USA, December 9, 2005: This and the following article both came to HPI’s attention today. We do not normally publish such ad hominem material, that is, personal attacks, and do not vouch that any particular piece of information here is verifiable. It is useful, however, for Hindus concerned with the California textbook issue to know about these articles.
This first article, called “Harvard Professor Disparages Hindus” appears on india-forum.com at “source” above and is attributed to Dr. Srinivasan Kalyanaraman.
Article begins:
Recently, in a Communist-leaning political list better known for its uncritical beliefs in myths like Aryan Invasion and its negation of historical facts, Harvard professor Michael Witzel made some startling claims about Hindu immigrants to the USA. One of his acolytes invented the acronym HINA for Hindus in North America. Witzel disingenuously and infamously transliterated it as “hiina” and translated it as “lost” or “abandoned.” This Sanskrit word has many other derogatory meanings such as “inferior,” “insecure,” “lowly” and “defective.”
It caught my attention that Witzel had described Hindus using the very same phrase – “lost people” – which a rabid Christian fundamentalist and anti-Semite had used to describe the Jews a few years ago.
Rev. Bailey Smith, then-president of the Southern Baptists, had infamously declared:
“God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew” and added, “without Jesus Christ, they [the Jews] are lost.”[1]
One does not know whether, or to what extant, Witzel shares Smith’s fanatical and bigoted beliefs. But Witzel was instrumental in urging activism against the Hindu initiative, as a result of which his cosignatory urged a Hindu-bashing Christian fundamentalist to mobilize a show of strength against the Hindus of California, as we will see later. Witzel also makes fun of the Hindu custom of cremating their dead:
“[Hindus immigrants to the USA] have begun —as an old, very conservative US Brahmin friend pointed out to me already in 1994–building crematoria as well.”[2]
Witzel also makes fun of Hindu Gods, rituals and second generation American Hindus:
“Second generation [Hindu] people just understand [Hinduism] as “boaring rituals” (puja, etc.), temple visits and Indian (mythological) comic books … All such items add to the heady brew that we have seen emerging here…”[3]
Considering that our Harvard professor has specifically enclosed the words “boaring rituals” within quotes, one cannot but assume that it was intended to make fun of the Hindu God Vishnu, who incarnated as a boar.
Article continues, in the same vein, at “source” above.