Though I was an early and vocal participant in the Great Sonal Shah Internet Debate of 2008, I am done arguing about it. This post is not about that directly.
Instead, I’d like to focus on some of the bigger issues behind the controversy, specifically: 1) how South Asian religious youth camps work and what they do, and 2) whether Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu organizations in the U.S. send large amounts of money to South Asia to support communalist organizations over there.
As always, I would love to hear personal testimony from people who went to religious youth camps, or who have been involved in any of the organizations I’m going to be mentioning. An ounce of personal testimony is better than a pound of theorizing, generalizing, and blah blah blah argument.
1. What’s at issue
These two issues are the central themes of a chapter in Vijay Prashad’s book, The Karma of Brown Folk, called “Of Yankee Hindutva.” They also feature in Prashad’s essay in Sulekha, “Letter to a Young American Hindu.”
The reason Prashad is so focused on Sonal Shah is pretty clear: to him, she seems to represent exactly the “Yankee Hindutva” he has been talking about for years. As I see it, the major things Sonal Shah is accused of are 1) being a part of the leadership of an organization called the VHP-A, which has a clear communal bias (no one seriously disputes this), and 2) speaking at HSS-US youth camps like this one (from the website, HSS-US appears to be considerably less extreme than VHP-A, though they do prominently advertise a new book they’ve published on M.S. Golwalkar). Ennis has also suggested that what is really worse than this might be 3) the fact that she waited so long to clarify her former affiliation: the cover-up is worse than the crime. I do not agree with him on that, but I do agree with people like Mira Kamdar that (1) and (2) might be concerning.
But what exactly does an association with the American branch of a Hindu nationalist organization tell us about a person? How much do we really know about the American branches of these organizations? How bad are they really?
Below the fold, I’ll raise some questions about the accounts Vijay Prashad has given of VHPA and the Hindu Students Council in his book, The Karma of Brown Folk.
Before doing that, let’s start with a personal testimony, from a person who actually disagrees with me overall on this issue. As I was browsing people’s various blog posts relating to Sonal Shah, I came across a great post and discussion thread by a blogger named Anasuya. In the comments to Anasuya’s post is another person named Anasuya (Anasuya Sanyal), who attended VHP camps years ago, and had this to say about her experience of them:
I too remember attending VHP conferences as a teenager growing up in the US and I had no idea of the political affiliations until I lived for a bit in India around age 17. Naturally, I was not in any kind of agreement with the VHP platforms, philosophy or actions and I even wrote a small piece about the American “face†of the VHP for The Telegraph!
And as a second generation Indian American, Indian politics were not a topic in the home and VHP conferences were a parentally-approved weekend outing since we were with other Indian friends. The fun part was our more responsible friends would drive us all to the place and we’d take over a cheap motel and party. Otherwise at that age, a weekend away would have been strictly forbidden.
I don’t remember too much about the conferences themselves–there were a few interesting group discussions/breakout sessions. I didn’t see any political content. If anything, the parents saw it as a way to participate in a big somewhat religious gathering, seeing as how more established religions in the US had youth events, whereas Hindus did not. (link)
As I say, Anasuya Sanyal disagrees with me overall, so this account shouldn’t be taken as a tailor-made version of what happened to support the “pro Sonal Shah” side of things.
Anasuya (the blogger) also has a great string of questions that follow from this:
Why is our analysis not able to convey the slippery slope between VHP summer schools and the genocide in Gujarat? Have we, as activists for a progressive world, so denounced a middle ground of faith, religiosity and associated ‘culture’, that we have ended up allowing the fascist right to take over that space? Is a VHP summer school the only option that a young Hindu growing up in America has for learning about her heritage, whatever this might mean? How far are we committed to having ‘youth camps’ about syncreticism, pluralism, and that most particular aspect of Indian heritage: secularism as both the church-state separation, as well as a respect for all faiths? With histories that include Hindu and Muslim worship at Baba Budangiri, or the Hindu and Christian celebrations at Velankinni? (link)
These seem like great questions, and unfortunately I don’t think there are any solid answers. Things like “Diwali Against Communalism” come off as a little weak. Inter-faith conferences and events are also great, but groups that are targeted by people like Prashad (like HSS-US) regularly particpate in them, so how much work does the “Inter-Faith” movement really do?
