After the Supreme Court’s complete ban on sale of firecrackers in Delhi-NCR, latent Hinduphobia is now rising to the surface. Honeywell India has put up a pinned tweet which shows an ad where agarbattis (incense sticks) used in Hindu pujas are shown as a ‘pollutant’ inside homes along with other items like dusty pillows, a pet dog, and cooking food.

https://twitter.com/VamseeJuluri/status/918699808902148098

This is not the first time that someone has made a connection between Hindu practise of burning incense sticks and pollution – in 2013, the UK newspaper Telegraph had published an article based on ‘research’ by one Shamsh Pervez to make this claim.

Open air wood-pyre Hindu cremations are probably the next target for the NGO-secular lobby acting under the ‘save environment’ facade, as we had covered in this earlier article.

What Honeywell India has done via its ad is also reflective of a Western stereotype faced by many Bharatiya expatriates who are mocked for ‘smelling like curry’ due to cooking habits and use of spices. Such stereotypes are reinforced in Western academia and media, and and similar subtle dehumanization of Hindu practices and beliefs can now be seen taking root in Bharat as well.

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