Although a foreign concept to Abrahamic faiths, many non-abrahamic, indigenous faiths contain female spirits and goddesses and is something that should be respected. Ix Chel is the name of the aged jaguar goddess of midwifery and medicine in ancient Maya culture.
It’s Sunday morning at 2am, and what do I do after a night of chilling with friends? I open Twitter. A big mistake. The big buzz words ‘WOKE’, ‘SOUTH ASIAN’ pop up, followed by a 3rd word, even more interesting – SARASWATI. For those that don’t know, ‘Saraswati’ is the auspicious GODDESS of wisdom, arts and education. (We know what you’re thinking and YES, most American spelling bee champions have done a prayer or 2 to this goddess growing up). But, how are these 3 words connected? Get ready… so if you’ve supposedly shown admiration, or given praise and respected the Hindu goddess of wisdom and arts, you are now a Nationalist and not the Jon Snow type from Game of Thrones, but a Hindu Nationalist. yesssir.
So after a few hours of deep thought, reflection, analysis and empathy we couldn’t find the connection. The American-based author Aditi Natasha Kini (@nansequiturs) or self-proclaimed Woke American South Asian activist clearly conflated her frustration that a white yoga practitioner had attributed the Goddess of Saraswati as a strong symbol of empowerment in an article titled – A Goddess to Spark the Creative Flow and India’s biggest political party which is sometimes referred to as Hindu nationalists (mostly by unwoke folks and bigots). So beyond Aditi conflating political hindu organizations and people proud of their hindu identity or hindu symbols, she is helping to normalize hinduphobia – a tool commonly used by abrahamic faiths (#abrahamicsupremacy) against non-abrahamic faiths and minorities in media and academia. So what did Aditi actually write? Here y’ago – “do white women really think that saraswati cares about them? this treatment of hinduism as a toothless, catch-all pool of culture for the spiritually void is a) deeply misguided b) ignorant & harmful, given the rise of hindu nationalism.” Yup, showing love for Saraswati in an American blog, and prayed and auspiciously loved by almost a billion folks is HARMFUL cause those darn pagan Hindoos fighting for their hindu identity after almost a 1000 years of being colonized by both Christian and Islamic supremacist forces (similar to how White Christian supremacist colonial forces cleansed out indigenous and native tribes from Americas).
We recognize many bigots are probably reading this, and thou are not to blame as anti-hindu bigotry is pretty normalized these days, but its not progressive nor liberal to brush an entire faith as ‘not inclusive and violent’, especially for a faith as diverse and plural as Hinduism.Hinduism 101 – It’s one of the oldest faiths, 1000s of years older than any abrahamic faith and has over 1000 gods and sects allowing for various ways to practice without a single authoritarian book. Hinduism also has a long tradition of womens empowerment, pluralism, LGBTQ respect and environmental advocacy. Oh, let’s not forget it is the only major global faith to have Goddesses in the first place. Doing a 101 on the author Aditi Natasha Kini – she has a long portfolio of published articles in ‘progressive’ media houses such as Washington post, National post, Bitch Media, VICE and Lit Hub. Also, interesting is these media houses have almost never given a voice to practicing hindus to share their experiences. A-n-y-h-o-w,
Here’s Aditi’s second BIGOTED tweet:
Ever wonder what a woke south asian activist bigot spewing islamophobia or anti-indigenous colonial hate speech would look like? Let’s translate the above tweet for you by ‘finding and replacing‘ the word Hindu and put Islam+Allah and Indigenous Natives+Tabaldak (fyi Tabaldak is the creator among the Abenaki and Algonquian people of northeastern North America).
1. Do white women really think Allah cares about them?…. Islam is not a religion of Inclusion by any means. It has historically excluded and oppressed. It is not toothless.
2. Do white women really think Tabaldak cares about them? Indigenous and native spiritual tradition is not a tradition of Inclusion by any means. It has historically excluded and oppressed. It is not toothless.
YIKES that read a bit differently. We haven’t used the ‘Find and Replace’ button in MS Word since university. A ‘progressive’ media house that hosts such writers don’t seem so progressive after all. Actually, we recall when a writer for Huffington Post wrote something similar to the above about abrahamic faiths a while back, they were dismissed from writing any more articles for them. Oh abrahamic privilege – the sweet smell is so close, yet so far out of reach for us darn red dotted pagans, spiritualists, ways of life, dharmics or whatever you want to term us as.
So let’s get back to the word ‘Saraswati’ for a minute. Its Sunday afternoon so we drove down to a local hindu temple in our beautiful city north of the American border (in a nation called Canada, eh), mostly frequented by Caribbean Hindus who have never been to India and many who have no need to visit. We asked 2 teen hindu Trinidadian and Guyanese girls if they knew of Saraswati and if admiration for her had any hindu nationalist connections… Of course, their first question was – What is Hindu nationalism? and then followed by the fact they love goddess Saraswati and their family has prayed to her for generations in the west indians and carry a painting, plus murthy (idol) in their house temples. Almost forgot, it’s probably important we note that the girls were dark brown skin as they may face fury from woke south asian activists if they were assumed white.
Let’s move to the next red dotted hindoo. MEE. I am about to have a 3rd generation Canadian Hindu daughter and if all happens well (#jaishridurga #jaimatadi), was planning to name her Saraswati. (you see how this came full circle :). AND for the love of my partner and I, we hope she grows to find power in what goddess Saraswati represents and that NO BIGOT EVER or Woke South Asian activist calls her a Hindu nationalist and finds her name as an excuse to spew their hinduphobic hate that she belongs to a [non-inclusive] faith they like to hate on.
Still interested in this topic, you can read this tweet thread we saw online that summed things up pretty well..
Just in case anyone wondered if @HinduAmerican‘s #Shakti Initiative https://t.co/BJViUehCVl was relevant, a tweet thread like this one comes across. Here, Goddess Saraswati is debased in a “woke” South Asian racist rant delegitimizing celebrations of Hindu divinity. (thread ??) https://t.co/mZfEBOYmaN
— Suhag A. Shukla (@SuhagAShukla) June 8, 2019