Wendy Doniger - Controversy

Controversy

Beginning in the early 2000s, a disagreement arose within the Hindu community over whether Doniger accurately described their traditions. Together with many of her colleagues, she was the subject of a critique by Rajiv Malhotra for using psychoanalytical concepts to interpret non-Western subjects. Malhotra claimed that Hinduism was being demonized to create shame amongst Hindu youth. Christian Lee Novetzke, associate professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Washington, summarizes this controversy as follows: "Wendy Doniger, a premier scholar of Indian religious thought and history expressed through Sanskritic sources, has faced regular criticism from those who consider her work to be disrespectful of Hinduism in general." Professor Novetzke cites Doniger's use of "psychoanalytical theory" as "a kind of lightning rod for the censure that these scholars receive from freelance critics and 'watch-dog' organizations that claim to represent the sentiments of Hindus."

Martha C. Nussbaum, concurring with Novetzke, adds that while the agenda of those in the American Hindu community who criticize Doniger appears similar to that of the Hindu right-wing in India, it is not quite the same since it has "no overt connection to national identity", and that it has created feelings of guilt among American scholars, given the prevailing ethos of ethnic respect, that they might have offended people from another culture. While Doniger has agreed that Indians have ample grounds to reject postcolonial domination, she claims that her works are only a single perspective which does not subordinate Indian self-identity.

In March 2010, Hindu American Foundation co-founder and urologist Aseem Shukla debated elements of the book The Hindus: An Alternative History with Doniger on a Washington Post-sponsored blog on faith and religion, and accused her of sexualising and exoticising some of the holiest passages in the Hindu scriptures. Doniger replied that her book has sold well in India and asked her critics to show specifically where her interpretations of texts were wrong.

Earle Waugh, Professor Emeritus of Divinity at the University of Alberta, refers to the controversy as an example of the conflict between religious tradition and the use of Western analytic tools such as Freudian psychology.