Lately, when reading some Indian publications on the web, I often see America portrayed as a dangerous jungle where Indians (especially students) get slaughtered left and right (and the race of the suspected murderer is always stressed in the article). Over the past year Anna has written here on SM about some DBD students who were the unfortunate murder victims of what were probably robberies (see here and here). Also, just last week a silicon valley CEO was killed by a disgruntled employee fired earlier in the day. All of these are really tragic deaths. However, to make the absurd leap of logic that Indians around the U.S. are being targeted is just ignorant. If all the victims were turban-wearing Sikhs and a terrorist attack has just occurred, THEN there might be reason to worry about this being a trend. But random crime in a large country does not a trend make. Enter the Atlanta-based “United States Hindu Alliance” who want something done:
Expressing concern over killing of Indian students and professionals in the US, a Hindu group in New York has approached the top American intelligence agency asking it to take steps to prevent such incidents.
In a letter to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the United States Hindu Alliance said it is “alarmed” by growing number of the killings, pointing out that there have been as many as five reported murders of Indian students and professionals in the past one year.
The letter, which was released by the alliance, also referred to the latest attack on 22-year-old MBA student in the University of Middle Tennessee Pulluri Shashank on November 16. He was shot but is reported to be out of danger.
The killings, it said, began at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge when two PhD students – Komma Chandrasekhar Reddy and Allam Kiran Kumar — were found dead in their apartment near the campus on December 14, 2007.
This was followed by the murder of Dr Akkaldelvi Srinivas, a second year medical student at Scranton University in Pennsylvania. Tummala Soumya Reddy, who was pursuing her master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at Southern Illinois University, was killed on September 22, 2008. Her cousin Vikram Reddy was also found dead near a lake in Chicago. [Link]
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p>I can’t find a website for USHA but I did find a statement by one of its founders (Gokul Kunnath) that may help to explain the psychology behind this request:
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Gokul Kunnath said that post 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US; Hindus became targets of racial hatred, violence, discrimination and abuse due to ignorance and misperceptions. There are one billion Indians, about 20% of the global population. The global Hindu diaspora is peace loving, and believes in pluralism and freedom of worship. Sadly it is being targeted for the wrong reasons. Hindus everywhere need to be proactive in safeguarding their interests. USHA will strive to empower Hindus everywhere through education, advocacy and activism. It will release an agenda of its concerns and problems and deliver it to the political representatives to resolve the issues in a bipartisan manner, he said. [Link]
I feel like this is tangentially related to Amardeep’s post from earlier in the week. I would be SHOCKED if the FBI decided to investigate any of these crimes. They are all local incidents and not part of some conspiracy. However, I can see how this “pro-Hindu” organization might be able to bring in donations from both here and abroad simply by writing this letter and convincing people that they are standing up for Indians/Hindus. I know that I risk coming across as overly cynical here. Maybe the folks in this organization truly are clueless and this letter is just an innocent token of concern. The alternative is that they are contributing to fear mongering and using the deaths of these students as a recruiting/fundraising tool for their organization (which is wrong no matter how innocuous the organization might be).
I don’t actually see an issue with this; the line that stands out to me is :
Thinking of ‘Hindus’ as a group being targeted, when none of the crimes shown religion or even ethnicity as a motivation – that shows some paranoia.
As was mentioned under the Yankee Hindutva post, the liberal space is being Hijacked by groups with Sangh affiliations. What business do these Hindu groups have in taking up field activism that has been a traditional vocation of the liberal sections with far more knowledge and experience? They are just cultivating a following and filling up a vacuum with the putrid hatred of Hindutva propaganda.
Abhi, I think you are being too idealistic here. Hindus have a right to be idiots too.
So you all would actually prefer that they NOT write to the FBI asking for a reduction in murders of students? I disagree that these murders/violent acts are unavoidable “local incidents.” The sample size is probably too small to derive meaningful statistics, but there have been a lot of such stories over the years. I think grad students coming from South Asia are probably more sheltered/unaccustomed to the ways of life in the US and so its not surprising if they end up being targets. The Hindutva in the USA movement can be scary but based on what I see here there is nothing offensive about this org’s efforts here. The efficacy of such efforts is another thing but this posting questions the intent, which is unfair.
2 · kayastha_lady said
The solution is simple ( humanities folks complicate the situation ) – for voluntary activities in subcontinent instead of religious organization why not volunteer/donate for organisations like VIBHA and ASHA And for religion just go to the nearby American temple.
Could it be the same alarmist instincts at work here (in this group and you) just being expressed in different ways? Healthy balance, I’d say.