2. Looking at Prashad’s “Yankee Hindutva”
The only person I know of who has spent any energy investigating the American branches of South Asian religious organizations and youth camps is Vijay Prashad [UPDATE: I’ve now also been looking at some helpful work by Arvind Rajagopal], and I don’t find his account to be sufficient. I don’t say that he’s wrong, per se, but rather that I wish there were other people investigating these groups and filling out the gaps in our knowledge of them.
My first problem is with the narrow way Prashad defines his subject. Prashad explicitly states that he’s not going to look at Sikh or Muslim camps or organizations, because in his view the “VHPA is far more powerful (demographically and financially) and is far more able to create divisions within the desi community than to draw us toward an engagement with our location as desis in the United States” (KoBF 134).
In fact, I don’t think that’s true even on the face of it. Khalistani groups (now mostly defunct) and conservative Muslim groups historically have done as much to encourage self-segregation within second generation desi communities as the VHP-A. It may be true that the VHPA is more “powerful,” but without seeing membership numbers or financial statements, I don’t see why we should assume that. With his exclusive focus on Hindu organizations, Prashad seems to be employing a double standard.
I’m also disappointed in Prashad’s narrow focus on the VHP-A because, as a moderate Sikh, I’m curious to know more about how he sees Sikh youth camps and Sikh American organizations. (I attended Sikh youth camps as a child, and was even a counselor/teacher at a now-defunct Sikh youth camp in central Pennsylvania, in 1998.)
Prashad’s chapter has many long paragraphs of political commentary, as well as several pages on a figure from the 1920s, named Taraknath Das. He gets to the topic at hand about 10 pages into the chapter, when he connects the VHPA to the Hindu Students Council:
The VHPA acts multiculturally through its student wing, the Hindu Students Council (HSC), which champions a syndicated Brahmanical Hinduism (of Hindutva) as the neglected culture of the Hindu Americans. The HSC subtly moves away from the violence and sectarianism of related organizations in India and vanishes into the multicultural space opened up in the liberal academy. The HSCs and Hindutva flourish in the most liberal universities in the United States, which offer such sectarian outfits the liberty to promote what some consider to be the neglected verities of an ancient civilization.
Notice something familiar here? It’s the exact same rhetorical move that’s been made with Sonal Shah: though HSC appears to be more tolerant, accepting, and reasonable than the VHPA, that is only a front — in fact, they are really just the smiley, tolerant-looking face of a Global Hindutva Conspiracy. Actually, I am far from convinced, by either Prashad or the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate, that the HSC is a problematic organization at all. They insist that they have been an independent organization since 1993, and I have seen no real evidence to doubt that.
[UPDATE/CORRECTION: Several people have suggested to me that the links between VHPA and HSC probably were more sustained than this. I have also been told that some HSC groups — Cornell especially, before 2002 — and some of the leadership have said things with a communal bent. Those are important qualifications, but it doesn’t really alter my basic point, that HSC for its members is primarily a social organization, while VHPA has a firmer communalist focus.]
Another problematic assertion arises a few pages later in Prashad’s chapter, when he finally starts to talk about money:
Between 1990 and 1992, the average annual income of the VHPA was $385,462. By 1993 its income had gone up to $1,057,147. An allied group of the VHPA, the India Development and Relief Fund, raised almost $2 million in the 1990s (some of it via the United Way). This money is discreetly transferred into India. It is common knowledge that during the way of Shilapujan ceremonies across the globe toward the erection of a Ram temple at Ayodhya, millions of dollars in cash and kind reached India. It is also common knowledge that VHP and BJP functionaries carry huge sums of money in cash or kind from the United States to India.
