Rutgers University's statement on the recent Audrey Truschke controversy clearly establishes that the anti-Hindu bigotry is not a one-off exception but is an institutionalised hatred. All this makes one question why shouldn't these people be graded according to their anti-Hinduness and attempts be made to use it as a funding parameter.
Till yesterday, the world believed that a certain Audrey Truschke is the problem. But, when the university which employed her came heavily in support of her, the cat is out of the bag – it turns out that patronage for charlatans like Audrey Truschke is institutional.
Is it because of their anti-Indian and anti-Hindu bias bordering evangelism or is it because of a scare of funding being stopped is something which needs to be looked into. But the verdict is this. A charlatan like Audrey Truschke who doesn’t know Sanskrit but is a scholar in Sanskrit and who doesn’t know Persian but is a scholar in Persian and over whose scholarly competence much is already written has got more say over Hindu matters in the western academia than a person who is actually knowledged in Hindu matters.
The anger is palpable. The statement by Hindu on Campus who initiated a signature campaign after Truschke’s recent rant reads thus.
We are deeply hurt by the response of Rutgers Newark. In response to a petition signed by a large number of Hindu students and our allies. Rutgers – a university that claims to pride itself on diversity and inclusion – continues to signal that Hindu student voices do not matter. To re-iterate: we welcome academic freedom & pursuit of scholarship. We don’t welcome a professor tweeting that our deities are misogynist pigs, that our texts endorse rape, & that Hindu orgs supported the assault on the US capitol. Ironically, the Rutgers statement unintentionally demonstrates their lack of commitment to Hindu students. They defend Truschke’s claims under the banner of “free speech”, & take the stance to protect her from Twitter trolls that send “vile messages and threats”.
Tellingly, there is no similar call to protect Hindu students from the equally vile and threatening messages that we’ve received from individuals who are directly enabled by Prof Truschke. We’ve shared countless examples of the hate messages we’ve received, & can share more: Rutgers continues to ignore the impact that Truschke’s words have on Hindu students. When she labels our deities as “misogynistic pigs” & asserts that our texts endorse rape – Hindu students have to live with the colonial-age myth that Hinduism makes us barbaric & uncivilized. When Truschke asserts that Hindus took part in the capitol riots merely after seeing the Indian flag, despite evidence to the contrary – she paints a false & dangerous picture of Hindu students, who each have our own political beliefs, as aligned with white supremacy and violence As Hindu students, we cannot study and live in an environment in which we feel unsafe. How are we supposed to feel safe, when a Professor can block us (a student-run handle) with no prior engagement – yet can continue to tweet at us & energize her followers who call us “dotheads” If, after all, academic excellence is inseparable from diversity of perspectives and voices, Rutgers would respect the wishes of almost 6,000 individuals who have signed our open letter and shared our concerns. Rutgers refers to “rigorous” scholarship, but social media of course does not qualify. Most of our examples of Truschke’s bigoted stances come from non-academic OpEd’s and Twitter posts.
Why won’t Rutgers take a stand against the countless examples of bigoted and dangerous insinuations that Truschke makes online, where she enables danger towards Hindu students? Bad behavior coming from anyone, especially those in authority, must be dealt with fairly. Every religious community deserves this respect, but Rutgers conveniently leaves out their Hindu minority and holds us to a different standard. Why is that? Our voice deserve to be heard.
Source: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1369157924338229249.html
The paradox in the whole of this episode here is, we have a Jew who understands the pain of Holocaust (I am assuming she understands) but aggressively whitewashes another holocaust – the one perpetrated against Hindus by invading Muslims over centuries. Is it a coincidence or is it deliberate malice that she decided to whitewash the genocidal antics of Aurangzeb Alamgir, considered to be one of the most Islamo-supremacist of Indian Muslim rulers and tried to shut down every voice which countered her with facts? That he is reputed to have killed more than 3 million people should be brushed away as misinformation?
There are four problems with her – knowledge, intellectual dishonesty, malice and bad reviews from students. Yes. There are ample examples from all four of the heads.
1/ During the Capitol Riots, Prof Truschke spread misinformation.
— Hindu On Campus (@hinduoncampus) March 6, 2021
Truschke tweeted about the presence of an Indian flag at the scene and immediately declared it to be the work of "The Hindu Right," even though various media outlets showed that the perpetrator was not a Hindu. pic.twitter.com/ZdwxkcUShz
Another famous example is the rebuttal by True Indology and Dimple Kaul.
Her recent tweets are no different either. What sort of neutrality are we expecting from a person with such deep-rooted hatred of anything Indian and Hindu?
But, Rutgers coming heavily in support of her topples the apple cart completely. With the stand which Rutgers University took, this Hindu hatred turned out to be institutionalized. It is looking as if a billion strong religion in the world is no more relevant than the dead religions of the Incas or the Vikings. Make no mistake, reading an Amar Chitra Katha version of the story of Vrttra or reading an English translation of Oppenkhat doesn’t make you a scholar on Hinduism or South Indian History. You need to read and understand what’s happening and how things tie up.
Let me give an example here. The 1296 Devagiri raid of Alauddin Khilji is considered to be a gospel and is accepted in the academia far and wide. But, let me pose a question over this. Can you reconstruct it? Conditions:
Let me tell you one thing. You can’t reconstruct it. That is the level of issue we are facing with Indian scholarship. Reading a single book is not enough. Reading a bunch of books reinforcing your point is not enough. Sometimes, you may need to know the knowledge of the terrain to understand the history.
Under this setting, what use do we have of a scholar of Hinduism or a scholar of South Indian history who never did serious field work in India and who never spent time in a Hindu religious setting? All this begs one to question, who exactly should be treated as a scholar on Hinduism or a scholar on South Indian History? May be, it makes sense for us to have a ratings scale over over someone who calls himself a scholar on Hinduism or India? Some basic parameters would suffice.
Unless we as Hindus come up with a way to rate the anti-Hindu and anti-Indian bias of Indian and Hindu departments spread all over the globe and define funding parameters using them, things are not going to change. If Rutgers proved Audrey Truschke is not the problem, but Rutgers is, it’s a whole lot of institutional bigotry we are talking about, here.
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