With all this mutinous talk of Toral’s recent demise on the Apprentice the past couple of days (1,2,3) and the really excellent discussion that has ensued, it has been really hard to find focus on other areas. Despite that, the mutiny must go on, and part of our progression is the appearance of Washington Post Staff Writer, author of Suburban Sahibs and (former SAJA President) S. Mitra Kalita’s ongoing Washington Post blog, India 2.0, chronicling her eight week trip to India. Accompanied by photographer Andrea Bruce (see her recent WP Photo Exhibit here), Kalita departed for her trip before the recent earthquake disaster in India and Pakistan. The scope of her blog looks to be very interesting and falls very-much into line with some of the things we like to focus on here. Since her departure, and subsequent arrival in Delhi, Mitra has blogged on the departure pangs that many of us go through before leaving for the country of some of our parent’s birth, especially post liberalization of the early 1990s.
“Yet again I am surrounded by suitcases and piles of clothing — the bright pinks and oranges and magentas of East and the tans and blacks and navys of West — and engaging in the giving and taking that foreshadows the semiannual rite of my hyphenated life: a trip to India. Will I really wear these jeans? Or should I pack another salwar kameez? What’s the point of taking so many saris if I still can’t wrap myself in them properly. These are familiar questions, posed since I was a little girl spending summer vacations in the land of my parents’ birth. But as I look around my bedroom, I am struck by a stark difference between then and now. There are no Nikes. No Walkmans. No Tang. No Pringles. No Guess. No Gap. No Minoltas. No socks. No razor blades. No microwaves (I swear we took one once.) In fact, I am taking no gifts, just a few requested items for my husband’s cousin’s family, who are hosting me. Among them: a Bose iPod speaker and Livestrong wristbands. I do not have an iPod and didn’t know what the heck those bands were. Already, this American cousin feels she has been living in the Dark Ages.”She has also blogged on the South Asian earthquake and, the burgeoning mall culture that has taken over, not just India, but from my recent travels to South Asia, Sri Lanka as well. She writes of a recent mall opening,
“Make no mistake about the “mall” moniker. In India, that means marble floors and glitzy storefront displays. Like many conveniences taken for granted in the West, the Indian counterpart tends to be equally rooted in providing the customer experience. (McDonald’s, for example, might have a worker who pumps your ketchup.) So the opening of M.G. 2 (named for its location on Mehrauli Gurgaon Road and because it is adjacent to M.G. 1) served up a heavy dose of pomp and importance alongside glasses of Coke and mineral water, with trays of tofu triangles and asparagus bruschetta circulated by waiters.”
Her writeup pretty good. I have also stopped taking gifts – moreover nobody even wants them anymore. My parents cell phone rocks – here, I used to have bare minimum, dull stuff here from Cingular.
Last year, I saw Ford car dealership in Hyderabad, it was far more “jazzy” than a car dealership here. Three years ago, I was at Hotel Siddhartha around New Years, the people were enjoying more high-flying lifestyle than I ever will have here.
However, the internet there is pretty darn slow.
I brought Pringles at Mumbai airports last year. Everyone there are becoming mall rats.
india is not a copy of the us though. they’re creating their own society and just because they have technology and consumer goods as here, it doesn’t mean culturally indians are becoming more like americans.
the changes in india are not making indians there more like diaspora desis. they are raising the standard of living of many people there to the extent they don’t see the us as a mecca. that’s one of the biggest things i see from this, that indians in india don’t see the usa as a place many would like to live
to be a desi in america is to be mostly an american. an indian in india with up-to-date technology might be less like an american desi, because he or she does not want to try to be an american anymore. more and more, indians in india, maybe because of the changes, seem way more secure in staying in india and being indian
Kush:
I hate the cellphones here too. The whole cellphone system there is much better. For instance, you just pay for the minutes you use. Which is great for students and people on low budget. And incoming calls are always free. And SMS is cheaper here too. And there are not 1-year and 2-year contracts. And you can switch cellphones whenever you want. Sorry – couldnt resist 🙂
Yeah. I really hate that.
