NPR's Hindu hatred: a letter to the Rough Translation podcast

To: roughtranslation@npr.org,

cc: kmcbride@poynter.org

subject: NPR's Hindu hatred

National Public Radio (NPR) has a problem with Hindu hatred.  Rough Translation’s podcast How to Be Anti-Casteist, https://www.npr.org/transcripts/915299467, Season 4, Episode 2, September 30, 2020 5:30 PM ET is the latest example of NPR’s Hindu hatred.

Shrub-head Suraj Yengde - no cute kiddie pictures here!

Talking points:

• Greg Warner said, “So there is a caste for priests. That's the Brahmins. But there's also a caste for the warriors, the caste for merchants, another caste for manual laborers.”  He did not identify the other castes by name as it would undermine the trope of Brahmin oppression of Dalits. Breaking India forces (for example, Christian and Muslim proselytizers) use this trope to alienate Dalits from their Hindu identity.
• Could “Sam Cornelius” be reading something into someone patting his back or going for a swim that is not really there?  Not all Brahmins wear the sacred thread.  My husband, who is from a nominally Brahmin family, chose not to wear the sacred thread.  Traditionally, going overseas meant a loss of caste for Brahmins.  BTW I am NOT Indian, so I do not know how our marriage affects his caste. 😃
• Warner said, “There's no uncontroversial way to talk about caste, and even the words we use are fraught. So, you're going to hear people in this story talk about upper caste and lower caste. We're going to try to avoid those hierarchies and say dominant caste and oppressed caste.” This is ridiculous.  By “dominant caste” and “oppressed caste,” he introduced another hierarchy.
• Many Hindus have protested NPR’s anti-Hindu prejudice to the NPR Public Editor and NPR leadership.  Indu Vishwanathan started a petition Greater Journalistic Integrity in Reporting on Hinduism @NPR, https://www.change.org/p/national-public-radio-journalistic-integrity-in-reporting-on-hinduism-npr, which garnered over nine thousand signatures.  Ultimately, she liaised with Nancy Barnes, Senior VP of News at NPR. Ms. Barnes replied that she and her team will look closely at the petition, its demands, and all of the data sent to NPR and review Lauren Frayer’s anti-Hindu articles. Ms. Barnes said that it would take some time, but they would definitely get back to us, and that they take this seriously. However, NPR never followed up with Ms. Vishwanathan.
• When someone says that he is from Mumbai or Delhi and it is apparent that he has a name that belongs to a particular geographic area in India, I ask him where his family is from.  There is no casteist subtext.
• I appreciate that Suraj Yengde rose above his Dalit origins.  I am no fan of Kamala Harris - she is a rank opportunist with no moral core - but Yengde is reading “casteist privilege” into the video of Harris cooking masala dosa with Mindy Kaling.  Harris and Kaling are likely innocent of their “casteist privilege.”
• Warner interviewed Thenmozhi Soundararajan of Equality Labs, an anti-Hindu organization.  Read the profile of Equality Labs, https://stophinduhate.org/hindu-haters-2/organisations/equality-labs/, on the Stop Hindu Hate Advocacy Network (SHHAN) website.  Equality Labs’s goal is to make caste a protected category in the United States: in other words, it wants to perpetuate caste divisions in the United States.
• SHHAN also profiled scroll.in on its website: https://stophinduhate.org/hindu-haters-2/media/scroll-in/. 
• Suraj Yengde tells Mauktik Kulkarni, “You got to be a cultural suicide bomber. You have to utilize your cultural privilege and blow that up by challenging all of the other people who are sitting there comfortably into the chairs without even questioning.”  By telling Mauktik Kulkarni that he should be a “cultural suicide bomber,” Yengde wants to destroy Hinduism.
• I looked up Suraj Yengde on the Harvard website.  No surprise, he collaborates with race baiter Cornel West.  Interesting how these professional victimologists get positions at elite universities!
• Warner said, “Suraj [Yengde] holds out the hope that activism in America might spark change in India, where caste has its source. But in a time of nationalism in India and around the world, there is also a backlash to this approach.” Is this a reference to the “Hindu Nationalist” BJP that leads the Government of India? 🙄 Gimme a break.  Prime Minister Narendra Modi is from what is classified as an Other Backward Caste, while President Ram Nath Kovind is a Dalit.

I can't envision NPR abusing Islam in the way it abuses Hinduism: NPR would be too afraid.

Yours sincerely,