UH defends academic freedom amid controversy over course called “Lived Hindu Religion”

Washington, DC: The University of Houston (UH) has reiterated its dedication to academic freedom in the wake of a student’s complaint over a course called “Lived Hindu Religion.”

“The University of Houston respects academic freedom, which includes giving instructors the ability to teach on difficult and sometimes complicated subjects. According to the official statement, UH oversees the curriculum to make sure it satisfies recognized academic and pedagogical criteria, even though it normally does not evaluate individual courses.

When a student complained about a course called “Lived Hindu Religion,” the dean and the director of religious studies at the university examined the issues and spoke with the teacher about them, in accordance with the institution’s complaint procedure.

“The course is grounded in the academic discipline of religious studies, which uses specific terminology — such as” fundamentalism “– as analytical tools to understand religious movements across traditions, including those rooted in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism,” said the statement.

The University further emphasized that “these academic terms can carry different meanings from how they are used in public or political discourse, which sometimes leads to misunderstandings.”

The university clarified in a statement that “fundamentalism in religious studies refers to a movement that asserts a strict, ahistorical, literal interpretation of scripture, dogmas, or ideologies — frequently in reaction to modern changes — in order to preserve the ‘true’ or original version of a religion.

By using discourse analysis, studying fundamentalism is a means of comprehending how religions change and evolve rather than being biased or judgmental.

“Like other global faiths, Hinduism—the religion of individuals who worship Hindu gods—has evolved in historical, social, and political settings. This is examined throughout the course using academic frameworks. When appropriate, professors are encouraged to make connections between course material and current affairs, provided that they are balanced and enhance students’ comprehension of the material.

For instance, talking about the political emergence of Hindu nationalism in India is not a criticism of Hinduism in general, but rather a component of comprehending how religion and religious discourse operate in the contemporary world,” the statement said.

Fundamentalism is an academic notion that is not debatable when it comes to religious studies. The phrase may be seen as derogatory or politically charged outside of the academic community.

While religious studies include historical viewpoints, fundamentalism is ahistorical. The core of many disputes in religious studies classrooms is the tension between ahistorical and historical assertions, or even between prescriptive and descriptive truth claims.

Ahistorical: Treating anything as if it has always been the same, regardless of time or location; without historical context; or neglecting historical growth.

Historical: Based on or connected to history; anything that considers the setting, era, or evolution across time. Additional background information: Russell T. McCutcheon’s “What is the Academic Study of Religion”

In a statement sent to ANI by the institution, Professor Aaron Michael Ullrey said, “The methodology of this course is based on the use of descriptive anthropology rather than any prescriptive theology.”

My objective is to demonstrate the historical richness, sophistication, and logic of the many faiths that have been considered Hindu throughout South Asia’s history. I never made any claims about what Hinduism is fundamental since doing so would go against both the course and my own studies and teachings over the previous 25 years.

Furthermore, according to Aaron Michael Ullrey, the remarks that have been used in the media were misrepresented and do not fairly represent the course’s objectives or substance.

“Hinduism … was not an ancient, lived tradition but a colonial construct, a political tool weaponized by Hindu nationalists, and a system of oppression against minorities,” he said.

Something like this is not what I said. I never say that Hinduism is necessary. According to Ullrey, there are several forms of Hinduism and no fundamental or ahistorical form of Hinduism.

“Those many answers suggest Hinduism is no unified entity, and straightforward definitions are impossible,” Ullrey said, using another paragraph from my curriculum. Hinduism can be characterized in a variety of ways, including as India’s original religion, a spiritual path, a perfectly balanced way of life, a philosophical psychology, worship of Hindu gods, the path to liberation, a way to generate personal prosperity, caste and life-stage rituals, yoga philosophy, temple actions, family ideology, and more. There are serious repercussions if any of these assertions are given priority. Since Hinduism is so broad, its richness might be covered in a current edition; hence, there is no core Hinduism suggested in the course.

Surprisingly, given how common the term is now, the Vedas, Mahabharata, and Puranas do not include the word “Hindu.” While patrons would identify themselves with a particular deity (Saiva) or religious authority (Bauddha) and a king who might be regarded as Hindu by today’s standards could refer to himself as Son of the Gods (devaputra), the term “Hindu” itself is not used in the inscriptional record.

Linguistically, the name “Hindu” comes from a Persian word used by the people who live along the Sindh River. People who reside in the areas around the Indus River are referred to as Indus. They are both geographical words. While Hindu-dharma and Hindu-sthana (the location of the Hindus) are not from Sanskrit literary sources, one of the oldest and most comprehensive dictionaries only mentions the term Hindu three times and links it to the Persian Sindhu.

Even little information is asserted by earlier Sanskrit dictionaries. In the context of my study, Hinduism is defined as “the religions of those who revere the Hindu gods.” According to philological examination, it wasn’t until the twentieth century that the word “Hindu” became frequently used in Sanskrit literature and was recognized as a term for a religious identity. The religion that worships the Hindu gods is unquestionably ancient, South Asian, and governs the lives of more than a billion people globally, even if the name “Hindu” as a religious identity may not be very old,” Ullrey said.

Vinayak Damodar Sarvarkar, a fascinating Hindu person worth studying on his own in his own rich context, created the word “hindutva,” which means Hindu-ness, in 1922. Today, it is used extensively in political situations. The course’s title, “Lived Hindu Religion,” and its emphasis on the many ways Hindus live out and enact their always-changing Hinduisms make it impossible to argue that the religion is not a lived religion. The course traces religions that worship Hindu gods back to the earliest scriptures in 1500 BCE, noting that the worship of these gods predates these ancient texts.

It also examines the evolution of rituals and mythologies from that ancient period into the present. I frequently bring up the fact that the religions that worship Hindu gods are ancient, and I spend more than half of the class discussing ancient South Asia and its premodern Hinduisms. It is untrue to claim that “Hinduism” is not old. To demonstrate that any one statement of Hinduism, as stated in the phrase that begins “Hinduism…,” should not be accepted, he said, the viral video really took a sentence from a brief portion on political Hinduism and presented it with twenty-five additional facets of Hinduism.