Indian American Pratima Roy had to suffer toxic Hinduphobia after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States of America shared her photograph with her Gods on social media. Consequently, she received widespread support and goodwill from people across the world.
Now, Pratima Roy has penned a post on LinkedIn where she has unapologetically stood by her faith and thanked others for their support. She said, “As an American-born Bengali who practices Hindu, I always strive to preserve my background and culture. This love for my culture is evident in the photo of me that was first shared on a NASA blog in March and recently sparked a lot of conversation about my faith after NASA published a Tweet about the fall internship deadline.”
“I deeply respect everyone’s background – whether it’s race, ethnicity, gender, or religious faith – and I encourage others to be open to celebrating our beautiful differences as well. In the past few days, I’ve experienced an outpouring of positive support from people across the world who have connected with me online as well as my NASA colleagues,” Roy added.
The photograph shared by NASA showed Pratima Roy with Murthis of Hindu Goddesses on her table and the wall plastered with photographs of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Such overt expression of Hindu piety irked quite a few self-professed ‘intellectuals’ who were not happy with the devotion that Roy bears towards her Gods. Such ‘intellectuals’ resorted to questioning her ‘scientific temperament’, which one would assume is more than competent, since she earned the opportunity to intern at NASA.
