Rajiv Malhotra

Rajiv Malhotra (born 15 September 1950) is an Indian-American author, public intellectual , and a proponent of Hindutva . He is the founder of Infinity Foundation , an organisation known to focus on Indic studies, and financially aid Columbia University's project to translate the Tibetan Buddhist Tengyur.

Malhotra has authored books that cover subjects such as civilisational studies, comparative religion, philosophy of science that espouse ideals of Indic traditions and their position in the global discourse.

According to Amanda J Lucia, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at University of California, Malhotra is a "famed Hindu nationalist" . Malhotra has written prolifically in opposition to the western academic study of Indian culture and society, which he maintains denigrates the tradition and undermines the interests of India "by encouraging the paradigms that oppose its unity and integrity".

Early life and education Malhotra was born on September 15, 1950 in New Delhi, India. He earned his undergraduate education in physics at St. Stephen's College, Delhi. He subsequently moved to the United States where he earned a degree in computer science from Syracuse University.

Career In 1995, Malhotra established Infinity foundation in Princeton, New Jersey.

Malhotra had been a speaker at an international conference held at the Center for Indic Studies, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and was a board member of the Foundation for Indic Philosophy and Culture at the Claremont Colleges. He also wrote extensively on internet discussion groups and e-magazines. On 6 November 2018, he delivered his first lecture organized by the School of Sanskrit and Indic studies on the topic of Sanskrit non-translatables. As of May 2026, Malhotra serves as the chairman of Center for Indic Studies.

Infinity Foundation Malhotra founded the institute in 1994; and the International Journal of Hindu Studies

Views Criticism of American academia (2000s)

Wendy's Child Syndrome

In early 2000s Malhotra started writing articles criticising Wendy Doniger and related scholars, claiming that she applied Freudian psycho-analysis to aspects of Indian culture. His 2002 blog post titled "Wendy's Child Syndrome" was considered as the starting point of a "rift between some Western Hinduism scholars [...] and some conservative Hindus in India, the United States, and elsewhere". The withdrawal led to extensive media attention, and renewed sales in India. Malhotra said "the drama has diverted attention away from the substantive errors in her scholarship to be really about being an issue of censorship by radical Hindus", hence the republication of his critique of Wendy Doniger Many eminent Indian-American donors are being led down the garden path by Indian professors who, ironically, assemble a team of scholars to undermine Indian culture. Rather than an Indian perspective on itself and the world, these scholars promote a perspective on India using worldviews which are hostile to India's interests. He claims Indian-American donors were "hoodwinked" into thinking they were supporting India through their monetary contributions to such programmes. Malhotra compares the defence of Indian interests with corporate brand management, distrusting the loyalties of Indian scholars. Therefore, it is critical that we do not blindly assume that Indian scholars are always honest trustees of the Indian-American donors' sentiments. Many Indian scholars are weak in the pro-India leadership and assertiveness traits that come only from strongly identifying with an Indian Grand Narrative. They regard the power of Grand Narrative (other than their own) as a cause of human rights problems internally, failing to see it as an asset in global competition externally. Hence, there is the huge difference between the ideology of many Indian professors and the ideology espoused by most successful Indian-American corporate leaders. Malhotra has accused academia of abetting the "Talibanisation" of India, which would also lead to the radicalisation of other Asian countries.

U-turn theory

Malhotra posits that the Western appropriation of Indic ideas and knowledge systems has a long history. He names this theory of his "The U-Turn Theory". He then goes on to show how the appropriation occurs in several stages: In the first stage, a Westerner approaches an Indian guru or tradition with extreme deference, acquires the knowledge as a sincere disciple, lives in the ashram and adopts the usage of Hindu iconography. Once the transfer of knowledge is complete, the former disciple, and their followers progressively erase all traces of the original source, such as removal of the Sanskrit terms and historic context of India. The knowledge gets repackaged as the idea of their own thought or they claim to be universal by removal of the Indian heritage, and may even proceed to denigrate the source Indian tradition. At this stage, the traditional Indian knowledge gets decontextualized and Christianized. In the final stage, the ideas are exported back to India by the former disciple and/or his followers for consumption as Western science or as 'superior' thought. Malhotra cites numerous examples to support this theory, dating from the erasure of Upanishadic and Vijnanavada Buddhist influences on Plotinus to the modern day reimportation of Christian Yoga into India.

As evidence, he cites a number of "U-Turners" from the scholarly fields of mind sciences, cognitive sciences and psychology:

Criticism of Christian Yoga Malhotra believes that the practice of a distorted version of Yoga, Christian Yoga, is not only inimical but also detrimental to Christianity's fundamental principles and doctrines. He supports his argument by specifically citing the theology of Christianity and Bible, and compares it to the philosophies of Yoga.