For once imagine that a few muslim youth had been targeted, and an Al Qaida affliated ‘United States Muslim Organization’ had backed an investigation into religiously or racially motivated hate crimes. One different regression variable and everything changes. This goes to show how the administration goes soft on Hindu and Jewish terrorists because they are not a threat to global hegemony, and are infact even allies. The question of moral inconsitency doesn’t arise.
Poor persecuted Hindus. Being persecuted in India and now being persecuted in America. If only some nice folks from the neighborhood Vishwa Hindu Protection squad could do their thang like so many of the lovelies on the other thread would like…
Legally speaking, Soumya Reddy’s murder is probably going to be investigated by FBI since it is “across the state” crime. Interestingly the local police I believe is not releasing the autopsy report of that murder. As far as the other student murders ( UNC, Duke ) it has already been solved with the capture of the suspect. Well the most recent murder in Seattle was another Andhra student – Arpana. I think more than Hindu organization recruiting issue it is a concern of Telugu organizations since most of people murdered were from Andhra. This coincidence probably is scary. But one can question that logic since majority of techies/student from South India are from Andhra Pradesh. In fact US is opening a separate consulate in Hyderabad so that they don’t have to come to Chennai for visa.
The letter is unnecessarily alarmist, and, frankly, hyperbolic. This is a general issue of crime, it happens in all countries, and it’s pretty random crime, not crime specifically targeted at Hindus. The last time I was in India (which admittedly, was a long time ago), there was a murderer in Meerut, I think, hacking people to death. Seriously. I actually mentioned it to the people I was staying with and they laughed “don’t worry, nothing will happen to you.”
Students who come to the US should research the local crime statistics online and perhaps this Hindu group would do more good by helping students do that, and guiding them on where to live near campus and how to deal with campus crime.
Heh heh…An established defunct set-in-its-ways enterprise with obsolete solutions being threatened by an upstart kid working out of his garage and coming up with innovative solutions that the bureaucratic grey-heads at the enterprise cannot fathom.
I’ve seen this movie before. The kid wins. The enterprise crumbles.
M. Nam
Watching too many episodes of Criminal Minds and Numb3rs, I think we have enough data for FBI to poke their nose in and clear up if this is some serial killer or not. I would love to see this in one of thir episodes. I know, I know.
If this many american citizens had been shot within the same amount of time in India, I’m sure Americans or the American government would make a fuss.
This group is wasting its time. I asked the government for a “Iron Man” like suit to protect me from black people that want to kill me because I am of Indian descent and to my surprise they have not yet responded.
This is very serious Abhi. Not cool dude.
Yup, the letter is alarmist. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with their writing the letter or even forming such a group in the first place. If people are dumb enough to donate, that’s their loss. In any case, the group’s actions could generate positive externalities (eg. greater vigilance among DBD students and perhaps greater awareness of hate crimes against browns).
LOLZ!
Another thing clouding the perception of these killings is that people in India are geographically ignorant of the US. Have you ever been asked by a relative in India how you are coping with the fires in LA when you don’t even live in the same time zone?!
the US govt would probably issue a travel advisory, some congressman would probably be asked to comment on it by some people, and if a couple of blonde girls got shot, people over here in the US would be bombarded by news of it on CNN, FOX, 20/20, Dateline, etc (remember the Natalie Halloway case?)
I would suspect, on the basis of just my own paranoias, that there is a likelihood of increased racial crimes of all kinds, and particularly against Indian/Chinese people along the lines of the Vincent Chin type stuff. But really, how is this different from the crimes against Sikhs and Muslims and Hindus as well as the government discrimination? It’s just a more violent manifestation and is definitely not linked to just the last year or entirely conducted by poor working class White people or Black people, as the most common and even-more-unfounded-than-my-thoguhts assumptions go. So some simple questions that would help resolve why this group is probably problematic (thanks for digging up the link):
Why would Hindus be under attack AS Hindus? Wouldn’t they be more likely under attack as foreigners, others, brown people, perceived Muslims, perceived job-stealers, etc? This brings up: Why are Hindus and “one billion Indians” being equated? Indians and Hindus are not the same thing.
So in answer to whether it’s good or bad to respond to these things – well obviously, it’s great if people are willing to seek accountability and help people who are under attack, but the question is how they do it and with what ideology. In this case, it’s a “threatened Hindus” mentality and I agree with your cynicism, Abhi, that while they might genuinely be concerned for the people who are attacked, they’re using these incidents to promote something other than anti-discrimination. The very way in which they’re think fosters easy divisiveness, and it’s not the fault of “the left” – it’s their fault.
apparently these misperceptions are so severe that “they” are attacking hindus in grad student dorms instead of in temples, where the success rate would likely be higher. i hope gokul corrects this misconception among “them”.
