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.
VHP(A) is a hate group because it swapped the name of “Shankar” or “Allah?”
The Chinmaya Mission school (The Swami Chinmayananda was one of the founders of the VHP) that my parents woke me up early on Sunday mornings to attend thought us the “Ishvara Allah” version. So I am going to have to call shenanigans.
I believe I have also mentioned before that just about every group in India that is at all politically or religiously active has some mud on its hands. It’s a reality of doing business in India. Even Mother fricking Theresa was palling around with some of those terrorist outfits in Assam and (probably unwittingly) laundering money for African dictators. Does this make every Indian Catholic group suspect?
The Sangh Parivar organizations have a lot of cross-pollination between them. You’ll find people who are members of the RSS and Bajrang Dal who also have friends or memberships in the VHP as well. These organizations are huge and nationwide. But just because members of a particular organization are engaged in shady crap doesn’t implicate anyone who ever worked with the group. Unless the resources of the organization itself are being deployed in such a manner I don’t see how it is at all implicated, and so far I haven’t seen any evidence of the VHP’s extranational outreach programs doing that. This all smells of guilt by association.
Are they real Buddhists? Because there are a lot of disaffected Christians who adopt this strange, sanitized, Hollywood version Buddhism like a fad and strip it of all the tradition, ritual, and sense of religious community that the actual practicing Buddhists in Tibet and SE Asia have?
By “real Buddhists” I mean people who have actually been raised or extensively schooled in Buddhist traditions. Kind of like the difference between Conservative Jewish conversion and the more wishy-washy liberal version.
101 · Pavan said
sure, he founded the vhp in mid 60s, but the current monstrous incarnation of the vhp only really started taking root in the mid to late 80s.
Sapna –
Do you realize that if you call the VHP toxic simply for removing Allah from the chant, then you will have to apply that adjective to all of Chritianity and Islam and not just the fanatics. Ever seen any “Christians for Krishna” or “Muslims for Shiva” placards? This is the double standard I’ve been trying to point out in my posts. I concede it is rather sad that Hindus are becoming that way too, but that’s a different point.
By the way, I have way more respect for people who think their religion is the best, than morons who go around saying that all religions have equal merit. For those who read too fast, I am not recommending that anyone should kill anyone over this point.
i believe some people just wilfully refuse to see the whole picture, and just pluck random quotes out of context. this behavior is an example of something dangerous especially viewed in the context of activities of vhp/rss/bajrang dal in india.
i did not like the hsc national chapter behavior after godhra. where it pretty much ignored the state sponsored massacre of muslims while focusing on a demand for the hindus. words and actions matter.
My comment was pretty long, SM Intern, didn’t feel that way when I was writing it! Will try to keep it short…
Like Amardeep mentioned above, orgs like RSS can seem to give some purpose to life amongst poor, aimless youth in India. I think alot of extremist orgs prey on directionless youth and India has alot of jobless young men itching for something to do other than just roam the gullies all day long. Violent activity can often be a means of venting inner frustrations with life, unfortunately. If poverty could be wiped out I think we would see less of such phenomena and less of terrorism in general.
Yes the ultra conservative leanings of some Hindus is anti-western in the sense of being anti-modern and anti-post-modern. This is especially in regards to women and sexuality. They see the Western World as an axis of promiscuity and western women as freedom obsessed w*ores. RSS has a reputation in India for trying to keep desi women in “traditional” roles, or at least trying to keep them out of jeans and t-shirts. LOL.
Most Muslims in India are poor and just want to be able to feed and cloth their children properly. Most of them are not extremists, terrorists or Hindu haters. However it can’t be denied that Muslim conquerors of old did in fact see Hindus as kaffirs that need to give up their evil idol worshipping ways and take to Islam or die. That is just a fact. They did not see their conquests as political only, but religious in nature. Political conquests are bad enough, but can be rationalized. However, religious conquests? What’s that about?
