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We examine the impact of the current colonial-racist discourse around Hindu Dharma on Indians across the world and prove that this discourse causes psychological effects similar to those caused by racism: shame, inferiority, embarrassment, identity confusion, assimilation, and a detachment from our cultural heritage.

Talk:Sunaina Maira

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Sachi Anjunkar


Sunaina Maira is Professor of Asian American Studies, and affiliated with the Middle East/South Asia Studies program and the Cultural Studies Graduate Group at UC Davis[1] as of May 2024. According to her university profile, her research interests are youth culture; popular culture; political activism and transnational solidarity movements; South Asian, Arab, and Afghan American studies; the War on Terror; surveillance; U.S. empire; comparative and transnational ethnic studies.

She has published no books, research or papers pertaining to Hindus, Ancient India, Indus Civilization or caste.

On November 5, 2017, she signed the letter submitted by the South Asia Faculty Group (SAFG) to the California State Board of Education[2] where she:

  • Misrepresented scholarship stating "Mythological terms substitute for historical ones for example the 'Indus Valley Civilization' (a fact-based geographic term) appears to be replaced with a religiously-motivated and ideologically charged term 'Indus-Saraswati/Sarasvati Civilization'. The Saraswati is a mythical river"[3][4][5]
  • Implied that Christians and Muslims existed in Ancient India, prior to the founding of these religions ​

In 2016, she signed a letter endorsing a letter submitted by the South Asia Faculty Group[6][7] 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[8] 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[edit]

  1. Maira, Sunaina. Citizenship and Dissent: South Asian Muslim Youth in the U.S. After 9/11. South Asian Popular Culture, vol. 8, no. 1, 2010, pp. 31-45.
  2. Maira, Sunaina. Desis in the House: Indian American Youth Culture in New York City. Temple University Press, 2002.
  3. Maira, Sunaina. Dissenting Citizenship: South Asian Muslim Youth in the United States after 9/11. In Youth Cultures in the Age of Global Media, edited by David Buckingham, Sara Bragg, and Mary J. Kehily, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 104-118.
  4. Maira, Sunaina. The 9/11 Generation: Youth, Rights, and Solidarity in the War on Terror. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 42, no. 6, 2016, pp. 981-999.
  5. Maira, Sunaina. Good and Bad Muslim Citizens: Feminists, Terrorists, and U.S. Orientalisms. Feminist Studies, vol. 35, no. 3, 2009, pp. 631-656.
  6. Maira, Sunaina. Missing: Youth, Citizenship, and Empire After 9/11. Duke University Press, 2009.
  7. Maira, Sunaina. Surveillance Effects: South Asian, Arab, and Afghan American Youth in the War on Terror. In At the Limits of Justice: Women of Color on Terror, edited by Suvendrini Perera and Sherene H. Razack, University of Toronto Press, 2014, pp. 86-106.
  8. Maira, Sunaina. A Strip, A Land, A Blaze: Arab American Hip-Hop and Transnational Politics. In Between the Middle East and the Americas: The Cultural Politics of Diaspora, edited by Evelyn Alsultany and Ella Shohat, University of Michigan Press, 2013, pp. 195-213.

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Sunaina Maira University Profile accessed on May 29, 2024
  2. ↑ 2017 South Asia Faculty Group (SAFG) Letter to the California State Board of Education
  3. ↑ Chakrabarti, Dilip, and Sukhdev Saini. The Problem of the Sarasvati River and Notes on the Archaeological Geography of Haryana and Indian Punjab. Aryan Books International, 2009.
  4. ↑ Danino, Michel. The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati. Penguin Books, 2010.
  5. ↑ McIntosh, Jane R. A Peaceful Realm: The Rise and Fall of the Indus Civilization. Westview Press, 2002, p. 24. ​where she stated "Suddenly it became apparent that the “Indus” Civilization was a misnomer—although the Indus had played a major role in the development of the civilization, the “lost Saraswati” River, judging by the density of settlement along its banks, had contributed an equal or greater part to its prosperity. Many people today refer to this early state as the “Indus-Saraswati Civilization” and continuing references to the “Indus Civilization” should be an abbreviation in which the “Saraswati” is implied. There are some fifty sites known along the Indus whereas the Saraswati has almost 1,000. This is misleading figure because erosion and alluviation has between them destroyed or deeply buried the greater part of settlements in the Indus Valley itself, but there can be no doubt that the Saraswati system did yield a high proportion of the Indus people’s agricultural produce"
  6. ↑ 5-17 Prof. S. Shankar et al support letter
  7. ↑ 5-17 Kamala Visweswaran South Asian Faculty Group
  8. ↑ Gupta, S. P. 'The Dawn of Civilization.' In History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization: Volume I: Part 1, edited by G. C. Pandey and D. P. Chattopadhyaya. New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 1999.
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