Western “comprehensive sexuality education” is being introduced to three-year-olds — while Kamasutra, which frames pleasure as a spiritual science of giving rather than taking, is called pornography.At a Mumbai event, Rajiv Malhotra presents Volume 3 of the Breaking India series, co-authored with Vijaya Viswanathan, contrasting Western CSE (Comprehensive Sexuality Education) with the Vedic framework of Kama as one of the four Purusharthas. His argument is structural: Kama in the Vedic tradition is explicitly about giving pleasure to the other, not consuming it — a radically different ontology from the transactional, consent-based Western framing that is now embedded in curricula from the UN down to state textbooks. Meanwhile, Hindu girls are being sexualized in media while simultaneously being told not to marry Hindus.The Trump-era policy critique opens an unexpected angle: just as the US government is auditing every department for whether it serves citizens’ interests, India must ask the same of NITI Aayog, UN advisory bodies, and its own curriculum designers. The Aghasur metaphor from Bhagavata Purana — a demon who lures children into his mouth — is the book’s defining image.
About the Speakers –
Rajiv Malhotra is an Indian-born American Hindu nationalist ideologue, author, and founder of Infinity Foundation, which focuses on Indic studies, and also funds projects such as Columbia University’s project to translate the Tibetan Buddhist Tengyur. Rajiv Malhotra was trained initially as a Physicist, and then as a Computer Scientist specializing in Artificial Intelligence in the 1970s.
Vijaya Vishwanathan, Founder of Agastya Gurukulam, is an MBA graduate from Wharton Business School and a mechanical engineer by training. Ms. Vijaya had the rare opportunity to be tutored by Swami Dayananda Saraswati. Currently, she serves on the board of the Infinity Foundation. She is also a student of Vedanta and has co-authored books on Indiology-related topics.
Ratan Sharda has been an RSS member and has also worked as an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) member during the Indian Emergency. Sharda was jailed during this period when he was the general secretary of his college students’ union. With a wide exposure to the working style of not only the RSS but of its various affiliated organisations as well. He has been awarded a PhD for his thesis ‘Understanding RSS through Its Resolutions, with Focus on North East, Jammu Kashmir and Punjab’. He is the founder member of the Vishwa Adhyayan Kendra (Centre for International Studies), Mumbai, having acted as its general secretary for eight years. Sharda is a well-known face on TV panels as a commentator on national issues. As a political analyst and columnist, he contributes to the Organiser, Newsbharati, The Quint, The Print and Panchjanya, among other magazines and news magazines.
