At the same time that one report mentions Sonal as a possible cabinet choice, Sonal seems to be under pressure as a member of the transition team as a couple of mainstream media outlets started to write about her.
I last posted about Sonal when she issued her statement, almost a month ago. In case, you’ve forgotten, here are the key things she said:
-
“my personal politics have nothing in common with the views espoused by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or any such organization”
-
“I’ve always condemned any politics of division, of ethnic or religious hatred, of violence and intimidation as a political tool”
-
“factually inaccurate internet rumors have attempted to link me to Hindu Nationalist groups through a variety of tenuous connections: Relief work I’m proud to have helped coordinate following the Gujarati earthquake of 2001 … “
-
“I do not subscribe to the views of such Hindu nationalist groups, and never have”
Since then, however, there have been four new developments (listed chronologically) in the continuing saga of Sonal Shah:
<
p>1 The general secretary of VHP-America said Sonal was a member of the governing council of the VHPA for three years. Her critics followed up with a link to the “VHP Governing Council & Chapter Presidents/Coordinators List” in 1998, hosted on Hindunet.org, which showed Sonal as a member of that group, and listed her US Treasury department email as a contact.
Sonal’s earlier statement stated that she was not a member of any Sangh organization in India and had implied that she had never been a member of the VHP-A, but had simply coordinated relief efforts after the earthquake. There was no response by her supporters, some of whom had argued outright that she was not a member of the VHPA, to this news.
2 The transition team announced that Sonal’s work is on the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform panel.
When I found out that Sonal would be working on tech issues, not foreign policy or personnel issues, I thought this would quiet criticism since it made her past affiliations less relevant. However, as with point #1, there was little acknowledgement of this from the other side.
<
p>
3
Former senator Rick Santorum wrote an editorial calling Shah “the elephant in the room” where he said:
Shah should condemn the VHP and its actions soon. If she doesn’t, keeping her on – or, more ominously, giving her a post in the new administration – would send the message that the president-elect does not think the VHP is a radical organization. And this is a president-elect who is trying to “change” the image of the United States in the Islamic world with a foreign policy more sensitive to Muslim concerns. [link]
Santorum is generally known for his extreme and intolerant views, so if matters had stopped there, I think she could have ignored the piece without much political cost. The problem is that Santorum’s remarks took the issue out of the desi context where it could be contained, and brought them to a wider audience.
4
A blogger at the National Journal picked up the story with a post titled “Shah Pick Stirs Widespread Controversy.”
The National Journal is a center-left publication, owned by the Atlantic, whose core audience is DC insiders. Given that context, a story which framed Shah as attracting criticism from the left and the right, and which stated that “the controversy could put to rest any speculation that Shah might be shortlisted for a top Cabinet job” must have been most unwelcome.
Note that neither Santorum nor the National Journal have picked up on the fact that she was a member of the VHPA governing council.This leaves Shah room to take the initiative, it also means that things could get more awkward for her.
Recently, Sonal sent out an email which said she was under pressure as a result of this publicity. This email has now been removed from the blog post where I read it earlier, and it seems that Sonal’s friends and allies are rallying to her side, encouraging her to stay on.
300 · jyotsana said
i think you should read the book, not spout out your prejudices on things amartya sen did not say in the book. of course, reading the book will require you to stop frothing, so maybe that’s not an option.
301 · Ennis said
The beautiful logic of Sangh apologists: “They are scum. We are noble because we are only doing what they do.”
And everything you say justifies Modi. Bad logic is the hallmark of the Right
That’s right. 🙂
Added to my earlier comment. Do you know the year when the riots were deadliest in Ahmedabad?. (Hint: it is not 2002).
Hindus and Muslims have been killing each other for a long time. It is not because of Modi.
This is a recent development, after Sikhs drank the magic potion from across the border. In most of its history, starting from 1925, the RSS has had a good relationship with Sikhs.
Historical context is not the strongest feature of this blog. But to be fair, blogging is not about history, it is reactionary journalism.
302 · liberal said
You should read a way lot more than Sen’s syrupy paperbacks. For a start you could read about those Martians I have been talking about, like those folk you seem to have no idea about Condell/Hitchens/Dawkins etc., But reading of course would require to sweep out the cobwebs from your mind, so maybe that’s not an option for the lazy parrot?
