‘… Thine alabaster cities gleam
undimmed by human tears…
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free! … (Did Ayn Rand know about this?)
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!
Happy birthday, sweet land of liberty. I love my country tremendously, but the intertwined backstories of the good ol’ U.S. of A. and desi Americans are replete with historical irony. The übermutinous Declaration of Independence was signed 229 years ago on this day:
Prudence… will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes… But when a long train of abuses… reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government… The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries… the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States…
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither…Asian Indian students who were supporters of independence from the British Empire were expelled from the country by order of President Theodore Roosevelt… [Link]
When [Gen. Dyer, who executed the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre] was felicitated — not censured — in the British House of Lords, even Mahatma Gandhi, that apostle of tolerance, was moved to suggest that “co-operation in any shape or form with this satanic government is sinful”. [Link]
A geographical criterion was used to exclude Asian Indians, because their racial or ethnic status was unclear… The 1917 immigration act denied entry to people from a ‘barred zone’ that included South Asia… [Link]… sustained political attacks against Asian Indians… culminated in the imposition of the 1917 Barred Zone Act. Asian Indians joined other Asian country nationals… who were excluded from immigrating to the United States… [Link]
The final injustice to Asian Indians was exacted by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Bhagat Singh Thind (1923), which considered to which race Asian Indians belonged… The Court decided that although Asian Indians were Caucasian, they were not “white” and therefore could not be U.S. citizens. Harassment of the Asian Indian population continued, forcing many to return to India. By 1940 half of the Asian Indian population had left the country, leaving only 2,405. [Link]
… in its 1923 decision against Thind, the Court invoked the criterion of assimilability to separate the desirable immigrants from the undesirable ones: Asian Indians were distinguished from the swarthy European immigrants, who were deemed ‘readily amalgamated’… with the immigrants ‘already here’… [Link]
Beginning in 1901, California prohibited white people from marrying non-whites… The Cable Act … specified “that any woman citizen who marries an alien ineligible to citizenship shall cease to be a citizen of the U.S.” [Link]
… and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
… protectionist and racist groups, epitomized by the Asian Exclusion League, campaigned against the “Hindu invasion” or “turban tide” that was perceived as an economic threat to native farmers. Laws were passed in California to strip land ownership from Asian Indians… [Link]… a denaturalization process in California has stripped many Indians of land they legally owned… Many Indians, married to Mexican women, transfer their land to their children. [Link]
He has kept among us… Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures… Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us…
Thousands of American troops are stationed in India during World War II. There is resentment against American troops in India because of America’s… policy which supports British colonial rule. [Link]
He has… endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions…
… nativist rioters burnt out the Asian Indian settlements in Bellingham and Everett, Washington in 1907. [Link]On the night of September 4, 1907, a mob of between 400 and 500 white men attacked Bellingham’s Hindu colonies. Many of the Hindus were beaten… the Bellingham riot was mirrored by similar assaults in California during the months that followed in Marysville, Stege, Live Oak, and other communities where the immigrants had settled. [Link]
One of the most violent actions against the new Punjabi immigrants occurred in 1914… the Punjabis… received the brunt of the attacks… [Link]
Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people…
… Indians… were also incensed by the General’s notorious “crawling order.” In the street where a female missionary had been left for dead, Dyer decreed that between 6am and 8pm Indians could only proceed on their bellies and elbows and were to be beaten if they raised a buttock… [Link]
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren… We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred… They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity…
The Gadar [Revolution] Party blamed British influence for America’s negative attitude toward Indian immigration… [Link]These feelings of outrage were transferred to hatred against the British, for they felt they if they controlled their own country, this sort of abuse would not have happened… They had to strike at the British because they were responsible for the way Indians were being treated in America. [Link]
The catalyst in their political awakening was the ill-fated voyage of the S.S. Komagata Maru, a Japanese vessel that was bringing would-be Indian migrants to the Americas…. the Komagata Maru was turned back repeatedly: by the Canadians first, then by the Americans; the ship returned to Calcutta. Some people died on the way; on docking at Calcutta, the passengers were shot at by British troops… [Link]
