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.
50 · Ponniyin Selvan said
As I said, that has nothing to do with whether it comes from a book or not. Shias and Sunnis coexist too despite believing in different prophets.
desi italiana @ 42: nice points! that contextualization is quite important.
So who do you think should represent “American Hindus”. Vijay Prashad ?. Do you think he has an unbiased reading of South Asia?.
53 · Ponniyin Selvan said
lobbying for kashmir is not, at least on the face of it, representing “american hindus”. that is, at best, inserting intranecine fights in indian international relations. indian interests are not, and should not be considered as unilateral hindu interests. even if you make a case related to refugees, lobbying for indian americans should, at least in my worldview, involve an organization that is not, right down from its mission statement and organizational rationale, only representing one side of the equation.
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.
Whats especially comical is to hear some Indian Muslims bigoted rants against Ahmadis. One would imagine that minorities like Indian Muslims after being chased by VHP goons with spears would develop some empathy for other minorities!
I don’t see your point. HAF expands to Hindu American and not Indian American. I’m confused. Do you think they should also speak for the Kashmiri jihadis ?. 🙂
56 · Ponniyin Selvan said
read my comment. reread. repeat till understood.
Sorry buddy. I’m not into reading shlokas thousand times to figure out the meaning. I don’t see anything wrong with HAF advising Capitol Hill folks on Kashmir. If you want them to include Kashmiri jihadis viewpoint, good luck in your efforts. 🙂
Yes, surprising. Recently Muslims lobbied with Andhra’s Chief minister to stop a meeting of Ahmediayas in Hyderabad, I think. Logic dictates when you are in a minority you try to increase the numbers. But logic and religion doesn’t go together.
I realize my comments are impressive, but even I don’t think they are the word of the lawdy lawd.
Also, you do realize that all Kashmiris minus the Hindus are not jihadis, right? Or did your lessons in Hinduism teach you that too?
Actually, I have not taken any lessons in Hinduism. That’s why I wanted the likes of Vijay Prashad to start something on teaching “secular Hinduism”. 🙂
Modi against VHP?
“Protests in Gandhinagar over Modi’s demolition drive” Read about it in TOI or other Indian papers.
And the what the hell is “Secular Hinduism”? Time to get back to the dictionary, eh?
Amardeep:
As someone who reads and generally appreciates your posts, I have been deeply disappointed with your recent postings. They seem driven by the agenda of defending Sonal Shah, but are doing damage much beyond that. I am a first genner who “gets” both the Indian and US socio-political scene (and teh underlying values driving them). I cannot write more at this point (essentially the points mentioned by Nizam in # 19 and by DesiItalian in #42), but I just have to say that had you really followed and understood the Hindutva movement over the last 25 years and seen its ground level ugliness up close personally, (with your grounding in US liberal values) you would find Hindutva one of the most devious and abhorrent political movements to ever have existed within the acceptable political spectrum. Why it continues to be legitimate in India, is another story- about the failings of Indian institutions, the Congress party, its corruption, and of course the intoxicating charm of historical victimhood that many of us affluent, educated Hindus have found for the first time in Hindutva). As much as I detest the semi-literate evangelical fundamentalism of the US, they cannot hold a candle to the violent, unrepentant bigotry propagated by the Sangh. We are not talking about soft racism, creationism or PC gaffes here, but a philosophy whose strategic arsenal includes organized massacres and killings, that scar thousands of minority and other children in India. The only way a person attuned to mainstream US culture and politics (e.g. an ABD like you) can even indirectly justify agencies connected to Hindutva, be it VHPA or HSC, without being blatantly hypocritical about it, is -to use a phrase- ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations’ for a third world country like India….I dont have that choice as I still primarily identify with India, and what happens there is critically important to me. I do not really know or care who Prashad is, and his recent article on Sonal Shah did seem to stretch a bit, but that does not alter the fact that Hindutva and its related organizations is, in a word, evil.
46 · Josef said
Josef,
Good, finally someone brought this up.
When people attempt a dermabrasion to remove horrible scars of not so ancient past, a completely skewed version of history is created. Indian government and Indian media have completely buried the horrors of 1980s. Moreover it seems either most of the second-genners khalistanis are blissfully unaware of the khalistani terrorism or simply refuse to accept that as a fact. Many of the photographs hanging in the Toronto/Surrey Gurudwaras are of men who have committed crimes that would make Modi look like a wuss. Yet the khanistani movement is alive and well within so called intellectuals.
One has to live through some of this crap to understand it, if your parents had to pretend to be Sikhs when traveling in a State Roadways bus then you would remember.
Yes, surprising. Recently Muslims lobbied with Andhra’s Chief minister to stop a meeting of Ahmediayas in Hyderabad, I think. Logic dictates when you are in a minority you try to increase the numbers. But logic and religion doesn’t go together.
