Writing Across a Cracked World: Hindu Representation and the Logic of Narrative

by Vamsee Juluri

but I do not see it becoming an Establishment-piercing word, especially when paired with the

term “Abrahamic,” which the Establishment except for religious studies scholars probably doesn’t quite comprehend at all. But things can change, and I have an open mind.

For now, it is best to think of, and write about Hindus as subaltern, postcolonial subjects. We were set upon by colonial powers driven by racism, and by religious supremacism (that, you can say, and the phrase “Intolerant Monotheisms,” that’s mine and believe me it sticks to the Liberal American which includes most South Asian Desi Americans).

We are facing the lingering effect of that colonization still in our academia, media and in the public sphere. We are contesting this on our own terms, and it is an unfinished project. When we do finish, it will be win-win for all,

Hindus, Muslims, Christians, atheists, non-hu...

We live in a very diverse world. Our children’s friends, our neighbors, our employees, our employers, may be Christians, Muslims, atheists, or others. We are inevitably confronted by the reality of diversity, and human decency, and at the moment, most

vigilant Hindus are either forced to become two-faced about their concerns, or blurt it out too bluntly and face all sorts of backlash for it, sometimes from their own children.

It is therefore much wiser to cultivate the skill to express our critique in general, universal, moral terms rathe...

dichotomy. This inability is the single biggest risk we face at the moment. As individuals, we may still have some liberties, but the more that the ONLY way we can speak the truth becomes restricted to anonymous Twitter identities and such, the more we will find our own Middle ...

“treadmill ...

Speaking as Hindu and speaking against Hinduphobia should be mainstreamed; delegitimizing hate is our goal. Hinduphobes should be left feeling ashamed, not us for speaking the truth. Just keep loaded language out of it for now. It will happen.

Your narrative MUST overcome the schizophrenic, desperate, self-defeating, unnecessary and inept currently SPLIT HINDU NARRATIVE.

Your story should be created with words that need not be hidden, diluted, or compromised by the reality of coexistence in a diverse nation or world.

The biggest reason for the failure of the political change of 2014 to be accompanied by a narrative change in the institutions in my view is the split narrative. I do not mean that Hindus are disunited (we are diverse, but that didn’t stop us from also being smart most of the time in history when it came to our survival). What I mean is that Hindus (especially the politic...

The “split narrative” refers to the peculiar way in which the story of Hindu pain has failed to find a universal language of expression: it is as if there is one deeply felt narrative Hindus have about being Hindu which is private, and then there is...

In today’s world, language favors human rights, equality, social justice, and most of all, sympathy for a culture and people who have been formerly colonized. To put it even more precisely, the global discourse today offers its sympathy to pretty much anyone who is non-white; that i...

and opened the symbolic ethical space to others. But the narrative of Hindu liberation, of a postcolonial people, of a people of color who fought and overthrew tyranny and produced the world’s largest democracy and a sense of hope for the wh...

dominant narrative, in the Establishment, and even in the Movement. We have let the Hinduphobic forces capture our biggest br...

So what we have is a peculiar split, and it plays out from our micro-narrations to our ...

daily life, we are forced to resort to anonymous Twitter handles to speak not lies and hatred, but just the truth! How absurd is that! The liars who smear Hinduism...

The narrative split in the grand political sphere is even more troubling. Millions of Hindus speak to each other as Hindus, figure things out as Hindus, form networks, organizations, political parties, struggle hard and win elections and actually form governments too. Then, when they assume office, instead of fulfilling the mandate that brought them there, they freeze up. They realize that they simply cannot speak about Hindu pain anymore. So they go off to the UN, and to the G7, and to other global fora, and plunge into a dumbed down parade of platitudes on vasudaiva kutumbakam and secular economic growth for all.

And while they are busy doing that, Hinduphobia, which is a discourse, which is an institutional monstrosity, and which has powerful national, transnational, commercial, and religious interests fueling it, has a field day poisoning the field of discourse,

tearing Middle Hindus apart from their own good sense and the Hindu Movement which strive...

BJP garners Hindu votes in opposition. BJP loses Hind...

The problem is language. Just language. We must write (and speak) in a way that our truth rings out to everyone and not just “woke” Hindus. We must choose our words well.

Hinduphobia is beyond Left and Right. You talk about Hinduphobia of the Left and Hinduphobia of the

(American) Religious Right. But you have to confront the Hinduphobia of capitalism too.

Hinduphobia is the ideology of a capitalist Establishment in a capitalist world.

The Establishment doesn’t have too much of those, but it can think a little bit, and when it sees that your grievance is similar to the object of their complaint too, their twitchy brain cells will react. But when you lead with the chant of “Marxist-Mullah-Missionary,” you are only confirming to Establishment gatekeepers that your goal is to create a Multinational Big Business Neo-liberal Patriarchal Hindutva Zionist White (Brahmanical) Supremacist Empire.

Another example: remember the media frenzy over gau rakshaks, jallikattu, and the cow issue in general? It wasn’t just some taste buds driving the pro-dead-cow discourse but a very frightening and unseen slaughterhouse economy that had been allowed to infest and spread across India during an earlier political regime.

Read Dr. Sahadeva Dasa’s important books on the cow issue, for example, to understand the vast economic forces driving the supposedly human-rights-certified freedom to enjoy beef pageantries. There is nothing stopping you from stealing the next generation of idealistic humanities students (or rescuing them, rather) from the Hinduphobia factory through your words – except your hesitation to go Full Hindu in your critique of all that is wrong today.

Capitalism in its present form is killing your cows, ravaging your soil, poisonin...

favoring your opponents who wish to see you vanish off the planet. ...

is important, I think, to think of one’s self as a writer if one is dealing

with words in any meaningful way, particularly in relation to something as pervasive, powerful, and compelling as a battle of narratives.

That should change. If you like to write, and you are halfway good at it, you should start using the term.

Write as a Hindu, proudly. 3 Writing is serious business-1.

The Establishment takes it seriously enough to offer it as a full-fledged

degree in colleges (usually an MFA or Master’s in Fine Arts in Creative Writing) and as a required course for other majors (such as Writing for Communication, a class I used to teach). It also offers many kinds of workshops, conferences, retreats, contests and fellowships just for writers. The Hindu Movement, so far at least, is focused mostly on “content.” Much of this knowledge spreads through informal networks in the Movement, but is stil...

Taking yourself seriously as a writer is not only about strategic silences but also about what you do say, and how you say it. Even if your interest is in research and facts rather than creative writing (and especially if that is your focus more than creative expression or art), you should pay attention to the feel and presence of your words. Like the clothes you wear, or the car you drive, you do get judged by how

your writing looks. It’s a fact. It might sound elitist, but the Establishment is the elite, and your cause is the people’s, and the planet’s cause.

You have probably climbed many tough ladders in your life and career. Think of writing well enough to conquer a hostile Estab...

Don’t ever let inattention to the form of language get you shut out befor...

Writing is serious business 2 – some of us have been at it as long and as hard as others have at engineering and medical entrance exams too. Recognize the backstage work, and the prep and slog, that goes into seemingly easy things putting words together.

you should think frequently about the work it takes to be a writer. Sometimes, it’s very tangible, like the number of hours spent typing, reading, revising, rewriting, querying, learning new things about the craft, and planning

new articles and books. Sometimes, it’s just life lived a certain way, without a break in the mind, always thinking about your next book, article, or even a well-crafted Facebook post.