Talk:Audrey Truschke

Audrey Truschke is Associate Professor of History and Director, Asian Studies at Rutgers University as of October 2022. She is also a member of the South Asia Scholar Activist Collective and a contributor to the "Hindutva Harassment Field Manual." Her research focuses on the cultural, imperial, and intellectual history of early modern and modern India (c. 1500-present).

In 2021, she endorsed the "Dismantling Global Hindutva" conference and made the allegation

"the current government of India [in 2021] has instituted discriminatory policies including beef bans, restrictions on religious conversion and interfaith weddings, and the introduction of religious discrimination into India’s citizenship laws. The result has been a horrifying rise in religious and caste-based violence, including hate crimes, lynchings, and rapes directed against Muslims, non-conforming Dalits, Sikhs, Christians, adivasis and other dissident Hindus. Women of these communities are especially targeted. Meanwhile, the government has used every tool of harassment and intimidation to muzzle dissent. Dozens of student activists and human rights defenders are currently languishing in jail indefinitely without due process under repressive anti-terrorism laws."

Article summary that is likely followed by unsupported and false statements

'Summary of "Decolonizing' Indians through Hindutva Ideological Control." Shuddhashar 29, May 2022.

The article focuses on the usage and meaning of the term “ Decolonize” by Hindu nationalists and claims that Hindutva Ideology restricts other views and information and promotes Ideological control mimicking colonial attitudes and approaches.

The author, Audrey Truuschke makes the following are the allegations and false claims

• It alleges that RSS( Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh) dress code is an imitation of British Constabulary which is completely based on authors own perceptions - “RSS members even wore khaki pants in imitation of the British constabulary.”
• It makes an unsubstantiated allegation that India is fed colonial era ideas by Hindu nationalists forcefully - “robust Hindu nationalist attempts to force feed them colonial-era ideas under the guise of promoting “decolonization.”
• It alleges that Hindu nationalist identified Muslims as a major threat than Britishers which is an irrational claim that is not statistically proven.
• Audrey Truschke also alleges that the New Education Policy asserted by the Indian Government contains Nazi racial theories as she says “It also repeats aspects of Nazi racial theories”.
• She makes an unsubstantiated claim that “ The syllabus relies on James Mill’s 200-year-old and long debunked tripartite division of Indian history”
• Hindu nationalists engage in settler colonial practices in Kashmir to maintain control over the disputed territory.
• “Hindutva ideologues project many fictions about India’s future, including the basic idea that it will present a better life for most Indians.”
• “Indians are already suffering under the tightening grip of Hindu nationalists, who are actively eroding freedom of the press, civil society, human rights, and human freedom overall.”
• Hindu nationalists do not want Indians to glimpse where their nation is likely headed.
• Alleging S. Jaishankar, external minister, when he made a statement that “My reputation is not decided by a newspaper in New York.” Audrey says that “Some buy into such nationalist chauvinism and the affective community it is designed to create”
• Article also alleges that Hindu nationalists push their followers and other Indians to embrace ignorance and outrightly reject being part of global conversations.

Publications

Books -

• Culture of Encounters (2016, Columbia University Press)
• Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King (2017, Stanford University Press)
• The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (2021, Columbia University Press),
• “The Mughal Self and the Jain Other in Siddhicandra’s Bhanucandraganicarita.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 42.4 (2022): 341–347.

Articles-

• 'Decolonizing' Indians through Hindutva Ideological Control." Shuddhashar 29, May 2022.
• “Hindutva’s Dangerous Rewriting of History.” South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ), 24/25 (December 14: 2020).
• "The Persian Text of the Doha Ramayana." In The Ramayana of Hamida Banu Begum, Queen Mother of Mughal India, co-authored by Marika Sarkar, John Seyller, and Audrey Truschke, 24–31. Cinisello Balsamo (Italy): Silvana Editoriale, 2020.
• "A Padshah Like Manu: Political Advice for Akbar in the Persian Mahābhārata." Philological Encounters 5.2 (2020): 1-22.
• “A Mughal Debate about Jain Asceticism.” In The Empires of the Near East and India: Sources Studies of the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal Literate Communities, edited by Hani Khafipour, 107-123. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
• “Mughal Sanskrit Literature: The Book of War and the Treasury of Compassion.” In The Empires of the Near East and India: Sources Studies of the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal Literate Communities, edited by Hani Khafipour, 450-477. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
• “The Power of the Islamic Sword in Narrating the Death of Indian Buddhism." History of Religions 57.4 (2018): 404-435.
• Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King, Stanford University Press, 2017. Externallink. (Indian edition by Penguin India and Pakistani edition by Oxford University Press - Karachi, both under title Aurangzeb: The Man and The Myth)
• “Deceptive Familiarity: European Perceptions of Access at the Mughal Court.” In The Key to Power? The Culture of Access in Princely Courts, 1400-1700, edited by Dries Raeymaekers and Sebastiaan Derks, 65-99. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
• Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court. Columbia University Press, South Asia Across the Disciplines Series, 2016.
• “Imaginative Outsiders: Empowering Undergraduates to Analyze Religion,” in “Forum: Insiders, Outsiders, and Disclosure in the Undergraduate Classroom.” Teaching Theology & Religion 19.3 (2016): 282-286.
• “Translating the Solar Cosmology of Sacred Kingship.” Medieval History Journal 19.1 (2016): 136-141.
• "Contested History: Brahmanical Memories of Relations with the Mughals.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 58.4 (2015): 419-452.
• “Dangerous Debates: Jain Responses to Theological Challenges at the Mughal Court.” Modern Asian Studies 49.5 (2015): 1311-1344.
• “Indo-Persian Translations: A Disruptive Past.” Seminar 671 (July 2015).
• “Regional Perceptions: Writing to the Mughal Court in Sanskrit.” In Cosmopolitismes en Asie du Sud. Sources, itinéraires, langues (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle), edited by Corinne Lefèvre, Ines Županov, and Jorge Flores, 251-274. Paris: Editions de l’EHESS, 2015.
• “Reimagining the ‘Idol Temple of Hindustan’: Textual and Visual Translation of Sanskrit Texts in Mughal India,” co-authored with Qamar Adamjee. In Pearls on a String: Artists, Patrons, and Poets at the Great Islamic Courts, edited by Amy Landau, 141-165 (2015). Baltimore: Walters Art Museum; Seattle: University of Washington Press.
• “Defining the Other: An Intellectual History of Sanskrit Lexicons and Grammars of Persian.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 40.6 (2012): 635-668.
• “Jainism and Islam” articles, Jainpedia.org (2012). Four articles on: Jainism and Islam, Jains and the Delhi Sultanate, Jains and the Mughals, Jains and Muslim Iconoclasm.
• “Setting the Record Wrong: A Sanskrit Vision of Mughal Conquests.” South Asian History and Culture 3.3 (2012): 373-396.
• “The Mughal Book of War: A Persian Translation of the Sanskrit Mahabharata.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 31.2 (2011): 506-520.