307 · jyotsana said
step 1: make a comment about sen’s book step 2: when asked to defend said comments, say that other books written by other people justify this comment i see the “logic”.
“consider”, like corleone made moe green an offer he couldn’t refuse 🙂 you fit the sangh apologist model to a tee.
G Subramaniam, are you using the term yardstick to mean a kind of three foot lathi to beat Sonal with or something used to take her measure against Muslim immigrants to India from Bangla Desh and Pakistan? In the latter case, are you saying these immigrants import biases/hostilities into India that are more harmful than what the VHP-A comes up with and brings to India??
i really wish i could live the life of charmed innocence that sonal shah seems to have led, believing in verdant grass fields with loping unicorns and dotted with rainbows, trusting in santa claus and the tooth fairy, and gifted with a complete lack of knowledge of the brazen doings of the vhp in india.
305 · Bleah said
I don’t know who told you that the RSS had a good relationship with the Sikhs. My grandfather never had a kind word to say about them, and neither have any of the Sikhs I’ve spoken to who were alive in that period. Yes, there was a period of accommodation, right around partition, but it was temporary and the result of a common challenge.
Where do you pick up your history? From RSS books? Have you bothered to ask any Sikhs how they feel about the RSS? My grandfather was a strict Indian nationalist, so slur against those who disagree with you doesn’t hold. What he couldn’t stand about the RSS was that they were assimilationist, saying that Sikhs were Hindus. This is the same grievance which caused the Sikh representatives to refuse to sign the Indian constitution.
If you’re going to be patronizing, you should at least have done a modicum of research, as in have talked to a Sikh about this issue.
The point here isn’t religion, it’s leadership in the American wing of the VHPA. Do you think that all muslim immigrants have a similar background?
My grandfather never had a kind word to say about them, and neither have any of the Sikhs I’ve spoken to who were alive in that period. Yes, there was a period of accommodation, right around partition, but it was temporary and the result of a common challenge.
What do you think about Tara Singh being one of the founders of the VHP ??.
I’m not thrilled by it. He was 79 at the time and died 3 years later. It’s not clear to me how deep his involvement was but he has gotten a lot of criticism for it within the Sikh community.
When I’ve asked, people tell me that the VHP of 1964 was also a very different organization from the VHP of the 1980s and beyond, but I don’t know how much of that is people making excuses.
I wonder whether this was a strategic move to try to gain support from Hindu Punjabis for Punjab state. If so, it failed badly.
Sikhs rights, or those of any group, should not be based on “Hinduness”, but Ennis & Camille I’ve always found it curious about how eager Sikhs are to minimize any connection to Hinduism. I agree with V. Prashad, on this rare matter, that Jainism/Buddhism did not descend from Hinduism (as defined by the VHP, apparently the only Hindu org he knows) but rather that Brahminical Hinduism/Jainism/Buddhism emerged from the same pot. But I’ve never understood why he directs this lesson to Hindus. Most Hindus schooled or otherwise recognize the non-Abrahamic religions of South Asia as strange yet familiar. If only because when someone says this is my god and he is in the form of a tree we don’t find it absurd, unlike Muslims/Christians. I am not “othering” them by saying this, simply stating a fact and reiterating their taxonomy of religions.
Why so?. A separate Sikh dominated Punjab was carved out in 1966. isn’t it?.
Rob & Ponniyan Selvan, I understand where you are coming from and I place blame for the growing popularity of the Hindu far right at the feet of the Left. But I don’t see the ascendancy of the VHP as being a good thing for Hindus, they will cause our brains to ossify. I compare it to VS Naipaul’s critique of the Vijayanagar dynasty, which while successfuly repelling Islamic conquest became “stuck” and just basically regurgitated anachronisms
this seems to a typical case of hindus/muslims/jews leaning toward democrats in u.s while they support the right wingers in their own countries. this, i believe, is more common among indians than anyone else – VHP gets most of the funding from usa, and yet they are mostly democrats. the true liberal/progressive ideals are generally transcendent across national boundaries, what this tells me is that these people are really conservatives, and being in the u.s and a minority, is just a convenient position for them. for example, there are plenty of ‘anti-war activists’ and ‘liberals’ among muslims in the U.S, but how many of them truly support the liberal views on gay rights and women’s rights? How do they view abortion, death penalty, etc? You would see most of them keeping a silence or leaning toward conservatives on those issues.