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
Gadar… describes what the movement hoped to achieve: the overthrow of British rule and the establishment of India’s independence. [The Gadar Party] was founded in the early decades of this century by expatriate Punjabis… its bases of operations were in San Francisco and the San Joaquin Valley…… the Gadar leaders found kinship, especially in Irish revolutionary brotherhood… it was the Irish who defended and supported the Gadarites in California during the difficult days of the San Francisco conspiracy trial in 1917-18… [Link]
The immigrant Irish laborers… were waging their own struggle against the British at the time of Gadar movement, and the members of the Irish community in California became Gadar’s close allies. The Gadar party, in turn, printed tracts in favor of Irish independence. [Link]
We… do… solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved…
Indian activists and their American supporters are dismayed to discover that President Woodrow Wilson’s call for colonies to have self-determination did not include countries such as India. [Link]
And for the support of this Declaration… we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Sarabha and his fellow Gadar Party members were loyalist Indians who struggled for their motherland in far-off America; in the end, many of them paid the ultimate price: they were executed by the British Raj for ‘sedition’…
In 1913, Kartar Singh Sarabha was sent to study at the University of California, Berkeley… and soon joined the Gadar Party. In 1915, Sarabha and a number of others returned to India… to organise soldiers to mutiny against the British during the First World War… betrayals by others in their ranks led to their capture by the British…
Kartar Singh Sarabha and Vishnu Ganesh Pingle, another Berkeley student, were among the seven hanged at the Lahore Central Jail on November 16, 1915… it inspired Bhagat Singh, who became the most famous symbol of fiery Indian resistance to colonialism. [Link]
The U.S. allied with the Brits against Indian independence even as millions of Indians fought for the Allies in Europe:
With 2.5 million Indian soldiers on the side of the Allies, Indian troops helped the Allies secure ground in Africa and the Middle East, and subsequently played a role on the assault on the Axis in the European and Pacific theatres. By almost any measure – the number of casualties, the number of active soldiers, the number of medals awarded – India’s role in the Second World War was tremendous. [Link]
But then the Gadar Party and Subhash Chandra Bose played footsie with the Germans under the ‘enemy of my enemy’ theory, to evict the British (photos, more photos).
Amid all the fickle and questionable alliances of history, let’s remember what our parallel stories had in common, in terms of civil rights:
As Mahatma Gandhi assumes the leadership of the freedom struggle in India, American groups like Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) start speaking out against British rule in India… the concept of nonviolent resistance was not simply imported into America from India in the 1920s. America has had a ‘distinctive tradition of nonviolence’ dating back to colonial times, and played a significant role in the early nonviolent resistance, Quakers point out… Gandhi was influenced by American thinkers and activists… Gandhi also read Henry David Thoreau’s classic On Civil Disobedience. It left a ‘deep impression’ on him…1923: … black Americans look up to Gandhi in significant numbers. The Chicago Defender, one of the largest and most influential black newspapers in the United States, calls Gandhi the ‘greatest man in the world today…’ [The Defender] asks, in a 1932 editorial, ‘Will a Gandhi Arise?’ and notes that ‘what we need in America is a Gandhi who will fight for the cause of the oppressed in this country…’ [Link]
And democratic institutions:
Gadar support financed the funding of India’s first English-language nationalist newspaper, The Hindustan Times… The title of a later Gadar newspaper, The United States of India… suggests an American model of democracy… [Link]With more than 655 million registered voters in 2004, India has often been called “the world’s largest democracy”. [Link]
We know what happened next: of all the British settlements, the U.S. became the tail that wagged the dog, the colony that roared. Dalip Singh Saund and, much later, Bobby Jindal were elected to Congress. The civil rights movement and the 1965 immigration law opened the door to the modern era of desi Americans.
And so on this Fourth of July, I offer my poor almanack for a union of the colonies:
To this too I pledge allegiance.
Update: The Tories hiss
Wow, the comments are interesting. I thought I penned a historical essay. Turns out I actually wrote a litmus test for ethnic identity.
I told you a story about the original Indian-Americans. These farmers were invited over to build the railroads. Then they were violated in every way: beaten up, stripped of their citizenship, prevented by law from marrying whom they wanted, robbed of the farmland they had bought with their hard-earned money. Against all odds, these poorly-educated farmers persevered in their adopted land. They found a journalist to write about their plight. They found a friendly congressman to win back their citizenship and land. They got FDR to call for an end to ‘statutory discrimination against the Indians.’ They got the immigration quotas lifted. Some raised money and fought for independence for their country of origin.