Please tell me that the Chief Minister did not capitulate to this bigotry.
Moreover it seems either most of the second-genners khalistanis are blissfully unaware of the khalistani terrorism or simply refuse to accept that as a fact.
So all second generation Sikhs in North America are Khalistanis?
Unfortunately pandering to the worst of Muslim communalism is called as “secularism” in India and the CM indeed cancelled the permission of the ahmediya meet and some rioters forced them not even allowed to have a press meet.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/06/16/stories/2008061659270400.htm
I have immense problems with this statement.
One, on empirical grounds, if “Hinduism” is so bad at protecting itself, why does it exist in full force in law and society in a hugely populated country with an enormous formal economy and nuclear weapons and having repeatedly engaged in and often won military conflicts with its neighbors and dominated its region?
Two, although you are correct to point out that the identity and communal conflict has a material and not just imaginary existence today and as well that fights over religion have probably occurred constantly in India (Dude, Where’s My Buddhism?), it is still anachronistic to write the discursive framework of “Hindu vs. Muslim” backwards into time – you would have to make an argument that the framework that exists today existed back then – not just that there were conflicts among people with different religions. You would have to start by making a case that Hinduism as such existed as a dominant identity, that rigid boundaries existed, and a number of other features that I would have a hard time believing without seeing a strong case for them.
Third, your argument reproduces the framework of “communal conflict” (which is a distinctly british phenomenon imo–otherwise you wouldn’t see it in Cyprus, Palestin, Sri Lanka, and Ireland as well as in former British India and subsequently in independent Pakistan) and argues from within it without enough self-consciousness to its limitations. There are other social hierarchies that exist among Hindus – jati, gender, sexuality, class, citizenship, etc. Look at the shifting position of Ambedkar – a dalit, just to remind us that they exist – over time from statist but accommodating of legal codification of “Hindu” norms for a time at least to outright rejection of the religion. You can’t ignore people like that – or the women who inherit less property because of Anglo-Indian Hindu law or the labor market entry barriers that hinge on caste/kinship, or really any other major political issue in India.
Fourth, the idea that there is a singular Hindu civilization is basically just the explicit Hinduization of Indian nationalism – which is already significantly Hinduized (among other things) in the fight among the different values that people might try to advocate or mobilize around in the context of regional or national politics. Look at the UCC fight over the 20th century- there are AT LEAST five different ideological drives, only two of which are Hindutva and modernist secularism respectively.
Fifth, if you read Atul Kohli or Benjamin Zachariah, you’ll see how the Hindu vs. Muslim discursive framework has been specifically employed to distract from social revolution on economic grounds- and how given material conditions that were likely to produce a social revolution (and did in some places) between 1940-1950, the energy and violence was channeled into partition insteaed of something that would have been more productive (like land reform). not that that would have fixed everything, but I’m just saying that the framework you’re employing is destructive to multiple other aims from having effective capitalist industrialization policies to having pro poor policies.
I don’t think most thoughtful people would take the position you’re arguing against, because we’ve all talked to people whether on the Internet or in real life that have been exposed to these types of things, whether in the U.S. or in India. I think it’s rather a question of one’s comfort level with the extent of someone’s personal, organizational, financial, ideological, and other participation in a Hindutva social movement, to what extent these can be established adequately and what your standard of rigour is, and with what you think both intellectually and emotionally of that social movement and its actions (not just the Gujarat pogroms and Babri Masjid, but everything you know about it).
There are. Like college classes, Ramakrishna mission, your family members, your friends, religious texts, blogs, etc. Its admittedly varied with the family and community, but the idea that there is a homogeneous method of entering into “South Asian” religion which is uniformly extreme and static doesn’t jibe with my life experience; I’m sure others could provide other anecdotes and point to examples like the Ramakrishna mission, which is moderate compared to VHP, or South Asian groups that don’t deal with religion directly but will occasionally deal with religious identity and what it means like SALGA. more to the point – a lot of this is about whether people bother to look and the extension of South Asian religious politics into the American diaspora, not about the lack of spaces.
That still doesn’t mean that such forms are GOOD – “moderate forms” of Indian social organization are still casteist for Hindus and maybe other groups and imo, will probably reproduce really really abrasive gender oppression, and have other problems that come from reproducing the discourse of religious “communities” in a context (the diaspora) where there’s much more space to make it not real.
Add nuance and inclusivity and complications and broader and more narrow conceptions of South Asianness (which will be a collective process). Fair enough. And I agree that analytically it would be worthwhile to look at the enormous variety among these identities as well as within them between them in their overlaps etc.
