Hindus fight discrimination in California textbooks

By Kalavai Venkat
Published 01/13/2006

Is Hinduism monotheistic?

In my earlier articles, I had summarized the California textbook trial, and had also analyzed the specious recommendations of anti-Hindu ideologues with respect to the status of women in ancient India, historicizing the origins of Hinduism using creationist, racist and 19th century colonial theories, and their shocking suggestion that Harijan Hindu children be derogatorily called ‘broken persons.’ In this article, I will examine their accusation that Hindu groups attempted to portray Hinduism as a monotheistic religion along the lines of Christianity and Islam. Is it not patronizing to claim that Hindus want to model their religion after Christianity or Islam? Never mind, let us see the validity of this accusation.

Steve Farmer, the Marx-admiring ideologue [a report reveals that he put up a portrait of Karl Marx on his wall!], who initiated and coordinated Witzel’s anti-Hindu petition [a report reveals that these anti-Hindu ideologues admitted that they had no knowledge of the contents of proposed edits when they sent out their petition!], wrote on December 11, 2005, in the infamous political list Indo-Eurasian_research, that the Hindu edits attempted to “whitewash accounts of women's and minority rights in ancient India, and [made] absurd claims that ancient Vedic religion was monotheistic, etc.” Hey, isn’t that interesting that this Marx-admiring ideologue alleges that ‘minority’ rights were denied by majority Hindus in ancient India? Well, this is an old trick in the Marxist trade: to invent a lie and to repeat it until it becomes a ‘fact.’ It is a Marxist convention that what one Marxist ideologue says, others parrot. Angana Chatterji, writing for the Communist mouthpiece SACW alleged that the Hindu edits attempted to present “Hinduism [as] uniform, monotheistic, and monolithic, dismissing the disenfranchisement of women, dalits, adivasis, and religious minorities under centuries of Hindu ascendancy in what is today India.”

Never bother to ask these ideologues for evidence that Hindus disenfranchised minority religious groups in ancient India. Their trade is one dependent on a cobweb of lies. Interestingly, their trade proves both creationism and evolution right: first they create a lie, and then let it evolve into a ‘fact!’ But, those who have studied a bit of history would know that the minority Jews who found refuge in India 2,000 years ago, flourished as an ethnic minority. Nathan Katz, in his monumental work, Who are the Jews of India, writes:

"Indian Jews lived as all Jews should have been allowed to live: free, proud, observant, creative and prosperous, self-realized, full contributors to the host community. Then, when twentieth century conditions permitted they returned en masse to Israel, which they had always proclaimed to be their true home despite India's hospitality. The Indian chapter is one of the happiest of the Jewish Diaspora. [...] The study of Indian Jewish communities demonstrates that in Indian culture an immigrant group gains status precisely by maintaining its own identity. Such is the experience not only of India's Jews, but also of local Christians, Zoroastrians, and recently, Tibetan Buddhists."

Such facts regarding the well-known Hindu tolerance are dispensed with when Marxist ideologues wage an unscrupulous battle against Hindus. Judging by their lies on the alleged Hindu ‘intolerance’ one could reasonably conclude that they would have bluffed about the alleged ‘monotheism’ edits too. But, I will take the pains to prove the obvious. Since I have already discussed the status of women in ancient India, I will save the trouble of repeating it.

What are the English translations of Sanskrit words, bhagavan, karma, atman, devata, murti, vigraha, Brahman or even the ubiquitous yoga and dharma? There are no accurate translations. While yoga and dharma have been adopted into English, the rest have not been. So, any translation is going to fall short of being accurate. Ideally, these Sanskrit words should be adopted in textbooks so that students can understand them in their appropriate cultural and religious contexts.

Traditionally, Hindus of several denominations have believed that the One Divine manifests itself manifold. The Rig Veda [1:164:46], the oldest Hindu text, tells us that “the truth is one, which the sages perceive differently.” Starting with the Upanishads, many schools have contemplated on the nature of this absolute truth. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad [1:4:6] says:

“All adorations of the different deities are the adorations of the One Being because, all these gods that we worship in religion are nothing but the projections of the One Being.”

The Vedantic Schools such as the Advaita identified this as the undifferentiated, attribute-less Nirguna Brahman. Tirumular, the celebrated Harijan Saiva saint, famously declared, echoing the Vedantic wisdom, that duality exists only until ignorance is removed, and gave an analogy to expound this thought: one, who does not realize that it is merely a carving, perceives elephant in a piece of wood; once he realizes the truth, the elephant [perception] disappears and only the piece of wood [reality] remains [Tirumantiram 2290].

Yet, not all schools of Hinduism subscribe to this interpretation of the highest truth as Nirguna Brahman. Even among the Vedantic schools, interpretations vary. For example, the Visishtadvaita School of dualism considers Narayana or Bhagavan or Purusha to be eternal, and reconciles the Brahman and the Purusha. Numerous Bhakti or devotional traditions consider Bhagavan as eternal, and are not occupied with the notions of Advaita. It is safe to state that Hindus that subscribe to an ultimate Bhagavan are more numerous than those that subscribe to the thought of Nirguna Brahman. For each, this ultimate Bhagavan is Siva, Vishnu, Kali or one’s own kula devata or family deity. Even during periods of sectarian rivalry, exalted poets like Kambar declared that Vishnu and Siva are one and the same.

What do textbooks teach?

A proposed textbook [Teachers’ Curriculum Institute, pp. 146-151] teaches:

“Brahman is the Hindu name for a supreme power or a divine force, that is greater than all the other gods. […] To Hindus only Brahman exists forever. […] [Hindus] devote entire lives to uniting with Brahman.”

