EESHA PANDIT: These conservative Hindu groups are spearheading a campaign across the U.S. to counteract the trend of replacing the words “Hindu” or “India,” in sixth and seventh grade history textbooks in 30 places around the country with the term “South Asia.” In the process, they are perpetuating the erasure of the longstanding and ongoing horrors wrought by the caste system, patriarchy and religious intolerance in India.
This is an exercise in controlling history. The winners are, in this case, upper-caste Hindus who want a sterling, Hindu-centric depiction of their country. Samir Kalra, senior director of HAF, told The Washington Post that the coalition worried that these changes could diminish the significance of Hindus.
Understanding the contentions in the California textbook debate requires having clarity about Hinduism and it’s history and multiplicity, in particular the contemporary Hindutva, or Hindu nationalist, movement. The Hinduism of Hindutva incorporates a political agenda into it’s spiritual analysis: it’s proponents try to distance Hinduism from the caste system, establish regressive gender and sexuality constructs, call for an aggressive anti-Muslim nationalist politic, and tie themselves unapologetically to the project of neoliberal development in India.
Understanding this history is what can allow us to approach HAF’s campaign with more nuance. When they claim that including the complicated history of region has an adverse impact of Hindu-American children, rendering them more prone to bullying, they are advocating for the erasure of the painful experiences of Dalit, Bahjujan and Adivasi communities both in India and here in the U.S.
Thenmozhi Soundararajan, a Dalit American activist, told Salon that HAF participates on the religious advisory board for the Department of Homeland Security’s bullying task force, and through such influence, has “mainstreamed their fundamentalism.” Soundararajan’s meticulously documented article in Huffington Post tracks the consistent and willful dismissal of the perspectives of Dalit activists that have fought cast supremacy for generations.
Similarly, Valliammal Kaneeran of the Ambedkar Association of California told the Indian Express that:
“It is outrageous that the teaching of Untouchability does not include the term Dalit. Would we teach the history of slavery and use an epithet to refer black folks? Erasing Dalit erases our dignity and tradition of struggle. It is offensive and the epitome of hypocrisy for a group that is appropriating the language of minority struggles for their majoritarian agenda. Shame on the HAF and their cohorts.” More here.