But politically? In all contexts? You have to look at Prashad’s chosen project – he is someone of Indian origin and is a party leftist. whatever you think of this, it makes sense for him to focus on promoting secularism against the majoritarian ideology in his country of origin – both morally and pragmatically. You don’t have to like that that’s his project or that he chooses to be associated with the CPI(M), but it does make sense in context. Were Prashad a leftist of Bangladeshi origin he might be focusing on critiquing Jamaat, but he’s not, and I think what you call a “decision” might be more the result of his position. What is Indocentric and Hindu centric is the overall context of the diaspora – of which vijay prashad and his writings and works are a relevant but relatively small part.
You’re going to have to defend this narrow conception of what the Hindu right social movement more broadly actually is. Most people with actual lived exposure in India that are also intellectually interested in these things have described the Sangh as both a social movement and a political one. So to break it up into its components and assess them individually is not as useful as what I suggested above – to assess the whole, the parts, and the relationships, as well as the reliability of the information you’re getting and your own ideas and opinions and positions on the various things that various forces within the Hindu right movement are trying to do.
Who is it that you’re talking about in “our”? What is the process by which you’re deciding what position and perspective deserves a higher priority? Personally, I was interested in the appointment of Sonal Shah, the IDRF debate, the HSC debate, and others because of what they mean for me as a South Asian American – but i FULLY understand why anyone with a background in indian progressive or Leftist or even Congress politics or sensilibities would react strongly to all of these things, particularly the cognitive dissonance between Obama’s branding and the VHP’s branding/actions that you see at the intersection where someone like Sonal Shah sits.
You’re still arguing about it – you’re just doing so in abstraction and at a greater remove and with a shift in focus. But its presence, as you note in your lede, is clearly here. To be upfront, I hope the matter doesn’t die yet, because I don’t think the issue has yet been resolved to the satisfaction of really anyone – except maybe John Podesta. Rather, it has been wished away, which is pretty shortsighted, since if Sonal Shah is ever up for Senate confirmation, the perspectives of South Asian Americans and Indians of varying ideologies are going to be so sidelined that they will seem non existent. But the broader dialogue that this post is a part of is part of the process I think, and in that sense I think it’s a worthy contribution, though I don’t agree with its main points.
I liked Desi Italian exposition at comment #42. When a second-gen is young his or her views of religion is initially shaped by organizations and parents which may or may not be biased on way or another. As Amardeep mentions, finally one outgrows as you age and as one get wider exposure and develop an independent critical thinking. Definitely the second phase needs organizations that are unbiased. But is there any advocacy/lobbying organization (even wrt to religion which doesn’t lean one way or other ) ? Finally as an adult you choose to identify with what you believe and comfortable with based on your own personal interests and what cultural baggage you don’t want to give up. Only if you disillusioned with something (and maybe academicians and intellectuals) will yearn for the alternate moderating viewpoint.
Pagal_Aadmi_for_debauchery,
So all second generation Sikhs in North America are Khalistanis? . No not all 2nd gen. Sikhs are Khalistanis. In the same context not all 2nd gen. Hindus are VHP members.
However please go to most Sikh oriented websites like http://www.sikhnet.com and see their discussion sections and you will find a glossing over of the atrocities committed by them during the 1980s. They have quite a disdain for Hindus and blame them for everything.
I cannot speak for Sulabh, but I think what he is trying to say is that since the Hindus are the majority in India their atrocities stand out more than when the minorities (i.e. muslims, sikhs) commit them. I do remember hindus being pulled out of buses in Punjab and being machine gunned by Khalistanis. This also happened on trains. However Hindus also participated in the butchering of innocent Sikhs in the whole of India and also targeted their Gurdwaras. Very, very shameful and the guilty should have been hanged. The innocent Sikhs have not gotten justice and I can understand as a human being and a Hindu how painful this is and wanting to exact revenge on those who perpetrated such crimes. I also understand how often in History the Sardars leapt to our defense. Wheather it was Guru Tegh Bhadhur laying down his life for Kashmiri Pundits or Baba Deep Singh rescuing Hindu women from the Persian Raider Nadir Shah.
I know we are veering way of the topic of Sonal Shah but people need to understand that putting a label and trying to make it fit just doesn’t work. She should have done a little more research before working with the VHP. No doubt.
24 · MoorNam said
Therein lies the difference: I don’t feel that being affiliated with extremists of any stripe can be excused. The fact that an extremist is sympathetic to the US does not excuse their actions. Sonal Shah probably does not subscribe to the philosophy of the VHP/RSS and likely involved herself in charitable causes under their auspices because of her family’s affiliation to the groups but at the least it shows poor judgment on her part. Has she ever condemned those organizations for the philosophy they espouse as opposed to just saying that she does not subscribe to their viewpoint?