The first statement is not an accurate portrayal of even Advaita, which considers the Brahman alone to be satya or the truth, and all else to be mitya or mere perceptions of truth. It is not as if all are satya and the Brahman is graded higher than the rest. The second statement summarizes the Advaita thought better. The third statement is incorrect even according to Advaita, in which school of thought the Jiva does not unite with the Brahman. Instead, at realization, there is no more duality. At that stage, there is nothing to perceive, and nothing apart to merge into. But, none of these statements reflect the thoughts of numerous other Hindu schools, which consider the Bhagavan and the Jiva or the soul to be eternal and separate.

According to the California Department of Education guidelines, textbooks must summarize the Hindu knowledge systems. So, ideally, textbooks should present the various Hindu schools of thoughts, according to the tradition of each, without attempting to reconcile them into a unified Hinduism. That has not been the case for decades. Anti-Hindu ideologues that tirelessly campaign against Hindu initiatives, never bothered to correct this situation all these years, even though they had the opportunity.

What did the Vedic Foundation edit propose?

It is very clear that the Hindu groups wanted to project the diversity of Hindu traditions by presenting different schools of thoughts, and that they were not trying to present one sectarian school of thought as representative of Hinduism. They never attempted to project the God of any one sampradaya as the presiding deity of Hinduism. Instead, the Vedic Foundation [VF] insisted on the inclusion of Goddess worship, which forms an integral part of Hinduism [Ref.: State of California, Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials Commission’s Memorandum, dated November 22, 2005, edit 26]. Elsewhere, VF wanted a reference to “many gods” to be replaced with the phrase “many forms of God” [Ref.: State of California, Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials Commission’s Memorandum, dated November 22, 2005, edits 43]. Apparently, this elicited the derision from the anti-Hindu ideologues, and the resultant accusation that VF attempted to portray Hinduism as a monotheistic religion, with God spelt with an upper case ‘G.’

Anyone with the minutest knowledge of Abrahamic religions should know that the Second Commandment explicitly forbids any form of God. So, obviously, VF, which was arguing for “many forms of God,” was not attempting to portray Hinduism in the mould of Abrahamic monotheism. As seen earlier, the thought that “One truth manifests manifold” is a very old Hindu tradition.

Witzel et al did not stop at that. They ridiculed the suggestion that Hindu Gods should be portrayed with an upper case ‘G’ [Ref.: State of California, Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials Commission’s Memorandum, dated November 22, 2005, edit 16], and declared that since lower case ‘g’ is used for the gods of ancient Greece and Rome, a similar treatment of Hindu gods is fine. But, there is a fundamental difference: Christianity destroyed the Pagan religions of Greece and Rome. Hinduism, on the other hand, is alive. Should the Pagan religions of Greece and Rome be alive, and have a huge following, those practitioners would certainly require that textbooks treat their gods with the same respect they accord the Christian-Islamic God - G.W. Bush confirms that Christians and Muslims worship the same God!

Now, upper case is not a feature in the Devanagari script. It is a feature of the Roman script, in which writing God with an upper case ‘G’ is a convention that accords respect to divinity. Why on earth Hindu divinities should be written with lowercase ‘g?’ What would a sixth grade child perceive when she observes that Hindu gods are written with a lower case ‘g,’ while the Christian-Islamic God is written with an upper case ‘G?’ If she is from a Christian or Islamic background, then she could have been indoctrinated that her religion and God alone have the key to deliverance, and that Hinduism is a satanic cult. Have we not seen the Southern Baptists declare that the Hindus are lost, and ‘pray’ for the ‘redemption’ of their souls? Do textbooks not lend credence this kind of bigotry by writing Hindu deities with a lower case ‘g?’ One could understand such advocacies coming from 19th century bigots, but how can CDE allow some anti-Hindu ideologues to impose such bigoted double standards on textbooks?

One might very well ask if it is accurate to replace the textbook claim that the Brahman manifests as deities, with the claim that all deities are many forms of one God. As I pointed out earlier, even according to the Advaita School, Nirguna Brahman does not manifest as deities. Most devotional schools of Hinduism, which have most adherents, indeed subscribe to the notion of a personal God, and perceive all divine manifestations as His/Her lila or creative activity. Neither the existing text nor the proposed edit represent Hinduism in a comprehensive manner, but clearly, a larger number of Hindus would identify with the proposed edit than with the existing text.

To present the different schools of Hinduism according to their practitioners’ perspectives, an extensive edit would be required. It would be in order, but CDE constrained the Hindu groups to restrict their suggestions to a mere rewording of existing text. So, the Hindu groups had to work from a position of disadvantage. But, one could safely conclude that regardless of what the Hindu groups suggest anti-Hindu ideologues would anyway demonize them. If Hindus suggest that the deities are many forms of one God, these anti-Hindu ideologues accuse them of imitating Christianity and Islam. If they follow their traditional practices like cremating the dead, the likes of Witzel, as a report reveals, mock them.

But, why should we be surprised? After all, did not a report reveal that these ideologues, whom Witzel leads, pleaded ignorance of the nature of edits proposed by the Hindu groups, yet opposed those edits? Some of those ideologues, the report reveals, sought the collusion of fundamentalist Christian missionaries and Khalistanis [US State department reports that Khalistani terrorists massacred over 21,000 innocent Sikh and Hindu civilians]. After all, of what use is truth in the politics of hate? Clearly, this is a case of anti-Hindu ideologues first pronouncing Hindus guilty and then, leaving scruples aside, looking for evidence to somehow justify the accusation. In such a scenario, if no real guilt can be established, an imagined guilt would suffice.