I can’t place her ethnic origin: http://www.saja.org/images/kalitafull.jpg
She has South-Asian features with Mongoloid undertones.
She’s from Assam
She’s Indian. Note how she refers to her going back to the motherland.
Mitra’ Assam connection, from her first post: “In mid-November, my blogging will likely take a break as I visit family in Assam, a province in India’s northeast region better known for tea than tech.”
“Mongoloid” is a pretty archaic and inappropriate term to use to describe someone’s features.
Assam is a state, not a province.
I beg to disagree. By the same token, Caucasian (derived from Caucasoid) should have been inappropriate as well. One couldn’t possibly use “Mongolian”. “Asian features” would sound equally silly.
Whether or not her facial topography classifies as desi is secondary to her portrayals of India, which perhaps demonstrate her internal – more important than the external, imo – topography. At key points in her narratives, I notice that her descriptions have been quite lame, almost lazy. Doing a “puja” is depicted as “traditional” which “lingers on”, to be contrasted with to the more “modern” mall milieu. Here she lazily links to a “puja” page on wiki &, even worse, lamely overlays the standardized western, “modern vs traditional” dichotomy on this phenomenon. Not entirely unexpected from SAJA.
Sanjay
Sanjay,
Right on the mark! Although I would say that this is not necessarily limited to SAJA members, but also to the majority of (I/A)BCD crowd.
Many desis (many indian-born-immigrated, but mostly American/European born) internalise many of the western behaviours and tendencies without even realising it. Hence this business of traditional-modern dichotomy. Some other cases which I come across are….
Religion:
In Indic culture, it is normal to keep religion in their private/family sphere. One does not talk about their religious beliefs at all – they just practise it. Our grandfathers (and even some of our fathers)did not walk around wishing everyone “Happy Diwali” or “Happy Ganesh Chaturthi”. They just did their puja etc in temples and homes and kept it to their families and close friends.
In contrast, the Abrahamic ideal has been to “share” the good Lord’s word with all and sundry. While I don’t want to go into crusades and jihads, even in modern times, the tendency to bring their religious identity out into the open is widely prevalent. Hence you hear statements like: “That movie is so good I may consider missing Church for it!” or “I need a personal day off from work because of Id.” The subtle way of stressing their religious zeal has not gone even after centuries of Renaissance.
Many desis internalise this behaviour – it is not limited to parroting “Happy Diwali” to all and sundry. While a homegrown Hindu would say: “That movie is so good that I may consider skipping what I’ve planned earlier to watch it” or “I need a personal day off to take care of some stuff.“, the confused Hindu says: “I need a personal day off because of Shivaratri fasting“.
Dress:
In Indic culture, a woman showing her mid-riff/navel is not considered provocative or indecent. Hence, it was common to see lehnga/cholis, ghagra/cholis to be worn as they were supposed to be worn.
However, in western culture, a woman can wear tight-ass dresses, cleavage and all, but showing the mid-riff is considered slutty. Many desis internalise this and refuse to wear the dress as it was originally supposed to be worn – even in desi-only get-togethers.
SN Balagangadhara has written a book on this called” A Heathen in his blindness. He has also written a column on Sulekha regarding this.
True independance is when a person refuses to internalise something from the dominant culture just because it is from that dominant culture. True independance is when a person has the courage to choose ingredients from all cultures based solely on merit.
Sorry I took some diversions in this post – they’re not totally irrelevant to the context. (Puja is not “traditional” – Puja is modern.)
M. Nam
I wonder if any of you guys have read Mary Roach’s latest book: “Spook…”.
I liked her last book and am partly through this one. She’s a good writer as usual.
But again, she travels to India for a reincarnation story (where else) and falls into the same cheesy writing about India trap of ‘There were cows grazing lazily about on the roads’ kinda stuff.
And another one: How women cover their faces for modesty but expose their midriffs!
For Gawd’s sake get over it. Haven’t we seen enough of that already! Yeah I know there are potholes on Indian roads and everything is different there…about 10 million authors before her have written that stuff.
