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tuality is one of the crucial aspects that the West could not decipher or understand
and therefore could not control.
ETHICAL RESEARCH PROTOCOLS
The huge credibility problem the Western research community faces today with re-
spect to Hinduism must be addressed from within a Hindu agenda. It must be af-
firmed that the first beneficiaries of knowledge of Hinduism must be the direct in-
digenous descendants of that knowledge. Hinduism-centered research must be
about bringing to the center and fore privileging indigenous values, attitudes, and
practices rather than disguising them with Westernized labels.
Research on Hinduism in the West is organized primarily around the interests of
like-minded scholars and Indologists. The development of particular research top-
ics and research groups tends to occur organically within the boundaries of what is
known as a “research culture” embedded in the values of academic life. Much re-
search on Hinduism is carried out in closely formed and protected cliques that share
methodologies of mutual interest. Thus one often reads in the messages posted on
RISA-L requests for leads or references concerning a Hinduism-related topic of re-
search “my” student has chosen.
EMIC AND ETIC OF RESEARCH
ON HINDUISM
Many of the issues that may arise while doing research on Hinduism are ad-
dressed in the literature about the emic and etic dimensions of research. Most West-
ern research methodologies assume that the researcher is an outsider who never-
theless should be able to observe without being implicated in the scene. This view
originates in positivism and relies on notions of objectivity and neutrality. But a
Hindu researcher must problematize the emic, or insider, model differently because
the critical issue with emic research is the constant need for refiexivity. At a general
level, emic researchers must devise ways to think and to critically assess their
thought processes and their relationships to research subjects, cultures, and soci-
eties. They must guard against the uncritical collection of their data and its analy-
sis. True, the same caution applies to etic research, but the major difference is that,
as an insider, the Hindu researcher will have to live with the consequences of his or
her research on a day-to-day basis as a member of the culture or society that pro-
vides the subject of research.