Talk:Farah Godrej

By Sachi Anjunkar

Farah Godrej is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Riverside as of May 2024. According to his profile, his research interests are Meditative and yogic traditions of South Asia, Gandhi’s political thought, Indian political thought, cosmopolitanism, comparative political theory, environmental political thought, and the carceral state.

She demonstrates a lack of understanding of ancient Indian traditions and the and Darshana, leading to interpretations that fail to capture the depth and nuance of these foundational texts and cultural contexts.

In 2016, he signed a letter endorsing a letter submitted by the South Asia Faculty Group where it addressed the State Board of Education, California Department of Education, dated May 17, 2016. In this letter they requested removing the word India from textbooks. In addition, they falsely stated:

1. "There is no established connection between Hinduism and the Indus Civilization."
2. "It is inappropriate to remove mention of the connection of caste to Hinduism."

Publications related to India

Books

1. Godrej, Farah. Fred Dallmayr: Cross-Cultural Theory, Post-Secularity, Cosmopolitanism. Routledge Innovators in Political Theory Series, Routledge, 2017.
2. Godrej, Farah. Cosmopolitan Political Thought: Method, Practice, Discipline. Oxford University Press, 2011.

Articles

1. Godrej, Farah. Gandhi, Foucault, and the Politics of Self-Care. Theory & Event, vol. 20, no. 4, October 2017, pp. 894-922.
2. Godrej, Farah. The Neoliberal Yogi and the Politics of Yoga. Political Theory, vol. 45, no. 6, 2017, pp. 772-800.
3. Godrej, Farah. Orthodoxy and Dissent in Hinduism’s Meditative Traditions: A Critical Tantric Politics? New Political Science, vol. 38, no. 2, 2016, pp. 256-271.

   In this article, Farah Godrej gives false information on what tantra is, and displays her biased views on Hinduism as the ultimate truth. Further, she fails to conduct thorough and accurate research, according to the author, Hinduism is based on caste hierarchy and patriarchy and that tantra practice is a rebel on Hinduism. The author writes the following unsubstantiated and prejudiced statements:

   Tantric philosophy (particularly in its Shakta form), arguing that it can serve as a much-needed antidote to conservative patriarchial, masculinist, sexual, and caste hierarchies within its originary context of South Asia.

   The author relies on her own limited understanding of the concept, leading to misinterpretation and misinformation for the audience. "Sāṃkhya’s ontology—developed in the early centuries CE and largely accepted by the later Yōga school sees matter (prakṛti) as inferior to absolute, immortal spirit or ultimate reality (purusha)."

