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.
What is funny is that, the so called communist uncle’s and leftist-uslamocfascist aunties target the wrong people and piss a whole generation off – then they wonder why young abcd’s dont give a rat’s ass about their issues of “secular punkerjabbing “
Neal Cash-Carry is a Kashmiri Hindu who is the son of a well known Hindutva leader in america.
so big deal, so now hell should be unleashed on a kashmiri pandit’s son who has venegance in his heart against islamic terrorist, and somehouw through the powers of the u.s. treasury he will unleas his terror on pious muslims world wide??
WTF??
My experience was very similar to Anasuya’s. Even now the elders in my family, peace-loving, broad-minded but strictly observant Hindu Americans have no idea about VHP’s questionable connections in India. They view organizations like that from their very American vantage point of just wanting to connect in an organizationl way to Hinduism. Had they ever an inkling that their funds may be tunneled to doing harm to minorities in India, they would surely not give.
I’m still not convinced that the entire VHP in India is hellbent on destroying the lives and rights of minority Indian citizens. I’ll do more research. But the American face of it is like one big benign desi social mixer.
Amardeep, it was a pleasure reading this post. Summarizing Prashad’s arguments and your own critique of those must have been a quite a time-consuming process.
My sister was part of HSC in her school and one of the office bearers. It was an autonomous organization that looked mostly to local Chinmaya mission for help with various functions. They were just a bunch of kids from very diverse background who got together periodically and organized festivals and had prayer meetings ets. There were many kids with multi religious background and a few who were not even indian or hindu. There are other organizations such as muslim students association, christian students association and such. Why is it that HSC gets clumped with VHP with out real evidence pointing to a connection? It is highly irresponsible and unfortunate.
It appears Sonal Shah raised money for an ostensibly worthy cause under the auspices of an organization whose philosophy she does not share.
Her father, apparently was strongly affiliated with the RSS and perhaps it was this relationship which caused her to gravitate to the fund-raising under the auspices of the VHP.
Her motivations may have been noble but is there any doubt that the reaction would have been very negative if someone did the same thing under the umbrella of an organization in the US that espoused a philosophy which was deemed divisive and inciting violence – even if the purpose of the fund-raising was laudable?
Here is the guilt-chain, as argued by Prashad:
HSC–>VHPA–>VHP-India–>Hindu-Rioters-Who-Kill-Muslims
According to Prashad, these links are tightly integrated, and because of this integration, anyone who is part of HSC contributes money and effort to kill Muslims. Note that without showing the “integration” at each step, his position collapses.
Now, for comparison, here is another possible guilt-chain, as presented by the Hindu Right Wing:
Pakistani_Grocery_Owner_in_US–>US_based_Pakistani_Charity–>Pakistan_based_Islamic_Extremist Org–>Islamic_Extremists_who_kill_Hindus
The truth is a that there is no such integrated chain, because the last links in the chain is a minority, and they are not always controlled and directed by the respective organisations they are part of.
In the VHP case, riots are not “organised” or “engineered” by their central office (who manages the funds collected from everywhere), even though it is people who are members of the organisation who come together to riot. In fact, the direction of fund flows is the opposite: the rioters tend to be die-hards, and contribute money to the VHP. And like most political organisations, VHP spends the money to organise publicity events, and pay for the travel of leaders etc.
The weaker argument is that it is the existence of the VHP that enables riots, as there are now groups of rabid people who can now come together and attack minorities. I am not convinced that this is valid either, for three reasons: one, there were communal riots before VHP/RSS came into existence; two, VHP/RSS is an all-India organisation with millions of members, riots only happen in some “communally-sensitive” areas, mostly in North India; three, there are new extremist Hindu organisations springing up, who consider VHP/RSS pussies.
For all the demonisation by Prashad and others, VHP/RSS with their sticks and knives are gonna look like lambs soon, with the newer extremist orgs like Abhinava Bharat taking to RDX and bombs and arms training.