Amardeep, first, to avoid the intellectual chaos that having two Anasuya-s in a post/discussion might have: I’m Anasuya Sengupta (the blogger) and I’m from India, and have only been in the States for the past year. Anasuya Sanyal (the commentator) is, as obvious from her comments, a not-so-confused american-born desi (i.e. a second gen-er). Thanks for linking to my post, and to the very reflective thoughts that followed.
I cannot comment on youth camps here in the US, because I don’t know enough about them, but I would strongly urge you to look at Lalit Vachani’s two documentaries, The Boy in the Branch, and The Men in the Tree; they are fascinating insights into the working of RSS shakhas and their connections to larger constructions of Hindutva in India, the slippery slope between building ‘community’ and creating ‘constituency’ that I discussed in my post. I understand commentators here who say the ground politics are different in the diaspora and in India, but I think it is worth examining the discursive frameworks (and attached material effects, including branding for funds) that are set up to overlap quite subtly, I think, between the two geographies and the many narratives; that’s where spaces like ‘youth camps’ are both fascinating and critical. I too would be interested in an examination of Muslim or Sikh camps,Amardeep, but I don’t think their absence negates Prashad’s overall arguments.
I don’t quite agree with Saheli’s assessment of a ‘real history of conflict and destruction’, because there are multiple such histories across various regions and organised religions in the sub-continent (as Dr. Amonymous puts it so evocatively: Dude, Where’s My Buddhism?!) including amongst Vaishnavite and Shaivite sects that all got bundled together under ‘Hinduism’ in the 19th century. But I do find provoking her comment that there are few ‘safe spaces where people can honestly discuss identity, conflict and inner tension in a particular affinity’; it sometimes feels that way in India too, though not always. At the very least, the debate around Sonal Shah mustn’t die out because it seems to offer an immediate entry point to those discussions, and I’d be happy to host a safe virtual space for them, if people are interested. But I also agree with Dr. Amonymous: there is a specific need to keep the challenge alive; at present, Sonal Shah serves as a gate-keeper for longer term assessments of both people and perspectives from the Indian American community, and that could become deeply problematic.
Distinctly British? Is that why we also see it in China and former French West Africa as well? Communalism is what happens when you have a bunch of various diverse groups living together and no indigenous institutions to equitably distribute power between them. When India was under Islamic rule the issue of whether or not to levy the jizya was a major communal issue. Forbidding the celebration of Hindu holidays was likewise. Of course you’d be naive to think that these sorts of policies didn’t cause social tension, riots, and other ugly things back then. They just never bothered to document them unless they became really big.
As for your claims about “full force of law” it strikes me as a bit of a stretch. India still allows polygamy among Muslims. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan long ago banned polygamy, yet the secular Republic of India still governs its Muslims by sharia, allows polygamy, and subsidizes the Hajj. To say that the Indian government does not bend over backwards to accommodate its minorities is just factually inaccurate. This often happens to the detriment of one majority group or another. Especially once you start throwing religious schooling and conversion policies into the mix it just keeps adding more and more into that stewing cauldron of resentment.
The big problem here is that the government’s capitulations are not done to help groups because they are disadvantaged. They are implemented to help groups specifically because they are small in number. When you have a vast majority of the country that is equally poor, ignorant, and retched you can’t really tell them “Too bad! You’re not special enough for the government to care,” and expect them not to get mad.
Actually, Hinduism is just a 21st century construct of the Brahmins working in collusion with the British. There was no such entity before overzealous British Indologists coined the terms to reward their loyal Brahmin underclass, tailoring a worthy heirloom that would be passed down after the Brits left India, and a new Hegemony replaced an old one. For thousands of years now Brahmins have subjected Dalits, Tribals and Christians to their yoke, inventing one self propitiating myth after another. The first was the Brahmin Rama, a creation of the Brahmin Valmiki, and Chanakya, who, as Romila Thapar puts – existed in reality just as much as a unified pan-Indian commonwealth. Now Hindutva is the latest myth in this long historical chain of deception, set to take Hinduism’s mantle of institutionalized discrimination and a pauperized imagination to the next level. And the VHP lead by its Brahmin frontmen like Narendra Modi, is the latest Brahmin deception.
This is blatant intellectual dishonesty. Not to mention ignorance. Vaishnav and Shaivite sects have always worshipped together and continue to do so. Check out your local Krishna temple and you’ll probably see a few Ganeshas and a few shivlings around. The conflict exists only in the minds of certain professors and their reliance on an anecdote here and there while blithely ignoring the ground reality all over the place.
And why do you assume Buddhism could only have sprung out of a clash with Hinduism? In fact it didn’t. There is such a thing as cultures emerging out of an superabundunce and overflowing of ideas. Religions existed side by side in India millennia before the concept of secularism was even developed.
