Accused of Hinduphobia by the audience, University of Chicago Professor Tyler Williams Attacks Indian-American Author Rajiv Malhotra (image taken from public lecture on youtube)
Indologist and renowned US-based author Rajiv Malhotra was recently invited to give a guest lecture at Columbia University in New York on the topic of “Hinduism in Academia“. In light of his forthcoming new book, titled, ‘Academic Hinduism’, this was a key & recent topic for him and one that has acquired a growing interest among many intellectuals lately. There is currently a significant gap of scholarly papers and studies on Hinduism and Hinduphobia in western academia, especially vs. studies on other faiths.
During the lecture, Rajiv Malhotra was constantly heckled by a small group of adults in the audience and even faced a verbal attack by a professor that asked to be anonymous. This professor constantly tried to change the topic of the lecture by asking irrelevant questions (criticized as bigoted and hinduphobic) towards the speaker and was later identified by online viewers as Professor Tyler Williams from the University of Chicago.
University of Chicago Professor Tyler Williams was first American student to be elected as VP of AISA – student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation – source: TimesContent
After a look at Tyler Williams’ Twitter’s feed, we came across many tweets with an anti-Hindu tone. Archived issues of the Times of India also state Tyler Walker Williams (a JNU grad) as being the first American student to be elected as the VP of AISA – the ultra-left student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation. AISA and the Communist Party of India are often criticized for their strong public Anti-Hinduism stance and have called for the banning of the celebration of many Hindu festivals at various Indian Universities. The irony is that the lecture by Rajiv Malhotra included Hinduphobia in Academia and the need for a fair non-biased debate with inclusion of all perspectives. After the video of the lecture was seen trending, many viewers were alarmed of how hateful & hinduphobic some professors are in American Universities and continued to write comments suggesting the University of Chicago should call for Professor Tyler Williams to resign. One comment even read “If this prof has so much hate & bigotry against 1 Billion Hindus, then what does he teach his Hindu-American students, I mean 2nd class backwards sub-human Hindu-American students”
Some interesting tidbits of information that can be seen in the video are:
- Hinduphobia 101 – what it is, the history of how the term was coined and why it matters a great deal today.
- A Live example of a Hinduphobic scholar, how they are driven by agendas and not by an open-minded spirit of inquiry.
- Live example of how Indian students are bing brain-washed into sepoys that undermine fair discussions on ancient and current Indian civilization with a public agenda being to exploit India’s internal fault lines.
The entire lecture on “Hinduism in Academia” by Rajiv Malhotra at Columbia University can be viewed here (if you are short on time to watch the entire video, we recommend you watch from 30m onwards):
shan g says
April 29, 2016 at 10:47 pmI’ve heard this University of Chicago professor speak and all i can say is one could think he hates everything to do with the word hindu or hinduism. He’s been brainwashed I feel as i dont understand how people can be so biased, or needs some serious help as he’s probably worse than Donald trump in his views. He’s like a big….and obvious Hinduphobic.
One could think that if this guy had power and influence, he’d kick all Hindus outside of the USA or maybe force them to eat beef, but who knows.
Mahan says
April 30, 2016 at 10:52 pmThanks Rajiv. You have tackled the professor very well but don’t be afraid to say you like BJP as of now they stand for Hindus. If Congress also starts treating all communities equally then even RSS will support them. Now in India caste system is there only for the middle class. It is not there for rich people and is marginalized for poor. We see inter caste marriage among rich people. Only consideration is position, power and money. Poor working people have little think about it and their ability to work i enough for marrying. Only in the middle class still to some extent people cling to their castes. But as long as the caste based religion is there caste-ism will not go away. Gujarat Govt. ha come up with 10% reservation for the upper castes based on economical conditions. If this bears fruit then slowly 100% reservation will be available on one or the other pretext and nobody talks about reservation at all. Development and more and more private sector education and jobs will annihilate the cat system. So true capitalism in India is the solution for removing castes.
Krishnarao says
May 18, 2016 at 12:35 amThat professor who wouldn’t even let Rajiv Malhotra speak is a clear bigot and Hinduphob.