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 (
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?262511 ), 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.

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