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So hey, when did Hinduism become a trend?

As you know, I have a curious habit of browsing online for clothes on a daily basis and during my daily scouts for prospective items and deals, I’ve come across an insane amount of t-shirts baring different Hindu Gods and Goddesses with some cheesy one-liner about how amazing life is etc, along with the sale of bindi’s (an ornament sacred in the Hindu religion) and other such things that have linkages back to Hinduism. What is happening? And more importantly, why.

It’s so funny;  Hindu’s have been targeted, ridiculed and eaten alive for their differences. If you read their history, Hindu’s were murdered for following their faiths and today, their God(s) are being worn on t-shirts and their bindis are being completely misused by hipster white girls.

What is this? Reverse history? It’s cool to be Hindu for a couple months because you want to tick off your Christian parents?

Look, if you like aspects of a religion, respect it enough to admire it from afar because it really isn’t cool when the Indian religion and history is completely forgotten by the western world to create some hipster-hyped, out-of-place aesthetic. Wearing feather head pieces to be boho, or wearing crosses when you aren’t attached to the Christian religion, or wearing pentacle necklaces when you aren’t Wiccan, all raise the same sort of issues.

Believe me, I’m all for embracing individuality. But wearing bindis and whatnot isn’t indie at all. Anyone from India would say that bindis became a worldwide fashion accessory a long time ago, and many Hindus even wear them with no spiritual intent. But that isn’t a reason to abuse it because centuries of history lie behind its existence so appropriating culture and religion just isn’t cool in my books.

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“What makes the non-South Asian person’s use of the bindi problematic is the fact that a pop star like Selena Gomez wearing one is guaranteed to be better received than I would if I were to step out of the house rocking a dot on my forehead. On her, it’s a bold new look; on me, it’s a symbol of my failure to assimilate. On her, it’s unquestionably cool; on me, it’s yet another marker of my Otherness, another thing that makes me different from other American girls. If the use of the bindi by mainstream pop stars made it easier for South Asian women to wear it, I’d be all for its proliferation — but it doesn’t. They lend the bindi an aura of cool that a desi woman simply can’t compete with, often with the privilege of automatic acceptance in a society when many non-white women must fight for it.”

—	Jaya Bedi, Beyond Bindis: Why Cultural Appropriation Matters (viasociophilia)