Harvard’s Sanskrit promotion sparks outrage among Hindus worldwide
Having spent a lifetime in academia, as both a professor and an administrator, I have long defended the principle of academic freedom as essential to the pursuit of knowledge. Universities are places where ideas are tested, assumptions challenged, and scholarship pursued without fear of political interference.
But academic freedom was never meant to serve as a shield for intellectual irresponsibility. Nor was it meant to justify the casual denigration of living religious traditions.
Which is why the recent controversy surrounding Harvard University’s promotion of a Sanskrit course deserves far more scrutiny than a simple apology.
When I first saw the image Harvard used to advertise its Sanskrit course, I wondered what it was. A satire? A parody page mocking my religion? Or a deliberately provocative visual meant to demonize Hindu sacred imagery?
As the image was enlarged and examined more closely, confusion quickly turned to shock. The grotesque imagery appeared to depict a distorted Hindu deity, interpreted as a disfigured representation of Shri Krishna or a sinister caricature of Bhagwan Shiva. Dark, menacing, and almost horror-like in tone, the image bore none of the dignity traditionally associated with Hindu sacred iconography.
Yet this was not an internet meme or fringe provocation.
It was official promotional material used by Harvard University’s Department of South Asian Studies to advertise a Sanskrit course.
For over a billion Hindus around the world, Shri Krishna and Bhagwan Shiva are not decorative cultural motifs or mythological props. They embody spiritual principles that lie at the heart of a living civilization. Krishna represents divine wisdom, compassion, and the timeless philosophical teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. Shiva represents cosmic balance, transformation, and profound metaphysical insight.
To portray such sacred figures in grotesque or sinister imagery is not merely insensitive; it is deeply disrespectful and deplorable.
What makes it particularly troubling is where it occurred. Harvard is not simply another university, but it presents itself as a moral and intellectual authority on diversity, cultural understanding, and global scholarship.
Yet in promoting a course on Sanskrit, one of humanity’s oldest and most sacred languages, Harvard chose imagery that demeaned the very tradition from which that language emerged.
This contradiction cannot simply be dismissed as a social-media mistake.
The controversy quickly drew international attention. Media outlets across the United States and India reported on the disturbing imagery and the outrage it provoked among Hindus worldwide. The Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) documented the incident and raised the alarm, bringing wider scrutiny to how Hindu traditions are represented within elite academic institutions.
Facing mounting criticism, Harvard’s Department of South Asian Studies issued a statement saying it “deeply regrets the posting of an insensitive image.” The image was removed, and the department promised to review its internal social-media processes.
The apology is welcome, but it is not enough.
The deeper issue is how such imagery passed through an entire academic department dedicated to South Asian studies without anyone recognizing its offensiveness.
Academic freedom protects the search for truth; it does not protect the careless distortion of civilizations.
Serious scholarship may analyze, critique, and debate religion. What it does not do, what it should never do, is reduce sacred figures to grotesque caricatures in the name of creativity or ideological experimentation. When academic freedom is invoked to excuse such conduct, it ceases to be freedom and begins to resemble intellectual dishonesty.
If a university department had used similarly distorted imagery of sacred figures from other major religions to promote a course, the backlash would have been swift and severe. There would likely have been institutional inquiries, formal condemnations, and urgent conversations about bias and discrimination.
Hindus deserve the same respect.
The deeper questions remain unanswered. Who created the imagery? Was it commissioned, generated, or appropriated from elsewhere? Who approved it? What editorial safeguards exist within the department for reviewing materials that publicly represent religious traditions?
These questions matter because they point to a larger problem.
Too often, academic departments studying South Asia are shaped by narrow ideological frameworks that treat Hindu traditions primarily as objects of suspicion, political critique, or social deconstruction rather than subjects of serious civilizational scholarship.
This intellectual climate has consequences. It creates environments in which distortion, parody, or caricature of Hindu traditions may be tolerated in ways that would be unthinkable if directed toward other religions.
The irony becomes even more striking when one considers that Harvard hosts centers and academic programs related to Hindu and South Asian studies supported by philanthropy from members of the Indian and Hindu communities. It is difficult to reconcile how an institution can benefit from such support while simultaneously allowing imagery that many Hindus perceive as disrespectful toward their faith.
Philanthropic supporters of Hindu and South Asian studies must also ask whether the institutions they support are honoring the civilizational traditions those gifts were intended to preserve.
This is precisely why the apology, while necessary, is insufficient.
Harvard must go further.
At a minimum, the university should conduct a transparent review of how the imagery was created and approved. It should clarify institutional guidelines distinguishing legitimate academic inquiry from conduct that demeans living religious traditions. Harvard should engage seriously with Hindu scholars and community organizations, including CoHNA, to ensure that Hindu traditions are represented accurately and with respect.
Universities play a powerful role in shaping how civilizations are understood and interpreted. When elite institutions allow prejudice—whether subtle or overt—to masquerade as intellectual freedom, they undermine the very principles they claim to defend.
Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata. It carries millennia of philosophical reflection, scientific thought, poetry, and spiritual insight.
It deserves to be studied with intellectual rigor and cultural respect, not introduced through imagery that demeans the tradition it represents.
Harvard now has an opportunity to demonstrate that academic freedom does not mean academic arrogance.
Harvard is not only under scrutiny by the Trump administration, but the world will be watching to see whether Harvard puts the brakes on academic arrogance and hypocrisy.
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1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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Formerly, a researcher in Italy, Japan, and France, he has widely travelled and came to the US in 1978. He was a faculty and academic administrator in several different universities in PA, TX, NJ, MN, WI, and NY, and an Executive Fellow in the White House S&T Policy during the Clinton administration.