There’s no better day to tell their story than the Fourth of July because their story is America: fleeing British persecution, coming over for political freedom and economic opportunity, slogging it out until they had assimilated, married here, had children here, become citizens, owned businesses, built homes, made this land their own. It is a story not widely known. There’s no better day to tell their story precisely because to tell it on the Fourth of July honors their Americanness, because to tell it on the 15th of August would mock them as forever foreign.
Theirs is a damn compelling story. I’m talkin’ novels, movies, a miniseries. And in the face of that story, how did some readers react? With outrage. Outrage that I’m telling this story on the day of America’s official tailgate party. A strange belief that despite 299 words about the totems of American independence (the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, ‘America the Beautiful,’ the Betsy Ross flag, a colonial unity symbol used by Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere, the Empire State Building in red, white and blue, Fourth of July fireworks) and 1,529 words (88% of the post) about the history of the first Indian-Americans, that this post is about America-bashing.
At first this puzzled me. Did they actually read the post? Why didn’t they grasp the essential drama of the story? Why wouldn’t they empathize with all that their predecessors had been through? Did they somehow think you could tell the Indian-American story without mentioning America?
Finally I understood. Many of the angry readers identify far more strongly as American than Indian. Some even say so outright in the comments: ‘But what does that have to do with us?’ They have little emotional connection to their forebears. To them, they’re not their predecessors at all — and their shabby treatment, just an inconvenient wrinkle of history that’s too gauche to press on Independence Day.
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth! Ooooh, the delicious irony. Facts are inconvenient, history’s a bitch. The angry reader is in the U.S. only because of our predecessors’ struggle. The angry reader’s parents could afford to come over only because of their forebears’ fight for independence. The angry reader now so deeply identifies as American that he reflexively scans a post honoring the first Indian-Americans as ‘America-bashing.’
You know what that means, don’t you? It means the pioneers won. It means our antecedents did exactly what they set out to do: reshape this land’s laws and attitudes so Indian-Americans could grow up and feel exactly like those whose parents immigrated here earlier. And what’s the angry reader’s response to their hard-fought victory?
To deny our predecessors’ sacrifice. To disrespect the very people who got him into the U.S. in the first place. On the frickin’ Fourth of July.
It’s the very definition of ingratitude.
Could it be because this is the day dedicated to recounting all of America’s glorious achievements in the past 2+ centuries?
Right — and it’s juvenile to greet the occasion with a tendentious & ungrateful list of grievances cribbed from an ethnic studies curriculum. Irish Americans don’t greet the Fourth by raising their fists in solidarity with the Draft Rioters.
Look, the point is pretty simple. Using the Fourth to bash the US is like haranguing your Father on Father’s Day. It’s straight from Eve Ensler’s playbook – it’s like using Valentine’s Day not for romance, but as an occasion to bash all men as being potential rapists and perpetrators of “violence against women”.
It’s poisonous, petty, and pathetic to dig up minor grievances from a century ago. The bottom line is that there was a hell of a lot of injustice to go around in the 20th century, and America was the decisive factor in ending the worst of it.
I think it’d be good to read Bill Whittle…
The representation of America that I see not just in this post, but in this blog is exactly this sort of lie. Every tiny black grain that can be found is picked and put on display (along with plenty that aren’t so black), and with the exception of the occasional post from Vinod there is nary an acknowledgement that the South Asians who live in the US are the richest, healthiest, and most free in the world — and that much gratitude is owed to the free market, the strong military, and the tolerant people of the United States of America.
gc, I’m not going to play this game of “more American than thou” with you. I’ll leave it at this: your ideas and attitudes are profoundly anti-democratic, regardless of what society you’re from–particularly that you actually believe in exile on the basis of political opinions. I can only thank God you’re not in a position to force me or manish or vurdlife or anyone else who doesn’t meet your tests of loyalty to drink the hemlock.
particularly that you actually believe in exile on the basis of political opinions
Hey, I’m talking about something voluntary. If it were forced it’d be exile. You know, like the Africans did to the Indians in Uganda — that’s exile.
Ah well. I guess your confusion on this matter was predictable. What else to expect from someone who can’t comprehend the distinction between forced taxation and voluntary charity?
