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:Sudipta Sen

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Sachi Anjunkar


Sudipta Sen is a Professor of History and Middle East/South Asia Studies at University of California, Davis as of April 2024[1]. According to his university profile, his research interests are Late Mughal and British India, British Empire; Environment and Ecology.

In 2016, he signed a letter[2] 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[edit]

  1. Sen, Sudipta. Empire of Free Trade. 1998.
  2. Sen, Sudipta. A Distant Sovereignty. Routledge, 2016.
  3. Sen, Sudipta. Ganges: The Many Pasts of an Indian River. Yale University Press, 2018.

References[edit]