Hindu kings have also fought and conquered lands and peoples. But those conquests were political, not religious. Hindus generally have no beef (pun intended) at all with others peoples’ religious tenents. We are not hardcore proseltyizers, preachers and converters. To each their own belief. This is another difference between us and Muslims and Christians. That Muslims and Christians see it as their god-given duty to convert others to their religions is also fine by me. But do it peacefully. The condecending tone of their sermons are often annoying but hey, life is like that only. If Hindus in India feel threatened by conversions then they can go out on their own missionary campaigns to convert people to Hinduism. Religion is a free market of ideas and Hinduism has alot of takers at least in the USA, with the popularity of yoga, meditation, Deepak Chopra and all. I say we should exploit that to the max, just like other religions do. But the ultra conservative faction amongst us is gonna have to loosen up a bit to make the offer of entrance into “orthodox Hinduism” appealing to women. Nevertheless, I would say it’s still more appealing as it is to women than say, oh, Islam is. Christianity seems to have loosened up considerably over the centuries with regards women and sexuality though and perhaps that would be a religion we could emulate on that front.
Also, as Sapna points out, it is important to note that VHP/RSS/Bajrang Dal are proponents of Hindutva, not Hinduism. HSC at the national level seems similar to me. I don’t know enough about HAF to comment.
My threshold for sympathy for the VHP and its affiliates, BJP, RSS, and Bajrang Dal is very low, and I think the burden of proof should be on them that they are acting in good faith. It is the same litmus test that one would apply to borderline Muslim organizations, and I don’t see why these should be treated differently. Extremism is extremism.
I don’t know how you reconcile this behavior with hardline Hindu nationalism.
pavan, you say “and so far I haven’t seen any evidence of the VHP’s extranational outreach programs doing that.”
if you read my post carefully, you’ll see one very egregious example of VHPs extranational outreach programs being divisive and hateful — i mentioned how in 2001, the VHP america explicitly and categorically denied aid to muslim and christian survivors of the earthquake in gujarat. wouldn’t you agree this is an example?
how does nobody here (save maybe you, lurker! thanks!) see that as disgusting?? why do we have to point fingers the other way, to other (minority) communities? shouldn’t we just want to be GOOD regardless of whatever anybody else is doing?
how childish.
Divya, care to explain why?
I don’t think all religions are equal, at the same time I don’t think mine is “the best” of them all. It is the best for me, and that is why I chose it. Is there any such thing as an objective “gauge” or barometer of religions?
beautifully phrased.
I don’t. I’m an American citizen.
110 · sapna said
and Anna, too. I am saddened by any group that would deny those in need, merely because they practiced a different faith. I don’t care who (Christian, Muslim, Hindu) is doing it, it’s depraved and evil and should be called out. We should be our best, not match others’ worst.
Because it is more sincere. The real believers do believe that, btw. It’s the godless ones who don’t give a damn either way that talk about equality, etc. (a/k/a liberals). I would have respect for liberals if they challenged the whole concept of religion rather than ask us to respect all religions.
If I have money and I want to give aid to specific people, why can’t I give it to people I want and not give it to people I dont want to.
you can do what you want. and i can consider you a bigot for doing what you did. (just like free speech gives you the right to say what you want, and for others to consider you a douche for saying horrendous things).
115 · Divya said
another scientific fact from the canon of divya.
Amardeep:
**
Several points:
1) From my understanding, the Hindu organizations are more bankrolled than the other orgs.
2) Speaking about LA and Bay Area Sikh communities specifically, there are more infra-diaspora clashes than there is a teaching about Sikhism (Indian Sikhs vs. Fijian Sikhs, especially in the Bay Area, where there is a sizable number of Fijian Sikhs). Moreover, there are not nearly as many “Sikh schools” as there are Hindu schools. And finally, the mainstream IS Hindu majority orgs on campus. The Sikhs numbers-wise are much smaller; they are, what you would say, more on the outskirts rather than actors on a level playing field (so to speak). And the non-Hindu orgs have been much more vocal and engaged with politics in the US rather than in India (in contrast to the Hindu orgs) ie post 9/11 hate crimes, etc. So I would say that the dynamics are different.
