Overview
- Analyzes the connection between James Mill's colonial-racist discourse and current school-textbook discourse.
- Proposes that current textbook discourse on Hinduism and India needs to change to protect children from racism.
- Engages in a thorough deconstruction of the current discourse.
- This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
Euro-American misrepresentations of the non-West in general, and in particular on Hinduism and ancient India, run deep and have far greater colonial connections than that have been exposed in academia. This book analyzes the psycho-social consequences that Indian American children face after they are exposed to the school textbook discourse on Hinduism and ancient India. The authors show that there is an intimate connection—an almost exact correspondence—between James Mill’s colonial-racist discourse and the current school-textbook discourse. The very parameters and coordinates on which James Mill constructed the discourse are the ones that are being used to describe Hinduism, Hindus, and ancient India in the textbooks currently. Consequently, this archaic and racist discourse, camouflaged under the cover of political correctness, produces in the Indian American children a psychological impact quite similar to what racism is known to produce: shame, inferiority, embarrassment, identity confusion, assimilation, and a phenomenon similar to racelessness where the children dissociate from the tradition and culture of their ancestors. This book argues that the current school textbook discourse on Hinduism and India needs to change so that the Indian American children do not become victims of overt and covert racism. For the change to occur, the first step is to recognize the overarching and pervasive influence of the colonial-racist discourse of James Mill on the textbooks. For the reconstruction of the discourse to take place, the first step is to engage in a thorough deconstruction, which is what the book attempts.
Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Kundan Singh is a professor at Sofia University, Palo Alto, the president of the Cultural Integration Fellowship, San Francisco, and a senior fellow at Hindupedia, Cupertino.
Krishna Maheshwari has an MBA from Harvard Business School, and from Cornell University an MS in Computer Engineering and a BS in Computer Science. He works as the Chief Product Officer at NeuroBlade. Krishna also founded and directs the research institution Hindupedia.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children
Book Subtitle: A Francophone Postcolonial Analysis
Authors: Kundan Singh, Krishna Maheshwari
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57627-0
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2024
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-57626-3Published: 27 April 2024
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-57629-4Published: 27 April 2024
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-57627-0Published: 26 April 2024
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XV, 259
Topics: Postcolonial Philosophy, Hinduism, Philosophy of Education, Imperialism and Colonialism