First, it’s nice to see some dollar amounts here, though it would be even nicer if a source for those dollar amounts was given. Second, it may well be true that the VHPA has sent money to the Indian VHP, which was used for nefarious purposes. As I hope is clear, I have no interest in defending the VHPA or (and this should go without saying) the VHP/RSS in India. But it is simply not enough to say “it is common knowledge that X is occurring.” Some direct evidence is important. Again, if we don’t have it, it doesn’t mean a progressive ought to write these organizations off as harmless.
But what that lack of direct evidence does require is a different tone — we don’t know how much money is involved, so it’s misleading to write as if we do. It could be a lot, or it could be very little. It is a real possibility that the supposed financial might of “Yankee Hindutva” might be, in the end, somewhat overblown. The Indian branches of these organizations are huge structures, with plenty of independent ability to raise money.
Towards the end of the “Yankee Hindutva” chapter in The Karma of Brown Folk, Prashad makes a point that I think is very valid — the way in which second generation South Asian youth are taught their religious traditions via religious organizations and youth camps is often rather distorted. He quotes the great C.M. Naim quite appositely along these lines:
[C.M. Naim:] “The religious heritage that is being projected here and sought to be preserved and passed on to the next generation . . . is closer to an ideology than a faith or culture. IT has more certainties than doubts, more pride than humility; it is more concerned with power than salvation; and it would rather exclude and isolate than accommodate and include.” [Prashad:] In the United States there are mosques and temples but no dargahs (shrines), “not the kind where a South Asian Muslim and a South Asian Hindu would go together to obtain that special pleasure of communion or that equally special comfort of a personal intercession with god.” [C.M Naim, quoted in Prashad, 149]
I completely agree with this, though it seems necessary to also point out that this process of religious consolidation that occurs in the diaspora has also been occurring in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The utopian vision of religious syncretism and blending is largely, now, a vision of the past. It is important to remember the history of syncretism and understand its legacy (Amitav Ghosh has often done that beautifully in his writings), but “strong” religion has largely displaced it in the Indian subcontinent in the present day.
As a Sikh growing up in the U.S., I have first-hand experience of the religious consolidation Naim is talking about. What we were taught about the Sikh tradition at Gurdwara and Sikh youth camps was often very different from what my cousins were learning back in Delhi and Chandigarh. Even the way it’s practiced — the actual ritual of visiting the Gurdwara — is a little different. (In the diaspora, most people go once a week, and spend several hours. It’s “like going to Church.” In India, the devout tend to visit the Gurdwara every day, but they only stay a few minutes. Religious practices are more concentrated here in the U.S., and also more isolated from everyday life. Ironically, through subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle ways, this process of Westernizing means that the relationship to religion can become more intense, and perhaps more extreme, than it is for most people in the Indian subcontinent.)
Of course, all this is a bit beside the point — as it’s a phenomenon that is interesting sociologically, but it isn’t really evidence of a rising tide of “Yankee Hindutva.” The first wave of second generation children who were raised with this uniquely diasporic version of South Asian religions are now in the their 30s and 40s, and for the most part they outgrew what they were taught in those religious camps as teenagers.
Some quick conclusions:
1) Not everyone who attends or speaks at an HSS youth camp is a fanatic, as evidenced by the example of the blog comment I quoted above.
2) It would still be nice if there were more options for exposure to moderate forms of South Asian religion in the diaspora.
3) Prashad’s decision to focus only on Hindu organizations and youth camps is overly limiting. It’s not just because it produces a political slant and a double-standard; it’s also analytically limiting, because there might be parallels and patterns among Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims (and Christians? Jains?) that this limited scope doesn’t allow.
4) I am not convinced that the HSC should be lumped in with the VHPA. The former seem to very clearly by oriented to ABDs on college campuses — and serve primarily a social function. The VHPA is, by contrast, clearly tied to a communalist concept of Hinduism.
5) I agree that second generation South Asian Americans often get a somewhat distorted (more monoculturalist) image of South Asian religions because of what is taught by religious organizations and summer camps. But I am not sure this is really our most pressing problem.
I want to add that, despite my handle, I’m not Muslim, I’m a mixed Brahmin from the South. I know that it sounds over-wrought to say it, but it will affect how you read the previous post.