I am certifiably Bong and my grandparents did go about wishing “Shubho Nabo Barsho” (Happy New Year), or more topically, “Shubho Bijoya” (Happy Vijaya Dashami at the end of Navaratri). And I am assured by them that their parents taught them to do that too.
M.Nam,
I am confused by your post. Are you saying that religion should be kept in the private sphere and it is wrong to celebrate/practice it openly?
Generally, your argument is that diasporic desis tend to internalize the tradition/modernity dichotomy, which is then reflected in their daily speech actions, etc., and relgion and dress are two examples of that.
Speaking on behalf of Islam, it is known that Islam is considered to be a way of life, not just a religion. Therefore, it necessarily pervades all aspects of life. The “ideal” of which you speak is a secular ideal. Without arguing the pros and cons of secularism, I will just say I don’t think it is fair or accurate to argue that there is a right [private] and wrong [public] to practice one’s religion.
Furthermore, your argument is based on the problems with dichotomizing tradition and modernity, but you just established your own dichtomy by suggesting that there is a “normal” way to practice religion and dress.
While a homegrown Hindu would say: “That movie is so good that I may consider skipping what I’ve planned earlier to watch it” or “I need a personal day off to take care of some stuff.”, the confused Hindu says: “I need a personal day off because of Shivaratri fasting”.
Have you ever considered that you (Moornam) might be confused about non homegrown Hindus ?
“I am certifiably Bong and my grandparents did go about wishing “Shubho Nabo Barsho” (Happy New Year), or more topically, “Shubho Bijoya” (Happy Vijaya Dashami at the end of Navaratri). And I am assured by them that their parents taught them to do that too.”
I also grew up in a Bengali household, and the Shubho Nabo Bashro and Shubho Bijoya only came into use when the birds left the nest. Growing up, we may have heard them wish it to others, but they never said it to us. So, when they started to wish it to their adult children, and we did not know the proper ,canned response, they were met with, “Uh, thanks.”
Have you ever considered that you (Moornam) might be confused about non homegrown Hindus ?
Good and polite observation. I was not going to be this subtle. I think MoorNam is baiting people for a
flame wardebate. I can only hope that the MoorNam Brand of Traditional-Hindus are going extinct (if they ever existed). MoorNam studies the behavior patterns of some curmudgeon desis (he must have been a Ghar Jamai in des) in India and uses that to calibrate the behavior of desis of both, American-Born or Born-Again-American kind. I am a pretty homegrown Hindu. I think I have shared my religion more in India with my friends and neighbors than I do in USA. If I ever fasted in India I made sure that everybody especially the Cook of the Mess-Hall (Panditji) knows about it. PanditJi would fix me “phaalahar”, which was a delicious fruit salad.SoÂ…where does M.Nam stand on his scale .. if I count his writings in Sulekha IÂ’d say he is a Hindu Jehadi in Abrahamic crusador mold – in making. If you do not believe me ask his fan and fellow Brahmin [name deleted by Administrator since it is the same as the name of the Administrator which causes confusion].
I also read Mitra KalitaÂ’s Blog. The traveller is good….very descriptive, I shud say
I can resonate with that KXB. My kid brother and I would have uncles and aunts wishing us in Bengali when we were kids, and we did come up with a formulaic response — ‘and Shubho Nabo Barsho to you too!’ 🙂
But, as you concur, they did go about wishing others with the cheery phrases. Which is counter to what MoorNam claims.
I was brought up in a mostly traditional Tamil household and Diwali/Tamil New Years/Pongal etc., mornings are usually peppered with calls to family and friends wishing them “Happy Diwali” etc.
Back home people don’t say things like “I have to take a day off b/c I’m fasting” because others are aware already–no need to publicize your religious practices as they’re common knowledge. As an individual, I don’t need to reveal my religious identity in public because the underlying assumption is that my relationship with God/religion is consistent with those of everyone else (not saying it is, just that it is assumed to be).
But coming back to Kalita, I must admit I liked her posting about the malls up until the point of picking an auspicious day for the pooja. I tried to keep in mind that she is writing primarily (fine, maybe even entirely) for a Western audience but that reference sounds so trite and unnecessary.
