Selective Ridicule? Analyzing How Hindu Puja Practices Are Portrayed in English-Language Media

Image courtesy: Pandit Shivam Sharma

English-language media often acts as a judge for the entire world. It decides what is “cool” or “modern.” Sadly, it often looks at Hindu puja (worship/prayer) in a demeaning and truculent manner. Instead of seeing a beautiful tradition, it sees something “weird.” This is not an accident. It happens because many writers use a Western lens to look at Indian life, culture, and roots.

English newspapers, digital news portals, and international streaming shows hold immense power in India. They shape the opinions of the urban middle class and the youth. For many, English is the language of professional success and “global” thinking. Continuously, when these platforms mock Hindu rituals, ways of prayer and worship, it changes how people see their own homes and their culture. It creates a psychological gap between a person and their heritage. This media narrative labels traditional life as a “problem” that stops or slows scientific progress. Curiously, the same media houses that call Hindu rituals “regressive” often praise Western spiritual trends and dare not critique Muslim rituals, prayer, and worship. Practices like “mindfulness,” “manifestation,” or “cleansing” are celebrated as progressive and scientific, even though they often borrow—or strip away—elements from the very Indic traditions being mocked.

Why Hindu Rituals Become Easy Targets

Several factors make Hindu practices a frequent and “safe” target for media mockery:

• No Central Authority: Hinduism has no single “head office,” no global Pope, and no central legal body to issue formal pushback or take the media to the courts or to the court of public opinion. This decentralized nature, while spiritually liberating, makes it easier for critics and provocateurs to experiment with ridicule without fearing a coordinated institutional response.
• Consequence-free Bravery: Writers and editors often display a form of “consequence-free bravery.” They feel bold in mocking sacred acts because they know the community is generally tolerant. In many liberal circles, being “edgy” against the majority faith is a way to earn social capital without any real risk.
• Institutional Bias: Many newsrooms harbor and nurture an internal culture where mocking local traditions is seen as a sign of intellectual “enlightenment.” There is an unwritten rule that to be a “serious” journalist, one must look down upon “traditional” or “ritualistic” Hindu India.

The Economic Angle — Commodification vs. Tradition

There is a strange irony in how the English media treats Hindu practices. While they mock the “ritual” at home, they fully support the “brand” abroad. We see articles ridiculing a traditional home puja, but the same outlets will feature “Turmeric Lattes” or “Ashwagandha stress-relief supplements” as the latest global health trends. When it’s sold in a fancy plastic bottle with a Western label, it is called “innovative.” When it is done in a copper vessel at a home altar, it is called “outdated.” This shows that the ridicule isn’t about the practice itself, but about who controls the narrative and who profits. They want the benefits of the heritage, but they want to strip away the culture that created it.

The Philosophical Foundations of Hindu Puja

A puja is not a collection of random acts or magic spells. It is a sophisticated psychological and spiritual tool. In Hindu thought, the mind is difficult to catch; it is like a restless monkey. Rituals use the five senses to anchor the mind:

• Senses and Symbols: Using flowers (pushpa), incense (dhupa), and the sound of bells or chants (mantra) engages the senses, pulling the practitioner away from daily stress and toward inner stillness.
• Cosmic Order (Rta): These rituals follow the concept of Rta—the cosmic order that keeps the universe in balance. Puja is a way for an individual to align their personal energy with this larger rhythm.
• Karma and Intent: By performing a ritual, a person refines their karma and focuses their sankalpa (intent).
• Media reports almost always ignore this deep logic. They focus entirely on the external—the smoke, the noise, or the crowds—without ever asking why these acts have survived for thousands of years.

The Weaponization of “Environmentalism”

Media houses often use “environmentalism” as a weapon to target Hindu festivals like Diwali/Deepavali or Ganesh Chaturthi. They act as if these traditions are the main cause of pollution. But this logic is totally one-sided. They will call a milk offering a “waste,” yet they never much write about the massive amount of water used for golf courses or the pollution from huge luxury cruises and fast fashion, let alone write about the environmental costs of Muslim and Christian worship and pilgrimage. This isn’t about the planet; it’s about making people feel guilty about their faith. In reality, Hindu traditions have always been nature-centric, treating rivers and trees as sacred.

The Myth of the “Rational” Critic

A number of the writers who mock Hindu pujas claim they are doing it from a place of “rationality” or “skepticism.” But if we look closely, their “rationality” is selective. They will happily participate in Western cultural rituals—like cutting cakes, blowing out candles, or following zodiac signs in New York-based magazines—without a single critical word. Their problem isn’t with “rituals” or behaviors in general; it’s specifically with Indic rituals and traditions. This suggests that the criticism isn’t based on logic at all, but on a social hierarchy where imitating the West is seen as smart, and practicing local traditions is seen as a “problem” to be solved.

