Shreena Niketa Gandhi is an American historian and Assistant Professor of religious studies at Michigan State University where she teaches religion and race in the Americas. Her pronouns are She/Her/Hers. She is the founding member of the South Asia Scholars Activists Collective (SASAC) along with Audrey Truschke.
Shreena Gandhi is a member of the radical-leftist group Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective (FCHSC) A.K.A The Auntylectuals which is known for spreading Hindu hatred in American academia. The other members are Shana Sippy, Harshita Mruthinti Kamath and Sailaja Krishnamurti. Shreena Gandhi is also working on a multi-year collaborative project on intersectional Hinduism supported by American Academy of Religion and partially funded by the Wabash Centre. As per their website, the Collective received an initial grant of $5,000 and since then received $30,000 to develop Critical Hindu Studies Pedagogies. The most recent grant was in 2023 by the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion to focus on Pursuing Justice: Critical Hindu Studies Pedagogies in Formation.
Ken Chitwood, a Lutheran theologian, pastor, and professor at the University of Bayreuth‘s Department of Religion, edited and produced a guide on Hindu nationalism for journalists. All members of the SASAC contributed to this guide, in which they describe Hindu nationalism as a “far-right political ideology of Hindu supremacy…Also known as Hindutva”. According to the guide Hindu nationalism/Hindutva’s core objective is to transform India, “a constitutionally secular state, into a Hindu Rashtra (nation) where some Indians will be more equal than others”.
Shreena Gandhi in “Hinduphobia is a smokescreen for Hindu nationalists” as part of the Auntylectuals group, argues “Hindutva is a political movement that claims that only Hindus can be legitimate citizens of India, excluding India’s thriving Muslim, Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi communities.” They further write that Hindus faced no persecution, which makes them use the term “Hinduphobia” as a smokescreen that “co-opts the language we use as social justice activists to challenge racism, white supremacy, casteism and Islamophobia, even as Hindu nationalists claiming victim status troll and threaten South Asian studies and Hindu studies scholars.” According to them, Hindus use the classic tools of fascism – Hinduphobia, violent Hindutva rhetoric, misinformation and fear.
In their first article as Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective, “More than a Reading List: Challenging Anti-Black Racism in the Field of South Asian Religions“, Shreena Gandhi and others agree that any study of South Asian religions should “integrate gender and race” along with critical race theory, gender, and sexuality studies into their classes and research. They contend that the study of South Asian religions was formed by “white supremacy, brahminical supremacy, and hetero-patriarchy”. They write, “racism, anti-Blackness, sexism, casteism, Islamophobia, and orientalism inherently inform the scholarship on and pedagogy of South Asian religions.” Indians are perceived as “model minority” in the US which the authors believe the status is “rooted in anti-Black racism.”
In “Hindu fragility and the politics of mimicry in North America“, FCHS members draw parallels between White supremacy and Hindutva. They write, “By examining contemporary debates around caste in the United States, we illustrate how Hindu fragility—an expression of Hindu supremacist logics—is weaponized and performed by North American Hindus, mimicking white supremacy culture and propagating everyday Hindu nationalism.” They argue that in North America, Indians as “model minority” is a myth that presents Hindus are victims of discrimination and not as perpetrators of discrimination. They describe Hindu fragility as “Hindu fragility then refers to how caste-privileged Hindus leverage ideas about their collective precarity and vulnerability, making it seem that any criticism of Hinduism or India harms Hindus and enacts violence against the community.” They further state that Hindu groups practice “homohindunationalism” that expresses “solidarity with LGBTQ+ groups but reject working with anti-caste groups.” They mention the Indian Union territory of Jammu & Kashmir as “occupied by India”. In conclusion they write “Caste supremacy in South Asia and South Asian diasporas, which has been sustained over thousands of years through a wide-array of religious texts and practices as well as economic and social structures, upholds brahminical patriarchy at the expense of caste-oppressed communities, religious minorities, and others not included in the vision of Hindu supremacy.”
In January 2018 Shreena Gandhi and her Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective co-authors proclaimed “Americans who practice yoga ‘contribute to white supremacy’“. While the claim is correct, the authors end the article saying yoga practice “rightfully belongs to Indian women”.
In a podcast on Yoga, White Supremacy and the Caste System, Shreena Gandhi says Yoga predates Hinduism….and it grew up with lots of different religions. It’s not just Hindu, its not just Buddhists, its not just Jain but has been influenced by different context, communities, traditions throughout time and we are in the middle of another influence, capitalistic influence”. She further says “calling too much attention to its Indian past, South asian, to its Hindu and Buddhist past other than the surface level will remind people of its too much complicated history”. She argues that Sanskrit was for privileged people and was never used historically. She opines that Yoga doesn’t belong to any culture and that looking for the origins of anything will lead one into the issues of fascism. In the podcast, Shreena Gandhi says, “In the context of South Asian studies, decolonisation has been co-opted by the right-wing Hindus.” She accuses Hindus of decolonising by continuing to be casteist, Islamophobic, and anti-Christian. She promotes Christian caste activist and founder of the controversial Equality Labs, Thenmozhi Soundrarajan. Shreena Gandhi says, Thenmozhi Soundrarajan talks of ‘de-Brahminising yoga, not decolonising yoga’. Shreena Gandhi says South Asian “yoga sellers” are either Brahmin or Brahmin-adjacent. She then goes on to equate Donald Trump with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She further goes on to lie that the average life expectancy of a Dalit woman in India is 39 years old.
In 2020 Shreena Gandhi on a podcast on Yoga, Cultural Appropriation, and Racism calls India as South Asia. In the podcast she says “Hinduism is a super material religion.” Speaking on the roots of yoga, Shreena Gandhi says there is “evidence of Hindu yoga, Buddhist yoga, Sikh yoga, Jain yoga, Muslim yoga….in South Asia that is India.” She further says yoga was set on a secular trajectory in the United States and Europe which has led to other religions adopting yoga like Jewish yoga and Christian yoga.
Shreena Gandhi has locked her X account – @shreenaniketa
STOP HINDU HATE ADVOCACY NETWORK 