Gratitude is rare among spoiled privileged american desis. It is not a surprise that one of them chose independence day to drag america’s reputation through the mud.
Its funny that you would question Saurav’s comprehension abilities when a) his comments are better articulated, more intelligent, less bile-driven, and more fact-based than your harangues b) you yourself apparently cannot comprehend that neither Manish’s post nor my comment involved a competition of which country is better to live in. You answered “America is great, but has had problems” with “Oh yeah well India sucks.” Total straw man argument, not to mention completely irrelevant. Plus, it is yet another logical fallacy, you must have majored in them in college. In case you still haven’t figured it out, whether or not India sucks has nothing to do with this entire post.
Hah! Nice try scrounging for sympathy, but you have already outed yourself to the sepia community for the troll that you are.
Let me dumb this down so you understand. Me like America. Me like browns. Me want to make America better for browns.
Wow! How embarassing for you to have made this mistake in the very same comment in which you diss my spelling. I guess Microsoft Word didn’t have an entry for Guantanamo eh sport?
The page you link to in making this comment shows that I asked if GW was a terrorist. The point of that comment was to ask at what point does “revolutionary” turn into “terrorist”? Nowhere did I affirmatively say GW was a terrorist. (But I will ask it again….was he a terrorist?)
This betrays your facile “you’re either with us or against us” thinking. Gee, I suppose us raging libero-anarchists have no other choice but violent revolution eh? Thanks for clearing that up! Wheres that little red book when you need it…
Horned man. See above.
Then bounce.
Geez…I ask myself, vurdlife, why do you bother battling with someone who is so obviously your intellectual inferior? But then I look back at your comments from late 2004 or so…I will not let people like you (think: combination of low intelligence and high volume) bully the sepia community into submission. I WILL rip you a new one every single time you make another brainless comment on this site. Believe that.
Well, paying people off with whom you disagree to leave on the condition that they go forever encapsulates the spirit of exile to me. But more to the point, I think you actually would legally exile people who don’t agree with you if you could (just on the basis of your tone and your comments.) Maybe you’re a different person in real life…I hope so, anyway.
By the way, maybe your superior comprehension could let me in on how you got to my views on the distinctions between taxation and charity from the material I provided you with?
Kumar, nothing really–just that the post ends with a set of points that Manish is advocating. In any case, I gave some pretty specific examples of things people who are well off and sympathetic can do to “show solidarity” with working class desis and others:
I’m not really sure what more I could do except to beg people to read the entirety of my long-winded comments before making snarky responses 🙂
Guffaw Right on, brutha! Let’s burn the history books. They might make us look bad.
Finally I understood. Many of the angry readers identify far more strongly as American than Indian. Some even say so outright in the comments: ‘But what does that have to do with us?’ They have little emotional connection to their forebears. To them, they’re not their predecessors at all — and their shabby treatment, just an inconvenient wrinkle of history that’s too gauche to press on Independence Day.
I’m coming kind of late to this and I don’t have much to say on the somewhat inscrutable fight in the comment thread.
I like the post. It’s appropriate to this blog. I kinda would like a more dynamic version for aesthtetic reasons. I pretty much agree with Manish’s update. But I don’t think identifying primarily as American necessarily means one has the kind of ingratitude he describes. Perhaps that’s obvious to all, I just want to clarify.
I’d just had a few tidbits to add. There are so many connections that kinda slip away, or are less obvious. . .The Boston Tea Party was protesting extreme British measures to keep the East India company alive–it was Darjeeling tea the “Indians” dumped in the harbor, and it might have been a crushing blow to a whole different set of colonists if it had gotten much further. The Indian cotton the British extorted helped immunize them and the rest of Europe from dependancy on Southern cotton, neutralizing a Cotton Diplomacy that might have turned the tied of the war another way. There’s a reputed Parsi prince who fought in the Union Navy. There’s the Senate Gavel, which is a gift from the government of India. We can’t forget Gandhi’s influence on Martin Luther King Jr. I wish I had my copy of Daniel Ellsberg’s Secrets on me, but there’s some great stuff in there–both about his proposing to his wife while diving into the Ganga while on vacation from being a Vietnam Cold Warrior, and, more relevantly, about his being dragged to Vietnam-era peace lectures by a sari-clad Indian peace activist until he suddenly had to collapse on the bathroom floor, weeping with the epiphany that the best way he could serve his country would be to reveal the truth of Vietnam, ultimately leading to the leaking of the Pentagon papers.