When India was under Islamic rule the issue of whether or not to levy the jizya was a major communal issue. Forbidding the celebration of Hindu holidays was likewise. Of course you’d be naive to think that these sorts of policies didn’t cause social tension, riots, and other ugly things back then. They just never bothered to document them unless they became really big.
Please sir, get your hands on William Darympyle’s Last Mughal. It chronicles the yearly ritual of the Mughal court under Zafar to celebrate Hindu festivals like Dussehra with Gusto. Infact there are parables of delicate prose that weave evocatively the filial bonds between muslim overlords and their contented hindu subjects. Other muslim rulers have similarly been unfairly vilified in the familiar pattern that follows before the objectification and dehumanization of the “other” in most fascist doctrines of pseudohistory.
That’s coz Zafar was a pagan at heart 🙂 Also, it makes no sense to produce example from the Mughal empire when it was more than three-quarters dead.
It is intellectually dishonest to deny that the Mughal court was routinely shaken up by conflicts between moderates and hardliners. Just because moderates won out sometimes doesn’t mean it was some laa-dee-daa wonderland of tolerance and understanding. Like I said. Were it not for the very real power many Hindu Rajas and greater Nizams had to destabilize the Mughal empire you would have seen the hardliners win out a lot more often.
And here you just betray a complete ignorance of actual history in favor of some revisionist anti-Brahmin screed. Chanakya didn’t really exist? So I guess the Arthashastra just wrote itself? Valmiki was a secret Brahmin who just tricked everyone into thinking he was a dalit? Rama was secretly a Brahmin even though he would have had to have been a Kshatriya to have any right to the throne?
Yes clearly it was all some grand conspiracy of wandering mendicants to keep everyone else down. Throwing out blatant lies with absolute certainty doesn’t magically make falsehoods true.
Vaishnav and Shaivite sects have always worshipped together and continue to do so. Check out your local Krishna temple and you’ll probably see a few Ganeshas and a few shivlings around. __
Somebody has been pouring over ‘Voice of India’ publications lately. History unfortunately, reads different from Pseudohistory, and the annals record intercenine wars of imponderable scales of cruelty and violence that wouldn’t satiate the visceral appetite of Kali (a proto-dravidian Goddess) herself. For instance, during excavations of the Harrapa mounds 37 skeletons were found cloistered around the citadel like structure in various postures that would be associated with unarmed civilians being attacked suddenly and unexpectedly by raiders on horseback. More startling evidence has been presented in the irrefutable written form by the Chinese traveller and geographer Fa Hein, who visited during the time of the Brahmin Gupta regents who practiced a sectarian state policy against Buddhists. Even today, there is proof of insiduous Vaishnavite methods to supplant Shaivism and bring Shaivites into their fold. I suggest you watch the Brahmin Kamal Hassan’s Dasavathaaram to find out what I am saying.
I suggest you watch the Brahmin Kamal Hassan’s Dasavathaaram to find out what I am saying.
he..he.. for a Kayastha lady (I guess a North Indian caste) you seem to know south indian languages. 🙂
Watch this for the Saivite oppression of the Vaishnavite Kamal.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSFqWXU9v70
k_l – are you for real? it looks like you just did a cut and paste job up there.
Okay, so dead bodies were found. Does that mean they were killed for religious reasons? Did anyone claim that hindus don’t kill? The claim is that they don’t kill for religion. Hindus did not kill Muslims in Gujrat because of their belief in Allah or because they disapproved of the Koran. But Christians and Muslims do kill for religion. This is the difference and it is sheer dishonesty not to recognize it.
82 · Divya said
Huh????
According to the accepted version of legend, Valmiki was an “untouchable” robber before he saw the light and Rama was a kshatriya, not a Brahmin you moron.
I hear Romila Thapar’s name, this is on the way south now.
I find the heartfelt comments about “keeping the discussion alive” kinda funny. People here just follow party lines, so there is not much point to the discussion, other than improving typing and rhetoric skills. For me, it is just time-pass.
Just to add to the broth, if you can have Yankee Zionism, what is wrong with Yankee Hindutva?
kayastha_lady is probably a troll. For some one to have a caste name as a handle, she does not know that Modi is not a Brahmin and is in fact from a most backward caste the people supposed to be oppressed by the Brahmins.
24 · MoorNam said
Yes and no. The Sangh is divided into two major factions. The “moderate” pro-business/libertarian faction tends to be pro-Western. Any interest they have in extremist ideology and violence is purely practical, as methods of social control. The radical faction, however, is virulently anti-Western and anti-American. They feel a need to protect India from the corrupting influences of both Christianity and secular humanism, by any means necessary. The latter group poses a non-trivial threat of terrorism against Western interest both in India and abroad. Any such attacks, if and when they happen, would probably be aimed as much at isolating and discrediting the moderate faction as hurting Westerners…
On a lighter note for SM Intern, what generates more responses on SM – desi eye candy or secular-communal debate?
