What a Group of Conservative Christians Taught Me About Being a Better Hindu

Guest Post By Snigdha Nandipati

“So, what do you think it means to live the good life?” I sat in the dining hall picking at my potatoes as the Chairman looked at me expectantly. I was petitioning to join the Federalist Party, a conservative debating society in the Yale Political Union, and this was my first test. 

Now keep in mind, I didn’t know the first thing about debating. I was barely involved in politics apart from family conversations on road trips. To top it off, I wasn’t even sure if I was a true conservative. I was a pre-med freshman who cared more about neurotransmitters than natural law. All I knew was that my faith and my family were what mattered to me most, and I knew that the Federalists shared the same values.

“It’s okay, take your time,” he said. 

 “Well, the good life to me…” I paused.

Growing up, my mother always told us that we should strive to live not for ourselves or for others, but rather for what is right and true. “The good life, I think, is one that is lived in pursuit of truth.”

Initiation

I was inducted into the party later that week. After a grueling 15-hour session of philosophical dichotomies and open-ended questions in the candlelit dark, the party presented me with an engraved lapel pin and deemed me a “Federalist for life.” 

We debated all kinds of topics – arranged marriage, denuclearization, stem cells, public schools, wealth redistribution, you name it. Even though members would take opposing sides in these debates, the basis of our arguments lay in the importance of tradition and objective moral truth in preserving ideals and order in a society. As Federalists, we banded together “to resist the errors of the age and to promote among ourselves the cultivation of virtue.”

As seasons passed and members graduated, the party too began to change. What once used to be a place where students of all faiths could come together to discuss philosophy and politics, now became an echo chamber of Biblical references. Who once used to be Federalists that inquired deeply about a petitioner’s beliefs to understand if they truly were a fit for our party, now resorted to superficial questions like “Are you pro-life?” and “Do you believe in God?” to determine if a petitioner was worthy. Our party earned a reputation in the Yale Political Union, and even to students outside Yale, as the “Catholic Party.” 

As much as I enjoyed our debates and appreciated our camaraderie, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how I was the only Hindu left in the party. While the source of many members’ socially conservative views was their Catholic faith, my conservative views emerged from my Hindu faith. They argued for absolute good, but I was taught that dharma changed with time, place, and context. I worried all too often that my conservatism wasn’t legitimate, and that I was an imposter.

I started to distance myself from the Feds and I set out in search of other fellow Hindus at Yale that I could relate to more closely. I joined our Hindu Students Organization (HSO) and I took classes about the Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita. I so desperately looked forward to meeting someone who grew up the same way I did, someone who would understand what it meant to be Hindu. My hopeful excitement sputtered out as I realized what the Hindus on my campus were like. 

Faded Saffron

These “Hindus” would show up at the end of Navratri puja to grab plates of leftover samosas for sustenance before going to Toads, our local nightclub. They would sit in the back of Bhagavad Gita class chewing gum and whispering about which lehenga they should wear to the Diwali program. They would dance to Neha Kakkar songs and throw colors on each other in celebration of Holi, but they would also march in solidarity with Holi against Hindutva, a Yale-founded movement based on an explicitly anti-Hindu agenda. I brought it up with my Hindu friends one day, mentioning how wrong it was of the movement to hijack our religious holiday in this way. They looked at me like I grew horns and a third eye. “Hinduphobia doesn’t exist,” they insisted.

My biggest mistake was expecting that people who looked like me would also think like me. If they’re brown and Hindu, then they must share the same beliefs and values as me, right? Boy, was I wrong. They weren’t really Hindus. At best, they were HINOs (Hindus in Name Only), and at worst they were traitors of our faith. The more time I spent around them, the more I worried I would become like them.

I came to realize that I had been looking for the wrong thing. I didn’t need to find someone who looked like me or someone who shared the same religion as me. What I needed was someone who would respect my faith and its philosophy, and the Federalists had already given me that.

The Federalists

The Federalists understood the tenets of my faith more than any Hindu I had met at Yale. Sure, I had to push back when the Federalists started to enter Catholic Marxist territory or began to talk about deontological ethics. But that was how I learned and grew, by pushing back and defending what I believed. And not only did they let me push back, they welcomed it in fact. 

They challenged me to think critically about why I believed what I did, and they encouraged me to question others in the same way. They engaged me in debate and tried to understand how my Hindu beliefs contributed to the trying topics of our time. Most importantly, they understood that each person, regardless of their religion, upbringing, or belief system, had a different base of philosophical knowledge to contribute. I worked to prove to myself and to the party that conservative principles are not unique to Christianity, but can be found in other faiths and philosophies as well. Though they questioned me relentlessly, they never once shut me down for what I believed in, which is something I can’t say for the so-called Hindus on campus.

The Federalists gave me the courage to stand up for my faith. And at a time like this, when Hindus are wrongly labeled as fascists and extremists, it is more important than ever that we stand up for the truth. Let’s be better Hindus, and let’s start living the good life.

Find more of Snigdha on her blog and personal website!

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The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas.

-Anthony De Mello