Talk:Anantanand Rambachan

By Anirudha patel

Anantanand Rambachan is a Professor of Religion, Philosophy, and Asian Studies at St. Olaf College as of April 2023. According to his university profile, his research interests include Tamil Literature, the History of Colonial India, the History of Missions, Jesuit history, Religion and Colonialism, and Comparative Religion.

In 2021, he along with Hibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the Taliban, co-signed a letter supporting "Dismantling Global Hindutva" Conference, as an academic and scholar and made the allegation

"the current government of India [in 2021] has instituted discriminatory policies including beef bans, restrictions on religious conversion and interfaith weddings, and the introduction of religious discrimination into India’s citizenship laws. The result has been a horrifying rise in religious and caste-based violence, including hate crimes, lynchings, and rapes directed against Muslims, non-conforming Dalits, Sikhs, Christians, adivasis and other dissident Hindus. Women of these communities are especially targeted. Meanwhile, the government has used every tool of harassment and intimidation to muzzle dissent. Dozens of student activists and human rights defenders are currently languishing in jail indefinitely without due process under repressive anti-terrorism laws."

Publication Related to India

1. Rambachan, Anantanand. "Rethinking the One and the Many in Advaita." In The Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations, 2021.
2. Rambachan, Anantanand. "Are there Principles in the Hindu Tradition Consonant with 'Freedom, Dignity and Equality'?" In Multi-religious Perspectives on a Global Ethic, 2020.
3. Rambachan, Anantanand. "Tensions in the Hindu Family." In Deep Understanding for Divisive Times, Interreligious Study Press, Newton Centre, Massachusetts, 2020. p.p. 83-89

   In this book chapter, the author subscribes to the Idea of the "city council of Saint Paul, Minnesota" that the Indian Government's bill on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is Islamophobic and argues that the BJP constitutes an Islamophobic Ideology. The author makes no effort to explain how "CAA" is Islamophobic or even what "CAA" is. Further, the author argue that the "CAA" act should not be registered; according to the author, the BJP government should pass laws that are aligned with Hinduism rather than the Democratic Constitution of India and cites Vedic texts to justify his argument.

4. Long, Jeffery, Anantanand Rambachan, Andrew Nicholson, Lavanya Vemsani, and Abhishek Ghosh. "Letter to CNN President Jeffrey Zucker Objecting to Misrepresentation of Hinduism in Reza Aslan's 'Believer'." March 2017.