3) The Sikh orgs do not, from my knowledge, teach the same things that Hindu orgs do. The VHPA considers Sikhism to be part of the “Hindu ethos” and treat it as such– subsuming it in its larger fold (which is that Muslims, Christians, Parsis, and Jews are in a separate category in “Bharat Mata.” I do not think that Sikh orgs are analogous in this sense, politically and nationalistically speaking.
4) The fact that Muslim orgs contain students from a variety of backgrounds actually makes them weaker– not stronger- when it comes to parcelling and propagating unified political beliefs. They cannot, for example, speak solely about Pakistan’s “national security” and politics the way that Hindu groups in the US do w/r/t India’s “national security” and India’s politics. And take the HAF, for example, which focuses on “Hindu human rights” around the globe, but whose membership most comes from Indian Hindus (NOT Hindus worldwide). Moreover, they are able to take what happens in neighboring countries such as Bangladesh and Pakistan to argue a larger policy points for INDIA, not other countries. Muslim orgs can’t really do that and haven’t (from what I have seen).
Finally:
Maybe yes, maybe no. I don’t think we can say that with certainty. Things may evolve (or have evolved) either socially destructive, or manifest itself in another form, which is attempting to use the US system as a way of furthering goals. The difference is that in India, being a member of such orgs entails a much more hands-on, grassroots, and on the ground involvement due to the nature and dynamics of the Indian polito-religious scene. In the US, the more viable option is lobbying, “briefing” politicians about a region that is important to the US but whose problems are either not understood or misunderstood (Kashmir is a known problems, but I think very few people actually know what is going on), publishing reports and policy papers, harassing media for supposedly anti Indian/Hindu statements, or having the media quote you on violations of Hindu human rights.
116 · Puliogre in da USA said
To paraphrase T.I. my dear Puli, you can do whatever you like, but if there’s a natural disaster (referring to sapna’s example) like an earthquake, and people are suffering, I think it’s heartless to say, “only ____ get food and shelter” or similar. Is that what the best of our faiths teach us to do? I have always felt like instead of proselytizing, people should work in service to others (regardless of creed et al) and set an example by the practice of their faith, not preach about who is going to hell or who is a “foreigner” and thus unwelcome in India. We’re humans first), I don’t care whom you worship.
63 Indian:
I really liked your comments, thanks for posting that. And I especially agree with this part: “I do not really know or care who Prashad is, and his recent article on Sonal Shah did seem to stretch a bit…”
I don’t think Vijay Prashad’s readings and interpretation are necessary to fully understand American Hindu nationalism. You don’t need to read the Karma of Brown Folk (though it’s a very good read) or refer to his article on Counterpunch to analyze American Hindu nationalism. His views (or the failings you think he may have in analyzing AH nationalism) are not the final words on AH nationalism as a subject and phenomenon.
I hope, Amardeep, that with your heavy focus on Vijay Prashad’s book and article in your last two posts, you are not displacing the focus on what we should be really looking at, which is AH nationalism, and simply engaging with Prashad’s take on the subject, rather than dealing with the subject yourself. AH nationalism exists, with or without Prashad’s book and article on Counterpunch.
Godless? Because I declare my religion to be good for me but not neccessarily someone else, but I respect that person’s right to choose a religion that works for them… I am godless?
Divya, yes, you need to respect other religions. That does not mean you have to agree with their philosophies or you have to hang out at the places of worship or go out of your way to befriend their members. But you must respect the right of other human beings to choose their own way of life. Basically it means having enough respect to adopt the “live and let live” attitude and not harm another life form because they don’t have the same religion as you do or a religion that you approve of.
Sapna’s comment shows either she reads too fast or doesn’t understand logic. My point has nothing to do with the Hindu/Hindutva distinction, it is about the relationship between different categories. Prashad wants to show that there are clear relations between one category (HSC) and another (rioting_Hindus) that is far removed from the first. That shows poor logic. The Pakistani example was used to illustrate why how such linking is wrong. Here is another chain that could be made using Prashad’s logic:
ABDs–>Sepia Mutiny–>Obama Campaign–>Democratic Party–>US Administration–>Support-for-Israel–>Child-shooters
So ABDs support child-shooters. If you think this chain is wrong, then Prashad’s chain is also wrong. Simply because the category membership changes at each link in the chain, even though there may be overlap between each link and the preceding one.