On a serious note for Indian, A. Sengupta, Dr. Annonymous
Support for hindutva – of whatever variety – hard, soft or even unconscious – does not exist in a vaccum. The reason you see so much debate even here in the US where ordinarily, most folks do not interface with day-to-day politics of India (or get trained in art of lathi) can be in part explained by extreme positions taken by votaries of the left. This is the same in India where Lalu’s (and Mulayam etc.) politics has done more for the right than they themselves could do. Vijay’s position on Sonali is an example of this extremism.
82 · Divya said
Then why the hell were they killed? Is revenge for perceived wrongs a more honorable excuse? The end result is the same: murder. Inter-religious violence of any kind should be condemned, not justified or explained away.
Nice anti-secular (and thus, against the rules) comment. Talk about sheer dishonesty.
There are a few different issues being rolled into one here. One has to do with religion and the other with “white guilt”, but in this case, “Hindu desi majority guilt”.
a. a belief in the eternality of the atma or soul and it’s reincarnation through various lifetimes (cycle of samsar) until the attainment of liberation.
b. an affinity for residence on the banks of, or nearby, a river that has been deemed holy due to Puranic accounts of the river’s connection with a deity. there are several such rivers in the land of India, previously known as “Hindustan” and before that “Bharat”.
c. a special affection for the cow. this has sociological and health reasons as well as puranic, folkloric, religious, etc. the cow had more than just symbolic importance in ancient India’s agrarian economy, the cow and bull were both central to the mainstay of that civilization.
d. common tales. puranic and itihasa lore was handed down through generations via oral traditions more than through the literatures from which they sprang (or did the egg come first?) due to the fact that not many folk were completely literate. whether one was a vaishnavite or a shaivite as mentioned by a commenter above, these tales were shared and known by all, the major ones at least, with some variance according to region. these tales comprised of divine figures and heros, demigods and saints, that came to be venerated by all persons regardless of formal sectarian allegiance.
e. there are some other things that bind “hindus” of various sectarian allegiance together but I think the above is enough to get a picture.
the philosophical differences and disputes between shaivites, vaishnavites, shaktas, tantrics, yogis and the rest, as far as I know, never resulted in immense bloodshed, civil wars or the like. I’m sure some people may have died in a heated fight but for the most part these differencew have more to do with one’s personal affiliation towards a deity and a difference in approach to achieving a common goal – liberation. But all of those schools of though have moksha or liberation as their common goal. How to achieve that and which deity to worship to get their is the difference. Nevertheless, the Shaivite, the Vaishnavite, the Shakta, the Tantric and the Yogi will not turn down a chance to make pilgrimage to one of the banks of Hindustan’s holy rivers, they will not open up slaughterhouses for cows, and they will not deny the existence and eternality of the atma and the cycle of birth and death – samsar. So there is indeed a composite Hindu ethos and even common Hindu ethics that will jump right out at you, no matter what type of Hindu you meet.
I have several strictly observant Muslim friends in India. I have gone to mosque with them on different occasions but they have never accompanied me to mandir. Why? Because the statues in the mandir represent something that goes totally against one of the main doctrines of their religion, in fact, THE MAIN DOCTRINE. No problem. I understand that and do not take offense. However, as there is nothing in a mosque that goes against any doctrine in my religion, I am free to enter with a clear conscious. The darghars in India that are visited by both muslims and hindus fall into a category in which neither a muslim nor a hindu can find offensive because there is no idol or statue there. Of course there is a section of Muslims who will not go to those darghars either because that section does not venerate shrines of muslim saints, they feel it is also a from of “idol worship” as well, but that’s another story. I don’t know how Vijay Prashad proposes that the “composite” ammalgamation of Hinduism and Islam that you find spotted throughout Desh be replicated in the West. Should Hindus build shrines here in honor of Muslim saints? Should Muslims build shrines in honor of Hindu saints?
Do the majority of Muslim Americans fall into the category of Muslims who are favorable to honoring shrines of saints or do the majoriy of Muslim Americans fall into the category of Muslims who feel that it is a form of “idol worship”? Why is the onus on the Hindus to ammalgamate? Muslims are free to enter mandirs in USA, as our mandirs our public places of worship. The question is not are they welcome but rather; why aren’t they coming?
That Hinduism and Islam appear to be very different ideologies with little in common is not the problem. They don’t NEED to have much in common. Just because I have little in common with someone does not mean that I am hostile and mean towards that person. I have little in common with many people in my workplace but I get along just fine with them when in their company. I don’t NEED to ammalgamate my habits and customs with their’s in order to respect them as human beings. `
HINDU DESI MAJORITY LIBERAL GUILT.
