11-20-2009, 07:52 AM
came via email
<b>WENDY DONIGER'S IMAGINED HISTORY OF THE HINDUS</b>
Professor Wendy Doniger, Professor of Religion at the University of Chicago and author of several books, is renowned for evoking provocatively sexual and explicit interpretations from the annals of Hinduism's holiest books. And her latest book, The Hindus: An Alternative History, does not disappoint those seeking more analysis of the ancient Hindu epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata among them, through the Freudian psychoanlytical lens Doniger prefers.
The book was released in the U.S. earlier this year, but its recent release in India has kicked up a dust storm all over again. When academic freedom intersects with the passion, sensitivities and spiritual practices of believers, who blinks first? Should anyone have to blink at all? Doniger delights in provoking with her racy prose, and in recent interviews to the Indian press, she provoked a range of emotions indeed.
Doniger's prose, whimsical, titillating and metaphorical to some, is infuriating to others; and much of her writing on Hinduism distinguishes her, not as one who detests Hinduism, but one who enjoys the ancient, expansive tradition, to use as her muse. But her penchant to sexualize, eroticize and exoticise passages from some of the holiest Hindu epics and scriptures leaves many Hindus reading her analyses disappointed and frustrated.
"Tell me where I have interpreted something wrong," Doniger challenges her critics, believing that there are none among her Hindu readers who have either the wherewithal or the patience to do it. To her surprise, the gauntlet she has thrown has been picked up, and of much worry, factual inaccuracies in her latest book detailed in a prominent Indian media outlet, open the door to questions about Doniger's methodology, and more disturbingly, intentions behind her latest venture.
But we revisit her work now not just because Doniger provokes the Hindu American community much in the same way that her attack on Sarah Palin's femininity viscerally offended conservatives. Doniger represents what many believe to be a fundamental flaw in the academic study of Hinduism: that Hindu studies is too often the last refuge of biased non-Hindu academics presenting themselves as "experts" on a faith that they study without the insight, recognition or reverence that a practicing Hindu or non-Hindu striving to study Hinduism from the insider's perspective would offer.
Hinduism is tenuously positioned in the academy: in contrast to Christianity, Judaism, Islam and even Buddhism which are dominated by recognized scholars that actually practice the faith, Hinduism is more often taught by scholars viewing the religion with the clinical dispassion of one studying ancient Sumeria--neither passionate about the theology of Hinduism nor concerned about the beliefs and sentiments of the faithful. Indeed part of the "blame" for underrepresentation in the Academy lies with the Hindu community which has long focused its academic pursuits in the sciences and engineering; this, albeit slowly, is changing. But until we see a real shift in the imbalance, we as Hindus, especially in the West, continue to grapple with misguided portrayals of Hinduism which do not reach far beyond caste, cows, curry and in this case, the Kamasutras, because the bully pulpit of the ivory tower is owned by the likes of Doniger to permeate the media, school textbooks and the public square.
And as such, we pose two questions to Professor Doniger and others in the Academy:
1) Do academics that study religion as non-believers share a responsibility to consider or respect the religious beliefs ascribed by adherents to their scripture?
Very simply, Doniger denigrates the Gods and Goddesses that Hindus worship as a manifestation of the Divine. Parallelisms are proferred in her latest book comparing the sacred stone icon representing Lord Shiva to a leather strap-on sex toy, and Lord Rama, one of the most popular deities in India, is accused of acting out of fear that he was becoming a sex-addict like his father. A Danish cartoonist would be hard pressed to match the disturbing parodies of a believer's faith that Doniger offers.
The great Hindu yogi, Patanjali, cautioned in the 2nd century BCE, against falling into the trap of false "meaning making" when reading scriptures that contain subtle, esoteric meanings as well as moral edicts. Doniger's book becomes then an idiosyncratic exposition that is "meaning making" out of profound revelations perhaps not meant for the spiritually untrained, non-seeking mind.
2) Is Freudian psychoanalysis relevant to deconstructing scripture and its divine and human characters (the latter now dead) from several millenia ago, and what, if any value, is in these interpretations?
A Freudian true-believer, Doniger may believe that sex, desire and repressed urges animate the human condition, but modern/humanistic psychology has challenged this school of thought's approach as limited and limiting. Using Freudian analysis, then, to retrospectively find psychosexual motivations of Hindu deities seems egregiously inappropriate. Expected from a fringe Freudian die-hard perhaps, but from a celebrated authority on Hinduism at the prestigious University of Chicago?
As Professor Ramesh Rao, the chair of Communication Studies and Theatre at Longwood University, wrote to me after reading Doniger's latest book, "Doniger's is not a prayerful, thoughtful approach, but a whimsical, frivolous approach to both the mundane as well as the esoteric."
The Hindus: An Alternative History does not represent nor provide insight to the contemporary practices and interpretations of Hinduism and its scripture. It is as if Doniger and contemporary Hindus are reading completely different texts, given the differences in their presuppositions and inherent biases. Comparatively, though the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament are the same text, containing the same collection of words, the meaning to Jews and Christians is very different. In the end, rather than offering the reader a depiction of a family of vibrant religious traditions practiced by a billion Hindus globally, Doniger offers a deconstruction of some of the most important epics and episodes in Hindu thought and belief that shocks and offends at best, and offers grist to Hindu hate groups at worst. Indeed, pornographic depictions of Hindu Gods and Goddesses captured from Doniger's writings grace the websites of some banefully anti-Hindu hate sites with their own varied agendas.
Doniger's work demonstrates a lifelong fascination for Hinduism. But her proclivity for sexualizing Hindu deities and expressing caustic intolerance of critics from outside academia is legend. With a broad sweep, she has delighted in tarring many of her opponents as Hindu extremists; a tactic that only decimates the public space for debate.
Academic freedom should not be infringed upon and is sacrosanct. But academic legitimacy in the eyes of the public, outside of what is oft viewed as the incestuous academy, sets a much higher bar.
The Hindu American Foundation is a 501©(3), non-profit, non-partisan organization promoting the Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and pluralism.