Educators' Society for the Heritage of India held a professional conference on "Contemporary Conceptions of Studies on India in Academia" at Rutgers University, NJ between September 24th and 26th. The event was co-sponsored by the Hindu Students Council (HSC) and attended by educators, professors, scholars, teachers, school
administrators and many Rutgers university students.

The knowledge about the heritage and culture of India in North America is not only limited, but mostly biased, negative, distorted and incorrect. During British rule, Indian history, culture and traditions: Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism were distorted by colonial prejudice. This distortion is being perpetuated in the western education system. The US academia and media stereo-type India in negative ways. Many US school and college textbooks and resource material present caste system, untouchability, poverty, animal gods and cows as the core of India's culture and tradition. Even reference
books, like Encarta, that are used by students all over the world, have presented a maligned and distorted view of Hinduism. Indian Americans have not challenged the stereotyping in an organized manner. As a result, negative views of India, its culture and
traditions continue to perpetuate in North America.

ESHI was formed to remedy this long-standing problem. Its mission is to function as a network and intellectual think tank of educators, scholars, students and academics to provide authoritative information and authentic resources related to India's heritage, culture, history, and languages to elementary, middle and high school teachers, colleges, curriculum developers, education officials and the policy makers; the media, including textbook authors and publishers; inter-faith organizations, non-profit organizations, political leaders and the general public.

Other minorities such as African Americans, Hispanic, Jewish, Islamic, Native Americans and some of the east Asian communities (Japanese, Korean, Chinese) face similar problems and have well established institutions. ESHI will collaborate with them and learn from their experiences.

The objective of the conference was to bring together teachers, professors and students, who are interested in education about India, to share information on issues related to the education about India in schools and colleges, to share information about the important work that is being done by various individuals across USA and to provide guidance, encouragement and tools to attendees to enable them to engage in improving the educational environment and resources about India.

Kanchan Banerjee, co-founder and ESHI board member, opened the conference with memorable quotes from various Western scholars like Voltaire, LaPlace, Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, and Will Durant, who have extolled the greatness of India and its culture and traditions in their widely respected books and writings. He appealed to the audience
to speak up, as a well educated and respected Indian American professional community, for our proud heritage, and not continue to rely on others to speak for us.

Dr. Ved P. Chaudhary, co-founder and ESHI board member, and former Trustee of Rutgers University, presented examples of places, people and captions in a few pictures selected from the World Geography textbook, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, that is used in the seventh grade in Piscataway, New Jersey, the town where the conference was held. The comparison of a few pictures from USA, Middle-east and
India vividly illustrated how India was grossly misrepresented in this text book.

An essay written by Trisha Pasricha, a 14 year old school girl from Houston, Texas, revealed the deep anguish felt by school children of Indian heritage because of the distorted picture of India and its culture, amounting to sheer ridicule of their heritage, portrayed by many school teachers and books. This illustration helped the audience to clearly understand the challenges that ESHI and the Indian American community is facing with the US school system.

Professor T. S. Rukmani, Chair in Hindu Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada delivered the Keynote lecture in which she explained the great cultural heritage of India. It was followed by a plenary session with various scholars, experts and students who spoke about the challenges and issues that exist in the education system in the United States. Prof. Nirmal Singh of Connecticut discussed how Sikh and Sikhism are misunderstood in North America.

Ms. Seema M. Singh, Esq., Chairperson of the Asian Studies Initiative informed the audience that the first and most important finding of the Asian American Commission, appointed by the NJ Governor, was that the curricula of all educational institutions in New Jersey must include the study of Asia and the historic contemporary contributions of
Asians to the world's economic, political, spiritual and artistic achievements. She has presented a detailed report and recommendations to the Governor on how to facilitate the development of Asian studies curricula in New Jersey public schools in ways that are respectful of Asians and Asian Americans; that provide our children positive self images and awareness of their dual cultural heritage; and that provide all students sufficient knowledge of Asia and its diverse cultures so they can participate effectively as adults in future economic, social, cultural and political events.

.Dr. Piyush Agrawal, former Superintendent of schools in New Jersey, and Florida, and recently appointed by the Governor of Florida as a Director of Florida Fund for Minority Teachers explained to the audience how to work cooperatively with the school boards, school administration, and the textbook publishers. He told that Texas, California and Florida state education boards have a strong influence on all textbook publishers. Therefore, we should be proactive in these states to assure that India is covered in textbooks in a respectable manner.

Dr. John Dougherty, Director of Curriculum Standards at the New Jersey Department of Education, who attended the entire conference, expressed appreciation for the conference, saying: " I found it very enlightening and highly relevant to our work here with several ethnic commissions. I would be happy to work with your group." Ms. Lavinia Kumar of the N J DOE was also present and offered many helpful suggestions.

