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Casteism of Racist Indians, Superstition, and the Response to Mātauranga Māori


Too often, in social circles of Indians (mostly in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) disciplines, often with less-than-mediocre CVs, I have heard the sense of performed outrage about the critical and necessary emphasis on Mātauranga Māori across the sciences.

At my University, Te Kunenga Ki Pūrehuroa Massey University, this takes the form of outrage politics around the mission of the University that gives effect to our commitments to Te Tiriti. I am struck by how often the ones outraging on the threat posed by Mātauranga Māori would have very little to no published scholarship in international peer reviewed journals (hence my claim about mediocrity).

The performed outrage among upper caste Savarna Indians in the STEM disciplines around Mātauranga Māori mimics the racism of whiteness, parroting the arguments about how Mātauranga Māori is not science, how the emphasis on Mātauranga Māori is a distraction from the scientific endeavour and how Mātauranga Māori is a cult.

The same Indians, however, will be the first ones in line, reproducing casteist superstitions around Hindu rituals, astrology, spirits, and 100+ Gods. The same Savarna Indians will line up to fund and genuflect to Babas, organized around superstitious excesses directed at defrauding believers.

Consider here the recent visit to Aotearoa New Zealand of Baba Bageshwar Dham Sarkar to Aotearoa New Zealand. The Baba has been accused of amassing wealth by defrauding devotees, often by making exaggerated claims around healing devotees. Posing himself as a miracle man, the Baba has built a global cult following, claimed to be charging $1000 per head for audience with the Baba.

In a story published in The Post, the community leader Pratima Nand, a "witchdoctor buster," privately recorded a phone conversation with the current promoter of the Baba's visit to Aotearoa New Zealand, noting the following, with the Promoter claiming she had to pay the Guru $100,000 to make the trip:

“We have set a minimum of $5000, but if someone is unable to give that much, and feels that they urgently need to meet him then, $2500 is the minimum.”

The promoter of the Baba's first visit to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2024 is noted in The Post story as stating, "he collected donations to recover his costs, but says it was the guru’s disciples who “took over”, pocketing wads of cash instead of depositing it into a trust account."

It turns out the ACT MP Parmjeet Parmar, yes the same MP concerned about the infiltration of Maori beliefs in science, wrote to Immigration New Zealand in support of the Baba.

In a speech to the Parliament in January 25, Parmar stated,

"Education actually should be rooted in evidence and in practicality, not in political ideology—political ideology that was started under the previous Labour Government—and what is surprising, and shocking, actually, I should say, is that it has extended to even classifying some Māori traditional myths, Māori traditional beliefs, as science. Those things were funded as scientific projects, and I must say this: I come from a culture where we have lots of cultural events, but we shouldn't blur the line between cultural and traditional beliefs and science. It's insulting to science.

We must make sure that science is based on evidence, and I'll give an example. One of the projects that was funded under the previous Labour Government was based on the concept that sperm whales and kauri trees are brothers, and if sperm whales' music or noise is played to kauri trees with kauri dieback or trees with myrtle rust, then it will help diminish those diseases. There is no evidence of this. How can this be funded as a scientific project?

This ideological framework is dangerous, and the ACT Party is here to break this ideological framework."

Yes, the very same MP concerned about the conflation of "Māori traditional myths" as science is witnessed here rallying for a witchdoctor claiming to heal people and allegedly defrauding them. During the Baba's visit, the MP is seen, alongside the Deputy Prime Minister, David Seymour, accompanying the Baba to his event.


Parmar and Seymour with Baba Bageshwar Dham



Parmar's caricature of Mātauranga Māori as cultural belief and political ideology mimics whiteness in its failure to comprehend the systematic observations and principles of knowledge gathering that constitute Indigenous knowledge systems. 

This caricature is moreover a reflection of a cultural supremacy that has worked historically to erase the knowledge systems of Indigenous communities across the globe. For the caste privileged Hindu community, steeped in superstition, the devaluing of Mātauranga Māori exemplifies the hypocrisies that make up the architecture of community life.

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