I am sure Prashad will now try build more links to his guilt chain, seeking to link these outfits to VHP/RSS. His career depends on it. But each new link makes his story weaker and weaker.
http://nyunews.com/2.6167/1.648465
According to this article from 1999 in the NYU student newspaper, the two organizations were linked as of 1998. I dont know how much of this was fact or not as it relies entirely on the opinion of the HSC president then, but being a student there years later it was evident that the HSC had no contact with the VHP or any centralized organization. The meetings consisted of sitting in a circle and discussing the reasons for holidays and celebrations of those holidays. I think the Hare Krishnas were more active with their weekly meetings with blueberry halwa.
Amardeep, thanks for this explication of and commentary on Prashad. It would be great if you could also take a quick look at Prema A. Kurien, A Place at the Multicultural Table: The Development of an American Hinduism, Rutgers University Press, 2007.
6 · Dissociations said
We can extend the weak link to the British Raj too, after all they actively engineered the communal conflicts to their benefit.
as an undergrad, i was active in HSC. one summer, i even went to a national camp sponsored by the organization. it’s kind of surprising to hear about a connection to the VHP. the students who organized it planned social activities, games, yoga, and discussions about religion. we never talked about politics or demeaning other religions. although, i did hear that a large number of the national/regional officers have quit, but am not sure if it is connected to that.
Amardeep, Again, I am not sure that you have done justice to presenting Prashad’s overall framework of analysis–especially regarding the relationship of politics and culture among post-1965 immigrants to the US–but I’ll assume that I’m just being overly academic.
Which brings me to my main point. You may also be interested in the following:
Arvind Rajagopal, “Hindu Nationalism in the US,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 23:3 (May 2000): 467-496
If nothing else, the ethnographic descriptions of life at summer camp are breezy and fun reading.
9 · KarmaByte said
Let the British Raj rest in history. It’s been over half a century. The East India company did not start Indian communal conflicts.
The East India company did not start Indian communal conflicts.
Are you sure they did not exacerbate them?
I generally stay away from all this stuff b/c it makes me want to tear my hair out, but I will say one thing in response to VP’s interesting letter. For context–I’m a deeply religious and deeply liberal Hindu who was never strongly associated with the VHP (I think I danced in a fundraiser and donated money for another, both associated with this earthquake relief) and never joined HSC or, really, any South Asian or Hindu clubs.
I don’t think you can just magically switch on a sense of multicultural diversified pluralistic acceptance in someone with a truly strong sense of Hindu devotion and expect that it will always work. What I mean is–it’s one thing to be repelled by the chauvinistic and ethnocentric balkanization espoused by one sort of religious organization. It’s quite another to ignore, completely, the fact that communal tensions are real, and they exist for a real reason. I think we do ourselves and the larger cause of peace and prosperity and harmony in our larger (i.e. pan-religious) community a disservice if we simply try to meld together all the flavors. It may be silly for a Hindu-Americans to turn to chauvinism as means of proxy superiority. But it is also unreasonable to expect them to completely ignore the fact that there is a real history of conflict and destruction that, integrated over the long arc of history, adds up to Hindu civilization getting a giant bruise. When the most basic tourist trip through Delhi includes Mosques and monuments proudly built out of destroyed temples, when the most cursory pilgrimage in North India will trip on battle ruins and missing spires, and when plenty of Hindus are still, today, operating under extreme fear and tension in Bangladesh and Pakistan and Malaysia, there is no way you are going to completely remove the resonance between a young Hindu-American’s childish experience of harrasment and their historical sense that generally speaking, Hinduism isn’t very good at protecting itself. Until you are willing to create a Hindu organization that honestly accepts that truth, and deals with it, and reconciles it, you are always going to lose people to the organization that is willing to pathologically fixate on it and hold it above all other truths. I think it would be a valuable act of courage and leadership to start such a fellowship. I’ve pondered doing it myself. I’m pretty sure I haven’t, and never would, precisely because I would be terrified of being shredded to pieces by all the same people who clawed at Ms. Shah.
