Dūruktī
By Jit Majumdar
- harsh speech; ignoble speech; false or damaging speech
- harsh speech personified as the daughter of Krodha (rage) and Hińsā (violence) and the wife of Kali, the demon personifying the age of darkness and vice (Bg. Pur.).
In this book, we analyze the psycho-social consequences faced by Indian American children after exposure to the school textbook discourse on Hinduism and ancient India. We demonstrate that there is an intimate connection—an almost exact correspondence—between James Mill’s colonial-racist discourse (Mill was the head of the British East India Company) and the current school textbook discourse. This racist discourse, camouflaged under the cover of political correctness, produces the same psychological impacts on Indian American children that racism typically causes: shame, inferiority, embarrassment, identity confusion, assimilation, and a phenomenon akin to racelessness, where children dissociate from the traditions and culture of their ancestors.
|
By Jit Majumdar