Hindu fundamentalists vs. Hinduism: Column

USA TODAY
By Stephen Prothero

Controversial book's cover and its author Wendy Doniger

INDIA---After the egging, the pulping. In London in 2003, a protester threw an egg at University of Chicago Sanskrit scholar Wendy Doniger, who was lecturing on the popular Hindu epic the Ramayana. The egg missed its mark, but during the Q&A other protesters continued the assault, insisting that non-Hindus like Doniger had no right to tell them what Hinduism is all about. This month, Penguin Books India agreed to withdraw Doniger's The Hindus: An Alternative History from Indian bookstores and pulp any remaining copies. The settlement came in response to a complaint filed by Dinanath Batra, head of Shiksha Bachao Andolan, a Hindu fundamentalist group that opposes sex education in Indian schools and textbooks that deviate from its Hinduvta ("Hinduness") interpretation of Indian history. [link]