I second comment #3. It was a good summary by Amardeep of the allegations against Sonal Shah and groups she has been affiliated with. I don’t want to read too much into Parshad’s refusal to do the same thing for Islamic or Christian organisations. After all time is finite.
I think Saheli put amazingly into words the psyche of the vast majority of Hindus who have at the very least some sense of religious identity. Saheli, I think the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) is doing everything you want to be doing in terms of attempting to protecting the rights of Hindus in countries in which they are persecuted minorities, but as you predicted, they’ve been vilified as well by the leftists.
On the foreign financial support for the VHP, from the Rajagopal paper cited earlier:
Hindu nationalism’s external funding has long been a matter for speculation. According to news reports, in 1989, the VHP asked the Reserve Bank of India [RBI] permission to bring in hundreds of millions of rupees donated by its supporters worldwide for the Ram temple campaign. The RBI had objected that the VHP was a political organization, and had denied permission. Subsequently, according to Income Tax Commissioner Viswa Bandhu Gupta, large amounts had been brought into India in cash form with the help of illicit currency traders, or what in India are called hawala transactions. See Om Prakash Tiwari,Where is the missing file of the VHP? Rashtriya Sahara, New Delhi, 6 February 1999. Tr. V. B. Rawat. Posted on South Asia Citizens Web, .
Even if this was true then (unfortunately I could not find the link he referred to), the Indian govt is looser on capital controls and the like since 1991 and after 9/11 governments are more strict about hawala financing so there might be more data on external funding now.
Many of us are hindus Alexy, and our connection with our religious roots goes back to India, where some of us still have friends and family living, thus of course it is only natural that the fundementalization of Hinduism would be ONE of our many concerns. And yes we are also concerned about Crips and Bloods, in addition.
I am an observer of “holiday hindutva” and used to go to hsc dinners on occasions like diwali and navratri. however, the umbrella hsc (not my individual assocn) issued a statement after godhra, which, while including a mandatory passing aside to the horrible pogrom against muslims, devoted substantial acreage to the massacre of hindus, the fact that it wasn’t accidental, and that the prime minister should have a full inquiry into this process (all of which, is of course, reasonable, except that they didn’t seem to have any outrage over the state assisted massacre of muslims, barring a two-line bromide). this, combined with the original links between the hsc and the vhp, motivated me to stay far away from my local hsc chapter. while my local hsc didn’t do anything around godhra (that i am aware of, i am not a member per se, just go to their holiday dinners), the heads of my local hsc chapter usually attend national hsc events, and while i don’t know their personal views or what goes on at these national summits, i was sufficient put off by these associations and the behavior of the national hsc to stay away from the local organization.
#6 · Dissociations said
Key mistakes here. Some of the best academics studying India have contributed to the research dialogue om riot-production (not my phrase), and the role of coordinating political institutions can’t be understated. Yes, there were communal riots before the Sangh organizations came into existence, but they rarely had the lethality of modern riots (for example, track the casualty figures of riots in Bhagalpur over the course of the century). Paul Brass says riots occur as the result of planning and incitement by local political entrepreneurs, through what he refers to as “institutionalized riot systems:†this explains why rioting can become endemic in certain areas, particular towns and districts. Riot systems don’t necessarily have to take the form of the VHP, but the VHP is an especially effective system.
Atul Kohli of Princeton has looked at communal violence; in a terrific lecture on the political uses of violence you can read here, he notes, “If you see people who have died in riots, you will notice that the knife wounds are extremely clearly pointed at the heart – only trained killers are capable of this.” These are hardly secrets: every morning I went to school, my bus drove past a field of young RSS men training at lathi- and knife-fighting in a public maidan.
Steven Wilkinson of U Chicago wrote a book about the political calculus determining when riots occur: how the number of parties in an electoral contest determines the incentives to promote communal rioting and restrain the police. Riots don’t occur “spontaneously” and continue inexplicably in states where the party configuration is wrong. Organizations like the VHP — and of course there are many, relatively obscure groups we don’t hear about — are the key to effective use of riot-like violence for political ends.