The sulekha crowd is right-wing–anti-reservation and overwhelmingly South Indian Brahmin (SIB). Its just one of MANY possible Indian viewpoints…thankfully! Sepia is more open minded, they hear from everybody without shutting people down.
Balagangadhara’s basic idea is that Hindus dont give primacy to beliefs, just practices. There is a little bit of merit to it but then he stretches it to whacky extremes. His Hinduism is whatever his grandmother told him forty years back before he moved to Belgium. He knows no Sanskrit or Tamil.
Perhaps India has to go full circle into tech ignorance again in order to be considered truly modern.
This is interesting given that I am planning a two-week trip back to India for First Quarter 2006 (haven’t been in a decade) and was planning on blogging about using a then-and-now writeup style, as opposed to a compare and contrast between America and India 2.0
Anything fundamentally wrong with any of these attributes?
I do not agree with a lot of ideas from that crowd but for different reasons.
Who is Balagangadhara? Or are we talking about Tilak?
You have to admit that it does make the perspective a tad one-sided. One eyed even, therefore lacking depth perception.
Argus, you have a point here. Sulekha has a variety of other problems with its journalistic voice/tone.
But it does help me find good travel agents that get me cheap tickets for my annual pilgrimage to the motherland. So Sulekha gets props from me and my wallet.
KXB/DesiDude,
Hindus do not consider “family” separate from “personal” – so religious greetings like the one you mentioned are common between family members.
NA: Are you saying that religion should be kept in the private sphere and it is wrong to celebrate/practice it openly?
No – I’m saying that the business of talking about their religious/theological practices with non-family is not a Hindu practise. If I went to Yemen and celebrated Ramazan and “felt like I was a muslim”, I would not share it with anyone outside my (possibly immediate) family. Most Hindus will consider it un-Hindu.
you just established your own dichtomy by suggesting that there is a “normal” way to practice religion and dress.
Misunderstanding. There is certainly no normal way to practise anything. Practices have to change as time changes – new methods of worship should be adopted. However, when adopting new methods, one should not do so just because the dominant culture(or coloniser) deems it to be superior – you should adopt cultural practices only if it makes sense. Stressing one’s religious identity out of context does not make sense.
If someone working for me comes to me and says: “I want to take next Wednesday off because of Ash Wednesday” – I would say(and have said): “Sure you can take the day off. But you don’t need to give me a reason. Whether it is Ash Wednesday or you need to renew your driver’s license or something else – it is irrelevant to me.”
Stressing one’s religious identity un-necessarily was not “normal” for Hindus. Hence, India has constantly been a beacon of religious amity. Once you start violating this, eventually it will become politicised enough so that you will now need to import Secularism to counter this. You need to borrow the cure from outside to cure the disease that came from outside. What if you reject the disease itself? KIT:
You shared your religious practice with the Panditji because there was a good reason for it – nothing un-Hindu about it. Now, imagine going to work in a secular job or posting comments on a non-religious blog about a movie, and then stressing that you had Phalahar…would that make sense in that context?
To see an analogy about irrelevancy, you don’t need to go far. Just check out Senthil’s post on this blog! He dismisses Balagangadhara just because he does not speak Tamil, as if that has anything to do with writing about cross-cultural issues! What Senthil is doing in this case is stressing his linguistic identity out of context, but in a subtle way. Most fanaticisms (religion, language, caste, race etc) end up in similiar behaviour. M. Nam
The point was that ms. kalita’s blog is unfortunately not a fresh, bold, innovative insight into what makes India tick but is simply stale, old wine in a seemingly new bottle. Which is fine if you’re into collecting bottles. However, if the concern is stale wine making you sick, then the very mention of SAJA should throw up red flags all over the place since SAJA, like Japan, keeps producing mindless, well trained, remote controlled robots that excel at simple, repetitive tasks for their masters.
It is not just me saying it – look at the report today in the Guardian of UK stating how “Ethnic minority journalists feel isolated within newspapers and magazines” & that “Ethnic minority correspondents often were the only ones in the newsroom”, forced endlessly to recycle cliches and stereotypes about their communities. (source: http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1594302,00.html?gusrc=rss). I do not imagine things are any different this side of the Atlantic. Let’s not forget that US Media is like any other MNC – the so-called “liberal” NY Times is not that far removed from a Fortune 500 company (#524, I believe).