We shouldn’t forget our East Asian brothers and sisters either. . .I came across a real estate title the other day specifically excluding people of Chinese or Japanese descent from living in the house except as servants. The establishment just forgot about us in the first pass of the exclusion acts. . .but plenty of these battles were fought by them as well.
And for those of you who think we’re Sepia Mutineers are all about hating on the Whites, nonsense, I say. Three cheers for the Quakers and the Sephardic Jews, and Roger Williams, all of whom laid down the foundations for the religious freedom that is particularly protective of heathens like me. 🙂
Fascinating links, SSR. One of my favorites: the university the current U.S. president attended was built on East India Company money from Chennai.
This point is interesting but dubious, given how widespread slave ownership was in colonial America:
GujuDude says:
Saheli says:
You just can’t please ’em 😉
Hey Manish, you only need to look down to the Farm to read about dubious labor practices involving Asians. But what else do you expect from the Robber Baron founders of a junior college? 😉
Go bears. 🙂
Paying homage to the first Indian-Americans.
The right to immigrate, become a citizen, own property, marry and not be beaten up 41 years ago.
That’s actually a major purpose of this blog.
Richest minority:
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/000831.html (Abhi)
Bobby Jindal elected:
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/000635.html (Manish) http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001668.html (Abhi)
Spelling bee success:
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001669.html (Abhi) http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001671.html (Abhi) http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/000795.html (Anna) http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001677.html (Manish) http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001110.html (Apul)
Geography bee success:
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001654.html (Abhi)
Fareed Zakaria on TV:
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001269.html (Manish)
We are the people of the United States of America.
Is there anything you write which isn’t trivially disproven?
Hardly anyone speaks German here in the US. It may not even be the top choice of language #2.
Besides every other neighbourhood subdivisions are named “Somerset”. I have yet to come across a subdivision that has German name. (I am ready to learn)
That doesnt mean they had ANY sympathy whatsoever to the cause of freedom of India.
You kids with your fancy English. Not all mutineers are Harvard educated you know.
That is true but as another individual posted this is actually a relativley recent occurence. When the Declaration of Independence was signed at least 20% of the copies distributed in Maryland were German translations for the predominantly German speaking population of Fredericksburg. German continued to be widely spoken until around the First World War, when “patriotic” pressure caused the school districts to stop teaching the language, especially in Midewestern states such as Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, etc. that had large german populations. Areas in many cities, Over the Rhine in Cincinnati for example, continue to have Germanic names as part of this heritage.
I didn’t suggest that a significant part of the population did. This was in response to your statement that European Americans would be rooting for their homelands.
RC:
The United States sided with Britain for its own security reasons during the two world wars. In all due honesty, the USA just didn’t care. But to go as far as to say they were enemies of Indian independence would be factually incorrect. Even though the USA allied with British, they had to make a choice and the Royal Crown was seen as lesser of the two evils. The American establishment has always despised colonial rule and intentions of Britian, everything about the US polictical system was designed to be the ‘anti-british’ even though laws were based around similar procedural common laws. Heck, the American national anthem was written around the events of the war of 1812.
Now if you use the idea, the friend of my enemy is my enemy too, then the logical conclusion that the United States was an adversary to Indian independence stands. But what would you say about the millions of men who constituted the largest volunteer army of the british colonies? Were those Indian men enemies of the state too?
Germany and Japan weren’t really fun options either with Japan on India’s doorstep. A little convoluted, India needed to support England to defeat the axis in order to ensure its peaceful transistion and independence. Indian leaders of the time saw the writing on the wall.
I did most of my primary and secondary schooling in India and the textbooks never really implicated the United States in anything. Actually, the American and French revolutions were looked upon as models of how to overthrow unjust rule. Americans were looked upon as isolationists (which they were) who just watched along on the sidelines.
Now, with regards to the German, Irish, and Italian immigrants that constitute a significant population of this country, I will give you an example:
My home town in Illinois is called “Schaumburg”, that has a sister with the same name in Germany. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say the population in the state of Wisconsin is significantly of German origin, maybe even a majority in the state. Today English and Spanish are more prevelant. But 50-100 years ago, the Irish, German, Italian, and scandinavian immigrants still had more ‘european’ culture with them.