The fact that the VHP is everywhere but riots don’t happen everywhere hardly means the VHP cannot be behind the violence: apart from being irrational, that analysis uses a very headline-limited view of riots that excludes smaller violent incidents (for example, in Kodagu district in Karnataka, during pivotal years of the BJP’s consolidation there: report here) which kill fewer people, or none, but still do immense damage, not least to the local social ecosystem. In fact, its an interesting exercise to Google through incidents of communal ‘rioting’ in Karnataka; there’s important journalistic work to be done correlating violence to district electoral outcomes favouring the BJP, but I couldn’t find anyone who’s addressed it. Places like Bhainsa (Adilabad, Andhra) don’t even figure on our maps, but they certainly do figure on the strategic map of the Hindu right: to people following Andhra politics, the timing of a communal breach in Bhainsa to correspond with the BJP’s Telangana-focussed campaign couldn’t be more perfect.
However, what you said about Abhinava Bharat is correct: potentially, it is a living nightmare for Indian politics. This: Shiv Sena leader Nana Wadekar said, “We do not know whether the accused really planted bombs [in Malegaon, killing 37] as alleged. But if they had done so, we are proud of them as it should be seen as an act in defence of Hindus.” And in this context, it is worth keeping in mind that when a clandestine movement is brought to light, it is the clumsiest fringes that are found out first: the more organized the operation, the less likely we are to ever know about it.
Saheli, I agree with much of what you say in #13 except that Hinduism is under any kind of threat by any other religion. Despite all of the wars, colonizations, destroyed temples, etc, Hinduism and it’s many sects have survived, thrived and multiplied strongly since then. Our Hindu cultures are many and those many are resilient and far older than any other religious traditions that have come since then and attempted take over. Moreover one of our greatest traditions, YOGA, has had worldwide appeal for decades now, far moreso than any offshoot from the Abrahamic religions. Buddhism, another offshoot of Hinduism is the fastest growning religion, excuse me, “way of life”, in the world right now. I really don’t think we face any sort of threat of extinction anytime in the near or far future.
13 · Saheli said
Every religion has a story about how it has triumphed under tremendous siege. This is but one of several marketing strategies to get people to buy into their particular scheme. The key to harmony is not giving legitimacy to this bunker mentality, but building empathy. A productive use of anecdotes about mosques and monuments from centuries ago is to emphasize how Hinduism has triumphed, a productive use of the “childish experience of harassment” would be to use it to help put kids in the shoes of other disadvantaged people – about how minorities in India might feel (not an equivalent analogy for several reasons, both positive and negative, but still helpful). It is rare to see such context in any organization founded on religion, because it is much more productive to nurse and foster grievances than empathy.
So YOGA is somekind of a tenet of Hinduism now?? Its too bad that the Abrahamic religions didnt think of keeping healthy !!!
Man, I never wanted to comment on this thread, as many of these anti-Sonal Shah people are not interested in learning anything or updating their opinion based on facts. This is FAITH BASED for most part for them. So things like the recent Nanavati commision’s report on Gujarat riots, actual casualties of Gujarat riots, the ethnic mix of the riots, the riots that regularly occured in Gujarat in the 80s and early 90s under Congress…. things like these mean nothing.
So lets simplify things, remove nuiance and define some people and groups as EVIL and others as good and BELIEVE in it. (This has other side benefit of feeling good about one’s self … you know, I am so much better than the people in that EVIL group. Love simplicity)
My last comment ever on this topic. Happy yelling past each other.
Not to belabor the point but what if Sonal Shah had not been an Indian-American but was a Pakistani-American who had an identical relationship with extremist elements in Pakistan with a militant anti-Indian stance?
I suspect there would be a greater inclination to question her judgment in choosing to associate with these elements even if the nature of the involvement had been humanitarian.