Its still early in the life of India 2.0, but I’m distinctly underwhelmed.
“KXB/DesiDude,
Hindus do not consider “family” separate from “personal” – so religious greetings like the one you mentioned are common between family members.”
You miss the point – aside from Bengali New Year and the period immediately after Durga Puja, no one in the family, or in their Bengali circle in NY greeted each other with a religious salutation.
And the distinction is not between “family” and “personal”. The distinction is between “family” and “bairer lok” aka outsiders.
desi
Good catch on the “province” thing. why should sometime try to translate state into province when the official geographic unit is state and not province in india. it makes sense if the u.s.a has province as geographic unit to make it easier for its readers to understand. last time i checked, it’s united states of america and not united provinces of america.
Moor, you claim that Hindus do not use religious salutations such as ‘Happy Diwali’ outside of the family and close friends and that doing so is ‘apeing the West’.
Both KXB and I indicated that our very Hindu grandparents would greet outsiders (non-family) with similar salutations. Hence, it was a counterexample to your claim (viz. wishing each other Happy Diwali and such is un-Hindu).
Moor, you’ll make the easiest-peasiest boss in the world 🙂 For instance, even if I wanted to take a day off on Friday I could simply say, “Moornam, I can’t come to work on Friday”. As opposed to finishing with “because I plan on getting wasted from excessive debauchery at a bachelor party on a Thursday night.” But I would not have to explain that to you since such information would be irrelevant to you.
That is untrue. Hindus assert their identity. Any time one wears namam, rudraksham, janav, they are asserting identity. Chaitanya and his ragtag band asserted identity, nayanmars danced through TN asserting identity. When they discuss Vedantam in Chinmaya classes, they are asserting identity. When buddha picked different color for his robes from brahmins he asserted identity. diwali cards are identity, and everyone greets outsiders on holidays, I dont know where youre experience comes from.
We need secularism becuase we choose to assert or not assert our identities in different ways. Just becuase you dont like certain ways of assertion (and claim to speak for all Hindus in process) doesnt mean everyone else has to agree.
To see an analogy about irrelevancy, you don’t need to go far. Just check out Senthil’s post on this blog! He dismisses Balagangadhara just because he does not speak Tamil, as if that has anything to do with writing about cross-cultural issues! What Senthil is doing in this case is stressing his linguistic identity out of context, but in a subtle way. Most fanaticisms (religion, language, caste, race etc) end up in similiar behaviour. M. Nam
Anyone who doesnt agree with saffronists is fanatical! (yes you call me fanatic so Ill call you saffronist) Pick any classical language: Brahmi, Prakrit, Sanskrit Tamil. He doesnt know any. Which is fine, except he claims to speak for Hinduism. Discussing him and his zany theories is out of place here.
You shared your religious practice with the Panditji because there was a good reason for it – nothing un-Hindu about it. Now, imagine going to work in a secular job or posting comments on a non-religious blog about a movie, and then stressing that you had Phalahar…would that make sense in that context?
M.Nam I donno WTF you are talking about a “good movie” and all (So much for your relevancy argument). I think earlier you were stressing that the Desi-Hindu’s choose to not disclose when they “fast”. I gave an example to dispute that theory. From what I understood you were implying that homegrown desis prefer to keep their Hindu identity concealed. I know that is absolute bull.
Do you wear that “tika” (or tilak) after you finish your pooja ? (not sure what its called in Tamil, so donÂ’t feel I am stressing my whatever identity here). Why is that ? Have you been to Tirupati ? Why do people (even ladies) “give” their hair at that shrine ? I do not know that baldheadedness in Hindu-ladies has gone mainstream. [ lest they get a full head of hair as soon as they enter a secular domain ]
Any time one wears namam, rudraksham, janav, they are asserting identity.