My Italian roomate’s grandparents could not speak any English, nor could most of their fellow first generation immigrants (from what I was told). Ethnic ghettos were where many spent their time and they never really ventured out of such places. Today not only is English spoken here, but much of the world has picked upon it too, especially for business and commerce. In India, housing subdivisions have English names too, does that mean they are in love with the British?
All of this is ancedotal. Fact is the United States didn’t like what Britain did, but with its Isolationist stance through the critical phase for the push of Indian independence (1920s-1940), it didn’t want to meddle around with the Brits and the Great Depression had things tied up on the home front.
But then I look back at your comments from late 2004 or so…
Please, fool — your delusion is amusing, but you think too much of yourself. I didn’t stop blogging or commenting because of your scintillating ripostes, after all. One could just cut & paste “Wheres the outraje against hayt” in thread after thread and dispense with your kindergarten contributions, such as they are.
Nowhere did I affirmatively say GW was a terrorist. (But I will ask it again….was he a terrorist?)
Uh huh. You were just “asking”, right? Well, I asked you a question, which you dodged — AGAIN. Is a simple yes or no answer beyond your capabilities? Do you or do you not think this is the best country in the world in which to live?
The funniest part of all this is that you probably think you’re some kind of romantic rebel, raging against the racist American machine. But you’re actually just another brainwashed ethnic studies graduate mindlessly regurgitating the venom du jour barfed out by your TA.
every single time you make another comment on this site.
Ooooh, courageous! A left wing robot will insult me in a comments section of a blog. Here, I’ll spare you the trouble: “You racist sexist homophobic imperialistic sahib Tory capitalist!”. There — did I miss a pejorative?
In case you still haven’t figured it out, whether or not India sucks has nothing to do with this entire post.
Because you seem to read (and think, and reason) at a third grade level, let me spell it out for you. Most Indian Americans (or their parents) left India to come to America. They did so because America offered them opportunity. A one-sided list of ancient grievances against America on the Fourth of July does not reflect the contemporary Indian American experience. That experience is overwhelmingly one of extraordinary material success far greater than anything that could have been achieved in India. For that, we have this country’s tradition of freedom to thank. Taking one day a year to give thanks without the slings and arrows of manufactured outrage is not too much to ask.
Ahh, forget it. It’s impossible to explain this to someone who thinks that “asking” whether George Washington was a terrorist is the height of cleverness. You might be a US citizen in the same technical way a sperm donor is a father, but you’re clearly no patriot.
“It is not a surprise that one of them chose independence day to drag america’s reputation through the mud.”
Are you kidding me? If that were the object the post would have been much worse. You think that’s all the crap anyone could come up with about America?
“Gratitude is rare among spoiled privileged american desis.”
What, did one of them take your job?
“The bottom line is that there was a hell of a lot of injustice to go around in the 20th century, and America was the decisive factor in ending the worst of it.”
Lynchings, Jim Crow, etc.? How about all those leaders we propped up around the world, often subverting democratic efforts, then had to go knock down later on? Also, have you read the Kissinger/genocide posts here?
“and never miss a chance to side with America’s enemies (whether they be the misunderstood thugs in da hood or the terrorists in Guantanomo).”
Who identifies these “enemies” for you?
“Irish Americans don’t greet the Fourth by raising their fists in solidarity with the Draft Rioters.”
How do you know? Maybe they do, within their own community.
“The representation of America that I see not just in this post, but in this blog is exactly this sort of lie.”
So, why don’t you go to blogs you like and stay there? Nobody is asking you to try to “improve” this blog via criticism. (See: your challenge to the “America-haters.”)
No I am not using any inference about freind of my enemy of anything like that. Just look at the FACTs. Such as Roosvelt expelling pro-independance students.
Thats is called feeding one’s family. Its considered honorable throughout the world.
Instead, using the Indian soldiers to capture a lot of places in WWII and then not mentioning the heroics of the Indian soldiers is called DIS-HONESTY.
Indian History books are written in such a way they might as well be written by the British. Its a SHAME. Everything that I learned about Indian History mainly I learned from outside sources, not from my history text Book (India).