It’s the same as white guilt so really needs no explanation but I’ll give one anyway. Hindus are the majority in India. Hence, the majority of Indians living the American Dream in USA are Hindus. These Desi American Hindus see discrimination against minorities here in USA and don’t like it. They also hear about how minorities are similarly discriminated against in India and they conclude that it is bad, and it is. One major minority in India is the Muslim. After 9/11 Muslims are getting a bad wrap all over the world, not just in India now but in USA as well. Hindu Desi Majority Liberals feel bad about that and even though they themselves may be discriminated against in USA too sometimes, well, back in India they would be the majority and thus the MAJORITY GUILT sinks in. It’s not a bad thing. One could even argue that it is natural and good.
However, when majority hindu desis who wish to preserve their customs and cultures and proudly display them are accused of being elitist or racist or nazi-ist or islamophobic or terroristic, well that’s where the line has to be drawn. Just because they are a majority does not mean they cannot do things to preserve their way of life just as much as the minorities can.
Same goes for whites in USA. White Pride gets more of a bad rap than Black Pride. Yet there is nothing essentially wrong with wanting to preserve one’s ethnicity and culture, even if you happen to be a majority at the time. I have some white friends who will not date or marry outside of the white race and they wish to preserve their ethnicity and culture, whether it’s celtic, finnish, italian, german, greek or whatever, just as much as my Naniji wishes to preserve her’s and does puja daily in hopes that more of her grandkids DO NOT marry non-desi and non-hindu. What of it? None of them wish ill upon any other person or culture or nation. They just want to preserve their’s.
Ahhhh, but the guilt kicks in if the culture you are preserving is the MAJORITY culture in any given country. Then the personal suddenly becomes political. But if you are a minority then you can preserve all you want and you won’t get labled elitist, racist, phobic or whatever.
All this being said I still don’t think that white American “culture” or desi Hindu culture faces any threat from outside. Whites are still the majority in USA, though in 30 years they won’t be. For those who are concerned about that, just start breeding more. Similarly, Hindus are the 85% MAJORITY in India and I don’t see that percentage drastically declining anytime soon, if ever. If anything I see it growing through Indian Hindu offshoot around the world. Though I agree with Saheli Dutt on some things, I don’t feel as threatened as a Hindu as she makes it out that we are.
And at the same time I don’t have any majority guilt feelings either.
87 · Branch Dravidian said
Moornam will tell you that they are not the “real” right. They are only alleged to be that way. So, it’s ok.
@@CR
Its not an honorable excuse, but grievances rooted in the real world can be changed. Even if the grievance is a manufactured one, it can be addressed, either by appeasement or by exposing the grievance as hollow. That is to say, you and I can ‘talk about it’.
A deeply held religious belief is not so amenable to reason.
Hindus are nice people, by definition. Christians and Muslims are not. I think Divya has made that clear. Why so much argument about a scientific fact?
L&O special desi unit, thank you for such an extensive statement, it’s clear that you put a lot of thought in to it and feel strongly about this subject.
However, we discourage very long comments like the one you just wrote, because it’s practically a post in itself; we encourage readers to be courteous to each other and leave links to their own blogs, instead. If you don’t have a blog already, with so much to say, you should start one!
Hatred perhaps? Communal tension?
Who’s making excuses, or justifying or explaining away? If you want to solve a problem you need to know what the problem is. The problem with hindus is not anyone else’s religious beliefs. This cannot be said about monotheistic religions because of their sincere wish for others to see the light that they see.
Secularism itself is a religious concept. Yeah, talk about sheer dishonesty.
88 · newbie said
Happy to interject a “lighter note”. The record for most comments on a post was set by the July 28, 2007 piece “Whoa- is dating white not right?“, which had over 1,500 comments, if I’m not mistaken.
As you were, mutineers!
@@wtf ?
No. You are trying to reduce the argument to an absurdity. The simple point is that what are commonly understood to be the demands of extremist Hindu groups, are much more amenable to reason than their counterparts in the Muslim world.
Christians dont really matter in the religion related conflicts in India and what direction it takes overall. Christians and Hindus in India have really only one point of conflict. Aggressive attempts at mass conversions of Hindus to Christianity.
I cannot comment on youth camps here in the US, because I don’t know enough about them, but I would strongly urge you to look at Lalit Vachani’s two documentaries, The Boy in the Branch, and The Men in the Tree;
Hi Anasuya, I actually saw the second of these two documentaries, screened at Yale, a few years ago. It was the sequel to the earlier piece, but I definitely got a sense of the story Vachani was trying to tell.
In a way I think the documentary underscores how different the social function of communalism is in the diaspora vs. in India. For the kids in those shakhas, the RSS has a kind of life-ordering function — it takes them out of the hopelessness of near (sometimes total) poverty, and gives them a purpose.
