(RNS) — An education scholar and mother of two teenagers, Indu Viswanathan is no stranger to the challenges of misrepresentation in the U.S. public school system. She was first exposed to stereotypes and tropes surrounding the Hindu faith — which she and other practitioners say have persisted — as a grade school student in the 1980s. 

Now, Viswanathan’s upcoming book, “Hindu at Heart: Education, Faith, and What It Means to Belong in America,” to be published by Briarcliff Press on May 24, challenges an inaccurate historical narrative of Hinduism conceived by Westerners. Refuting claims the religion is a pagan, irrational or un-American tradition, she draws on decades of research and firsthand engagement with families, schools and public institutions.

At a time of increasing animosity toward Indian immigrants, the book aims to open a larger, timely discussion, said Viswanathan, who lives in New York City. 

“The Hindu American and Hinduism experience is the site of study, but it’s speaking to larger themes right now in America — vis-à-vis education, purpose of education, immigration and religion,” she said in an interview with RNS on March 27.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You describe in the book something called “the Hinduism master narrative,” which was first created by people outside of India to describe the religion. What exactly is that narrative? 

This is the sort of foundational portion of the book. The term “master narrative” is something that’s used in the U.S., in the West — not that it’s the correct narrative, but it’s the narrative that has sort of dominant power. The master narrative about Hinduism takes up this idea of three parts of this endogenous cycle of Hinduphobia. One, that it (is) oppressive, regressive and irredeemable. The second part is that it then becomes a moral imperative to either change Hinduism from the outside or to actually get rid of it altogether. And then the third part is that anyone who tries to obstruct that is seeking to uphold the inherent repression, oppression and irredeemability of Hinduism.

Obviously, that’s not what Hinduism is. From its origin, America identified itself as different from any other country that had ever existed. That was sort of important to American identity, right? It was always about contrasting to what already exists. And religiously, America was Protestant, and that was linked to this idea of the American ideal. The American citizen is a Protestant, and the Protestant ideals are being moral, being rational and being civically minded. So the core of the American citizen reflects Protestant values.

The opposite of that is Catholicism. Catholicism is superstitious and ritualistic and oppressive — all these things (were believed). But, you know, what’s even worse than that? Hinduism. As (Americans heard) reports through British (and) American missionaries in India, you hear of an even more extreme example.

So, a century before there are even really a significant number of Hindus in the country, we have these images and stories told of these “heathens” across the world, who are immoral, irrational, selfish and not concerned with civic participation. And that is the exact opposite of what we want to be as an American citizen.

Why is this narrative so pervasive and how does it travel through educational institutions?

American public education has an impact on education around the world, indirectly and very directly. There are entire districts and regions that pick up exactly what we do in the U.S. to emulate in their public education. American public K-12 education is very much seen as a model for what it means to educate in a democracy, and the book covers this.

Even though the way it (the narrative) is framed is very American, it can be picked up around the world. And by “public,” I don’t just mean public schools. It means outside the walls of traditional learning places. So the media — whether it’s entertainment media or news media, social media — now we’re constantly receiving messages and lessons, to the point now that they say that kids are learning more from TikTok than they are from their actual teachers. So, it’s become more than a metaphor; it’s actually become reality.

How do teachers fit in?

Education is not easy. Now in America, we’re facing a massive teacher crisis. The number of people looking to become teachers is just dropping for so many reasons.

In the (Hindu) community, we often hear, like, “Oh, there are these misrepresentations. There are these things that are being said about us in the books, but also about us in the general public that are just not representative of who we are, what we believe.” But time and time again, when I interviewed families, I didn’t come across a single person who said the teacher refused to believe me. Everyone shared that the teachers were so open to hearing them, and that’s my experience of teachers.

Of course, you’re going to find outliers who don’t care. That exists everywhere, right? But for the majority of experiences, everyone I interviewed said that when the students or parents went to the teacher to speak with them about these things, the teachers were so open — and that’s what I know about teachers.

And so, I think it’s just that humility and willingness to give each other the benefit of the doubt, and openness and sharing and making mistakes, and still coming back and actually building this together. I think that’s where it’s really easy to find solidarity because it’s about something bigger than being right or wrong.

What has Hindu American advocacy looked like in the education space?

What’s really great is that we are seeing people speaking up more than they used to, and I think this is the case across Asian communities. We don’t generally speak out in education spaces because we have such deference to teachers and educators. And what I am actually perceiving is that it’s more dialogical than it is speaking out. It’s speaking up, and it’s truly a civic participation.

If the accusation is that Hinduism is incompatible with American democracy, the evidence shows completely the opposite, which is that Hindus are wired to participate robustly and authentically in American democracy and have been doing so. Education is a really wonderful site to see this come down to play. 

That said, are there things we can improve? Absolutely. But I think we’ve come a long way from not saying anything at all, and I’m glad to see Hindus investing in our public education system in this way in terms of participation. 

I think we’ve come a long way as a community in enlivening the conversation. And the more we do it, we see the civic participation, as opposed to feeding into fear agendas of some nefarious thing happening because, as I point out in the book, every community has had to strive for its representation in schools. There’s not a single community that’s currently better represented in schools than Hindus, other than the white Protestant man. Every other community has had to strive, and we’ve only just started our striving.

And so, it’s not that there’s a double standard; it’s just that we haven’t actually pulled up our socks and done this work. We’re doing it now. That big testimony before the Board of Education (by Hindu American advocacy groups in 2016) should be celebrated as the start of the Hindu American civil rights movement in the United States.

What do you hope for the future?

All of the work that I’ve been doing for the past couple of years is because I heard one of my sons say, “Your generation has hope, but we grew up under Trump, Biden, Trump — we don’t have hope. We don’t know what that means.” I made a commitment then and there that our children, our younger generations, deserve hope. All the work that I do from now for the rest of my life will be to try to seed hope for future generations because they deserve that — and not in an unrealistic way.

But doing this research and understanding the long arc of American public education, and the arc of the Hindu American experience, gave me hope. We have a lot we can build together. And I think if that’s the message, that would be fantastic.