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        One overriding fact which clearly emerges from this path- breaking book “Invading the Sacred, An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America” is that the entire blame of biased and selective portrayals of Hinduism and Indian culture by Western scholars cannot be laid at the doorstep of American Academy of Religion (AAR) or even of biased scholars within it alone. Indians themselves have contributed to the problem in significant ways. While American Universities have major programmes for studying world religions and cultures, Indian Universities do not offer similar programs. This is what the editors of this book have to say on this vital point:

        “While the intellectually rigorous discourse of traditional Indian religious scholarship continues to limp along in ashrams, mattas, Jain apasaras and gurudwaras, in order to engage in a serious academic study of Hinduism, Indians have to go to American, British or Australian Universities because there are hardly any opportunities available for such study within India. In other words, unlike all other major world religions, Hinduism does not have its own home team, by which we mean a committed group of academic scholars who are both practioners of the faith and well-respected in the academy at the highest levels. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Sikhism each have their respective home teams in the academy—in fact, multiple homes representing different denominations of these religions. Even China has recently established numerous well-funded Confucius Institutes around the world that teach Chinese civilizational approaches to human issues on par with western models.”

        It is also sad to reflect that while Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, Arab, and even various European cultures—such as Irish, Italian and French, for instance—have actively funded and managed the American academic representation of their cultural identities and lineage, Indian-Americans have not done so to a comparable, much less similar, extent. The Indians in America have remained content with building temples, while their cultural depiction and portrayal in the education system and in the media have been literally abandoned to the tender mercies of the dominant western traditions.

        Consequently Indian-American and especially Hindu-American children are often the target of cultural and racial bias and prejudice in the classroom. These children learn nothing or are taught nothing about the civilizational achievements of India in science and technology from the beginnings of pre-history or of India's contributions to modern American lifestyles like yoga, vegetarianism, non-violent approaches to political and social issues.

        Thus the real and eternal India remains or is deliberately made to remain a dark and invisible continent in the classrooms of America. As the editors of this book have rightly concluded “When academically licensed (largely by AAR and RISA—words within brackets mine!) misportrayal of the oppressiveness, weirdness and dangerousness of Indian culture and religions (mainly of the Wendy Doniger variety—words within brackets mine!) is added to this mix, it has a powerful impact on Hindu-American children, many of who try to hide the religious identity. Many of them become disaffected with their families and communities. The pride that Christian- American children take in their civilisational contributions to the world is lacking in many Indians, and this leads to emotional pain and self-alienation.”

        It is now a well known historical fact that the “Control” of 'OTHERS' by white Americans resulted in the ethnic cleansing, incarceration, enslavement, invasions and genocides in several parts of the world. Native Americans, Blacks, Jews, Gypsies, Cubans, Mexicans, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Vietnamese and now Iraqis have suffered brutalities let loose by the American State/ Society which were later legitimized by depictions of them as primitive/ exotic, irrational, heathen, savage and dangerous and as lacking in human values. I fully endorse the view of Rajiv Malhotra that there is the alarming possibility that the combined failure of Indian-Americans to translate their personal professional success into respect for their cultures and traditions might lead to a condition paralleling that of Jews in Europe before the II World War and in the event of an unforeseen or sudden economic downturn in the not very distant future, they could easily become scapegoats in America.

        Against this very bad and sad background, the learned editors of this book make their most important point. India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world today. This fact has been noted by the business world in the West and by all the top business schools in America and Europe. Yet with all this pointed understanding, there are several factors / aspects relating to India which are adversely affecting its total image and credibility in the world. India's reputation in the world continues to be fragile. The Western perception of India, partly shaped by Eurocentric academic wisdom about India's religious and cultural milieu, views all Indian problems as stemming from its “Religion and Culture”. This outlook will undermine India's future unless all the enlightened Indians acting together in concert come forward to change the Western perception. Otherwise, all our so-called spectacular success in the IT world today may be very short-lived. As Simon Anholt rightly observes: “Just like any other country, India needs to consider perceptions alongside reality, and recognize their almost equivalent importance in today's globalised world. India's brand image may not be complete, up-to-date or even very fair, but so much in the modern world depends on what people believe to be true, that a good twenty-first century Government must learn to be as good at branding the country as building the country.”

