Hindus Protest Newsweek Magazine Report on Hindu View of Tsunami

[krsna]

Hindus Protest Newsweek Magazine Report on Hindu View of Tsunami

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6777635/site/newsweek/

 

KAUAI, HAWAII, January 10, 2005: HPI Note: The Hindu American

Foundation (website http://www.hinduamericanfoundation.org) is

protesting the article, "Countless Souls Cry Out to God" by Kenneth L.

Woodward, religion editor for Newsweek ("source"). They are concerned

that the "Hindu" view of the disaster, given by a non-Hindu Western

academic, does not reflect the actual views of Hindus.

 

First we excerpt the article, then give the letter to the editor sent

to Newsweek by HAF.

 

The article opens:

 

"The waters that rose up from the deep last week, drowning tens of

thousands of people across a wide arc of South and Southeast Asia, were

a cataclysm of Biblical proportions. But most of those who survived to

weep and mourn--like most of those who died--had never heard of Noah or

the Biblical God of Wrath, figures so familiar to Christians and Jews;

they were, instead, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists. Caught up in the

disaster, they had no time for religious ceremonies of any kind. In Sri

Lanka, as in coastal southern India and along the beaches of Indonesia,

there was only time to dig huge holes in the ground and shovel in the

dead. 'In this kind of tragedy, there is no religion,' said Syed

Abdullah, a local imam in the ancient south Indian port of

Nagapattinam, where Muslims, Hindus and Christians have lived together

peacefully for centuries. 'Let the dead be buried together. They died

together in the sea. Let their souls get peace together.' But no

survivor of a disaster of this magnitude can long avoid asking the

Job-like questions, 'Why us? Why here? Why now?' "

 

It proceeds next to this explanation:

 

"HINDUS: Those hardest hit by last week's tsunami were poor fishing

communities whose inhabitants--mostly Hindus--are untutored in refined

theological speculation on life and death. For them, all of life is

controlled by the play of capricious deities. Yet their religious world

views and practices provide a measure of spiritual relief from the toil

of their labor. Along the coast of south India, Hindus tend to worship

local deities, most of them female and far down the Hindu hierarchy of

divinities. But like Shiva and other classic gods and goddesses, these

local deities are ambivalent: they have the power to destroy as well as

to create. The ocean itself is a terrible god who eats people and

boats, but also provides fish as food. 'Hindus use the deities to think

about and explain happenings like the tsunami as destructive acts of

god,' says Richard Davis, a specialist in South Asian Hinduism at Bard

College in New York. 'Relating to the local deity and cooling her anger

through propitiation is more important than thinking about personal or

collective guilt for what has happened.' "

 

HAF responds:

 

Dear Newsweek magazine:

 

We at the Hindu American Foundation have been inundated by Hindu

readers of Newsweek magazine expressing outrage over the perfunctory

coverage of the Hindu perspectives on suffering in the aftermath of the

tsunami tragedy in Kenneth Woodward's article ("Countless Souls Cry Out

to God," January 10, 2005). Our respondents feel strongly that the

coverage of Buddhism, Islam and Christianity was appropriate and

equitable while the Hindu coverage was categorically deficient. Below,

we have briefly sought to encapsulate the most basic Hindu

understanding of the cause of suffering and how even the most

unschooled Hindu would strive to understand their personal calamities.

We sincerely hope you will begin to address your most inequitable

coverage of this issue by publishing more complete depictions of the

Hindu faith such as the following:

 

To Newsweek

Dear Editor:

 

Kenneth Woodward's depiction of the Hindu view of suffering after the

devastating South Asian tsunamis was deeply flawed ("Countless Souls

Cry Out to God," January 10, 2005). Mr. Woodward dismissed Hindu

victims as "untutored" animists who viewed the disaster as the hapless

consequence of "capricious deities" and compounded the error by

referring to Hindu perception of God by the lower case "g." In so

doing, Mr. Woodward perpetuated the most obsolete misconceptions of

Hinduism. Followers of panentheistic monotheism, Hindus believe that

there is one God who is omnipotent and omnipresent throughout the

universe and worshipped by people in different forms according to their

individual perceptions. Hardly capricious, Hindus perceive God's grace

as always flowing and easily felt by those who open their minds to

receive that blessing.

 

Multiple millennia before Buddhism, Hindu scripture defined the

relationship between reincarnation and karma. Recognizing an eternality

of existence, Hindus take comfort in the face of calamity knowing that

while the body may die and be shed as old clothes, the immortal soul

continues its journey in the next life along its path towards God.

Individuals are architects of their destiny, and just as every action

must have an equal reaction, Hindus believe and take comfort that in

suffering, a karmic account that may have accumulated many lifetimes

before has been cleared.

 

There is no cosmic interplay of ambivalent, competing gods as the

article implies, and the Hindu view of suffering is much more nuanced

and profound then Mr. Woodward's insulting depiction of an

unpropitiated ocean god unleashing fury. It was a disservice to your

readers to provide an erroneous depiction of a faith that inspires more

than a billion people and is a source of comfort to so many of the

tsunami victims.

 

Aseem R. Shukla, M.D., Member, Board of Directors, Hindu

American Foundation, Inc.