Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children Book Cover.webp

In this book, we analyze the psycho-social consequences faced by Indian American children after exposure to the school textbook discourse on Hinduism and ancient India. We demonstrate that there is an intimate connection—an almost exact correspondence—between James Mill’s colonial-racist discourse (Mill was the head of the British East India Company) and the current school textbook discourse. This racist discourse, camouflaged under the cover of political correctness, produces the same psychological impacts on Indian American children that racism typically causes: shame, inferiority, embarrassment, identity confusion, assimilation, and a phenomenon akin to racelessness, where children dissociate from the traditions and culture of their ancestors.


This book is the result of four years of rigorous research and academic peer-review, reflecting our ongoing commitment at Hindupedia to challenge the representation of Hindu Dharma within academia.

Duryodhana

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Jit Majumdar


  1. difficult to fight; difficult to encounter
  2. invincible; irresisable; undefeatable
  3. one of the central characters of the Mahābhārata epic, who was the eldest prince of the House of Kuru, the eldest son of Dhŗtarāşţra and Gāndhārī, the husband of Bhānumati, the father of Lakşmaņ and Lakşmaņā, and the crown-prince and would-be inheritor through Dhŗtarāşţra of the Kuru throne. He became the arch enemy of the Pāndavas because of the latters’ claim that their eldest, Yudhişţhira – who was born on an unknown and unproven date and without any living witness (becaue of the sudden and unexplainable death of Pāndu and Mādrī) to his legitimacy as truly born in Pāndu’s khşetra (before his death and with his probvable consent) through Kunti away from the palace and society – was elder to Duryodhana by one year, and hence was the legitimate inheritor of the Kuru throne, and because of the second Pāndava Bhīma’s physical bullying and torture of the Kaurava brothers in their preteen and adolescent years by his brute strength which poisoned his mind against them and specially Bhīma. He was noted for his indomitable spirit, daring and obstinate attitude, his intense hatred for the Pāndavas and their chief ally, advisor and strategist Kŗşņa, specially for the latter’s crooked and manipulative strategies, but also equally for his legendary and inspiring friendship with the heroic and noble Karņa, who brought out the best in him just as the Pāndavas and Kŗşņa brought out his worst. He is acknowledged in the epic as an able and successful sovereign monarch who satisfied and pleased his subjects and brough them happiness and prosperity under his rule by his own merits and qualities and with the military might of his friend Karņa. He was acknowledged as the greatest living expert in the use of the mace (gada) after his guru Balarāma of whom he was the favourite and most accomplished disciple, and was seen as undefeatable in man-to-man mace fighting, even by his adversaries such as Kŗşņa. He is noted for never giving up till the last in the Bharata War, and for not taking recourse to illegitimate and dishonourable means or breaking the rules of warfare – even after losing all his great warriors one by one to the often dishonourable, illegal, and crooked strategies of Kŗşņa on behalf of the Pāndava camp, and was finally killed illegally by Bhīma in their last mace duel that was the decisive and final encounter of the Bharata War (M. Bh.); the son of Suvīra, the grandson of Durjaya who was the husband of Narmadā and the father of Sudarśanā (M. Bh.).