The Tree of Life shooting threatened the safety of not only the Jewish community residing in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, but all across America. Catholicism, Judaism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Protestantism, Daosim, or any of the 20+ religions practiced in the United States are familiar with the idea that somewhere in some corner of the country is someone who abhors everything they stand for and wishes them harm because of it, an unfortunate truth of American life, one that we have had to grow acclimated with.
On March 27, 2023, legislators from the Georgia Assembly passed a resolution condemning Hinduphobia and anti-Hindu bigotry, the first American state to take such action against Hinduphobia. Many struggle to understand why such actions need to be taken in the first place. After all, while it seems as if Muslim and Jewish communities face the brunt of discriminatory violence daily, the Hindu struggle pales in comparison. But the reality of the Hindu struggle & subjugation is much more nuanced than simple misconceptions and jokes made at our expense.
Though the actions taken to condemn anti-Hindu bigotry seem unnecessary, the resolution itself will change Hindu life in America as we know it; or it will at least begin to. Religious freedom and conversely religious intolerance have had a long-standing history in America, a turbulent relationship with the American people that persists even today. To tackle why religious discrimination, namely Hinduphobia, is intrinsically harmful to American life, it is imperative to first discuss why it doesn’t seem all that fatal in the first place.
Hinduphobia is not something uniquely American; in fact, Hinduphobia itself was fostered and nurtured in the Indian subcontinent, where most Hindus come from. Physical violence toward India’s Hindu communities is quite common, from numerous mandirs are being attacked across Bangladesh & Pakistan, to the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus in the early 1990s.
However, America’s brand of Hinduphobia is much more subtle than that of India and, in a sense, much more dangerous. Academia in America, especially surrounding Hinduism, is the biggest proponent of Hinduphobia in this country, with professors of Hinduism like Audrey Truschke and Wendy Doniger actively condemn Hinduism in their classrooms. Hinduphobia manifests not just as a passing misconception but as fatal propaganda. Truschke herself compared one of the most revered Hindu Bhagwan, Bhagwan Ram, to an “uncouth, misogynistic pig.” Furthermore, Doinger compared Hinduism to Nazism and accredited Greek invaders with Hindu accomplishments. Such blatant slandering of the Hindu faith and Hindu people is the source of the negative view of Hinduism in American society—precisely the reason that such legislations are endlessly important.
While first-generation Hindus coming from India face a good portion of the discrimination, the majority of it directly affects second-generation Hindu-Americas. I am a Hindu American who attends a public high school in the state of Pennsylvania. For the most basic levels of social studies, there is a set curriculum across school districts, approved by board members and teachers alike—a source so lauded as a high school textbook could never be disputed, could it?. Least of all by a student, in class I was taught of the inequality of Hinduism, the mindless devotion of infinite gods, the hierarchical caste system that has permeated Hindu society for centuries. I confronted the teachings upfront because I knew it was wrong. I was told by my social studies teacher that I was, in fact wrong.
No one else seemed to care as much as I did, and they had no reason to—what Hindus did or didn’t does not make no difference to their lives. And so I, too, stopped caring as much. Then I expressed my qualms about the education I was receiving to another respected teacher of mine also a history professor. I told him of all the awful things my teacher had said about my religion, that Hinduism was an ideology founded on subjugation and inequality and he responded with an innocent, “isn’t it though?.”
I think that was when I finally understood. It may have mattered so little to the people who repeated what a textbook had taught them to think and the students who absorbed the information like a sponge, but for the rest of my life, every time I try to defend my religion and prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Hinduism does not endorse discrimination, that we were taught, just like our Christian brothers and sisters to “love our neighbors as ourselves,” that inequality is the very thing we wish to destroy in our societies and ourselves as it has never been the foundation of any Hindu practice. Though I will always be met with an “isn’t it though?,” type of answer.
This is exactly why resolutions like the one passed by the Georgia Assembly are quintessential to preserving the Hindu way of life, and protecting all its practitioners from gross misinformation that writes Hinduism off as barbaric.
Hinduphobia is a problem that will only continue to grow, especially as institutions continue to propagate monolithic perceptions of Hinduism and pass them off as fact. The Georgia resolution is the first step to religious prosperity for Hindu Americans; all that is left is for the remaining 49 states to take this walk with us.
(The author is based in Pennsylvania, US)