        India does not lack entrepreneurial talent. What is lacking is economic, cultural, religious and political nationalism, so palpable in Japan and South Korea where their economies took off on a high growth trajectory. What is also absent is the spirit of competition and innovation, work culture and discipline, accountability in public life and above all, a strategic vision to make India stronger, economically, politically, socially and culturally. In this context I cannot help quoting the stirring words Shri Aurobindo spoken in 1907-1908: “What nationalism asks is for life first and above all things; life, and still more life, is its cry.

        Let us by every means get rid of the pall of death which stifled us, let us dispel first the passivity, quiescence, the unspeakable oppression of inertia, which has long been our curse; that is the first and imperative need… The Mother's feet are on the threshold, but she wants to hear the true cry that rushes out from the heart, before she will enter…The Mother asks for no schemes, no plans, no methods….She asks for our hearts, our lives, nothing less, nothing more… The only qualification the new nationalism asks for is a body made in the womb of an Indian mother, a heart that can feel for India, a brain that can think and plan for her greatness, a tongue that can adore her name or hands that can fight in her quarrel. The new nationalism is the rebirth in India of the KSHATRIYA, the Samurai.”

        The most important Chapter in this book is Chapter 10. It is all about power. Soon after Rajiv Malhotra published his famous essay RISA LILA-1: Wendy's Child Syndrome in 2002, paid mercenaries of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and its subsidiary RISA, launched a vicious attack on him and those scholars of Indian origin who shared his views. His critique of the writings of Wendy Doniger and others belonging to her School was dismissed as inauthentic.

        What is shocking about this new fang of neo-American Cultural and intellectual imperialism is that Hindus' own new religious interpretations are dismissed as shoddy work, not worthy of any credence or recognition or public notice. Rajiv Malhotra raised some unanswerable questions: “Do non-white people have the same rights of re-interpretation, WITHOUT supervision by the dominant culture, and NOT as mere proxies? Furthermore, why am I attacked when I use a method to deconstruct certain RISA members, when they use the very same methods themselves? Could it be that my conclusions are a bit shocking to someone locked into only one horizon of meaning?”

        Rajiv Malhotra makes a very important point when he says that many Western scholars of Indian religions are experts in manipulating and dealing with poor villagers in India, whom they lovingly describe as “native informants” and from whom they extract research data, in the manner and measure required, using their own preconceived filters. This has often been done with the collusion of slavish Indian scholars, NGOs and intermediaries. The native informants feel highly obliged to the foreign scholars and go out of their way to extend full cooperation to them because they have a lot of grant money to splash around in the data gathering process.

        Antonio de Nicholas has effectively debunked RISA's obsessive claims of superior rationality for European people in these words: “Nothing of what RISA scholars claim of yoga or 'Hindu Religion' has much to do with Indic texts and the practice of religion in India. Notice also, that you are dealing mostly with the University of Chicago. My personal experience with them in philosophy is as bad as yours in religion. According to these (Western) scholars, Indic texts have no rationality; they are mythical and therefore not historical and therefore false and irrational… My answer is that to proclaim one single rationality as RATIONAL is sheer irrationality and conceptual imperialism.”

        Every self-respecting and patriotic Indian would be highly inspired by what Rajiv Malhotra has written under the title “We Are Not Native Informants Any More!” He has said that the specific kind of Indian that certain RISA scholars are most uncomfortable with, is the Indian who is already successful in a Western organisation, and especially one who has managed over a large number of Westerners for an extensive period of time. Such a person is not likely to idolize them or be taken for a ride. Western scholars can neither exploit such a person as a 'native informant', nor patronize him in the same manner as a young NRI student looking for a good grade. In short Western scholars would love to prey upon only uneducated Indians.