280. identity
For this reason, as an emic researcher, a Hindu scholar will need to build clear,
research-based support systems and relationships with his or her community. He or
she will have to devise much clearer “lines of relating” specific to the project and “at
arm’s length” from the regular lines of family and community networks. Spelling
out the limitations of a project—the issues or things that are not addressed—will
also be important. The emic researcher must also devise a suitable model for closure
and must possess the courage to say no and stand up to peer pressure from insiders.
Insider research has to be as ethical and respectful, as reflexive and critical, as out-
sider, or etic, research. It also needs to be modest and humble, because the researcher
is likely to have various roles and relationships in his or her community that may be
at odds with the demands of research in an etic setting.^17
RESEARCHED [HINDUS]
MUST BECOME RESEARCHERS
A major challenge for Hindu researchers is to retrieve sufficient space to convince
the various fragmented but powerful research communities (Western and
Hindu/Indian in the diaspora or in India) of the need for greater Hindu involve-
ment in research on Hinduism. Yet another challenge is to develop approaches to-
ward research that take into account, without being limited by, the legacies of pre-
vious Western-dominated research and the parameters of both previous and current
approaches. Finally, Hindu researchers must devise a framework for structuring as-
sumptions, values, concepts, orientations, and priorities for such research. When
Hindus become the researchers and are no longer mere research subjects or the re-
searched, the activity and direction of research on Hinduism will be transformed.
Questions will then be framed differently, priorities ranked differently, problems de-
fined differently.
Hindus must begin by questioning the most fundamental belief behind Western
research on Hinduism: Do all researchers have an inherent right to the knowledge
and truth of Hinduism? Research in itself is a very powerful intervention, even if car-
ried out at a distance, because it has traditionally benefited the researcher, the knowl-
edge base of the researching community and the sponsoring agency. Researchers ac-
quire privileged information, which is usually interpreted within an overt theoretical
framework. But it can also be interpreted within a covert ideological framework. The
researcher has the power to distort, to make invisible, to overlook, to exaggerate, and
to draw conclusions based not on factual data, but on assumptions, hidden value