Yoga transcends all dogma and beliefs. Yoga, meditation and Mantras cannot transcend the person, who believes in the historicity of Christianity and various events. Yogic path of embodied-knowing seeks to dissolve the historic ego, both individual and collective as false. Yoga is a do-it-yourself path that eliminates the need for intermediaries such as a priesthood or other institutional authority. Its emphasis on the body runs contrary to Christian beliefs that the body will lead humans astray. The ultimate goal is to move to a state of self-realization. Yoga leads to unity consciousness i.e. no separation from God. According to Vedanta, a being is not separate from God, we're a divine being ourselves and we're part of God and creation. However, this fundamental teaching of Yoga contradicts Christianity's beliefs that God and creation are separate entities. Although Mantras are neither mere prayer nor devotional songs to a God but a sacred utterance for transcendence, enlightenment and liberation, the usage of Mantras violates one of the Ten Commandments. Christianity neither accepts Mantras for transcendence nor accepts them as a prayer to 'One True God'. (The practice of Mantra rejects the History-Centrism in the official doctrine of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, most Protestant churches, as well as the Anglican Communion, states Malhotra.) Since the mantra is not sanctioned by the Bible or the Torah, it cannot be a prayer to One True God. Thus, rarely do American teachers go much deeper than mere physical forms or Asanas, hence they dilute the true depth and philosophies of Yoga. He adds that internalized taboos, social prejudices, and all stereotypes of Dharmic culture and Hinduism in particular, act as a filter in the interpretation of Dharmic traditions, such as Yoga and meditation to create varied responses to Yoga. he asserts that, such people neither understands the philosophy of Yoga nor its relation to Hinduism. It's a fact of the matter that Yoga is one of the six major orthodox schools of Hinduism (Āstika), hence those preconceived claims are factually incorrect. Yoga, in Hinduism, is a way towards liberation from Saṃsāra and Duḥkha. (In Judeo-Christian traditions, states Malhotra, the reliance on one or more historic events is crucial to the knowledge of God, to spiritual life, and to salvation.) and more likely identified to be with Dharmic religions such as, Buddhists, or, contrary to that as Spiritual but not religious.Malhotra mentions an example from the study that, Kristine, who grew up Catholic in Indiana, and tried Yoga for physical "stretches", but later practiced the spiritual aspects of it, now prefers Ashtanga's eight limbs over Christianity's Ten Commandments

Academic Hinduphobia: A Critique of Wendy Doniger's Erotic School of Indology Several of Malhotra's essays from the early 2000s were re-published by Voice of India in 2016 in Academic Hinduphobia: A Critique of Wendy Doniger's Erotic School of Indology.

Being Different (2011)

Being Different is a critique of the western-centric view on India characterised by Abrahamic traditions. Malhotra intends to give an Indian view on India and the west, as characterised by the Indian Dharmic traditions. Malhotra argues that there are irreconcilable differences between Dharmic traditions and Abrahamic religions. The term dharma:

Indra's Net (2014)

Indra's Net is an appeal against the thesis of neo-Hinduism and a defense of Vivekananda's view of Yoga and Vedanta. The book argues for a unity, coherence, and continuity of the Yogic and Vedantic traditions of Hinduism and Hindu philosophy. It makes proposals for defending Hinduism from what the author considers to be unjust attacks from scholars, misguided public intellectuals, and hostile religious polemicists.

The book's central metaphor is "Indra's Net". As a scriptural image "Indra's Net" was first mentioned in the Atharva Veda (c. 1000 BCE). In Buddhist philosophy, Indra's Net served as a metaphor in the Avatamsaka Sutra and was further developed by Huayen Buddhism to portray the interconnectedness of everything in the universe. Malhotra employs the metaphor of Indra's Net to express

The book uses Indra's Net as a metaphor for the understanding of the universe as a web of connections and interdependences, an understanding which Malhotra wants to revive as the foundation for Vedic cosmology, a perspective that he asserts has "always been implicit" in the outlook of the ordinary Hindu.

A revised edition was published in 2016 after charges of plagiarism. The revised edition omits most references to the work of Andrew J. Nicholson and instead refers to the original Sanskrit sources. Malhotra says that Nicholson failed to attribute his ideas to the original sources and explains that the unity of Hinduism is inherent in the tradition from the times of its Vedic origins.

The Battle for Sanskrit (2016)

The Battle for Sanskrit is a critique of the American Indologist Sheldon Pollock. Malhotra pleads for traditional Indian scholars to write responses to Pollock's views, who takes a critical stance toward the role of Sanskrit in traditional views on Indian society. Malhotra is critical of Pollock's approach, and argues that western Indology scholars are deliberately intervening in Indian societies by offering analyses of Sanskrit texts which would be rejected by "traditional Indian experts".