There wasnt even a mention of Chandrashekhar Azad in my history book. Who was the mentor of “Bhagat Singh” I can still visualize the entire Amar Chitra Katha where I read about “Chandra shekhar Azad” and I am in awe of the personality.
My history books talked about the Montague-Chemsford “Improvements” but not a peep about the inhumane conditions created by Gen. Dyer (I think) in Amritsar where the natives were required to crawl on the streets.
So In my book there is no relevancy to the Indian history books they might not even exist. Wont make a bit of difference.
This is consistent with an isolationist foreign policy of not interfering in others ‘internal’ manners. I don’t like it either, but using execptions does not constitute an American policy of supporting British Imperialism and suppression of Indian independence.
Look at it this way, Great Britain was THE naval powerhouse and at the height of its Empire. The Great Depression was wrecking havoc, isolationists had their way, and the United States still had not rid itself of systematically endorsed racism. The United States pre WWII was in no position to dictate shit to the Empire. Post WWII it all changed.
I will say it again as I’ve said it before, Americans just didn’t care. They just didn’t want any part in it, period. Americans had no vested interest (other than WWII itself).
Forntunately, I did learn about Chandrashekar Azad and General Dyer’s tatics in my school. It may be an abberation, but I am thankful I did.
Their heroics should be well remembered. It is a shame many desis know nothing about the role of South Asians in both World Wars.
I am afraid Post WWII still NOTHING changed. Until today US remains hostile to India because of its own empire concerns. An almost out and open Terrorist attack by Pakistan based LeT(almost everyone preety much knows it) but no concrete action will come from US in terms of stopping arms to Pakistan and it will NOT change. Empire first everything else later.
Oh please, not the Empire argument. Putting forth these positions serverely reduces the credibility of the argument. The issues you just raised are arguments for other topics and other days. Since there is nothing new to add to this conversation, I’ll just stop here.
Perhaps the reason vurdlife chose not to answer this question is because it is so ridiculous and leads nicely into your next point, which, as he noted, is logically disconnected: “get the f@#k out if you don’t think so.” It’s basically a loyalty test posed as a question, so you’ll forgive him if he chooses not to indulge your McCartyhist tendencies. I certainly do.
But I’ll take you up on it, since you insist on being an idiot in this thread and I have no shame about doing the same:
No, the United States is not the best country in the world to live in, except for the select few who are wealthy enough to take advantage of all the benefits. Its primary strength among wealthy countries was that it was a bulwark of civil liberties prior to 9-11 (i.e. no head scarf bans or extensive legislation bannign forms of speech on the internet) and possibly less anti-immigrant than a lot of European countries–it probably still is, but it doesn’t seem intent on playing that role anymore. But aside from that over the past thirty years, it has become extraordinarily class-ridden, it has deepening fractures among what hte economist described as a secular believer crowd and an evangelical crowd, it consistently impedes efforts to develop global solutions to problems that will come back to bite Americans in the ass because the isolationism of the early 20th century has transformed into imperial unilateralism of the late 20th century (not just in Iraq–see ICC, Kyoto Protocol, global warming in general), its politicians are pandering to religious extremists rather than instilling basic educaitonal assistance and mental health care; it’s gradually been hollowing out the state over hte past 30 years, subcontracting vital services that the market dlearly does not perform as effective (i.e. those that are not cost effective like welfare provision or those that are economies of scale like energy production); and it has the most irrational heatlh care system that I’ve ever seen. Finally, with all this, the dominant political force today (although not for long)–the rightwing Republican pro-business, pro-religious extremist alliance– is trying to further undermine this, doing long term structural damage to the credibility of the press (and thereby pushed the press to become a shadow of its former self), the credibility of the judiciary (both from outside and inside), transparency in government (secret energy meetings, etc.), etc. You can also add the redistricting policies and financial arrangements that have made incumbent elections–partiuclarly in house seats–virtually guaranteed in most places. Finally, there is the almost total absence of a left in the United States right now–not a half-ass Democratic left, but one that actually openly espouses the protection of the disempowered and attempts to do so through long term structural changes. This poses a problem for the political dialectic int he country. Finally, on the economic front, twenty fivee years of global free trade policy has contributed to substantial deindustrialization of the manufacturing base of the United States, from what my pro-business friends tell me, and now that this is hitting higher wage sectors liek IT, people are starting to pay more attention. This is bad for the anti-democratic processes it reflects (think Amartya Sen on how famines get produced) as well as the overall effects.