I really don’t believe that Hindus are being targeted. But I have enough evidence to believe that South Asians particularly Indian students at city campus schools ( U Penn, Duke e.t.c ) are targeted by African American youths who live nearby. And it’s not just crime there’s a big element of hate involved too. Indians are easy targets because they come across as studious geeks who are effete and won’t not just retaliate but in many cases won’t even report to the police ( the latter has some truth to it). The hate comes from the part that another minority is coming over from overseas and suddenly financially leapfrogging those who have been here a long time.
also, i hope gokul kunnath can join up with the zedster to oppose such acts of terror against unsuspecting hindus as “love guru”. these are serious issues, and we need leading thinkers to courageously speak up about them. also here’s a fund raising suggestion: therapeutic jaunts for the jaded hindu to exotic locations such as gujarat and orissa with support for some stress relief aided by a machete and some torches. garv se kaho and all that, you know.
If there were a couple million Americans in India and some of them were murdered then I would not think Americans would be in a panic. In the US, for some reason alot of universites seem to be in the same neighborhoods as alot of public housing, so if graduate student are robbed from or worse then I am sure it is just the proximity that is the issue and not the race. If anything it should be up to the universities to make sure its students are well aware of the dangers that surround them and not that of the FBI or whatever agency.
If your a CEO and you layoff or fire someone than there is a chance of that person attacking you. What is race based about this simple equation. There is a reason alot of companies have security escort fired people out of the building.
I know in Englad from what I am told, every Indian person’s house has been robbed because it is known that Indian people keep alot of gold and jewlery in the house. If this is true then I can understand making a statement maybe at a temple’s or where ever alot of Indian people are at, but what the hell is the police going to do? Make a special protect the Indians only division of the police?
6/7 brownz people murdered over the past year were from Andhra and were students. The former category is probably coincidental but the latter clearly suggests some kind of spike in campus crime (if victims were living close to campus). The number 6 has to be compared with the total number of murders (of students living close to campus ) committed over the past one year to conclude whether this is random or whether brownz students have been unfortunate victims.
20 · Mr Samboa said
i wonder how jurys will respond to a hate crime charge in these cases. targeting a particular ethnicity would appear to be a hate crime, but the reason for the targeting is not bigotry presumably, but that an indian would be less likely to fight back (i assume). likewise, latinos are often targeted b/c illegals are less likely to report. bigotry?
would the mafia targeting fellow italians be considered a hate crime?
Here is the website where Gokul has made the statement which Abhi mentions in his post. From this website it is not clear whether Gokul’s statement is in reference to doing something about 7 brown-student killings but seems to be a general statement about post 9/11 anti-brown hate crimes. Though not clear why he calls it as anti-Hindu when it could have been brownz from any religion.
I think 90% of the folks on the other thread would label you pseudo-secular for suggesting something so risible.
This is not an issue of Hindus being persecuted and being targeted for being Hindus.
It is a crime and standard law enforcement issue. I don’t know if the objective of the organization is to help the families of these students obtain justice (which is a good thing), or use these incidents for their own agenda/visibility.
Keeping pressure on law enforcement and following is a good thing to do, using such incidents to leverage a particular agenda is not. I agree with MD – if the group is out to help, they may want to help inform/educate people. The Southern Poverty law Center has a map of where hate groups are operating, maybe some folks can score neighborhoods where colleges are located, aiding students when they’re still researching schools to apply to.
Correction, this was an unedited sentence.
Should read “This is not an issue of people being persecuted or targeted for being Hindu”
I sort of agree with Shallow Thinker. These crimes dont seem to target religion , race, or skin color. Rather, they seem to fall into one of the follow categories: Random, Rage/Frustration , Desperation/Robbery .
17 · brown said
Eh, that seems exaggerated but I could be wrong. The US has issued a travel advisory for women traveling to India, due to frequent incidents of Eve-teasing and even instances of gangrape, but you would have to dig the news to be aware of it.
Here’s a website called safe campuses now. I make no claims for it – I just googled campus safety and it’s the first thing that came up. I have no idea if it’s a good, or alarmist, or anything else, website, so don’t get too scared Moms and Dads who are reading and thinking about campus safety 🙂
26 · gba said
Really, 90%? It takes a certain kind of fundamentalism to reduce those who don’t buy your/Kayastha “Lady”/Prashad’s world view to the most unhinged Rediff commenter
32 · rebozo said
so we are just arguing on a number now? what’s your estimate?
Tonight in Dallas, at a reception for Vayalar Ravi, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs & Overseas Indian Affairs, a group made it a point to present Ravi with a packet containing their wishes for the Embassy and Indian Government to conduct and organize research on this issue, even so far as to involve CBI. Ravi agreed to present some of the ideas, like informing those studying in the States about safety precautions, but he shot down the global FBI involvement. Which, honestly, makes sense as it’s an impossibility.