In general, I’ve found that most of the writings from the so-called Leftie intellectuals are poor in logic, and rich in juxtaposition and rhetorical moves. Some people are convinced/inspired/awed by such positioning of pictures/facts beside each other. I am not. A collage is not an argument. Worse, it is noise.
Actually, bothering about Prashad’s logic is a waste of time. He writes for Counterpunch, which takes pride in its “muckraking”, and has about the same credibility as National Enquirer and Jeff Rense. That should be enough reason to let him wallow in his soup.
I also want to note that no academic or media person has ever contributed to solving a communal problem, it is not in their interest. The high-pitch senseless screaming of such folks over the media actually contribute to communal tensions. If they would just shut up, people could go about solving their communal problems. If you have ever lived in a riot-hit area, you will know how peace returns — it is by smiles and little gestures. And that cannot happen when such banshees are screaming in the background. Somebody should do a correlational study (which seems popular around here) of how the growth of the media has contributed to the growth of communal problems.
@@Sapna
Hahaha.. 😀 This is what happens when folks get their history lessons from Ben Kingsley.
The Bhajan, also known to the faithful as the Ram Dhun did not have the “Ishwar Allah tero naam” lines. They were introduced by Mahatma Gandhi to promote communal peace. Its a different matter that the lines offended Muslim leaders of the time no end!
To this day, show me a practicing muslim who is willing to sing this song and I’ll show you a person who is shunned in his/her own community as a traitor to the faith.
Divya,
I see your point. But I think there are some folks (who are not morons) who say all religions have equal merit because they think that all of them are a set of fairy tale stories and deserve equal respect / dis-respect.
For example, even though I like Spider man better than Batman, I agree that Spiderman / Batman / Superman are all stories on equal merit and need to be accorded the same status. 🙂
i don’t read too fast, thank you. i read the illogic in your words quite carefully and slowly, savoring it all in.
you said vijay (prashad) made a comparison “between one category (HSC) and another (rioting_Hindus)” – and you maintain that the second category is “far removed from the first”
this is precisely the point that you and i disagree, Dissociations.
i actually DO believe that the first category (HSC) is quite closely and scarily so connected to the second (rioting Hindus). you and i can go back and forth as “screaming banshees” but it seems we will never agree on this, so there is no point. i am not against hinduism, i am not against hindus. i am against groups like the HSC/VHP/RSS/BJP and others in the sangh parivar because they ARE actually rioting “hindus” (i don’t even think they deserve the label “hindu” so i am putting it in quotes. they certainly don’t seem to preach any tenets of hinduism – peace, respect, harmony – that i know of as being associated with the faith). they were involved in the killings in gujarat. they are today still involved in killings of christians in other parts of india. they want to re-write history, and saffronize india into a nation under their philosophy.
and even as an american citizen (i was born in the US), i am also, and will always be, an indian. and i cannot stand for what they want to do to my country. i might sound angry, or like a banshee. and before you judge me, i do speak out against violence perpetrated by any group (before you start accusing me of, ‘well, sapna, why don’t protest fundamentalism in X,Y,Z religious community). i do. its just that as a hindu, as an indian, and as a gujarati, i feel most responsibility to condemn what others calling themselves indian, calling themselves hindu, did to other gujaratis.
he..he.. Well said. Mahathma Gandhi is a noble man who is naive in many aspects.. Isn’t equating Allah with any other God the worst sin punishable by death?. It would be interesting to see any prominent Indian Muslim who shows off his identity, sing this song now and can get off without a fatwa on his head. And now this is shown as an example of the Hindutva fundamentalism.. 🙂
I suppose it would kind of depend on what motivated you to go out in the first place. Take two scenarios. In scenario 1 a disaster happens. So you say “Hey! I am going to go out and do some work to fix it.” In that case your mission statement was specifically to fix the problems caused by the disaster.
