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:Inderpal Grewal

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Sachi Anjunkar


Inderpal Grewal is Professor Emeritus of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University[1][2]. She is also Professor in the Ethnicity, Race and Migration Studies Program, the South Asian Studies Council, and affiliate faculty in the American Studies Program. According to his university profile, his research interests span across transnational feminism, cultural theory, feminist theory, post-colonialism, South Asian cultural studies, mobility and modernity, nongovernmental organizations, human rights, and law and citizenship

In 2021, she endorsed the "Dismantling Global Hindutva" conference 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."[3]

In 2016, she signed a letter[4] addressed to the State Board of Education, California Department of Education, dated May 17, 2016. The letter stated the following:

  1. "There is no established connection between Hinduism and the Indus Civilization. The Rg Veda contains numerous mentions of horses and chariots but there is no conclusive material or fossil evidence for either at any Indus valley archeological site."
  2. "It is inappropriate to remove mention of the connection of caste to Hinduism."
  3. "The geographic location of the Indus Civilization lies in what is now contemporary India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The use of "South Asia" to describe this shared civilizational heritage is thus entirely appropriate in some places of the framework, even though South Asia is a modern term, and some source materials use the term ‘Ancient India.' "

Publications related the India[edit]

  1. Grewal, Inderpal. "Traveling Barbie: Indian Transnationalities and the Global Consumer." Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, vol. 7, no. 3, Spring 2000, pp. 134-156.
  2. Grewal, Inderpal. "Outsourcing Patriarchy: ‘Honor Killings’ and Transnational Mediations." International Feminist Journal of Politics, vol. 15, no. 1, 2013, pp. 1-19.
  3. Grewal, Inderpal. "Racial Sovereignty and ‘Shooter’ Violence: Oak Creek Massacre, Normative Citizenship and the State." Sikh Formations, Sept. 2013, pp. 101-118.
  4. Grewal, Inderpal. Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire, and the Cultures of Travel. Duke University Press, 1996.

References[edit]