From Kafila

Statement by Scholars in North American Universities on Withdrawal of Wendy Doniger’s book

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

 

by Aditya Nigam

This statement expresses the views of the individuals listed below and does not represent the views of the University of Chicago or any of its departments.

We, the undersigned, as students of South Asia, strongly condemn the withdrawal by Penguin Press India of Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History from distribution in India. We believe that this work has been attacked because it presents a threat to orthodox Brahminical interpretations of Hinduism. We believe that this attack is part of ongoing attempts by upper-caste extremist Hindu forces to stifle any alternative understandings of Hinduism. As students in the United States, we are acutely aware that North American organizations of the Hindu right initiated the protests against Wendy Doniger’s scholarship. Hindu right wing organisations in India have worked in tandem with their North American counterparts to suppress alternative voices in India and too often violently. We are deeply concerned about the alarming increase in attacks on any academic study of Hinduism that does not fit these groups’ narrow and exclusionary vision of Hinduism which is part of their desire to create a Hindu India that excludes the religious minorities of Indian Muslims and Indian Christians.

Wendy Doniger, a respected scholar who is devoted to the study of Hinduism, has astutely recognized the great danger to human life and the plural practices and beliefs of Hindus posed by these groups. She has courageously refused to bow to their pressures to curtail her scholarship and has consistently challenged the Hindu right. By tracking the formation of myth through history, her work undermines these groups’ exclusionary claims on the past.

As researchers we know that a singular narrative of Hinduism, as of any living tradition, is completely untenable. This incident is indicative of the genocidal imagination of these groups that seek to extinguish the idea of a plural and secular India. This attack on Wendy Doniger’s scholarship is reminiscent of the earlier attacks on the scholarship of AK Ramanujan carried out by Hindu fundamentalist student organisations. We protest the rise of majoritarian narratives that curtail different ways of knowing the world and urge scholars, researchers, academics and people of all persuasions to call for Wendy Doniger’s book to be brought back into circulation in India. We join others who have articulated their protest against the withdrawal in refusing the singular, elitist and exclusionary imaginings of the past that are used to do violence to our shared present.

Signed:

Shefali Jha

Malarvizhi Jayanth

Ahona Panda

Aakash Solanki

Sayantan Saha Roy

Tejas Parasher

Suchismita Das

Abhishek Bhattacharyya

Joya John

Emma Meyer

Kyle Gardner

Erin Epperson

Victor D’Avella

Joseph Grim Feinberg

Ranu Roychoudhuri

Ishan Chakrabarti

Margherita Trento

Adam O’Brien

Madlyn Wendell

Jeff Wilson

Jetsun Deleplanque

Leah Richmond

Jamal Jones

Saumya Gupta

Davey K. Tomlinson

Madhuri Karak

Harini Kumar

Elsa J.Marty

 

In solidarity:

Ankit Agrawal

Dhananjay Jagannathan

Shiva Shankar

Ravi Vaitheespara

Daniel Sellon