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Re: REQUEST: Info on Hinduism and Business
In article <ghenDxuA94.Hs@netcom.com>,
Adam Houkal <ahoukal@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> wrote:
> I am writing a paper on the relationship of religion and business in
> India, including information on how an American businessman can
> avoid offending anyone with proper knowledge of various religious
> practices.
This is a very interesting topic, but unfortunately, one that does not
seem to have attracted any significant amount of academic insight. I
myself had occasion to look for any published material on this topic
about two years ago, with similarly poor results. If you do succeed
in locating information, I'd appreciate your letting me know.
But it must be added that this topic deserves of a much fuller
treatment than it can possibly receive in a single paper -- I say this
with no criticism of your intentions. Also, it is quite the case that
both the business environment, as well as the situation with re
religious awareness, have recently changed to a great extent in India,
and it is not likely that material published before a few years ago
will be significantly current, so to speak. One more problem is that
many past writings, especially those by Western authors, have had the
`Mother India' syndrome of depicting all that is Hindu in a very poor
light, perhaps out of a cultural superiority complex and/or
xenophobia. Ignoring the moral difficulties with such an approach,
there is just the simple problem that such writings are usually flawed
in the extreme and thus not of much practical use.
Regards,
Shrisha Rao
> adam houkal
> ahoukal@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu
