because the historical narrative was passed down through the generations by the faith community. In contrast, he argues, the Indic traditions are not dependent on the histories of the saints who contributed to them, just as the laws of nature are not contingent upon the validity of the histories of the scientists who discovered them (Malhotra, 2003a).
On ethical grounds, Malhotra claims that ‘non-negotiable Grand Narratives of History’ lead to conflicts since they lead to triumphalism and the belief:
… that there is only One True History. Monotheism turns into My-theism, the belief that only one’s own conception of theism is valid, and that all others must be falsified and demonised. Religious institutions get obsessed to defend, control and enforce their Grand Narrative of History. (Malhotra, 2003a: 16)
In contrast, not being ‘handcuffed to history’, Indic traditions, even those dealing with the past, are ‘pliable and fluid ... with no compulsion to find “one true canon”’ (Malhotra, 2003a: 14). Again, Malhotra argues that since Indic traditions accept multiple manifestations of the Supreme Being, they are inherently pluralistic. More recently, Aseem Shukla of the HAF has described the contrast between Abrahamic and Dharmic faiths as that between ‘exclusivists and pluralists’ (A. Shukla, 2010c). The HAF also contrasts the Hindu view of homosexuality ‘as an external trait that cannot taint the immortal and immanent divinity ensconced in every being’ (ibid., 2010a) with the perspective of some ‘Semitic’ religious groups that oppose homosexual behaviour based on their understanding that homosexuals are denied entry into heaven and are condemned to everlasting hell.8
Hindu American leaders frequently draw a parallel between the struggle of Hindus for respect and recognition and that of Jews in the US. Following the pattern of American Jews, one of the first types of organisations that Hindu Americans formed that was explicitly oriented towards the wider American society were anti-defamation groups. In 1997, the VHPA formed the American Hindus Against Defamation (AHAD) which had as its goal the aggressive defence of Hinduism against defamation, commercialisation and misuse. The organisation has been involved in several successful protest campaigns against the use of Hindu deities, icons and texts by American businesses and the entertainment industry. The success of AHAD was followed by the formation of several other anti-defamation groups around the country, including the Hindu International Council Against Defamation (HICAD) based in New Jersey and the Internet based India Cause (www.indiacause.com).
The HAF has had close ties with Jewish groups, particularly the American Jewish Committee, right from its inception, and has looked to the Jewish community for guidance on becoming ‘an effective political voice’. Hindu American groups often ally with Jewish groups on the basis of the fact that India and Israel are ‘two countries with a history of hostile relationship with their Muslim neighbours’ (Sheth, 2007). For instance, in a meeting with the American Jewish Committee in San Francisco held in October 2004, Mihir Meghani, a co-founder of the HAF, noted the ‘declining number of Hindus in India owing to growth rate and dubious methods of conversion to other faiths’ and compared it to the demographic decline faced by Jews in Israel. He also spoke about ‘the shared risks they face from neighbours with long histories of terrorism’ (press release, 20 October 2004, archived at www.hinduamericanfoundation.org).
Many Hindu American leaders refer to a Hindu ‘holocaust’ (perpetrated mostly by Muslim invaders), which is described as ‘unparalleled in history, bigger than the holocaust of the Jews by Nazis’.9 There have been calls to build ‘Hindu holocaust museums’ to document and keep alive the memory of these historical atrocities. The argument made is that as in the Jewish case, the constant reminder of the Hindu holocaust would help to unite Hindus and would also secure them the recognition and respect of the international community.10 This argument has also been used to emphasise the need for Hindus to have a religious homeland like Israel.
Although multiculturalism was never formally adopted as a national policy in the US, recognition that the country comprises citizens from diverse backgrounds, whose identities and cultures need to be publicly acknowledged and respected, has been ‘a policy rubric’ in a variety of arenas over the past few decades, particularly in the educational sphere. Hindu American leaders have been most active in the educational arena, to attack and challenge the portrayal of Hinduism in American academia. These attacks have all been made in the name of enlarging American multiculturalism to include a wider range of groups.
