Hindu Blasphemy
According to the Emory Wheel:
The publisher, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, withdrew the book from the market in India Monday after a petition started by a member of the Hindu Students’ Council at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette demanded the “author and publisher to give an unequivocal apology to the Hindus” and asked that the publisher immediately withdraw the book from circulation. The petition insists that Courtright stop using the book in academia, rewrite the passages they consider offensive and issue a new publication with revisions and clarifications. After withdrawing the book, the Indian publisher issued a public apology, promising no such “lapse” would occur in the future.
The widespread objection to the book surrounds its overtly sexual themes and its cover, which depicts a nude Lord Ganesha. The book was first published and circulated in America in 1985 by Oxford University Press. In 2001, Motilal Banarsidass circulated it in India. ... [Subash Razdan, a member of the local Hindu community] ... said Courtright’s views are inaccurate because he does not practice Hinduism.
This is not a new book - it was first published in America in 1985 by Oxford University Press; only in 2001 did Motilal Banarsidass pick it up and start to circulate it in India. It's a shame that they are now taking it out of circulation in India because some Hindus in America object to it; but the demands that he republish and change his interpretation simply because some Hindus are offended is just outrageous. If they want people to read a more Hindu interpretation of Ganesh, they should take the time to go and write a book themselves instead of expecting someone else to write it for them.
And what can be said of dear Razdan? The less the better, I suppose - to think that someone would argue that a person's interpretation of a story in a religion is wrong because they don't practice that religion is absurd in the extreme. And of course, a person cannot convert to Hinduism which, in Razdan's universe, means that no one outside of Hinduism could ever produce an accurate interpretation of anything within Hinduism. That's a nice little closed system - it certainly prevents any outsiders from offering alternatives and critiques, doesn't it? But that's just a coincidence I am sure.
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Comments
I agree with the author that even non-Hindus have every right to comment on Hinduism as long as the comments are founded on solid research and groundwork. However, I would like to bring to his notice that Hinduism is not just a belief-system, like other religions in the world. It is a way of life, that covers all aspects of human living. The author says “no one can convert to Hinduism”, whereby he assumes a very narrow interpretation of “conversion” as seen in Christianity. As far as Hinduism is concerned, anybody who believes in the concepts of doing good to everyone, being a dutiful person towards all his relations and friends, being selfless and equanimous, and the overall philosophy of life proposed in Hinduism, is a Hindu for all practical purposes. Hinduism does not require any type of formal conversion through anointment or rituals. Its lack of zeal for recruiting converts has been misinterpreted by this author as a “closed system”, where in fact Hinduism is the most open system one may find anywhere in the world. There is nothing in Hinduism that is mandatory, no such thing as heresy, nothing against practising other religions, and nothing to prevent other people from practising this philosophy either. In fact, the way the word “religion” is currently used in the world, I would not want to trivialize the role of Hinduism in people’s lives by calling it a mere religion.
As for the issue at hand, I cannot imagine any need for the nude picture of Lord Ganesha. I cannot imagine any interpretation from even an outsider that would require him to portray that, especially when Indians are a more modest people than western people. Leave aside the gods for a minute, but even nudity in common people is extremely frowned upon. It is for the sake of that modesty that Indian people objected to the nude portrayal of Ganesha, not simply to shut out an outsider’s viewpoint. Looks like the author is unable to perceive criticism against him without being unfavourably biased against the critics, without trying to get an objective understanding of what is really offensive to them.