Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children PDF is now freely available.
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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:Yasmin Saikia

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Sachi Anjunkar


Yasmin Saikia is Professor, Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies (Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict) and SHPRS History Faculty at Arizona State University. She is also an affiliated faculty, Center For Asian Research[1][2] as of September. According to her university profile, her research focuses on the histories of memory and identity; women, war, and peace; histories of premodern and contemporary South Asia (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) and engaging the history of Islam and Islamic values of peace.

She has published no books, papers, or research pertaining to Hindus, the rights of Hindus, the impact or relationship between Islam and Hinduism / Hindutva, India, the Indian Government in the context of BJP government, the Indus Civilization, the impact or relationship between caste system and Hinduism as of May 2023.

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 to India[edit]

Monograph[edit]

  1. Saikia, Yasmin. Fragmented Memories: Struggling to Be Tai-Ahom in India. Duke University Press, 2004.
  2. Saikia, Yasmin. Assam and India: Fragmented Memories, Cultural Identity and the Tai-Ahom Struggle. Permanent Black, 2005.

Edited Book[edit]

  1. Saikia, Yasmin, and Amit Baishya, editors. Northeast India: A Place of Relations. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Refereed Journal Articles[edit]

  1. Saikia, Yasmin. "Hijrat and Azadi in Indian Muslim Imagination and Practice: Connecting Nationalism, Internationalism, and Cosmopolitanism." Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, vol. 37, no. 2, 2017, pp. 201-212.
  2. Saikia, Yasmin. "Uncolonizable: Freedom in the Muslim Mind in Colonial India." South Asian History and Culture, vol. 7, no. 2, 2016, pp. 117-134.
  3. Saikia, Yasmin. "Assam, India and Southeast Asia: The Tai-Ahom Connection." Seminar, no. 550, June 2005, pp. 59-65.
  4. Saikia, Yasmin. "The Landscape of Identity: Transacting the Labels Indian, Assamese, and Tai-Ahom in Contemporary Assam." Contemporary South Asia, vol. 10, no. 1, March 2001, pp. 73-93.

Refereed Book Chapters[edit]

  1. Saikia, Yasmin. "'Postcolonial Other'." The Routledge Companion to Northeast India, edited by Tanka Subba and Jelle J.P. Wouters, Routledge, forthcoming.
  2. Saikia, Yasmin. "Sir Sayyid on History: The Indian Rebellion of 1857 and Rethinking the 'Rebellious' Muslim Question." Cambridge Companion to Sayyid Ahmad Khan, edited by Yasmin Saikia and Raisur Rahman, Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 17-37.
  3. Saikia, Yasmin. "The Muslims of Assam: Present/Absent History." Northeast India: A Place of Relations, edited by Yasmin Saikia and Amit Baishya, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 111-134.
  4. Saikia, Yasmin. "'Introduction'." Northeast India: A Place of Relations, edited by Yasmin Saikia and Amit Baishya, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 1-23.
  5. Saikia, Yasmin. "Local Nationalism or Secessionism? History, Politics, and Identity Struggle of Tai-Ahom in Assam." Heterotopias: Nationalism and the Possibility of History in India, edited by Manu Bhagavan, Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 13-43.

Funded Collaborative Projects[edit]

  1. Saikia, Yasmin, and Syed Tehseen Raza. 'Local Values of Peace: Women's Roles in Forging Peaceful Communities in Jammu and Kashmir and Northeast India.' Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration, A Government of India Initiative, submitted on November 14, 2019.
  2. Saikia, Yasmin, and Madhumita Sengupta. 'Colonialism and Post-Colonialism: Comparative Readings in History.' Govt. of India's Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN), submitted on October 15, 2019.

Conference Presentation[edit]

  1. Saikia, Yasmin. 'Muslims in Assam: Challenging Humanity.' Paper presented at the Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference, September 11, 2021.

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Yasmin Saikia page on Arizona State University accessed September 19, 2022
  2. ↑ Yasmin Saikia CV accessed September 19, 2022
  3. ↑ "Letter of Support", Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference website, accessed August 7, 2022
  4. ↑ 5-17 Kamala Visweswaran South Asian Faculty Group.pdf
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