🧵Hindu Historical Trauma
I met a Hindu who is committed to raising awareness about Hindu persecution, both past and present, aware that it does not exist in the public consciousness, not even the Hindu consciousness.
I met a Hindu who is committed to raising awareness about Hindu persecution, both past and present, aware that it does not exist in the public consciousness, not even the Hindu consciousness.
When the topic of intergenerational/historical trauma arose, he was convinced that "99.99% of Hindus" do not carry historical or intergenerational trauma as they are only concerned with their day-to-day struggles and successes.
It didn't occur to him that the fact that so many Hindus are completely unconcerned with Hinduphobia *is* an indicator of historical/ intergenerational trauma.
It is critical to unpack this assumption. I begin with the caveat that I am not a scholar of psychology, social or otherwise, and that @rajatkm ji has done incredible work in this area, and I defer completely to his expertise and that of other trained psych scholars.
However, I've read enough research on historical/intergenerational trauma to know that denialism - a maladaptive coping mechanism - is a very common way people deal with trauma. This can be passed down intergenerationally by a community so that it appears to be a community norm.
Trauma doesn't always appear as sadness or an inability to thrive in society. It can surface through heightened determination to succeed and appear successful (focusing on the outside) accompanied by emotional dysregulation or an inability to manage one's emotions.
It can manifest as callousness/harshness which can be repositioned as "being frank." If this is widespread enough, it becomes the norm. Then, if some community members seek to re-sensitizing the emotions, they may be characterized by other community members as weak/ "emotional".
Anger is often the exception to the rule about emotions, as it is seen as "strong."
(This is complicated in postcolonial societies where significant material resources have been drained by the colonizer and corrupt postcolonial governments and people struggle just to feed their children and provide a roof over their heads.)
There can also be maladaptive coping strategies around the women of the community, who experience extreme physical and other violence during colonization, genocide, and other historical and ongoing traumas.
Communities can become very protective of women, monitoring their behaviors to "keep them safe." For Hindus, over time, this was not only normed, but appears to have been retrofitted by some into "dharma" itself.
The men, on the other hand, tend to become either hypermasculinized (i.e. machismo, nothing can effect me) - as their masculinity has been subjected to constant attack by the colonizer. There can be a bravado, a need to dominate.
These coping mechanisms and behaviors create a perfect storm that give rise to the "how can Hindu people be misogynistic if they worship Devi?" paradox.
Remember, all of this is a survival mechanism. The community might appear to be thriving ("model minority"), but they have actually cobbled together a package of coping strategies just to survive - denial of what happened/still happens or the "strong, thriving" archetype.
If the intergenerational trauma of the community is not recognized - within or outside the community - then all of these maladaptive coping strategies that (over time) become normed behaviors are read internally and externally as the "culture" of the community.
There is significant research on historical trauma in other communities affected by extreme persecution, but the analytical psychological lens is Western. I cannot overstate the importance of @rajatkm ji's work. He has laid the foundation stones for this research on Hindus.
There is so much scope for us to recognize and understand Hindu intergenerational trauma, and also how to heal and recover our authentic selves using the gifts of our ancestors, who understood the impact of trauma and harm on the psyche. 🙏🏾
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