Prof. Kamal Sridhar, Director of India Studies Center at SUNY/Stony Brook, Dr Bal Ram Singh, Director of Center for Indic Studies at University of Mass. at Dartmouth, Dr. Surendra Gambhir, Founder Director of Penn-in-India program, Univ of Pennsylvania, and Dr. K. C. Gupta, President of Hindu University, spoke about the programs at their universities.

The audience shared their enthusiasm for initiating more such centers at other universities but expressed their concern that Rutgers University, where this conference was held, did not have an India Studies Center in spite of the fact that it has the largest concentration of students of Indian heritage in USA. They also expressed concern about the direction of Rutgers newly formed South Asia Initiative, because the experience of many South Asia departments in other universities has revealed their predilection to research projects and papers that disproportionately focus on the negative aspects of Indian culture and society. For example, they focus on India's poverty, illiteracy and social evils like sati, dowry, bride burning, untouchability, etc. (Mahatma Gandhi called such scholars the sewer inspectors from the west) while India as the source of yoga and meditation, Ahimsa and non-violence, Ayurveda, vegetarian food (importance recently recognized by US FDA), religious tolerance (importance recognized after 9/11); Gandhian concept of peaceful but
assertive Satyagraha (known as Civil Rights movement in US), abolition of caste system and the world's most ambitious and successful affirmative action program undertaken for the scheduled castes by the Government of India after independence; the importance of education in Indian culture, the strong family values, the strong work ethic of Indian immigrants, etc. that are positive traditions and accomplishments of India, and Indians, are not recognized, studied and published. If they were, the negative press India receives could be better understood, placed in perspective, and thus, a more balanced image of India could emerge as the world's oldest surviving and continuously practiced culture and civilization that is still thriving and successful despite many odds.

Sunny (Jiten) Singh, a Ph.D. Student at Rutgers University presented a summary of his doctoral research on Kautilya's Arthashastra that the concept of state, which is considered a European construct of the 16th or 17th century, was in fact propounded by Kautilya in 200-300 BCE. His presentation was an eye opener to the audience that realized that
Arthashastra was a gold mine; it is worthy of more research.

There are several individuals and organizations that are actively imparting education about India to middle or high school teachers and students. Mrs. Beth Kulkarni from Houston, TX who has been instrumental in forming the "Indic Culture and Traditions Seminars" (ICATS), a non-profit organization, presented how ICATS offers training to High School teachers about India. Mr. Abhinav Dwivedy, a Board member of Hindu University of America and Yashwant Belsore, a teacher in Florida, have also started a similar program there. They encouraged attendees to follow ICATS model in other states too. Mona Vijaykar, a Graphic Artist/ Illustrator by profession, who founded
"India in Classrooms (IC)", Inc. in California has prepared an interesting graphic presentation on India that is suitable for young school children. Both ICATS and IC presentations will be made available on ESHI website for use by ESHI members.

Meru Education Foundation, a Lexington-MA based non-profit organization brings programs on arts, culture, history and languages of India to the Boston area schools. This year all schools in Lexington will have a Meru program. Meru Programs were also conducted in Nashua, NH Meru has also developed teacher training modules to teach India in a more appropriate manner.
Meru conducted teacher training workshops in Lexington, and Acton Boxborough MA in 2003-2004 SY. Meru has received a grant to conduct these programs in more towns in Massachusetts

Brainstorming sessions were conducted by Dr Bal Ram Singh and Mr Abhinav Dwivedy to discuss how ESHI can be most effective in achieving its objectives. The following activities were considered essential for ESHI to be successful. It was decided to start a bi-annual journal as a communication tool to allow networking; the ESHI website must play a major role in sharing resources; Seminars like ICATS and ICR must be expanded in other states; A review committee must be formed to review text books and resource materials. Additionally, ESHI must support and encourage College students, through organizations like Hindu Students Council, to upgrade India studies programs at the
university level. And ESHI must develop a network of parents and teachers and guide them on how to successfully work with book publishers, school boards, and curriculum writers, etc.

Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula and Prof Anand Mohan were the keynote speakers who shared their invaluable thoughts, ideas, and experiences based on their long careers in the political and academic areas respectively. The conference was concluded with an inspiring talk by Sw. Prabhakari Devi, founder of Vedic Foundation in Austin, TX who
appealed to the audience to always keep in mind our objective of improving education about India in schools and colleges. She advised that we must unite our efforts, involve all like-minded individuals from our community, raise more funds and make ESHI a professional organization that can effectively carry out its objectives. Working together, we shall definitely succeed in this noble mission.