This is simply not true for traditional Hindus…the more traditional members of my Brahmin family would be shocked to hear that they’re “asserting their identity” when they wear their janav. They’re wearing it simply because they’ve always worn it. In other words, the mere practice of Hinduism DOES NOT equal identity assertion, especially among traditionalists. However, when the “modern” Hindu wears the janav and then insists on talking about it, there IS some measure of “identity assertion”. I think it’s undeniable that the practice of Hinduism takes on different undertones in the West – it’s identity assertion to some degree at least to speak of religious experience/practises outside of one’s inner circle here even if one babbles about fasting to the panditji back in the motherland…
Understood this way, a modern Muslim woman wearing a hijab in the West IS asserting her identity but I wouldn’t necessarily say that a traditional Muslim woman in Delhi’s old city is asserting her identity just because, following family tradition, she wears a burqa…
P.S. Sorry if I wildly misunderstood your point Moornam – FWIW, I share your general mistrust of the SAJA cabal.
“Understood this way, a modern Muslim woman wearing a hijab in the West IS asserting her identity but I wouldn’t necessarily say that a traditional Muslim woman in Delhi’s old city is asserting her identity just because, following family tradition, she wears a burqa…”
A great post, SMR. Apropos the quote above, I might add the American Muslim hijab, while it seems more modern than the traditionalist’s burqa that I see everywhere in Hyderabad’s old city, the hijab is actually theologically stricter, whereas the traditionalist’s burqa often has only a vague connection to theology. That is, in my experience traditionalists don’t wear the burqa when in the home, even if in the presence of someone (e.g. a second or third-cousin, or the friend of a son) before whom the Shariah purdah. Whereas the hijab-wearers that I have met from the US and elsewhere would veil themselves in those situations with the headscarf even if within the home.
Typo: I meant to say “before whom the Shariah requires purdah
This is simply not true for traditional Hindus…the more traditional members of my Brahmin family would be shocked to hear that they’re “asserting their identity” when they wear their janav. They’re wearing it simply because they’ve always worn it. In other words, the mere practice of Hinduism DOES NOT equal identity assertion, especially among traditionalists.
Aha! This is what I call the DayCruz logic… “hear me out when I say that you are going to hell, why the hell (no pun!) you are so shocked when I tell you so”.
Just like…
“I have been wearing this Janav and Rudraksh forever, my family has been smearing their forehead with that Tilak for last 1768 generations. I am just practicing my Hinduism in a traditional way. But hey! …did you just friggin wished me a “Happy Diwali” ? Watz wrong with you you ostentatious mo-fo ?”
indians in india are very different from desis in the us. we in the us who rail on about our values being immoral should think a bit before we say them, because there’s people in india who really believe that a woman wearing a shirt that shows her belly button is an example of a society gone awry.
people in india actually seem to believe that stuff. another belief i thought was just a cliche was, that a woman should not admit to enjoying sex. i thought that was a myth. but its true. there’s many more myths out there that are really true, and are major differences between the two cultures. its become standard to poo-poo us culture and raise up indian culture….the anti-americanism in general heightens this.
but…here’s things the US culture actually does right. freedom for women, particularly the freedom to be free to enjoy sex and relationships. the freedom to be publically assertive (even though a woman who is “too” assertive here might be called names, compare the scandal that ensues in some indian hosueholds when a woman is actually out-an-out assertive_.
and diversity. we actually have it here in the us, and many of us like it
That made me laugh out loud. KIT, thanks to you the people in my lab think I should be placed in a padded cell.
do you have to “assert” your religion when your religion is practiced by 90ish percent of the population?
i think many of the values, including religious practices, in the usa can stand to be looked at from the perspective that this country is one of the most diverse places in the world.
SMR writes: >>when the “modern” Hindu wears the janav and then insists on talking about it, there IS some measure of “identity assertion”.
Exactly! I’ve met many brahmins who are guilty of this. A true, confident brahmin does not talk about it.