   • "along with other classical Indian philosophical systems, Sāṃkhya and Yōga prescribe complex practices of ascetic discipline in order to extricate the individual from the grip of the illusory feminine principle."
   • "But despite this ostensible nondualism, Advaita Vedānta betrays the legacy of Sāṃkhya dualism, continuing its negative valuation of materiality and rendering suspect the status of the phenomenal world."
   • "while Hinduism, like its subcontinental cousin, Buddhism, was repeatedly charged with apolitical quietism, these modern reinterpretations demonstrate that these traditions lend themselves to quite diverse ways of understanding the worthwhile human life."
   • "Tantra, a tradition which first emerged in the early medieval era, prefers a direct challenge to the patriarchal, ascetic strands of Hindu philosophy described above, through its elevation of the divine feminine, its transgression of caste hierarchies, and its world-affirming embrace of corporeality as the ultimate route to divine realization."
   • "Prior to the modern period, there was no single category of Tantra, only a series of texts and practices that were later loosely grouped as “Tantras.”"
   • "Tantra is thought to be the most radically nondualist school of Indian thought."
   • "Shakti takes a multiplicity of forms, each of which is worshipped for her different capacities and gifts: Durga, the fierce warrior-goddess, subdues powerful male demons single-handedly in battle; her alter-ego Kali, the demon-slayer who licks the blood of warriors with her tongue, is often depicted naked, wearing a necklace of skulls, wildly sticking her tongue out, and standing assertively on the prone body of her male consort (sometimes squatting over his erect phallus); Lalita, the goddess of erotic spirituality and triumphant femininity, personifies eros in all its forms; Parvati combines the erotic play of the intense, prolonged sexual encounter with spiritual engagement, representing the union of nondual bliss; and so on."
   • "Left-handed Tantra asserts that to embrace the presence of Shakti in everything, the tantrika (practitioner) must learn to experience divinity within horrifying and ostensibly polluting aspects of life shunned by conventional morality."
   • "Tantra’s predecessors were criticized for suggesting that moral distinctions between good and evil are an illusory, divine drama."
   • "At best, such a pursuit could result in an apolitical indifference to suffering; at worst, an amoral lack of distinction between right and wrong. This view of Tantra as degenerate prevailed in British colonial legitimations of the imperial project."
   • "The predominant metaphysics of Sāṃkhya, Yōga, and Advaita Vedānta are largely co-extensive with Brahminical Hinduism—that orthodox branch which accepts and reveres the canonical authority of the Vedas, considered to be the dominant tradition of moral reflection."
   • "The caste and gender hierarchies of orthodox Brahminical Hinduism have historically comported with this dualism: women and lower castes perform social and material roles which are corporeal and closer to nature, freeing men and higher castes to engage in the all-important pursuits of contemplation and renunciation."
   • "This is particularly relevant when Tantra is imported into a neoliberal context where social problems are privatized, requiring individual solutions rather than collective action."
   • "The author subscribe to the idea that "women in India are not so much empowered by Tantric practice, but rather used to further the spiritual advancement of men, reinforcing a highly patriarchal social system.""
   • "the vast majority of contemporary attempts to revive classical Hinduism for political purposes have almost exclusively followed the patriarchal, Brahminical model described earlier, where gender and caste hierarchies are seen as appropriate reflections of a dualist metaphysics that devalues the feminine and the corporeal."
   • "“Hindu” nation expunging Islamic influence on India; high-caste resentment regarding the socio-economic mobility of lower castes; and the invocation of a retrograde conception of gender and sexuality requiring traditional, domestic roles for Indian women, associating the “pure,” asexual Hindu woman with the purity of the nation itself, and frowning upon all expressions of sexuality—particularly female sexuality— as foreign to Hindu culture."

4. Godrej, Farah. Ascetics, Warriors and a Gandhian Ecological Citizenship. Political Theory, vol. 40, no. 4, 2012, pp. 437-465.
5. Godrej, Farah. Spaces for Counter-Narratives: The Phenomenology of Reclamation. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, vol. 32, no. 3, 2011, pp. 111-133.
6. Godrej, Farah. Gandhi’s Civic Ahimsa: A Standard for Public Justification in Multicultural Democracies. International Journal of Gandhi Studies, vol. 1, 2011, pp. 75-106.
7. Godrej, Farah. Towards a Cosmopolitan Political Thought: The Hermeneutics of Interpreting the Other. Polity, vol. 41, no. 2, 2009, pp. 135-165.
8. Godrej, Farah. Response to ‘What is Comparative Political Theory?’ Review of Politics, vol. 71, 2009, pp. 567-582.
9. Godrej, Farah. Nonviolence and Gandhi’s Truth: A Method for Moral and Political Arbitration. Review of Politics, vol. 68, no. 2, 2006, pp. 287-317.

Book Chapters

1. Godrej, Farah. Secularism in India: A Gandhian Approach. Multiculturalism in the British Commonwealth: Comparative Perspectives on Theory and Practice, edited by Mark Bevir and Richard Ashcroft, University of California Press, 2019.
2. Godrej, Farah. Culture and Difference: Non-Western Approaches to Defining Environmental Issues. Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory, edited by Teena Gabrielson, Cheryl Hall, John M. Meyer, and David Schlosberg, Oxford University Press, 2015.
3. Godrej, Farah. The Universalist Aspirations of Nationalist Dissent: Lessons from the Debates Between Gandhi and Tagore. Cosmopolitanism and the Legacies of Dissent, edited by Tamara Caraus and Camil Alexandru Parvu, Routledge, 2015, pp. 111-133.
4. Godrej, Farah. Neoliberalism, Militarization and the ‘Price’ of Dissent: Policing Protest at the University of California. The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent, edited by Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira, University of Minnesota Press, 2013.