Notice, I haven’t really started on foreign affairs, where the United States does the most damage, because i don’t give a $hit.
So, no, the United States isn’t hte best countr yin the world. the UK is becoming less insular on a global scale while the US is becoming more insular. Canada has a better health care system (to the point where we try to leech their prescription drugs since our politicians are content to sell our health care to Big Pharma and insurance companies). Luxembourg has a higher standard of living compensated for Purchasing Power Parity (look it up). At this point, were I not born and bred Ameircan with some kind of foolish national pride and instead just a rational actor, I would probably choose to go live in the EU somewhere or possibyl Canada (although it is cold there). If I were thinking long term, I would buy cheap property in India (or maybe Bangladesh).
However, the point that people were raising–which is different from mine–was “the United States has a lot of problems even if we like to live here.” which seems like a perfectly legitimate point if you don’t have your head up your a$$.
Not only that, but Frankfurters were renamed “Hot Dogs” and Sauerkraut was called “Liberty Cabbage.” Look it up if you don’t believe me; casts a different light on the whole amusing-yet-frigthetning “Freedom Fries” debacle from last year.
Wow, I didn’t realize how much sheer idiocy you had in that one brief comment.
“Ancient grievances” are part of a continuum of history on which it’s totally appropriate to reflect unless you’re a philistine. I suppose slavery is also off limits by your logic? (Just because you’ve chosen to respond in a knee-jerk fashion, I’m going to clarify: I’m not comparing the punjabi farmers treatment to slavery of Black people–just pointing out that your logic precludes looking at either).
your perception of “the contemporary Indian American experience” is a gross oversimplification of what happened (which others are guilty of on this blog too). First of all, as I pointed out repeatedly above, there’s enormous diversity of ethnicities, nationalities, sexualities, genders, class, and immigration status–there were waves of immigration after 1965 and not everyone ‘s children are wealthy. You meet some taxi workers, grocery store owners, people whose family members have been deported, and then you get back to me on your glib comments about how everyone’s so well off these days. I talked to a 73 year old bangladeshi guy the other day who’s happy enough, but works 84 hours a week (12 hours a day, 7 days a week), says he never gets to see his kids (who are in college), no doubt gets paid $hit (even though he’s lucky enough to have an employer that he says is okay), and when asked if he likes this country says “no, this country’s all about money.” Get it through your thick skull–the poverty in South Asia leads people to come here to endure less poverty and more racism, but that doesn’t mean that the U.S. comes up smelling like roses (particularly when it does its fair share to maintain the poverty around the world).
Even some of the people that should allegedly be oh-so-grateful to the American state have also been f@#ked over–for example, in some cases, for green card holders to try and bring over a direct family member from abroad it similarly takes decades.
Also, let me know if you ever see fit to include Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Trinis, the Guyanese, or others in your narrow, nationalistic, moronic way of looking at the world and this issue given that they share the desi American experience.
None of the points you are making are original except one–which is that so-called leftists often don’t go far enough, with which I agree. And since you’re intentions and mine are not even close to the same (because you really don’t have any semblance of an underlying analysis but will just take pot shots where it suits your purposes), it’s not really worth engaging that discussion with you or validating your approach to conversation about this topic.
Thanks for this comment, Arjun. I appreciate it.
Thanks for this comment, Aryan. I appreciate it.
Actually, it is too much too ask. Being able to say what you want about this country even on its most patriotic high holy day is the very definition of freedom. Once you start telling people what they can and cannot say, you are no longer an American.
It is like talking to a brick wall. Whether or not India is better or worse is still irrelevant. And so is the question you keep repeating like some sort of screeching Sean Hannity broken record. Get a pad of paper and draw a flowchart or something, you might finally understand.
Anyway, if you must have an answer, see Saurav’s answer. I haven’t lived and grown up in every other country so I can’t say if the US is the best place to live. If you still must have an answer, here it is…san tropez is the best place to live in the world.
Right, thanks for the wealth. And the liberties I might add. No thanks for the explicitly racist policies in the past, and their current-day vestiges. (E.g., see the post on the 70+ year old detainees)
struck a nerve, Benito?