Now take scenario 2. A disaster happens and there are already groups on the ground to fix it. But you notice that a specific population of interest is falling through the cracks. In such a case I think it would be acceptable to focus your efforts solely on the group that isn’t getting aid.
In the case of the Gujurat quake it is doubtful that Hindus, being such a large proportion of the population, would fall through the cracks any moreso than everyone in India falls through. So from an objective standpoint I agree that denial of aid was unethical. Putting myself inside the head of a guy who sees any aid by Christian or Islamic orgs as a cloaked attempt at conversion, though, I could easily make what I think is a strong case justifying it as well. Personally I’d say the former case is still stronger, but it’s not so cut and dried that I would cast the VHP’s aid effort as hate-mongering or evil. Paranoid and unduly suspicious perhaps.
123 · Dissociations said
I could very well be wrong about this, but I though the Hindu/Hindutva point was more of a general caution to all of us?
Those who have actually participated in HSC groups in college, though, will tell you that they didn’t really have any connection to what happened in Gujurat. If they never actively supported it or did anything to condone it it’s not really fair to say that because they knew someone who worked with someone else who knew someone who did suddenly implicates them.
Here is the tricky thing. Any organization that furthers a sense of Hinduness (which I use here as a broader category of asserting Hindu identity without necessarily being part of the Hindutva movement) is going to be supported by members of the Sangh Parivar simply by virtue of the fact that developing a sense of Hindu community is one of their ends. You can agree with the idea of asserting Hinduness without necessarily advocating for the Sangh’s means towards pursuing that goal. Just because bad people agree with you about something doesn’t make you a bad person. Otherwise you’re going to have to start asserting the because Hitler was a vegetarian all Jains must be Nazis.
Sapna,
The original lyrics of the song popullrized by Gandhi did NOT have Eeashwar Allah in them. So, per your reasoning, if my concept of Hinduism does not square with Gandhi’s, then I am a fascist? I don’t think I need to elaborate further. You need to do a better job there.
Desi Italiana,
You said, “1) From my understanding, the Hindu organizations are more bankrolled than the other orgs.” Any proof? Mere assertions cannot convince most reasonable people.
You also said, “4) The fact that Muslim orgs contain students from a variety of backgrounds actually makes them weaker– not stronger- when it comes to parcelling and propagating unified political beliefs. They cannot, for example, speak solely about Pakistan’s “national security” and politics the way that Hindu groups in the US do w/r/t India’s “national security” and India’s politics. And take the HAF, for example, which focuses on “Hindu human rights” around the globe, but whose membership most comes from Indian Hindus (NOT Hindus worldwide). Moreover, they are able to take what happens in neighboring countries such as Bangladesh and Pakistan to argue a larger policy points for INDIA, not other countries. Muslim orgs can’t really do that and haven’t (from what I have seen).”
What exactly are we discussing here? Is the problem that Hindu groups focus on India or that Hindu groups focus on Hindus? If the former, then we should be discussing them not vis-a-vis Islam Students Council or some such thing but with Chinese students council. If you are concerned about the Hindutave aspect of the HSC and not the Indian security aspect, then Amardeep’s point that Muslim groups are larger and therefore should be of equal attention stands.
If Hindus in USA wishing to introduce their children to Hinduism have to pay obeisance to Mahatma Gandhi’s version of Hindusim or the Dargah going variety, people are setting a pretty narrow limit for what is acceptable Hinduism. In practising their particular version of Hinduism most people in North America are trying to maintain a link to their hoary traditions. Most Hindus I know dont care a damn about Hindutva and most temples I have been to in North America are not linked to VHP. I find it objectionable that people like Prashad drag ordinary , live and let live Hindus into the muck without producing ANY proof that temples have been the center of Hindutva fund-raising in North America. Local temples here have hard time footing the bills for maintenance and construction let alone go about championing causes outside of their immediate interest.
Given the Borking that Sonal is undergoing, I for one am sure that my children growing up in America have to either disavow Hinduism (a la Jindal) or they better keep out of politics.
We really do tend to devour our own don’t we?