247, Dissociation
This might be the first time, since I stopped reading Leon Uris and started reading newspapers, that I’ve felt compelled to defend Israel:
Comparing Israel to the VHP is completely meaningless.
I think most of the screaming folks are not clear on what they want to see happen in the world, and why. They just scream, protest, write, yak, or do wordy analysis based on some Marxist/Pomo framework. They revel in creating this word soup and frothing in it, and derive their identity from the process. If the VHP disappeared one fine morning, they will be lost for a while, but then move on to another organisation. They are just outrage junkies.
Nizam, I didn’t say everything the VHP is doing is good, but at the end of the day you have to decide what you really want. Based on my experience, and my reading of the world, I think the VHP should continue to exist, but give up their violence, so that I have the option of using them when I need/want to. I have the same approach to CPM, I’ve used them as a stick too. They have their own violent and insidious ways, which I think they should give up as well.
I support the class/religion distinction on social reservation, simply because there are other minority religions who have done well without reservation and don’t care for it, for instance Catholics and Parsis. Reservation based on social category is an effort to reform the ills of Hindu society. If you are seeking reservation based on economic deprivation, that is a different problem altogether, and will cover everyone from poor Brahmins to poor Catholics and poor Muslims, but leave out rich Dalits.
I am not convinced by one-liners. You have to argue that case, and show why the Emanuel case is different from the Shah one.
250 · Pavan said
Civic tranquility is both a function of goodwill and well functioning law enforcement/judiciary. I think trying to force people to like each other is a losing proposition and I agree that the hate that some of these missionaries spread does sh*t all over goodwill. The Leftists try by trying to convince us that we don’t exist and even if we did that our grievances are imaginary but that doesn’t work. So you need the stick of law enforcemet/functioning judiciary. However, in the hypothetical case of a Hindu dissing the Baptists on their turf in Texas, here’s what might happen: 1) Hindu is handing out flyers reading “Jesus never died on the cross and spent his final days smoking ganja in Kashmir. The Communion isn’t about transubstantiation, it just symbolizes the munchies.” 2) Cletus comes out guns blazing 3) Hindu dies 4) Co-parishioner Sheriff Hushpuppy believes the departed was asking for it. But he knows that in enlightened Austin TX his minders who sign his paycheck won’t abide by a coverup 5) Sheriff Hushpuppy puts cuff on Cletus who ends up getting 25-life. Sheriff Hushpuppy drinks himself into a beer but he’s got a mortgage 6) Hindu # 2 shouts “Jesus is just a knockoff of Krishna”. Inside the church trigger fingers get itchy but they remember Cletus and his showertime battles against the “Sodomites” and turn their thoughts to heaven
This is what needs to happen in India. Where things don’t get out of hand no matter what the insult because their is the machiney of law enforcement that works, for the most part, inspite of the inclinations of its cogs. If the missionaries are indeed funding violence, which I’ve never seen evidence of, then this is something that functioning law enforcement should be able to handle. It doesn’t seem right to me for the govt. to get involved in matters of conscience.
244 · Amitabh said
What if this becomes defined as ‘an organic relationship with the desi ethos’? 🙂 The whole post-independence career of India is premised on this in many respects since the nationalist movement was dominated by English-speaking educated upper class upper caste elites. The only point I would argue on you is that it’s not simply that different concepts exist, but the weighting (morally or in terms of legitimacy or gendering) of particular concepts rather than others. And also that these are not wholly insurmountable.
253 · Dissociation said
I would like to see more practical and sincere elements from inside Congress, the anti-casteist parties like Mayawati, and the ideologically left parties like CPI(m) form a social democratic third force (in a typically contentious and complicated and corruption-laden way – though hopefully a little less so). Barring a complete takeover of the country by Maoists in alliance with others, a likely outcome in the next 10-20 years is increased social chaos –> fascist reaction (using the mid-1960s through the 1970s as a model). So if you think these arguments about VHP are simply academic, you’re sorely mistaken.
