Walking home from class, I was stopped by a man I didn’t know under a bridge connecting two buildings on campus. He invited me to a bible study, and when I politely refused, I was completely surrounded by other students and a metal gate so I couldn’t walk away.

She later asked us for an example of something sacred from our religion. I replied with bindis, and she looked like she had no idea what I was talking about and went on to call them “bindus”. This is a collegiate level class segment on Hinduism and the professor had no knowledge of the Ramayana or bindis.

I had to explain an unimaginable amount of times that Jasmine and Aladdin were not Hindu and that belly dance was also not Hindu. It went on and on. Unfortunately, there were not a lot of Hindus (less than a handful) in our very large school, so it was incredibly difficult for their voices to be heard.

In my Principles of Marketing class, for the second time I received an assignment that consists of a narrative that we must then answer questions about which portrays India in a negative light. This particular narrative is about selling American clothing in India, it goes on to talk about “religious and political conservative groups violently opposing western culture.”

I wished everyone a Happy Diwali on my group chat. A fellow student said, “I wish they made Diwali a holiday.” I said, “They are trying to make Diwali a federal holiday,” referencing the Deepavali Day Act. People then started complaining about Diwali in the group chat asking why they wanted to make Diwali a holiday.

One of the residential assistants used to corner me when I was alone and tell me to eat beef jerky. I told her multiple times that I am Hindu and we don’t eat beef. Regardless of how many times I told her Hindus don’t eat beef, she would tell me to eat beef. She is now a kindergarten teacher.

I found out that a 16 year old boy was grooming an 11 and 10 year olds, and went to the school counselor, who was a mandated reporter. She repeatedly asked if they were in an arranged marriage just because the victims and perpetrators were all Hindus.

She laughed while taking the report and made racial comments about Hindus as well as derogatory comments about special needs students, because I have autism. She said she wouldn’t file the report because it was a “Cultural misunderstanding.”

Tonight, I attended the Indian Cultural & Pakistani Students Associations’ India-Pakistan Unity event. In the unity portion of their presentation, they discussed the “Jammu and Kashmir Conflict” – while conveniently & completely leaving out any mention of the ongoing Kashmiri Hindu Genocide.

Instead of being allowed to ask questions and provide corrections, I was silenced and forced to continue listening to misinformation being spread.

As a Bengali Hindu American with parents from Bangladesh, the Hindu population in Bangladesh is diminishing. I consider myself a double minority- a minority in the USA and Bangladesh. As someone who took an Ethnic Minorities in the USA class, I decided for extra credit to do a whole presentation on Hinduphobia in the USA and Bangladesh.

I received abusive comments from my professor about Hinduism and India throughout my semester. The first incident was in class – while laughing and mocking an Indian accent, my professor said “Indians believe that they created the zero and had flying spaceships in the time of the Mahabharata.”

On the same day of my presentation, the Professor showed the class a clip from Peter Brook’s movie, Mahabharata, where Draupadi is being dragged into the court and disrobed. Out of the entire Mahabharata, he only showed this specific scene to advanced an argument that women were disrespected in India & Hinduism.

Other Hindu students in my class were afraid to stand up and refused to join me to complain. When myself and allies finally complained, the non-Hindu students witnessed the discrimination in class and believed that the professor treated Indian students differently.

I brushed it away & told him to calm down. Several days later, he kept repeating the same remarks as last time. This continued almost every class. I began talking about how in some cases Hindus were being forced out of their own homes and being killed in broad daylight, but he called it the twisting of the “Hindu-controlled media” and said I was fake.

Even though this claim was utterly false, it caught on in class and I became known for this. He completely destroyed my reputation, and it became really bad. It got so bad that in the class people had locked me out of the class one day, which could have gotten me a Saturday detention if I hadn’t explained to my grade level principal.

My Hindu classmates were impacted by the racist professor at GW and that same professor is teaching a course called “Mythologies of India.” The course description is as stated, “The lore of Indian gods (Vedic, Puranic), heroes (epics), and holy men (Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Tantric); ties with Indian art, caste, cult, cosmology, and spiritual ideals.”