In the diaspora, by contrast, groups like the HSC are more strictly campus “identity politics” — a way for desis from more conservative Hindu backgrounds to assert themselves. Most American campuses have “Muslim Students Association” groups (and Rutgers and Berkeley even have Sikh Students Association groups), and I think the idea is that the HSC is the Hindu analogue. Like many things that happen on college campuses, the long-term role played by membership in these groups may not be that meaningful. The “normativizing” social influences and pre-professional imperative impact most students at college much more.
That doesn’t mean that everything done or said by members of these groups is something I would support, nor does it mean the leadership is necessarily clear of communalist leanings. My point isn’t that they are wonderful organizations — it’s rather about social function, what these organizations do for their members. In the diaspora, what they do for their members is significantly less socially destructive than what the RSS does for boys all over India.
On the question of Prashad’s non-engagement with other (non-Hindu) religious organizations, I agree that it doesn’t totally negate what he’s saying, but it does pose an analytic problem. If there are indeed similarities in the social function of these groups amongst different diasporic religious communities (remember, I’m only talking about the diaspora here; my longstanding opposition to communal groups in India has not changed), why might he not be interested in developing that? (I can’t help but think he excludes the others simply because it doesn’t fit the political narrative he’s telling.)
A final point. I really don’t know why he claims that that Hindu groups/camps in the U.S. are larger and more influential than Sikh or Muslim groups. Actually, Sikhs are disproportionately over-represented in the diaspora in Washington DC, New York/New Jersey, and California, and there’s a history of “strong” religion in the Sikh community (much more than just Khalistanism), which is clearly analogous to what is taught in the Hindu youth camps. Also, because the Muslim Student Associations include Muslim students from several national and ethnic backgrounds, they also become larger than they would be if the groups were simply, say, the “Indian Muslim Student Association.”
In short, the majority/minority dynamic that is present in India (where the special emphasis on Hindu extremism amongst progressives can be justified by the fact that the Hindu community is socially dominant) is not the same in the diaspora.
Here in the U.S., we are all minorities together.
In short, the majority/minority dynamic that is present in India (where the special emphasis on Hindu extremism amongst progressives can be justified by the fact that the Hindu community is socially dominant) is not the same in the diaspora.
there are 2 buddhists and 2 muslims in congress. 0 hindus. there has been 1 sikh in the past (dalip singh).
i am angered and somewhat insulted by ‘Dissociations”s assertion that the link we have been talkign about re: sonal shah & hindutva groups is the same as saying : “Pakistani_Grocery_Owner_in_US–>US_based_Pakistani_Charity–>Pakistan_based_Islamic_Extremist Org–>Islamic_Extremists_who_kill_Hindus.
this is ludicrous and completely incorrect. this would be implying first of all that islam is = extremism and terror (b/c DISSOCIATIONS has linked pakistani charity which i guess he assumes is a muslim-owned org which is also an assumption and then jumps right to extremism) which i should think any intelligent person on this blog would know is false.
a better link is restaurant owner –> gives money to KKK —> KKK lynches and kills of racial minorities. because we know the KKK is a terror/hate group, the same way we know that VHP(A) and VHP are.
the problem is not that VHP or VHP(A) is a HINDU organization. because frankly, it is not. it is a HINDUTVA organization. and many of you need to be much more careful making this distinction clear. i know we get duped and confused being 2nd generation indian americans or hindu americans or whatever label you want to use for yourself, but c’mon. please guys. take the time to get educated. you owe that much to yourself.
i went to a VHP(A) summer camp years ago…and let me give you one example of why it is so dangerous. rather than singing “eeshwar allah tero naam” (in the famous ‘raghupati raaghav raja ram’ bhajan), they were singing “eeshwar SHANKAR tero naam” — this is the kind of brain-washing and re-writing they are doing!!!!
i know this is a small point, but the whole message of that bhajan – the thing that appealed so much to gandhi – was its message of tolerance, peace, equity between religions, pluralism, etc. that’s why it says “Your Name is Eeshwar and Allah” but its been changed now to only have two hindu names for the Divine, “Eeshwar” and “Shankar.”
why is the VHP(A) dangerous and toxic? and how does sonal shah figure into it? in 2001, sonal was also a national coordinator of relief to the survivors of the earthquake in gujarat with the VHP(A). i understand that she did good work, helped survivors, delivered humanitarian aid to many people. however, the VHP(A) gave money to the VHP. both orgs categorically DENIED relief to muslim and christian survivors of the quake. i just can’t get my head around WHY of all groups, she would choose to do relief work with the VHP(A) or VHP?
i don’t think of these camps as “religious summer camps” the way you have pointed out, because they are indoctrinating our generation – 2nd gen kids – with intolerance and hatred. and no religion in the world that i know of preaches that.