Hindu American leaders charge that American academia is dominated by a Eurocentric perspective that views Western culture as being the font of world civilisation and refuses to acknowledge the contributions of non-Western societies such as India to European culture and technology. The Infinity Foundation took a leadership role in the sponsorship of important tenets of the Hindu-centric perspective—that civilisation developed on the banks of the River Saraswati in north-western India around 5,000 years ago and from there spread to the rest of the world; that the Vedas enshrine knowledge of advanced scientific, mathematical and astronomical concepts, encrypted in code form; and that the effects of the Muslim invasions on India were debilitating. Its website hosts essays by scholars making these arguments (www.infinityfoundation.com).
The domination of Indic studies by Westerners, Rajiv Malhotra maintains, has led to Western academic and media biases against the tradition. Furthermore, it has meant that the many contributions the tradition makes in the areas of psychology, linguistics, postmodernism, political and social theory, eco-vegetarianism, feminism, religious studies and philosophy have been neglected or overlooked. He therefore calls for a ‘Satyagraha [Gandhi’s term for non-violent protest or agitation] against the establishment, a review of the ethics of the academic treatment of India’s civilisation’ (Malhotra, 2002: 10), and also argues for the need to have more ‘insider’, or practioner, scholars. Malhotra maintains that all this is necessary to revise history to focus on India’s achievements and the ‘true historical causes of India’s problems’ today (ibid., 26), to reveal India’s role in world history and to learn from Indic traditions. He feels that such revisionism is also important to promote multiculturalism in the US, to prepare American children for globalisation and to address the needs of Indian Americans (Malhotra, 2002: 30).
The most volatile issue in the controversy regarding the alleged Eurocentric bias within American academia has been the portrayal of Hinduism and Hindu deities by American religious studies scholars. Hindu Americans leaders maintain that unlike the academic study of Abrahamic religions, Western scholars of Hinduism like to focus on the sensationalist, negative attributes of the religion and present it in a demeaning way that shows an utter lack of respect for the sentiments of the practitioners of the religion. Western scholars writing on Hinduism and Hindu nationalism had come under attack from Hindu American leaders since the 1990s with the rise in the Hindutva movement. However, the year 2000 was a watershed in terms of Hindu American activism targeted at academia. Over the course of that year, several dozen Hindu and Indian American Internet discussion groups were formed, some of them like Indictraditions and IndianCivilization, with the explicit goal of providing Hindu or Indic-centred critiques to Western scholarship on Hinduism and ancient Indian history.
Particularly since the year 2000, the monitoring and shaping of the presentation of Hinduism and Indian history in American school textbooks and within academia has become an important goal of many Hindu American groups. Hindu activists bombard scholars who are viewed as being critical of any aspect of Hinduism or of India with hostile emails and have even gone to the extent of contacting the administration of their universities in an attempt to get them dismissed from their academic positions or prevent them from being hired. Supporters are also sent to attend public presentations on Hinduism and India, to dispute presentations or books that do not fit in with Hindu-centric conceptions of history. Details regarding the presentation and the response of the scholars to the questions are then circulated within activist Hindu circles and the wider Hindu American community through email bulletins, opinion pieces on Hindu websites and Indian American newspapers (see Kurien, 2007 for more details). Many of these critiques were collected in a volume, Invading the Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America (2007) which is now discussed and praised at various Hindu meetings in India and the US, including a 2008 meeting of Hindu ascetics in India which recommended that the book should be summarised and widely distributed (see http://invadingthesacred.com/content/view/62/52).