Meanwhile, the same professor always praises Pakistan but totally disregards the persecution of minorities there. I wanted to counter his argument because I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the class but I chose to stay silent in fear of how rapid Hinduphobia is these days, especially in states such as California.

They asked me why I wouldn’t attend their study, to which I replied that I am a Hindu. One of the students replied in absolute disgust: “A Hindu?!” and laughed. I had to change my tone and assert myself in order to get the man in front of me to move and let me continue walking.

Later on in the semester during the segment on Hinduism, we talked about India’s history and partition. She blamed the entire thing on Hindus and did not mention the British once. I had to bring them up in a discussion about partition and India’s independence.

The dance they choreographed did not have a single song in a South Asian language (although I sent an entire playlist of options), my Nepali Hindu friend’s t-shirt design was rejected, and we had to fight to get Hindu students on the dance team (even though two of them were talented dancers)

However, the part that was most upsetting to me as a Hindu, was the utterly random addition of this quote to the narrative “Even businesses are getting into the anti-American sentiment; a local beverage company announced that they would take on the popularity of Coke and Pepsi by selling a beverage based on cow urine, which is considered a holy, medicinal drink by Hindus”.

One person even asked for proof, and I posted the Tweet from Rep Maloney. Another asked why was Eid not a holiday. Only one or two people responded to my original wishes, but most hopped on the chat to complain about the idea of a federal holiday for Diwali.

We were acquaintances, but he liked me. He admitted to having a fetish for Indian women. One day, he asked me how strong of a Hindu I was. I told him I was vegetarian but not extremely relgious.

She didn’t believe me when I said that the parents didn’t know what was happening and that the average marriage age for Hindus in India is 23 years old. She then refused to do anything about it because “It’s probably a cultural issue.”

An Associate Professor at Rutgers University – Newark, tweeted an infographic accusing the Hindu Students Council, the largest Hindu student organization on campus, as being a feeder for “Hindu Right Groups in America.” As a Hindu student on campus, I do not feel safe to practice my faith.

Specifically, they mentioned the United Nations Resolution 47. However, all they said about the resolution was that “the people of Kashmir were supposed to get to decide their fate, and they were never given the opportunity” (this is about step #3)

How was this meeting about unity if you spent the entire “unity” portion of the meeting to spread false information about Jammu and Kashmir? I am absolutely disgusted.

The professor was strict about the time limit of 7 minutes, which I understand. Throughout the entire presentation, I received nasty stares. On top of that, my professor pushed me to finish my presentation. She rushed me to the point where I couldn’t discuss Hinduphobia in Bangladesh. In fact, class was cut short despite my presentation.

In class, I created a presentation to facilitate the conversation around Hindu texts and history, notably, the Ramayana and Mahabharata. My Professor then accused me of advocating that Hinduism is superior to any other religion, when I never said that. He then went on to declaring me an ideologue of the BJP.

A Hindu classmate of mine separately talked to him about how the caste system worsened due to colonialism. To that, the professor argued that “Colonialism was good because it allowed us to move around and experience new cultures.” He also said “Indian women only care about their cycles and taking care of children.”

All this took a severe toll on my physical and mental health as my days went by crying and I was heavily stressed . The university did not do anything aside from justifying that the professor had the right to talk about uncomfortable topics even if that went against the religion/culture we were raised in.

I got very mad at this point as he was calling me a murderer and a liar now. He also called me a racist and sexist. One time, he began raising his voice to me so I raised mine back and other people around gave me odd looks. In that class I started being known for being called a racist and murderer. It wasn’t very good and now some others even joined in.

Eventually it died down as finals rolled around, and after school ended it completely stopped as I never saw this person again.

As a non-Hindu, I am disgusted that he is allowed to still teach a course on anything that has to do with Hinduism; it is concerning for students like me who actually want to learn about Hinduism. Despite complaints to the department, there has still been no due process.