With good reason.
Islamic Pakistani terrorists who are anti-India are also anti-America (and anti-Europe, anti-Israel etc etc). So Americans would be right in suspecting the Pakistani Sonal Shah.
VHP/RSS etc are certainly anti-Pakistan, but they are generally pro-America(and pro-Israel etc). They view America as a friend, are generally pro-free market. Agreed – some of them are protectionist in nature (similiar to Lou Dobbs), but that’s the nature of the beast.
M. nam
Oh Amardeep has written a ton that calls for deep intellectual deconstruction but as I skimmed through his post what struck me (including the title) that an attempt to define,characterize a secular, diasporaic (or American) Hindutva(or Sikh/Muslim/Christian) can be complicated by the fact that one hand there is a desire to make space for a “unique” version more relevant to second-gen/diaspora and on the other hand such an attempt occurs with close couplings through organizations, parental and subcontinent’s own contradictory views/interpretations even with respect to religion. One may very well sometimes be dragged down revisiting the definitions of progressive, secularism etc. in terms of America/Diaspora and subcontinent. Globalization and uniformity of ideas in the new age may ease the complication but note throughout history the subcontinent is notorious to subsume many western ideologies and thinkings to suit it. What Amardeep is probably attempting is the exact opposite from the point of view of second-gen in America and this will require a lot of churning/effort.
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
It would still be nice if there were more options for exposure to moderate forms of South Asian religion in the diaspora
Wonder how much what these organizations and parent teach is influenced by world and subcontinent’s national and local politics at any particular time. As the economy of subcontinent gets better radicalism will reduce and next generation of organizations may very well be more moderate. But don’t discount the socio-economic status and political atmosphere in which people form their ideology and beliefs even wrt to religion.
Not a “tenet”, rather an integral aspect of Hinduism, and it’s purpose is not good health, though that can be a side benefit.
I think by and large our 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation diasporic desis have been primarily exposed to moderate and mild forms of South Asian religions. The extremist loonies are always a minority.
My point, lurker, is that there are lots of productive uses for all that conflict and tension—but in order to make productive, rather exploitative use of them, one has to acknowledge and deal with them in a safe and soul-searching way. In the United States, diversity and equity work often involves allowing people to create affinity groups–safe spaces where people can honestly discuss identity, conflict and inner tension in a particular affinity. (For you linear algebra nerds, I always think of this as choosing an appropriate subspace to work in.) Sepia Mutiny has, and may still, function as a larger umbrella South Asian affinity group—and many an agitator has argued for the need for a smaller, more specific Indian or Hindu affinity group. Said agitators rarely go ahead and successfully start their own, and I think that’s b/c there’s a real demographic lack of critical mass in the diaspora, and a leadership and cultural vacuum as well. The choice currently faced by someone looking for an organized Hindu community is eitehr a) wishy washy “food, fun, and festivals” school of Hinduism[1] or b) chauvinistic ethnocentric balkanization. My problem with (a) is described above. Neither smacks of devotion or rigor or soul-improving intensity to me, so I stay the hell away from both. Maybe HAF is that third middle path, but the problem is I have no way of vetting it b/c the community is so polarized between path a and path b–and everyone is so bent on proving their loyalty to one or the other–that I don’t trust anyone‘s opinion on. Seriously. No one. There are many of you who have been on this blog and who might still be on this blog, whom I consider to be dear friends, whom I would trust with lots of things–but I wouldn’t trust you to give me an honest assessment of a community organization for being moderate, reasonable, religious, serious, devout, not obnoxious. So, yes, I’m usually a “knee jerk leftist,”–and usually proud of it— but this is the patholigcal extreme of such polarization.
[1] If I was being snarky and cliched, I would call it the Kumbaya school of Hinduism, except I actually really like Kumbaya . . .