The Southern Poverty law Center is of no use to Indians concerned about safety. The southern poverty law center gets its money from jewish americans and is preoccupied with white nationalist groups who are not the biggest threat to Indians studying in the US.
I think MD sums up my sentiment. While it might be a bit alarmist and even slightly trite for the group to write this letter, if they get the attention for it I hope that they find a way to help educate Indian students in their new environment. You hear of American college students falling victims to crime all the time. There are so many factors here, being out of the home for the first time, lack of real life experience that contribute to them being victims. Indian students I would think are even more susceptible to such crimes.
I don’t see anything wrong with what this ‘Pro-Hindu’ group is doing. I wouldn’t be a part of it but wouldn’t condemn it either. There are more ‘Pro- Christian’ and ‘Pro- Muslim’ groups that do things that rank much higher on the silly scale. I don’t see the reason why this particular group’s sillyness warranties criticism. There are more Muslims ‘donating’ money to Mosques that have their mullahs blatantly spewing hatred against non-Muslims.
Here’s an interesting theory – Know all the inter-racial(?) violence that happens in Andhra Pradesh? As in Kamma vs Kapu, Reddy vs Naidu and whatnots in the Rayalseema areas? These things are khandaani feuds extending over generations. One wonders if the some of the murdered were offspring of such khandaans. “We’ll find you even if you travel to the ends of the earth – and hunt you down” – That sort of thing.
35 · Magi said
Just so this crap doesn’t go unresponded to:
Try to leave the anit-semitism at the door 😉
It is a waste of time responding to name calling. It is in the best interests of Indian Americans not to be pawns of other groups. SPLC is conspicuously silent on the subject of attacks by blacks on white americans and asian americans.
18 · Dr Amonymous said
Right here in the US, when “Indians” or locally born desis talk among each other, the word “American” typically means a “white, christian” person. Other Americans of races like African/Mexican/Middle Eastern/Asian (Japanese, Chinese, Korean) or Indians are not what comes to the mind of most Indian people. In a similar manner, to most ordinary Americans (and this includes all races except Indian Americans) “Indian” typically means “Hindu” if they know something about Indian or it means “middle eastern turban head” if they know nothing about India. You might find 4000 people out of 300 million who know that many religions exist in India, but that’s pretty much it
This is probably the most vacuous post on this blog. This post is like some of the “news” that are there in our newspapers just to fill a particular number of pages. I am from seattle and I remember the case of the murder of Aparna Jinaga. Police did nothing to find the murderers. If only she were white blond it would have made a big splash across all the news channels. You have to see that police does not investigate deep enough for the cases like Aparna’s or other Indian students. It has nothing to do with Indian or Hindu. A pakistani muslim student or a russian orthodox murder would have suffered the same fate. This fact probably makes indian students(abundance in number in most of the US universities) a very easy target. They wont fight back and police wont look hard enough for the murderer. Talking about religion, if a muslim immigrant gets murdered you have to see how muslim organizations will try to link it to hate crime so that police will atleast look into such cases further. If a Hindu organization is trying to apply some pressure to get these cases investigated, I dont see whats the big deal? They are not claiming that those people were killed because they were hindus. Why do psuedo seculars get all worked up when hindu organizations try to deal with issues faced by Indians? Its a worthy cause and even if Black panther, KKK or MSA were pushing for such efforts, I would have supported the cause.
It is awfully naive to state Hindus are not targets abroad when Sikhs themselves are targets for no apparent reason other than the fact they were turbans. I have never seen an Arab or a Muslim to wear turbans yet Sikhs are classified as such.
In Australia, there have been hundreds of hate crimes against Indians, for no other reason but that they are different and from India, nothing more.
In the Natalie Holloway case by the way, it was proven the two Indian boys had nothing to do whatsoever with her murder.
I agree though US would have issued travel advisory if this many whites were killed in a short time in India. Or French, or German, whichever, in their country it would have front page news everywhere.
I am really proud to be Hindu that some of us still care for those and their plights abroad, whatever racism or bigotry or crimes they face.
I myself being an Indian have seen many acts of racism in the US, whether black on Indian, white on Indian, white on Chinese, etc. Even the media here writes in newspapers that “Indians in India perform the low level IT jobs in India.” I know this is not true, and so do the rest of you. Racism is a part of life….a Professor told a whole class, that “Indians are typing for the Americans” meaning India did not have its own ingenuity or inventiveness! We just follow the commands and genius of Americans. This would explain I guess why Pentium was created in India, Java, why the mentor for Google was Indian Rajeev Motwani, why even the ease of file sharing for Youtube was the brainchild of an Indian, and why India exports software to 90 countries and the world requires our ingenuity in a variety of software management programs.
Indians abroad: look up crime statistics before arriving, and take extra cautions whenever you can.