Hinduphobia at The College of New Jersey: ‘Hinduism is an unforgiving religion’

Diwali, holiday, USA

The student newspaper of The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) has made disparaging remarks on Hinduism in an article titled ‘More young Americans don’t really care about religion’ dated January 27th, 2020.

The author, Ian Krietzberg, of this feature, begins the article clearly exposing Hinduphobia that is present in the USA in the present generation. Here is what the article states:

“Hinduism is an unforgiving religion. Menstruation is seen as unclean, gender roles are strictly adhered to and arranged marriages are still common. Feet are considered to be unholy and pre-marital sex is staunchly forbidden.”

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The article then goes on to cite the example of an alleged agnostic biology student who is claimed to be from a Hindu background but avowedly he himself never experienced the taboo of feet being unholy or Hinduism being unforgiving. The fact that this student’s own parents did not force him to adhere to any strict code seemed to have been overlooked in the hope that the readers will be blind enough to not see through the shallow writing by not just an amateur mind but also a rather clumsy hand.

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So how did Ian Krietzberg who claims to be ‘Nation & World Editor‘ find all this about Hinduism? Did he possibly learn it from comic books?

Very possibly the answer is that the fellow has a very fertile Hinduphobic imagination!

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If anything this person needs to not espouse his deep-rooted bigotry and go back to actually learning something because this muddled garbage is anything but journalism.

Let’s hope that the person is not trying for any role in journalism any further because this is the lowest level of propaganda and bigotry anyone can stoop down to and media outlets hiring such people will only be encouraging Hinduphobia on their payroll.

Update: Another example of shoddy journalism by this student newspaper is that now it has made changes in the original article without notifying the readers (if God forbid it has any). It also failed to apologize for the lack of journalistic ethics and for the utter bigotry.

Here is what the revised first paragraph looks like:

Hinduism can be viewed as a strict religion. For some, menstruation is seen as unclean, gender roles are strictly adhered to and arranged marriages are still common.

Namta Gupta