Very well said. I have been trying to articulate exactly this sentiment for a long time and you did a better job than I ever have. If someone founded such an organization I would certainly throw my support behind it. I’d typically avoid quoting whole posts, but this one needs to be reiterated for emphasis.
Saheli, shouldn’t looking at an organizations’ activities and agenda via their website/pamphlets give enough proof of what views they hold? And I don’t know about that polarization either, I know a former HAF intern who approached the organization with some trepidation but embraced it as she learned it was basically the only voice out there looking into human rights abuses of Bangladeshi Hindus.
It may be true that Hinduism survived and evolved but it would be far fetched to say that it has thrived under these circumstances. Telling people that “Hey, yes you are going to keep having your nose bloodied but it’s okay because you’ll still manage to survive,” isn’t all that motivating. It’s nice that we can survive, but what was it Zapata said about living on your knees?
I don’t like the idea of roving mobs running around India but we are not going to get anywhere if we ignore the very real frustrations faced by people who feel seriously threatened.
Also, you should keep in mind that some of the reason Hinduism survived during the times of foreign invasion was due in large part to some pretty militant fellows. India may have been invaded by the Mughals, but the reason all of India wasn’t converted by the sword was not due to any respect the Mughals had for Hinduism. It was due in large part because there were plenty of Hindu Rajas who could have brought the Mughals down if their rule proved too onerous. Without the military power of Hindu rulers to threaten rebellion and instability moderate Muslims like Akbar would have had their throats slit and been replaced by doctrinaire idealogues.
I don’t subscribe to the philosophy of “might makes right” but the black fact is that without might, questions of right are rendered irrelevant.
P.S. I am NaraVara. I know the rule about multiple usernames. I just slipped up and used my real name by mistake.
Nice quote. Can I call it Pavan’s aphorism?
32 · Pavan said
There are many ways might is acquired in today’s world. The black nationalist struggle in South Africa had it. The Palestinians don’t.
Whatever power struggles might have been like in the medieval world, acquisition of power is complex in today’s political and information realm. Raw power does not equate to might.
Nice quote. Can I call it Pavan’s aphorism?
I semi-stole it from Thucydides. The quote goes something like “We shall not trouble you with specious pretenses as to why our cause is just. We know that if you had the same power as we you would do the same. Justice, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power. While the strong do what they can the weak will suffer what they must.” International relations classes in undergrad turned me into a cynical bastard before my time.
35 · lurker said
By “raw power” I assume you mean “violence?” I think it would depend largely on who you’re dealing with. Non-violent resistance “worked” for us against the British but only because the alternative to dealing with Gandhi would have been to deal with Chandra Bose. Likewise for the Black nationalist movements in the US. If you don’t bargain with MLK you have to deal with Malcolm X. If you think of society as being a large boulder, you need some moderate people pushing it along. But if you really want to get it to go anywhere you need some other people way on the other side pulling it along.
But even beyond that, America and the UK thrive on this notion of being civilizing forces in the world. The UK justified its empire by saying that British rule was good for India. America called itself the greatest country in the world by virtue of its freedoms. What non-violent movements do is just expose these contradictions and force those in power to reconcile them.
When you’re dealing with someone like the People’s Republic of China, though. They don’t give a damn about your rights. This is why the Tibetans, despite having enormous respect and goodwill, still get squat. Likewise with Gandhi’s advice to German Jews.
A politically loaded question perhaps – as long as you are not a fundamentalist and don’t go on a killing spree the “rightists” amongst the whites (obnoxious perhaps to the lefts) are acknowledged as being legitimate and allowed to exist. In the same vein why can’t there being “rightists” amongst the desis wrt to religion ?
Why wouldn’t preventive health care be an integral part of worship in a religion in which a prayer begins, “Om bhur bhuva swaha” and in a culture where dance moves depict knowledge as divine?
I am surprised Moornam hasn’t complained loudly about Sepia not covering the Hindu terrorists connected to the BJP that have been apprehended in India. Or at the least praising Sepia’s pro Hindu (is that the opposite of anti Muslim) bias. Surely, Moornam is fair and balanced, as his brilliant, as always, comment number 24 proves.