“Putting myself inside the head of a guy who sees any aid by Christian or Islamic orgs as a cloaked attempt at conversion…”
that guy, in my opinion, is not only dubious or unduly suspicious, that guy is heartless.
i’m not talking about giving money thru a christian or muslim org instead of VHP. i’m talking about helping christians and muslims as well as hindus and parsees and sikhs and agnostics and atheists and anybody else who is trapped under a house, fighting for their life. is that person, trapped and about to die, thinking about converting you????
i highly doubt it. but if you want to still go on and not say VHP was evil by actually denying other HUMANS aid, then that says a lot about you and your ability to care.
But those folks sure makes the board rather entertaining! 🙂 I see a lot of budding management types around here! 🙂
Could be, but it sounded like she was raising that point in response to my post. Which, I reiterate, was not about Hindus or Muslims or ABDs.
And BTW, the Hindu/Hindutva distinction is something most DBDs take for granted during discussions.
And I guess now we get to the ad hominem segment.
I suppose your categorical opposition to offering aid to all comers extends to the Islamic groups that only offer aid to fellow Muslims? Or the Pentecostals who were requiring people to accept Jesus before getting any help after the tsunami? I suppose you are likewise opposed to caste based reservations (which, for the record, I think are a good idea provided they don’t get out of hand) since you’re denying opportunity for advancement to fellow HUMANS.
And where exactly do Afro-American scholarship programs fall into this ethical framework?
And are we to be likewise unbiased as to whether we should loan money to members of our own family versus others? Or does the no drawing lines between people policy extend only to religious groups?
Clearly because I don’t like climbing up on the high horse and casting judgment left and right I must be a heartless bastard.
I just saw this hilarious video, and was somehow reminded of this discussion.
See, I can do juxtapositions, too!
You see this with other “Indian American” organizations – with me as a kid it was Jat stuff, because back in the 70s-80s that was one way Indians in the US tried to organize themselves and remain in contact with some aspects of India. It still happens in the US and Canada, I know. My mother tells a story where she left a meeting in a huff, never to return (rightfully so) because someone was spewing violent nonsense. “Don’t fill my kids heads with that stuff!” she says she said, and we never returned to that group.
Anyway, I guess people should keep track of what charitable and religious organizations they give money to, what those people are up to, and what kind of stuff gets ‘preached’ in said religious organizations. It’s the minimum responsibility of any adult, isn’t it? And if you think it crosses the line, just say so. No yelling or getting upset, just stick up for what you think is right.
127 · Ponniyin Selvan said
So just because Muslims wouldn’t sing it, Hindus should mirror that? After seeing Hindu homes that have pictures of the virgin Mary or Guru Nanak ji flanking Hindu deities, I’m always humbled by the respect shown for other faiths.
Also, the Orthodox version of the decalogue commences with “I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.” Despite that, my ultra-Orthodox father, who served at the altar at every Malankara service I attended before the age of 24, crooned “Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram” to me for years, as a lullaby. It’s a gorgeous bhajan. Anyone who refuses to sing it…well, it’s their loss.
teasrini:
That is part of the plan. Even worse, it will happen in India too.
Here is a matrix for religions on whether they are seen as protected religions or not. This is about whether media/political elites can diss the very basics of the religion, say bad things about its followers and have no bad political consequences happen to them. Ideally, no religion would be protected anywhere, but that is not the reality.
Christianity US: No, unless it is Christianity of the Rev. Wright variety India: Yes Pakistan: No
Islam US: Yes India: Yes Pakistan: Yes
Hinduism US: No India: No Pakistan: No
102 · Pavan said
Since the Buddhists in question are Indian, I doubt they were disaffected Christians who adopted a Hollywood version of Buddhism. However in India you will find disaffected Hindus who adopt Buddhism. Whether or not it’s the Bollywood version I don’t know.
I find it hard to believe that out of the hundreds of Indian Congress members there is not one single Hindu on board. That is impossible to believe.
Sapna:
Sudeep:
That song is an old bhajan glorifying Sri Ramachandra Bhagavan, an avatar of Vishnu who is worshipped as God by Vaishnavites. Raghupati Raghava Raja Rama Patita Pavana Sita Rama. Sita Rama Jaya Sita Rama.