Can someone who is calling for an end to questions to Shah tell me how you reconcile that idea with the lack of forthrightness and in some cases truth in the statements she made and how many more questions than answers they pose?
I don’t understand this given that 3 is simply false and omits mention that she was on the governing board of VHP-A, and 1,2 and 4 mean either that she helped run an organization for three years whose views she didn’t believe in or they are false or there is some other explanation that I am not grasping.
Ennis – thanks for blogging this. Repeatedly. I’ve been sending links(under different id’s) to your posts to various people who I think can hopefully influence this administration against Sonal Shah’s appointment.
Of course, I personally think that Sonal Shah is a great pick. I just don’t want this upcoming administration to benefit from her wisdom.
M. Nam
318 · najeeb said
This is a good point Najeeb. The head of CAIR endorsed, as an individual, the Republicans in 2000. It was for their perceived support of traditional values. Most of that vote has now gone to Obama but their support is based on the idea that he will have a less aggressive posture towards the Muslim world rather than domestic social policy.
320 · MoorNam said
Niccolo bows to the master.
277 · newbie said
Interesting to see that above comment was made obviously when there were more than 300 comments, but because the Intern has been going around deleting several comments above poster’s comments goes to #277 making their statement factually inaccurate.
Ennis
Isn’t Akali Dal a major BJP ally? (The BJP being the political wing of the RSS?)
I just want to say up front, I’m 100% on board with Ennis on this one.
louciecypher, Sikhs are resistant to the constant attempts to assimilate them or recast the faith as a “sect of Hinduism.” It’s one of the most pernicious pieces of misinformation that goes out in the world. They’re not opposed to the idea that the faith originated or gained a following in the subcontinent. The distinction makes a HUGE difference. In my opinion, this is why there’s such a huge resistance to bringing up any religious history narratives that include Hinduism — it later gets twisted and utilized as a rationale/support for a political argument (i.e., that we are a sect) that most Sikhs find offensive because in its dishonesty.
jyotsana, I don’t care if there are organizations who are in favor of ejecting other groups from their state — I disagree with nearly all of them. Bad behavior on one end does not excuse it on the other, and the existence of previous moments of violence does not excuse someone from the harm they create when they provoke communalistic violence later. The Hutus don’t get out of blame for launching a genocide against the Tutsis, regardless of histories of problematic relations and colonial meddling in the political/ethnic system of Rwanda. I honestly do not understand how any decent human being could accept, support, or tolerate a policy of ejection, violence, and exclusion, let alone a political party that actively campaigns on that theme.
PS, there’s certainly a strong number of Sikhs who look at the separation of Haryana and Punjab not as a “carving out of a Sikh-dominated Punjab,” but rather as a second partition that sought to reify separation and Hindutva instead of Punjabi-ness.
324 · Lupus Solitarius said
I wouldn’t go by this, coalition govts. are purely practical. None of the major Tamil parties are ideologically sympathetic with the VHP but that does not stop them from forming alliances with the BJP. These regional parties win favor from the central govt. by delivering votes
Akali Dal has been politically irrelevant and corrupt to Sikhs and Punjabi Sikhs for at least 20 years. They still win votes, but largely for a lack of choice, not because of their platform or policies.
Electoral politics for Sikhs is an awful and stupid process. You can say we vote for X or Y party, but it’s not a good proxy for actual support. In the words of my nanaji, the difference between BJP and Congress is the difference between being shot or hung. The same feeling permeates across other parties, even those who claim to be Sikh-representing.