This is not true. Just consider the riots during partition and the Khilafat movement, they were much more widespread and murderous than anything the RSS has managed yet. The Sangh’s riot machine is overhyped. In the nearly hundred years of its existence, the Sangh’s activists have killed less people than the HUJI and Lashkar Toiba in their 10-odd years.
This “poor record” is precisely why Abhinava Bharat and their ilk now has appeal. What most people forget is that for every person who has died in a bomb blast in the last 25 years, there are at least 20 surviving people who have been directly affected, and many more indirectly. For those affected people (mostly poor and uneducated Hindus), the RSS is a pussy, and offers no closure. All the demonising hype about the Sangh has contributed to the disaffection of such people, because the demonising makes them look up to the Sangh, but the organisation does nothing in retaliation to bomb attacks. I am not surprised by the Abhinava Bharat revelations, the only question left is whether their weapon of choice is a Uzi or a Kalashnikov — which arms lobby will capture the Hindu market?
Only a rootless academic would consider this “finding” to support the case of RSS training leading to riots. If you look at anyone who has died of knife wounds, the knife would mostly be pointed at the heart. Every chickenfeed dada knows how to use a knife to kill. Paradoxically, this is why the machete is the weapon of choice for most professional goondas, because chopping intimidates, knives kill quickly and smoothly. Chopping also carries a lesser sentence compared to a murder, which has a higher chance of occurring with a knife. The real pros don’t carry knives, they carry machetes dipped in mercury, so that the wounds don’t heal. The recent bombs found in Kannur in Kerala had nails dipped in Mercury. The Marad killers used machetes. That is real planning, stabbing is passion. Talk to some real killers before you label someone a killer, that would be good academics.
This is just correlational hand waving. Riots have occurred in both BJP-ruled states and non-BJP-ruled states. Riots also occur for non-communal reasons, such as a person dying in a hospital, and lack of water. If you go looking for correlations, you will find many. To show causation, you have to show the counterfactual condition in both directions. In this particular case: No Riots == No Political Gain and vice versa.
And one of the reasons for this nightmare is people like Vijay Prashad, who painted a largely right-of-centre organisation into a fascist demon. No wonder their extreme elements decided to take to real fascism. If you keep calling someone a criminal, it is just a matter of time before she decides to become one. Maybe that’s what Prashad and co always wanted — now they can publish away as India perishes.
41 · Bah said
What a heartfelt expression of sympathy for Indian muslims, and an excellent case against painting them as villains, or Hindus like a community under siege from them.
Amardeep,
I had extensively combed through the politics of “Yankee Hindutvavism” about two years ago and orgs such as the HAF, HSC, VHPA, and some other orgs, so here are my thoughts–
I disagree with the way you have framed Prashad’s book, which I have read in its entirety. I think you have decontextualized much of what he was saying, as you had with the previous post.
But besides Prashad, you might want to look into Prema Kurien and the last chapter in Arvind Rajagopal’s book Politics After Television. If I remember correctly, he spends some time at a Hindu camp here and wrote about it.
I don’t want to spark off a generational conflict and I don’t mean to generalize first g’ers and 2nd g’ers, but I have seen a couple of things:
Many organizations in the US have a heavy infiltration of first generation politics, which themselves are often of a certain brand. Often, the leaders of these orgs and/or people in positions of authority/influence are first generation, and their views tend to get passed down to second generations American Desis, especially on subjects that are intricately intertwined, such as nationalism, Hinduism, national security matters in South Asia, and so on. I’m curious to see how and whether second generations will display some independent thinking about matters such as, say, Kashmir, and communal violence in India particularly. At this point, it seems as if many of these 2-gers have sort of unquestioningly absorbed Hindu nationalists politics; much of those views too closely resemble the conservative, pro-HIndutva ideas that are in India. I very much think those ideas have been transplanted into America, and have been married with the ‘multicultural’ ideology in the US to find a comfortable space which celebrates American “multiculturalism” in the US while advocating a mono-cultural/religious/national in India. It really bothers me that orgs such as the HAF are on Capitol Hill “representing American Hindus” and attempt to “brief” Congress on things like Kashmir based on their owned skewed readings of South Asia, violation of human rights (for them, it’s “Hindu human rights”, which is an oxymoron, if you ask me) and students orgs like the HSC– which had some pretty virulent stuff up on their website about two/three years ago (don’t know if that stuff is still up) are quite active.