Raghupati means the pati, or the “protector” of the Raghu Dynasty, the dynasty that the avatar took earthly birth in. Raja Rama means Kind Rama, as he was a raja, or king. Patita Pavana means “purifier of the fallen”. Sita is his consort, or wife, the Divine Mother Goddess. Other lines in the song not typed here glorify various aspects of the incarnation.
Gandhi, peacemaker that he was, was always trying to calm religious communal conflict in India and added Allah to the equation to show that Hindus can and do respect Allah as a name for God as well.
Why the heck “Shankar” was later added is beyond me. Shankar is a name for Shiva! Rama was an avatar of Vishnu, not Shiva.
(Desi Americans who were not born or raised in India but still claim to be “Indian” need to be educated on India’s history and at least learn the meanings to the chants they are singing before they claim that Arabic words were originally written into a Sanskrit bhajan. It just makes us look silly. Moreover for an Arabic word to be placed by another Sanskrit word that has nothing to do with the context of the kirtan/chant is even sillier! What are these kids learning at these camps? Everything seems to be mixed up like in a left over stir fry or kitcheri!)
Anyway, I’ve yet to see a Muslim or Christian song using names of “Hindu avatars” or deities in their lyrics. And it is a fact that to equate a Vishnu Avatar with Allah would be MOST OFFENSIVE to Muslims. It is SHIRK!
The fact is that Hindus always have been inclusive, for the most part, of other religions. The Indian government went out on a limb to give more rights to Muslim men than to Hindu men. In India even now it is LEGAL for a muslim man to marry more than one wife, but it has been made illegal for Hindu men to do the same since a long time, even though it was at one point an accepted part of Hindu culture. The Indian government even PAYS for poor Indian Muslims to go on Hajj to Mecca if they cannot afford it.
I am not against the helping of poor people go to Hajj, I think it is noble. But placating Muslim Indian males by allowing them to engage in polygyny, when it is clear that Muslim Indian women ARE NOT happy about it, is ridiculous. There is a fear that if that law is changed and there is only ONE civil law for ALL Indian citizens regardless of religion, that more riots will break out. Can you believe that?
I think this placating which is found quite often in the Indian government should be stopped, even if votes are lost during campaigns. Go to your churches, your mosques, your mandirs, but there needs to be one uniform civil code for all Indian citizens, no execeptions.
Has the VHP made and detonated bombs on civilians? This is the question. If they have, or if they’ve funded it, then they are a terrorist org. If their only crime is not wanting to mix with muslims, well, that is not a crime.
We need some proof.
he..he.. Dude, Razib was talking about members of the US Congress.., not the Congress party in India. You seem to forget that this is an American blog. 🙂
141 · Ponniyin Selvan said
Too many people do! 🙂
There are ones where Marx flanks Hindu deities as well. Though no one else, other than Buddhists, seems to reciprocate such inclusiveness. They actually try to take advantage of it (see points on polygamy and Hajj above). Do you know that the revenues of Hindu temples in Kerala go to the government (through the Devaswam Board), but the Churches and Mosques are exempt? In fact, the revenue from temples, particularly Sabarimala, is used to pay government salaries, including teacher salaries in Muslim/Christian controlled schools, and also pay for Haj pilgrimage and to maintain the Muslim Waqf Board. This is when churches and mosques are mostly richer than many Hindu temples. This kind of policy skewness is the reason why Hindus feel hurt, and move to Hindutva.
No. Hindus should not mirror the negative aspects of other religions, but we should mirror their positive aspects. However, the point being, as a few other commenters commented on, there seems to be a double standard. It’s like we Hindus expect MORE of ourselves than we expect of other religions. We expect ourselves to be more inclusive, more lovey-dovey and more peace-y weace-y feel goody. On the one hand that’s a good thing I guess, to expect more of oneself and one’s “kind” than of other groups, it means we hold ourselves to a higher standard. But why do we hold ourselves to a higher standard? Is it because we are a higher standard, or maybe we THINK we are?
