Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children is now freely available.
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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.


This book is the result of four years of rigorous research and academic peer-review, reflecting our ongoing commitment at Hindupedia to challenge the representation of Hindu Dharma within academia.

Ghaṭasphoṭa

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Ghaṭasphoṭa literally means ‘the rite of breaking a pot’.

Though it is human to err and divine to forgive, there are human beings who are addicted to commit heinous sins. But they are reluctant to repent or perform expiations. Ghaṭasphoṭa is the ritual method of excommunicating such incorrigible people from the society.

In this rite, a ghaṭa or an earthen pot, filled with dirty water is kept on a bed of darbha grass. A slave girl or man is made to kick it with her or his left foot so that it is overturned spilling all the water.

By this ritual, the sinner is considered to have become dead for the society. After this ghaṭasphoṭa, his relatives observe aśauca.[1] They also offer piṇḍas (rice-balls) in his name as to a dead person.


References[edit]

  1. ↑ Aśauca means ceremonial impurity.
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

Contributors to this article

Krishna Maheshwari, Deval Sancheti

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