The entire discussion of Hindu nationalist politics in the US is mostly dominated by 1-gers (Prashad, Kurien, Rajagopal) and non-brown Americans (Doniger), and though I respect these academics for their work ( I really do), I sometimes feel that they are viewing things from a prism that tied mostly to their knowledge of Indian politics and not enough on the surroundings, context, ideas, and locations of 2-gers here when it comes to Hindu nationalist politics. Now, I think there is MUCH to gain from Indian academics specifically who have extensive knowledge of Indian and Hindu nationalist politics in India; this way, we are able to identify where and how this Hindutva ideology is coming from when it manifests itself in the US; but I also think that they are writing, analyzing, and seeing things from a different position (I don’t think it helps when Doniger made a disparaging remark about 2-gers. I often felt that 2-gers were ridiculed for their positions which they seemed to have inherited from the Hindu nationalist 1-gers they were surrounded by, and there was often a factor of insensitivity rather than truly trying to understand the whole shabang).
Anyway, I probably rambled on, so peace.
Actually, here are some more pieces by Rajagopal from his faculty website.
http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Arvind_Rajagopal
30 · anthroguy said
what about Amnesty International, the US Council for International religious freedom or the UNCHR?
As Desi Italiana points out, by its very nature, the HAF has a one-sided view of several conflicts (Kashmir, for one, Godhra, for another) which can hardly be reasonably described from that perspective. Same goes for HSC. Again, as I mentioned before, I think (and this is based on my one data point at my school) the HSC tends to be very federated, so many peoples’ experiences from their local schools’ HSCs may not reflect what I think is a pretty rightwing ideology in the mothership. And HSC presidents in my school etc. definitely drink from the koolaid of the mothership.
Alleged Hindu terrorists…and therein lies the difference.
M. Nam
Amardeep,
Here is another take on things since you started this thread:
Punjabi Sikh_Gas Station_Owner_in_US–>US_based_Sikh_Charity–>Sikh_based_Khalistani_Extremist Org–>Khalistani_Extremists_who_target_Hindus.
Yeah I know hard to believe, but is it. You have bad apples in everygroup Amardeep. Not all “Hindoos” are extremists and not all Muslims, Sikhs and Christians are Saints.
45 · MoorNam said
Ha ha! This entire fiasco is worth it just to see the squirming, the parsing, the nuances that weasel out of the woodwork.
I think when people are living as a minority and have to tackle two different cultures and religious environments (one at home) and one outside, they need some kind of support system or reinforcements to continue to believe in their own fairy tales.
Vijay Prashad and other leftist scholars should start some org. teaching “secular Hinduism” (or some thing like that) if they are against orgs like HSS, HAF, VHPA etc. 🙂 It would help me too. I’d learn some things.
I’m trying to figure out what is Hinduism. So far I have found that one good thing about Hinduism is that they can throw anything (that is considered as sacred a hundred years back) under the bus now, if that doesn’t fit the current climate. Having no single God / prophet / book and being flexible is a good thing, I suppose.
48 · Ponniyin Selvan said
Pretty much every religion* can do that. There’s no book, just interpretations of some purported truth. Interpretations can change. Or not. And therein lie many of the intra-religious battles.
I don’t think so. You can’t claim Mirza sahib as the latest prophet and continue to call yourself as Muslim as Ahmediyas have found out in various islamic countries. Islam is pretty rigid.