The Portrayal of “The Practitioner” in Pop Culture

The pattern of ridicule extends deep into entertainment. In movies and web series produced by English-speaking creators, a specific trope has emerged. The character who performs a regular Puja is usually shown in three ways:

• The Hypocrite: A villain who prays before committing a crime.
• The Uneducated: A comic relief character who is “stuck in the past.”
• The Oppressor: A character whose traditionalism is a sign of being narrow-minded or bigoted.
• In contrast, the modern hero is shown as someone who has moved past these silly habits. This constant repetition creates a subconscious link between intellect and anti-ritualism.

The Asymmetry in Religious Representation

There is a clear double standard in how the English media handles different faiths:

• Extreme Sensitivity: Writers use extreme caution when discussing other religions. They use sensitive language to avoid any possible offense or “stereotyping.”
• Safe Targets: Hindu traditions are treated as “fair game.” Mockery here is seen as a safe way to appear “secular” or “liberal.”
• The “Majority” Myth: In elite social circles, mocking the “majority” is worn as a badge of honor. This ignores the fact that this “majority” is made up of millions of economically diverse people for whom these rituals are a source of strength and survival, not political power.

Historical and Intellectual Roots of Bias

This bias is a direct leftover from British colonial rule. To justify their presence in India, British administrators and missionaries labeled the Hindu faith as “superstition” and “idolatry.” They needed to prove that Indians were “uncivilized” so they could “save” or “rule” them.

Today, many English-educated individuals suffer from deracination. This means being uprooted from one’s own soil. Even decades after independence, the education system often produces people who view their own culture through the eyes of a 19th-century colonizer. They feel they must mock their heritage to appear “modern” or “civilized” in the eyes of the West. This is often called “The Brown Sahib” syndrome—having an Indian face but a colonial mind.

Cultural Consequences of Persistent Mockery

When young people see their faith mocked, they feel shame. They stop wanting to learn from their elders. This breaks a chain that is thousands of years old. They begin to see their own roots as an embarrassment. Globally, this makes people think Hindus are not smart. It takes a deep philosophy and turns it into a cartoon for global audiences.

The Loss of “Gharana” and Oral Traditions

By mocking these practices, the media is effectively killing the world’s oldest “open-source” knowledge system. Hindu traditions are often passed down through the gharana or parampara—a direct line from elder to child. When the media makes a teenager feel that their grandmother’s rituals are “cringy,” that chain breaks. This isn’t just about losing a prayer; it is about losing thousands of years of botanical knowledge, linguistic nuances in Sanskrit, and psychological coping mechanisms. Once the transmission stops because of social shame, that knowledge is lost forever.

Scientific Misinterpretation & Traditional Wisdom

They often demand scientific proof for rituals, yet fail to apply the same standard to Western lifestyle trends. Many aspects of puja have profound physiological advantages. The sound of Om and the chanting of specific mantras have been shown to calm the nervous system. The use of copper or specific herbs like Tulsi and Neem has documented medicinal properties.

The English media usually treats these facts like “claims” instead of real knowledge. They dismiss traditional wisdom just because it does not emerge from a Western lab. By calling it unscientific, they ignore thousands of years of real and lived experience. This view shuts down any meaningful conversation about what our traditions actually offer.

The Psychological Toll of “Minority-within-Majority”

In the English-speaking world of media and academia, practicing Hindus are often treated like a minority within their own country. Even though the population is large, cultural power in English media rests with a very small group that is often disconnected from the nation’s pulse. This creates a weird psychological pressure. To be accepted in “high society” or “elite circles,” a person feels they must perform their “secularism” by distancing themselves from their puja room. This leads to a split personality where people practice their faith in secret while acting indifferent to it in public.

Reclaiming the Narrative Space

To change this, we must shift our perspective from a defensive stance to a confident one:

• Our Own Yardstick: We must stop using Western sociological terms to measure Indian spiritual experiences. We don’t need to prove a puja is “scientific” and has emerged from a Western lab to know it is valuable.
• Civilizational Lens: We need to explain our history using our own vocabulary. For example, understanding dharma is fundamentally different from the Western concept of “religion.”
• Active Voices: It is time for practitioners, scholars, and traditional experts to speak in English-language spaces. We need people who can explain the Agamas and Vedas in a way that the modern world can understand without diluting the truth.
• Alternative Media: We need new platforms that are unapologetically rooted. Being “modern” does not require one to be “anti-traditional.”

Conclusion

Hindu practices are the heartbeat of a civilization that has survived for millennia, while others have vanished. They have provided comfort, discipline, and a sense of belonging to billions of people. The era of selective ridicule is a sign of intellectual laziness and a lingering colonial mindset.

The media should aim for truth and diversity, not seek easy targets to poke fun at. When we respect where we come from, we stand taller as individuals and as a nation. Our heritage is not a burden to be discarded in the race for progress; it is the very soul that gives progress its meaning. It is time to treat our ancient roots with honor. The world is looking for depth, and our traditions have plenty to offer, if only we stop apologizing for them.