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Comment by jagannathtech | Hacker News Reader

I don't know about this particular course but almost anything on Hinduism comes with huge biases from western institutions. This is explained in the book 'Academic Hinduphobia' available recently as a free PDF.

I would recommend reading the book 'Being Different' by Rajiv Malhotra to balance out any such courses on Hinduism.

Disclaimer - Indian hindu

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> Rajiv Malhotra

I would very strongly recommend staying away from anything written by this person. Here's a sample: https://www.reddit.com/r/badlinguistics/comments/2t8ze3/a_fe...

I don't think this deserved to be downvoted. Foreign analysis of a local phenomenon always has a slant. It can't be avoided.

Explication of local culture in a foreign language for the benefit of foreigners will also have a slant. But it will be a very different slant, and it's a lot more accessible than the native materials. If the goal is "deep insight into how India works [today]", then Being Different is probably a pretty valuable thing to read even if the scholarship is shoddy. (On which question I have no opinion whatever.)

I think when the comment said basically "[I have no exposure to or experience with the course you're referring to but let's assume it's biased]", it attracts downvotes. This isn't "foreign analysis", in context it's just a proudly uninformed opinion.

I'm quite skeptical that any kind of deep insight can come from reading a prototypical Bharat Tyagi[0]. Reading Swami Vivekananda or even Gandhi would be a far better use of time.

0: https://devdutt.com/articles/hiss-of-the-pio-bharat-tyagi/

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