New Book | Hindu at Heart
New Book | Hindu at Heart
Indu Viswanathan, Ed.D.
I am a researcher, educator, and author interested in education, culture, belonging, and what we can learn by listening closely to people's experiences.
About Me
I am a researcher, educator, and author drawn to questions that rarely have simple answers. Much of my work begins with curiosity about how people make sense of their experiences, how they understand their own capacity to shape the institutions and communities around them, and what we can discover when we listen with enough humility to be surprised.
Much of my recent research has focused on questions of education, faith, representation, and belonging. My book, Hindu at Heart: Education, Faith, and What It Means to Belong in America, grew from ethnographic research with Hindu American students and parents and from a larger question about what happens when people's lived experiences complicate the stories we think we already understand. That willingness to let research challenge my assumptions, rather than confirm what I already believe, runs through much of my work.
My work has taken many forms: from teaching, research, and institutional leadership to ethnography, public writing, community scholarship, mentoring, and podcast conversations. Across them, I keep returning to questions of how we learn from people's experiences, how ideas move between research and public life, and what becomes possible when we understand something differently.
Learn more about my story below.
My Story
My journey as an educator began in New York City, against the backdrop of September 11, 2001, when I was a master’s student at Teachers College, Columbia University. Amid rising religious and ethnic discrimination in my beloved New York City, I felt called to advocate for compassion and dialogue across difference. A few years later, I found my spiritual compass in my Guru, His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, a Hindu spiritual and humanitarian leader. I embarked on a path of self-discovery and community engagement that shaped the way I thought about education. Over the next two decades, I taught and worked with educators in many different settings, from New York public schools to educational NGOs and schools in India to higher education.
Before pursuing my doctorate, I led national research and impact efforts for a school-based program focused on breathwork, meditation, and social-emotional learning—practices I now also understand as seeds of spiritual discipline. Working closely with educators, researchers, and students deepened my interest not only in contemplative practice, but in the questions we ask about educational experiences, how we measure and interpret them, and what we miss when our existing frameworks are misaligned or narrow. That curiosity eventually led me back to Teachers College for my doctorate, where I began asking deeper questions about education, identity, intuition, and human flourishing. My doctoral research focused on the agency and belonging of second-generation Hindu American teachers in U.S. public schools. That work opened into a larger set of questions about whose perspectives are represented in education, how communities respond when they feel misunderstood, and how people understand their own role in shaping the institutions around them.
Those questions eventually led to my book, Hindu at Heart: Education, Faith, and What It Means to Belong in America (Briarcliff Press, 2026), based in part on ethnographic research with Hindu American parents and young people. I explore how Hindu Americans are shaping and shaped by the promises and contradictions of American public education, democracy, and citizenship. The research also changed some of my own assumptions. Listening to people’s stories reminded me that critique does not necessarily end with grievance; it can also inspire agency, participation, and a belief that the institutions we share are ours to shape. In 2021, I also co-founded Understanding Hinduphobia, a national research and education initiative examining anti-Hindu bias and representation. Through that work, I have collaborated with scholars, mentored student researchers, helped build spaces for emerging research, and worked to make complex and sometimes contested ideas accessible to academic and public audiences.
Today, my work moves across research, education, writing, community, and public conversation. The forms change, but I keep returning to questions about how we understand our experiences, how we shape our institutions and communities, and what happens when we encounter perspectives that complicate what we thought we knew.
As a mother, educator, researcher, and seeker, I hold close both the questions we ask and the ones we leave unasked. This site is a home for that work—for research and writing, books and conversations, community projects and new inquiries. It is grounded in tradition, open to emerging knowledge, and animated by a willingness to listen with enough humility to be surprised.
Jai Guru Dev
Victory to the Greater Consciousness That Guides Us
Now Available
Hindu at Heart: Education, Faith, and What It Means to Belong in America
A thoughtful examination of how Hinduism and Hindus have figured in the long project of American public education.
Now available - individual and bulk orders from the first premium trade print run.