In one of my earlier (and mollifying?) blog posts (White Hindu Converts: Mimicry Or Mockery?) I addressed the sincerity and post-colonial complexities of white Hindu converts whose actions could be perceived as mimicry morphing to mockery. Though the article did concern these converts, careful readers noted that the...

Another good question to ask concerns the propriety of appropriating or merely utilizing purportedly proprietary Hindu symbols, practices, clothing, images and so on.

The question -- basically, "Who owns Hinduism?" -- revolves around a number of separate, but related questions: First, who speaks on behalf of, or represents the...

The bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon are a terrible tragedy and a chilling example of the worst kinds of psychopathic and misanthropic human behavior. I weep for the families and friends for those immediately affected and for those whose lives and memories have forever changed.

I hope that they...

A challenging question that many religious leaders and religious people often struggle to answer concerns the existence of suffering in the world. Whether this suffering is human or non-human, religions strive to provide answers for why such suffering occurs in the first place. If authoritative and authorized texts or spokespeople...

That festive "Holiday" season is again upon us. As I've mentioned in an earlier HuffPost blog, "Diaspora Hinduism and the December Dilemma," the season is a challenging one for members of the Hindu Diaspora.

Diaspora Hindus often reflect upon the degree to which they and their children...

A good question to ask is whether there are some religious beliefs and practices that are off limits to any analysis whatsoever.

Though many have held, and continue to hold, this position, Mircea Eliade, a Romanian historian of religion who taught at the Divinity School of the...

While I am indeed thankful for some things this Thanksgiving Day, such as my family, my job, and so on, there are things that this Indian-American from Cleveland is NOT thankful for.

1. That one element of this national and quasi-religious celebration is the slaughter and exploitation of the indigenous...

It is ironic that, while so many Diasporic Hindus mimic imaginary archetypes of "white" American culture in order to assimilate, to deny their colonized and oppressed histories, to (futilely) self-blanch, and to be accepted by the dominant white Christian privileged culture, a select group of white Americans do the opposite....

The United States Supreme Court is currently deliberating Fisher v. University of Texas. This case revisits decisions made in Grutter v. Bollinger, allowing university admissions officers to consider race and ethnicity when admitting students. The goal of these affirmative action practices was to achieve a "critical mass of diversity," which,...

Another good question that Hindus, especially North American diasporic Hindus, ought to ask themselves concerns the indispensability of Sanskrit for Hindu ritual and prayers, basically for Hindu liturgy. Though it is true that vernacular languages have played a significant role in regional and devotion forms of Hinduism, the version that...

Self-proclaimed Hindus ought to have a position on the centrality of class (varna) and caste (jati). While Hinduism is known for its tremendous diversity, for "Hindu" to be useful category, there has to be some religious claims and teachings that are agreed upon by all who proclaim to be Hindus....

In recent events, vigils and prayer meetings following, marking and responding to the horrific murders at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin there were many who beat the inter-religious/interfaith dialogue drum. One often hears worn out and trite mantras: "We need to learn about, and from, one another's 'faiths' and/or religions!";...

While this tragic event again demands that Americans confront issues pertaining to gun control, it also demands that we confront issues about who are the easy targets and why they are perceived that way. Though we do not know (yet) if this was a hate crime or if it was...

Yoga is in the news again, though no longer as a panacea for all the world(s)' problems, or as a benign souvenir from the so-called mystical "East," but as an easy way to injure one's body. If you are a yoga practitioner who believes that your practice (or your guru's...

There is no period in the Gregorian calendar more demanding and transformative for diaspora Hindus than the weeks leading up to and culminating with Christmas. In daycares and schools, in workplaces and civic spaces, on television and in the digital media in North America, Hindus are constantly reminded about the...

It is concurrently ironic and hypocritical that the very same "Hindus" who champion "Hinduism" to be the only tolerant religion are also intolerant of academic and other publications that are incongruous with their imagined and reified vision of Hinduism, and especially with their homogenized version of the epic Rāmāyaṇa. The...

Should Hindus study Hinduism? Or, for that matter, anything that is not prima facie germane to their vocational aspirations? There are two good reasons why they definitely should study Hinduism: one from the perspective of the philosophy of religions, and one from the perspective of Hindu "theology," specifically from the...

Should Hindus Study Hinduism?

When I teach "Introduction to Hinduism" in the fall of every year most of my students are neither Hindu nor of Indian heritage. I often hear from the few Hindu students who do take my class, that their Hindu peers felt that by reason of their...