This will happen even if a social-democratic front comes into being. Governments don’t have much control over social chaos. The Marxists are now in power in Kerala, and have been every other five years from 1950s. They could’ve annulled the money grab from temples, or created a level playing field by grabbing from churches and mosques as well. Either of these moves would’ve neutralised one of the biggest arguments of the VHP, and lowered their recruiting abilities. But the successive CPM governments decided to keep the status quo, and even went further by carving out a Muslim-majority district, where Friday is the official holiday for schools. And now the RSS has significant ground presence and support in Kerala. So having a social democratic government is one thing, social chaos is quite another.
As for the projected fascism, you could equally argue that the CPM, along with Naxalites, would soon take over India and establish a Communist state with China’s support. Their ideologies are much more closer, and have a much more established history of repression than the VHP’s. I don’t find such crystal-balling based on loose analogies very persuasive, especially given the largely ho-hum histories of BJP governments.
Now that I think about it, Kerala has alweays been ruled by social democrats, and now there are Islamic organisations there recruting people for Lashkar Toiba. Four Kerala Muslims (two recent converts) were shot dead in Kashmir while trying to cross over to Pakistan. In fact, in north Kerala, the CPM and RSS are fighting the Islamic outfit (NDF) together, and many CPM workers have been killed. This is despite evrything the CPM has done for the Muslim community. So much for social democracy as a antidote for social chaos.
kayastha_lady
Before displaying your idiocy out in the public , go ahead and read about the the significance of swastika symbol in hinduism, and its not the “exactly” same one the Nazis Hijacked, and it has been used since ages. In the same breath, I suppose christians adorning “Jesus Pieces” should be banned as well.. Since when did it become cool to display “Crusader” paraphernilia..
For the heck of it.. Yes.. Now go prove it in the court to get VHP banned.. And pity, your “Nazi rhetoric” and frothing at the mouth isn’t going to help you much to build your case..
And I have the worlds smallest violin playing for you..
dog bites man is more interesting
258 · Dissociation said
No offense, but if you don’t even know that the CPI(M) in Kerala has alternated power with Congress or that Hindutva politics has until very recently been far more dominant in the North than in the South, there’s really no point in trying to carry forward a discussion about politics in India…as Nizam said above, what country are you looking at?
Huh? I suspect you read too fast, it says clearly in that post they’ve alternated.
BTW, I am from Kerala and read Malayalam papers every day. I also have very close connections to the CPM’s national leadership. I know your narrative so well that I can write it in my sleep, it is the same old jaded stuff that doesn’t work.
Just so that you know, CPM is fast becoming a Hindu party in Kerala. Now happy frothing!
Divya, it fascinates me that you read so much into what I don’t say, than into what I actually do (say)! I’m glad you’re the one doing sub-textual analysis here, but I have no intention of buying into standard stereotypes myself, and I certainly don’t feel I do. I believe that I approach any issue with both intellectual rigour and instinctual honesty, but then we all might claim that, hmm? History is always going to be under siege, and we tend to choose to believe what we wish to believe. What might help is good old-fashioned commonsense: if a movement is going against the status-quo, whether on the matter of worship, caste, gender, sexuality or anything else (and believe me, I’m sure you wouldn’t think Akka’s vachanas were benign in the 12th century), there is likely to be conflict. I certainly have not claimed that Lingayats, Buddhists or anyone else are all Polyanna progressive communities – in fact, I am strongly against the romanticisation of ‘communities’ in general, and that is precisely why the point on which I disagreed with you was the claim that any single ‘community’ has the monopoly over histories of conflict and destruction, and to (gently, but obviously unsuccessfully) deconstruct the notion of that ‘community’ in and of itself… in a sense, that arrives at precisely what you yourself say in later comments, and that I agree with:
“We have accepted that hinduism is a religion, without bothering to point out the absurdities of this claim. We accept that hindus worship without knowing what worship means. We accept that pandits are priests without knowing what a priest really is. We accept that hindus have certain beliefs when in fact you will never be able to find a common set of beliefs. We complain that our parents did not teach us what hinduism is, without it ever striking us that maybe there is no such thing. I guess everyone goes into medicine and engineering and it leaves no-one to study cultures, so that it part of of the problem.”
ShadowFax:
Too late.
