Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children Book Cover.webp

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.

Talk:Ghatam

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

ghaṭam Indian music, though originally one, gradually branched off into two systems: Ghatam.jpg

the North Indian (Uttarādi) and the South Indian (Dakṣiṇādi). The South Indian clas¬sical music retained its original flavour whereas the North Indian system attained a distinctness of its own due to the Persian influence wrought during the Mughal period. Among the percussion instruments used in the South Indian classical music —vocal or instrumental—the mṛdaṅgam is the most important. The next in importance is the ghaṭam. It is actually a large earthen pot carefully prepared so as to give a musical sound when beaten, with the finger-tips and palms of the hands. Unlike the mṛdaṅgam, the śruti or the tonic of the ghaṭam cannot be changed. Hence, the player of a ghaṭam generally keeps a large number of them to suit the different śrutis of the singers.