If I’m going to call out my hindu brethren and sistren on not including other religion’s names of God in our kirtans then cannot I call out those other religions too?
But yeah, I agree. Hindus should not lower their standards, even though it seems to be a sign of the times.
Well. First, as people claim it’s an innovation by Gandhi during his career to bring some kind of a communal amity and not really part of the Bhajan. Expecting some other group to follow Gandhi’s version of Vaishnavite Hinduism and then beating them for not following it is IMHO wrong. It is not as if adding those lines (clearly offensive to Muslims now, it could be construed as a means of co-opting Islam into Hinduism) are going to instill communal harmony in some American kids who spend time in their summer camp.
Nice to know about your dad. I’ve lived in India for a long time to know how people are accomodative of other people’s beliefs. On my last India trip, I was attending my friends’ wedding in Kumbakonam, a temple town, my other buddy who is extra religious to the point of being insane, dragged me to a few temples and we could have also visited the famous Velankanni shrine (for Mary) if not for the distance. To add further, my buddy is a Dalit Hindu and he has been to all those places a few times by now.
In my college days, I used to spend my Christmas eating nice food along with other friends in my friends’ home. We typically goto his home for lunch (he’ll be back from Church by then) and then spend the evening in the nearby beach. It is as natural as anything else. I never felt like I’m playing a special part in some kind of communal amity stuff and I’m pretty sure my friend would have never felt it either. 🙂
Islam is NOT protected in American media. It’s criticized all the time on TV and in the press. Why else would ordinary, ignorant Americans feel so terrified of it and freak out at the first sight of a hijab or turban in public? It’s gotten a bad rap all over the world since 9/11. Much of it is not justified. Some of it is, just as a healthy skepticism of any religion is justified.
Hey. I don’t hesitate to bang the religious tolerance drum to zealous Christian and Muslim friends too. The fact is that kind of tolerance is the only way to have any kind of peaceful or harmonious existence in a world where people of different religious groups are going to have to live, work, and play with each other.
The problem comes when we cross the line from being tolerant of other religions to allowing them to walk all over you. The expropriation of revenues from mandirs but not mosques or churchs is a good example. That is blatant discrimination masking itself as secularism. That sort of crap simply should not fly. Ever. It’s like Joe Biden said: “When I got knocked down by guys bigger than me – and this is the God’s truth – she sent me back out and said, ‘Bloody their nose, so you can walk down the street the next day.'”
The key component of Gandhi’s idea of non-violent resistance was resistance. You cannot talk about tolerance and understanding as a reason to excuse injustice. You have to tackle injustice head on. The point of Satyagraha was not that we’re never supposed to hit back. The idea is that you fight back in such a way that you respect your adversary’s essential humanity. Sometimes that means actively working against your rivals’ objectives.
To sign off, I think the RSS/VHP should turn themselves into a Green Party, as the essence of Hinduism is nature worship. That would be the benevolent and non-violent way of getting back at the atrocities of Muslim extremists, as going Green would kick the bottom out of Saudi Arabia, and end the funding for terror.
You don’t win wars by an eye-for-an-eye strategy, you win it by changing the rules of the game.
That depends. If you’re bigger than them you do with with eye-for-and-eye since you’re much better at collecting eyes. Changing the rules of the game is what you do when you’re the little guy. So those “game changing” strategies are what India should be doing with China. With the rest of South Asia, though, pure power gets it done.
As for the green party bit, the BJP actually has a pretty decent environmental record (decent by Indian standards.) The Ram Sethu issue is a good example of them leveraging their cred with the religious community for environmental objectives. They will also be very key in curbing the deforestation around the Gangotri glacier that will eventually melt the source of the Ganga if it isn’t curtailed. I guarantee you the Congress won’t lift a finger to do anything about it. More general environmental issues that don’t have to do with sacred geography the BJP is not as good on, but neither are any of the other parties. The Coca Cola plant’s polluting the water in Kerala, for example, didn’t get much support from anyone in power.
136 · Dissociation said
Dissociation, You probably mean this cop ;