I think some people here cannot understand the difference between practicing religion and talking about it. Wearing tilak, fasting, attending church etc are fine – the moment someone talks about it out of context, they’re try to assert their identity. This is the first step in fanaticism. M. Nam
Raju: I’m quite staggered by your suggestion that India is LESS diverse than the United States; as a cultural matter, I consider that to be indisputably untrue. Your comment about 90% being Hindus also misses the point: a 90% Hindu country is not like the USA with its 80-90% Christian population because (for want of a better word) internally Hinduism includes a much wider body of “differences” than American Christianity does (even accounting for the many different ways in which Christianity is vital in the USA). And then we get into the non-Hindus (who are not, as you suggest, ~10% but roughly ~18%).
But even beyond ethnicity, caste, and religion, take the question of political diversity: the country features the whole smorgasbord, including Taliban-types, neo-Nazis, secular and right-wing nationalists, left-wing conservatives, Maoists, atheists, free-marketeers, unredeemed Marxists, heck even a party that calls itself the Dalit Panthers, you name it. Politically speaking one has much less choice in most liberal democracies where it’s the basic liberal democratic consensus is accepted, and the only question is of rightward or leftward tilt.
[And so I am not misunderstood: I am not saying that one system is inevitably better or worse than another. I am merely making the point that if diversity is a value you wish to affirm, you would be hard pressed to make the case that the US is more diverse than India is.]
you guys might be interested in using a quantitative diversity index (replace species with denomination) to make your argument less impressionistic. also, the assertion that internally Hinduism includes a much wider body of “differences” than American Christianity does is i think disputable. there are so many denominations out there with weird beliefs and practices. to give one example, mormons believe that god has a physical body, was once a mortal, has a wife (heavenly mother), lives on a planet called kolob and that virtuous mormon males will become gods.
I beg to differ here. Ever since Hurricane Katrina and my evacuation of NO, I’ve been wearing my rudraksha not particularly caring whether anyone can see it or not. Why? I am shit scared for my city and don’t know when my job will move back home, and I can use all the help I can get right now. It’s not just about asserting identity, but also for personal emotional security, which I am entitled to right now regardless of the people that surround me.
p.s. if anyone is serious about calculating a diversity index, American Religious Identification Survey Census India Data On Religion.
Speaking of diversity, Razib do you have any idea of resources I can use to find out the Malayalee population of Oregon? Someone at dippu.com asked me that the other day and I had no answer.
daycruz, my suggestion is to check our the census.gov site and see if you can find the long form census data for how many people filled in malayalee as ethnicity. this should give you a low bound estimate if they disaggregate by state. if that doesn’t work i think you should check out the library at OSU, a lot of ethnography has been done on the malayalee commmunity because of their bias toward female anchored chain migration (which is the opposite of most brown americans).
Razib: The Church of Latter Day Saints notwithstanding, I do dispute the suggestion. For starters, the term “Hindu” would include hundreds of millions of people who worship deities that would be virtually unrecognizable to “classical” Hinduism, including animist belief systems (which on their face might appear to be in some tension with classical transcendentalism). Not to mention various “liminal” traditions, rationally classifiable as either Hindu or Muslim. Some examples:
Hussaini Brahmins (not accepted as Brahmins by non-Hussaini Brahmins), who believe that Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussain was an avatar of Vishnu, and who do puja facing in the direction of Kerbala.
The Meo of Rajasthan and western UP, adhering to a wide variety of deities and spirits, with a Mahabharata of their own (featuring Pandavas with “Muslim” names).
A relatively well-known example is that of Bengali snake charmers, often named (e.g.) “Muhammad” or “Tayyib” and Saraswati-worshippers too.
In fact, Amitav Ghosh’s “The Hungry Tide” features a powerful representation of the Sunderbans; the religious traditions therein confuse the urban Bengali protagonist who is sojourning there; he assumes the people he is hanging out with are Hindu (implicitly “like him”), until he realizes that they are praying in shrines to Allah– but only through a female intermediary called the “Bon Bibi” (I think that means “Lady of the Forest”).
Leaving aside the definitely (no pun intended) “liminal”, firmly within the fold of HInduism one finds orthodox patronage of Muslim Sufi saints (the Sai Baba is the most famous example). Large parts of central and western India to this day feature wide Dalit participation in Muharram. And I won’t even get into the somewhat odd local Hindu patronage of the cult of Ghazi miyan (the nephew of the infamous Mahmud of Ghazni, and an iconoclast himself).