Sanskrit Non-Translatables: The Importance of Sanskritizing English (2020) Sanskrit Non-Translatables, a book by Malhotra published in 2020 and coauthored by Satyanarayana Dasa, deals with the idea of Sanskritizing the English language and enriching it with powerful Sanskrit words. It continues the discussion on the idea of non-translatability of Sanskrit, a concept first introduced in the book, Being Different.

The book discusses 54 non-translatables across various genres that are being commonly mis-translated. It empowers English speakers with the knowledge and arguments to introduce these Sanskrit words into their daily speech with confidence. For English readers, the book is the starting point of the movement to introduce loanwords into their English vocabulary without translation.

Snakes in the Ganga : Breaking India 2.0 Published in 2022 as a sequel to Breaking India, with Vijaya Viswanatha as his co-author, Malhotra goes to great lengths to argue the existence of a Cultural Marxist-style conspiracy involved in perpetuating and normalizing anti-Hindu sentiments in Western academic and political discourse. He argues this is executed by the CCP, Saudi Wahhabi preachers and the World Economic Forum through the promotion of wokeism, mainly through a reinterpretation of Hindu-Muslim conflict in the lens of critical race theory. Within this framework, Hindus (especially Brahmins and other upper-caste groups) are equated with privileged white Americans, and thus subjected to systematic demonization in Western academic discourse akin to anti-Western sentiment among the Western left-wing circles, while Hinduphobia and persecution of Hindus committed by Islamists (like the expulsion of Kashmiri Hindus) are compared positively to the black liberation movement, while opposition to such acts are silenced by labelling it as expression of Hindu fascism.

Malhotra names Harvard University alongside the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab and the Omidyar Network as the nucleus of Hinduphobic wokeism. He also alleges that Indian business conglomerates like the Piramal Group and Godrej Group, institutions like Azim Premji University andAshoka University, and industrialists like Anand Mahindra and Lakshmi Mittal to be local collaborators in propagating wokeism-inspired Hinduphobia through systematic indoctrination of the Hindu youth. Furthermore, Malhotra argues that the Modi government's educational reforms have inadvertently aided in the spread of wokeism.

Criticism Martha Nussbaum criticises Malhotra for "disregard for the usual canons of argument and scholarship, a postmodern power play in the guise of defense of tradition". Brian K. Pennington has called his work "ahistorical" and "a pastiche of widely accepted and overly simplified conclusions borrowed from the academy". Pennington has further charged that Malhotra systematically misrepresents the relationship between Hinduism and Christianity, arguing that in Malhotra's hands, "Christian and Indic traditions are reduced to mere cartoons of themselves." According to Jonathan Edelmann, one of the major problems with Malhotra's work is that he does not have a school of thought that he represents or is trained in. This fact undermines his claims to be engaged in purvapaksa debate. Purvapaksa debate requires location in a particular place of argument.

In May 2015, a Hindu-American scholar at St. Olaf College, Anantanand Rambachan, who studied three years with Swami Dayananda, published an extensive response to Malhotra's criticisms in Indra's Net. Rambachan claimed that Malhotra's "descriptions of my scholarship belong appropriately to the realm of fiction and are disconnected from reality". According to Rambachan, Malhotra's understanding and representation of classical Advaita is incorrect, attributing doctrines to Shankara and Swami Dayananda which are rejected by them. Malhotra published a rebuttal and stated that he had removed all references to Nicholson's works in chapter 8 of Indra's Net, replacing them with references to the original Indian sources.

Publications

Books

Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines (2011) (publisher: Amaryllis, An imprint of Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd.; ). Rajiv Malhotra (2011), Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism (publisher: HarperCollins India; ). Rajiv Malhotra (2014), Indra's Net: Defending Hinduism's Philosophical Unity (publisher: HarperCollins India; ). Rajiv Malhotra (2016), Battle for Sanskrit: Dead or Alive, Oppressive or Liberating, Political or Sacred? (publisher: HarperCollins India; ). Rajiv Malhotra and Satyanarayana Dasa Babaji (2020), Sanskrit Non-Translatables: The Importance of Sanskritizing English (publisher: Amaryllis, An imprint of Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd.; ). Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan (2022), Snakes in the Ganga: Breaking India 2.0, (publisher: Occam, An imprint of BluOne Ink, LLP;

Other publications

Antonio de Nicolas, Krishnan Ramaswamy, and Aditi Banerjee (eds.) (2007), Invading the Sacred: An Analysis Of Hinduism Studies In America (publisher: Rupa & Co.)