Finally, Hindu American leaders denounce South Asian studies programmes in the US for creating a false identity and unity between India and the Muslim countries in the South Asian region (Pakistan and Bangladesh), and for undermining India by focusing on its internal cleavages and problems. In a series of articles on Rediff.com between December 2003 and January 2004, Rajiv Malhotra (2003b, 2003c, 2004a, 2004b) elaborated on this perspective. He argued that US universities play an important role in ‘India’s brand positioning’ by influencing the perspectives of the media, government, business, education and Indian American identities, and that compared to other major countries, a positive stance on India is underrepresented in American academia. According to him, this was because South Asian studies programmes were manned by Westerners hostile to Indian interests, by ‘Indian-American sepoys’ and by Indian Americans wanting to be white (Malhotra, 2004a). Describing the latter two groups of Indian Americans as ‘career opportunists’ and ‘Uncle Toms’, he argued that ‘to become members of the Western Grand Narrative B even in marginal roles these Indians often sneer at Indian culture in the same manner as colonialists once did’ (ibid., 4). Thus, according to Malhotra, South Asian studies were undermining India by promoting ‘a perspective on India using worldviews which are hostile to India’s interests’ (Malhotra, 2003c: 2).
In this chapter, I have argued that the distinctive patterns of mobilisation of Hindu Americans can be explained by some of the unique characteristics of the American environment. Specifically, in an environment where there is ignorance and negative stereotypes about Hinduism as ‘polytheists’ and ‘idol worshipers’, Hindu umbrella organisations and their leaders defend themselves from attacks and portray their religion as more sophisticated and scientific than Abrahamic religions. They separate themselves from Islam and highlight their ability to thrive in a non-Hindu environment by emphasising the tolerance and pluralism of Hinduism. They also distinguish themselves from less successful minorities by emphasising their ‘model minority’ status. In the belief that it is the Jewish holocaust that has given Jews a strong hold over the American public imagination and the support of the administration, Hindu Americans have argued that they have been the victims of a more horrific holocaust. Since the American academe is considered to be the bastion of multiculturalism in the US, many of these arguments come together in the Hindu American mobilisation against scholars of Hinduism and of India. Since the Hindutva movement first emerged as a reaction to the experience of Western colonialism, it is not surprising that the ‘Hinduism under siege’ Hindutva message, and its emphasis on the need for Hindu pride and assertiveness, is particularly attractive to Hindus in the US who experience racism and marginality as minorities. This is a point that Hindutva supporters themselves make (Rao et al., 2003: 2).
This chapter is a preliminary attempt at understanding how the public activism of immigrant religious groups is shaped by the religio-cultural context of the country, its history and official policies and the specific patterns of migration. More research on Hinduism in Canada and the UK, and comparative research examining similarities and differences in the portrayal of Hinduism in the West, are needed before we can gain a better understanding of this issue.
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1 According to the 2003 New Immigrant Survey, Sikh immigrants constituted 12 per cent of the Indian immigrants that year.
2 Figures from the 2006 Census in Canada and the 2007 Annual Population Survey in the UK. South Asians were the second largest ‘visible minority’ group in Canada next to Chinese (see Ellis, 2009; Smick, 2006).
3 Estimated based on 2007 Indian American population figures and projected 2007 figures for Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan Americans.
4 African American and Hispanic figures are from the 2008 American Community Survey; Asian American figures are from the 2007 American Community Survey.
5 Data obtained from the website: http://www.gallup.com/poll/20986/Can-Reagan-Revolution-Happen-Canada.aspx (accessed 10 February 2012).
6 Mark A. Noll (1998), utilising data from a 1996 cross-border poll by the Angus Reid Group, indicates that evangelicals in Canada were only between one-third and one-half the strength of US evangelicals as a proportion of the population. Recent data from the UK indicate that only around 6.6 per cent attended church services regularly (Religious Trends, No. 7, 2007–08, published by Christian Research).
7 See, for instance, India Post (1995).
8 See http://www.hafsite.org/media/pr/hindusimandhomosexuality (accessed 10 February 2012).
9 Francois Gautier, http://www.scribd.com/doc/18926106/Hindu-Unity-Day-Speeach-Francois-Gautier (accessed 10 February 2012).
10 For instance, see the Nation of Hindutva website, http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/9089.