Very interesting pick, as always. The views expressed are relevant to any religion and reasons behind the rise of extremism in every society. India is an extreme case of diversity and often considered the test bed of religion. You can start your own religion any day in India just like a startup company here and you will have some follower no matter how whacky is your idea. The world in general is moving towards extremes of right or left and there is a reason behind it. The confusion in every society leads to an opening for assertive and ideological groups. Gandhi’s words quoted here would be branded both as extreme left or religious right today and that shows how as a society we all have digressed from viewpoints with conflicting ideas or balance of thoughts from both sides. Also these name calling stops the whole society from thinking about the directions in which we are heading in an inclusive fashion. I am not sure if a Hindu has any more identity crisis compared to a Jew, Muslim or a follower of any sect of Christianity. In fact, even for an atheist, the take on the philosophical basis of morality is equally conflicting when you do not agree with the next atheist. In fact, religion is used to support death, sacrifice, jihad and you name it. I am not going completely Christopher Hitchens here but religion has always been used to manipulate uncertainty and lack of direction in a society in general. For example, to fill up the confusion created by the politicians and social pundits about homosexuality, you find Jerry Falwell as a loud, obnoxious and assertive voice working against people’s inherent definition of modesty and inclusiveness. This is a trend and as a young person, the best antidote is to think before embracing any ideology. Don’t ask other people for answers but rather find the answer within without a biased ideological or religious framework. Then seek and soak all the moderate and inclusive viewpoints; embracing diversity in views and rejecting extremism should be a priority in both left and right today.

I'm looking forward to having the "Intelligent Design" movement in American elementary schools joined by the "Sacrificial Origin Theory."

There are, of course, more than a few creation myths-- rather, "theories" -- in Hindu religion.

But a good alternative to the Divine Designer -- this is science, after all, and we must consider competing hypotheses -- is the Primeval Man Purusha, who had a thousand heads and a thousand eyes and a thousand feet, and whose body, when sacrificed, produced clarified butter that became animals and birds, and whose body parts made the other gods and human beings.

Granted, this is not quite as "believable" as Noah getting all the dinosaurs onto the Ark.

But in the interests of science, and of giving American children an alternative to Godless Evolution, it deserves a chapter at least.

Well, you have to give it to the Indian population that there was never a significant clamor for a Hindu version of "creationism" to be taught in schools or for the evolution teory to be pulled off. The nuttiest of the Hindu right probably accepts the different stories of creation as fables.

The problems with the nutso Hindu right (and I am not talking about the criminal variety that butchers people and destroys architectural sites) are

a. A collective persecution complex and a complete lack of humor (the world is out to slander us, a Ganesha on a T-shirt is an irreparable harm to our Great Ancient Culture...) - nowhere is this more obvious than on desi blogs and other internet sites

b. An insistence on how every field of knowledge originated in our Great Ancient Culture and the folks who wrote the Vedas know everything that is worth knowing today. There is a whole lot of kooky nonsense that goes by the name "Vedic Mathematics"

c. Xenophobia that guises itself as patriotism - with crazy theories, e.g., Aryan invasion was a myth, the Aryans actually originated in the land that is called India and migrated west.

Andy,

You must be careful before whole-heartedly endorsing the view of someone from the Indian community whose opinion belongs by and large to the fringe elements. As you correctly point out, Vijay Prashad is a Marxist. Not only is Prashad a Marxist, but a revolutionary whose beliefs are rooted in violent uprisings. As such, you must be doubly guarded in affirming the persuasion of one who is the natural adversary of practices based on faith.

Communal and religious relations are very delicate in India. Secularism has become a dirty word. It has become a tool for people like Prashad who have no standing in the community to gain prominence. The term "communal" and its other variations are almost exclusively-designated swearwords reserved for use against anybody remotely espousing even genuine Hindu causes, such as in California.

Textbooks in California were very badly written to begin with. Prashad and his small coterie of Marxists did absolutely nothing do dispel these inaccuracies - just like Marxists world over have done nothing useful. 95% of corrections applied by the school board were suggested by Hindu parents. Prashad and group, resort to name calling and branding based a modicum of changes that at best can be termed controversial.