But I suspect that kayastha_lady is a joke account – nobody can really be that clueless about dharmic religions and swastikas.
263 · Dissociation said
Sorry about that! I apologize embarassedly!
But only for that. The rest of your comments, from attributing a narrative to me that I don’t hold (I don’t even know what you’re referring to – is it the CPI(M) narrative? Is it something else?) to defending American Hindutva by way of arguing that American Zionism is superduper to fully misunderstanding what I was arguing about social chaos (that your choices at that point are a government responsive to the poor on economic grounds or through fascist populism) are all not so superduper.
Anasuya – sorry if i misread your 183 to be a plain vanilla “caste is bad” reiteration. In your recent post (264) you use my quote as if that is a point we have in agreement. It is not. Otherwise it would be the same as that lady troll who popped in to say hinduism is a concoction (hence hindu grievances do not exist). My point is very different. I do not deny that there is such a thing as a shared hindu culture, I only deny that it can be called religion. Hence I remain in strong disagreement with your vaccillations around the fact that “any single ‘community’ has the monopoly over histories of conflict and destruction”.
The rest of the things you point to (with your own gloss, which is different from mine) were my opinions. Not sure why you should apologise for that.
I did not attribute you a narrative, your narrative is your narrative, I just said I am familiar with it, over many years of interaction with both hardcore Leftists and their co-travellers. Broadly speaking, it is a good-bad narrative, with one side good and the other side bad, and good doesn’t talk to, or even look at, the bad. Not all that different from Bush’s. The right-wing folks have their equivalent good-bad narrative. Most of the time it leads to screaming behavior from both sides.
I am more supportive of narratives that is closer to the Obama one, where viewpoints are considered valid, and the effort is not to label something good/bad and build up offence-lists, but to listen, seek out common grounds and build bridges. This requires, and leads to, work on the ground, and only that helps heal wounds.
Basically, I think if you are trying to build bridges, you are part of the solution. If you are screaming, you are part of the problem. Or worse, amplifying the problem. There are some bridges in the works, but as is the case with most things in India, they are a little strange, and I am not sure they lead anywhere. But it is not talking time yet.
Anyway, it was nice chatting, but my real life has started picking up speed, so gotta go.
Nizam of Sarakki #249,
“Fuck this infantile conversation! “How “secular” is it for the Indian state to spend crores on the Hajj?”” Thanks for calling it as it is. It is amazing how the Hajj point (in total ignorance of other things) has been used and abused in Hindutva-talk, to justify everything from communal riots to fetus-ripping pogroms, in the true spirit of Goebbelspeak. The point you make about bar associations banning members from taking up cases of young Muslims accused of terrorism charges and who would mostly be acquitted if tried is a truly tragic reminder of how backward a country India essentially remains. To Amarinder and other fair-minded apologists for Sonal Shah and remote control Yankee Hindutva- this is how your indirect support translates back in India.
As a dalit and someone who has been on the receiving end of Hinduism’s caste system, I instinctively flinch when VHP or Bajrang dall is mentioned. Only the ones in deep denial will ever think that these organizations don’t preach hatred and spread violence. Sure there were many Nazi party workers that did not gas Jews or actively hound them, but they sure did donate and parrot their cause. Personally I’ve always though that when a sentient being associates with a group, he’s responsible for that groups actions. Ignorance is the defense of those that want to kill yet not take blame. In the US and in IT, almost everyone contributes to hindu organizations knowing full well that the money goes to make the live of someone very very difficult if not directly kill and burn another community. Some are actually proud of it. If this were any other community say the Muslims, they’d be called terrorists and terrorist financiers. Hindus as a community have deeply deluded themselves and believe they are victims… infact all of India ills can be traced back the hindus and their religious practices. The religion violates every known tenet of human rights and modern civilization. Somehow hindus as a community believe due to their sheer numbers.. they are right – always. A bit like Goebbels.. you repeat the lie enough times.. it becomes the truth. VHP and sister organizations spend a huge amount of money raising sheep that parrot the lie.
I think we’re past the point of productive conversation at this point. Time to close the thread.