Even if we restrict ourselves to “classical” Hinduism, we have (to take just one example) the “split” between Vedantic and Bhakti-traditions, not to mention the tradition of multiple written Ramayanas and Mahabharatas, not to mention even more oral ones (with widely differing valences– for instance, ones where Ravana is a more positive character than in Tulasidas’ Ramayana).
Any time one wears namam, rudraksham, janav, they are asserting identity.
This is simply not true for traditional Hindus…the more traditional members of my Brahmin family would be shocked to hear that they’re “asserting their identity” when they wear their janav.
By proclaiming your brahminhood, youve just asserted a Hindu identity!
Rudraksham, janav is not exclusively about asserting an identity, but I think we’d be dishonest with ourselves if we maintained it was not at least part of what is going on.
Have you been to an upanayanam ceremony lately (where a young Brahmin is initiated with the thread)? Seen the wedding-sized crowds, the fancy invitations? (And the pipsqueak may not even know a mantra!) That ceremony is most certainly an assertion of identity.
When the Brahmin is revolted at the thought of a non-brahmin kid wearing the thread, that is also an assertion of identity.
However, when the “modern” Hindu wears the janav and then insists on talking about it, there IS some measure of “identity assertion”.
Lets all agree that whatever you mean by “modern” Hindus outnumber the ever-dwindling traditionalists. And yet anytime we have a discussion about Hindu practice, we invariably harken back to the semi-mythical traditional Brahmin, denying, implicitly, all other hindus any voice in the process.
Razib & Umair,
My observation: In terms of ethnicity and race, United States is the most diverse country in the world and definitely, most advanced (not perfect, please note) in terms of liberal, secular democratic ideals.
However, in terms of disparate traditions, beliefs, and religions “openly observed as a distinct way of life”, India is more diverse. This is not only my observation but any American who goes to India will make a similar observation.
In USA, you will not hear koran from a mosque, keertans from a gurudwara, bhajan from a temple on blaring on different loudspeakers every sunrise. Go to Texas – you see a lot of churches, sure different denominatons. In Utah, not even that. Sure, you can give me examples of Hsiadic Jews and other distinct group – we can argue till we turn blue.
PS: I also think comparing Indian and USA diversity is little goofy.
Umair Muhajir,
i grant on the face of it that you have a strong case. frankly, if i were to bet money, i would tend to bet your side, but, here is why i think your case is weaker than first blush would suggest
1) distinction between belief and practice. if you survey belief a non-creedal religion like hinduism is structurally going to be more diverse than christianity. the mormons are an exception that proves the rule since they reject the nicene creed, along with a few other marginal groups (jehovah’s witnesses). on the other hand in terms of practice you have a wide range of variance among christians (from snake handlers in appalachia to pass-the-plate episcopalians).
2) semantics. if you grant that the term one uses for god matters, then hinduism wins hands down, but if you are skeptical that vocabularly matches cognitive state it might be less relevant (i.e., do hindus who pray to an avatar to vishnu really conceive of anything different imagistically/emotionally than a christian who prays to jesus?). this point depends on what you value and what your criteria are. semantically there can be great differences on paper which are minimal in real life.
3) your points are interesting, but not quantitized. i.e., are the proportion of husseni brahmins of similar order as mormons? (1.2% of americans) i would concede that on a wide host of metrics hinduism exhibits greater range* than christianity, but i think the standard deviation or variance is more open to dispute (that is, hinduism might have lots of little sects, but more hindus might cluster around a median and mode of practice and belief).
4) i would argue that an assertion like “india is more religiously diverse than egypt” is a slam dunk. or, that “kerala is more religiously diverse than uttar pradesh.” (though my points can be brought to bear even here, for example, if one simply asserts that hindus are by definition far more diverse than non-hindus, the fact that 80% of people in UP are hindu might make it more religiously diverse than kerala where 60% are hindu, and the ther 40% adhere to creedal religions) i just don’t think it is as clear in the case of the USA vs. india.