NO! It’s only bad behavior if they do it.
louiecypher, My point is that ultimately these political parties depend on the population for their votes. And if the RSS was indeed seen as a strongly hostile anti-Sikh organisation amongst most Sikhs, then no political party claiming to represent the Sikhs would touch it with a long bamboo stick. To give an example, the RSS IS considered strongly anti Muslim by many Muslims,and no self respecting Muslim political outfit will ever ally with the BJP. That is one of the reasons the Samajwadi Party is so anti-BJP, to keep it’s
mostimportant vote bank happy. The fact that the BJP- Akali dal stand elections together and do win sometimes to me is proof that not most Sikhs see BJP/RSS as strongly anti Sikh.Fair concern, but I’ll do my best to be a “liberalizing” force within VHP-A. 😉
No Sikh party would touch the RSS with a 10 foot pole right now.
As for the BJP, in the 1980s they promised to take up the issue of prosecuting the Congress party flaks who had been involved in the 1984 Delhi Pogroms.
In addition, yes, there are political alliances. Given that Congress and BJP are the two major parties, Sikh politicians have to ally with one or the other, or be made irrelevant.
320 · MoorNam said
I hope you keep up your devious efforts. Since your thinking is almost always ass backwards, you will be really helpful more often than not.
And then there was the Sidhu
PS, there’s certainly a strong number of Sikhs who look at the separation of Haryana and Punjab not as a “carving out of a Sikh-dominated Punjab,” but rather as a second partition that sought to reify separation and Hindutva instead of Punjabi-ness.
I don’t know the details of the partition of Punjab into Sikh Punjab and Hindu Haryana. I thought the demand was from the Sikhs and Nehru was adamant not to have another religious partition, it was only achieved after his death. So do you know the details??.
Remember it was the time when various states were created based on language and separation was not considered a bad thing.
That’s right. I don’t see it as good either. They are agitating for many causes that I don’t identify with (like Ram Setu / Ayodhya / cow slaughter etc.. etc..).
But I gotta do what I gotta do. Time to unite against jihad. 🙂
335 · Ponniyin Selvan said
good idea! since we all know communal violence is a winning strategy!
liberal/liberal parrot,
when you are called out for being a parrot stop parroting. simple. all that you have to do is to compare the syrupy apologetic of Amartya Sen on behalf of extremists with the crystal clear denunciation voiced by Dawkins/Dennet/Hitchens/Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Co. Simple read and then write. Don’t parrot and then parrot again. Better still quit reading rehashed trash fro mthe likes of Sen. It doesn’t take much, you just gotta read…
You must be analogically challenged to compare the work of a soul harvester or a an Anjem Choudhry (self-appointed Sharia Judge of UK who will not condemn 7/7 because it was committed by Muslims or the Hyderbad thug one of whom is an MP no less who thinks it is OK to thrash Taslima Nasrin) with an interpretation of faith in a different tradition. You fit the jihadophilic appeasing compromiser model to a Tee. Nice work! But do read Dawkins and watch Pat Condell, you may actually learn something!!
Nearly? That’s interesting! I hope you now realise that there have been a number of such officially sanctioned movements of exclusion all over India for years. That is not the norm but there is an ebb and then a flow every now and then. You manage to get the creation of Punjab/Haryana exactly backwards. Check out MJ Akbar’s “India the Siege Within” for the details. That’s a journalist both of us can agree with right? For one so concerned with reification how come you aren’t concerned about the reification of Sikhism itself? India does not have religion or at least in the sense of the doctrine/faith/belief based Abrahamic traditions. For many Hindus including this one there is only a very hazy line – if at all – between “isms” of Hindu/Buddha/Jain/Sikh. There may be certain things we observe more often than certain others. The Guru Granth Sahib continues to be kept at home by many Hindus of Punjab and Sindh, as a matter of tradition, and also at the home of this Hindu. The tradition among some Hindu families of bringing up the first son as a Sikh continues. Since there is a lot of un-PC details to it, we will take it up later. So are you going to appoint some thought/religious police to control and stamp out these traditions? And what is this Hinduism/Brahminism that we are talking about here? If I were you I would be more concerned with soul harvesters in Punjab pulling a fast one in the style of the “Jews for Jesus” racket. In that Naam Simran becomes “In the beginning there was the Word and Word was with God”. BTW Sikhs in India aren’t confined to any particular party so there isn’t any Sikh vote bank. There are Sikhs in the BJP, Congress, Akali Dal, commies, and even the Shiv Sena. The current ties between the BJP and the Akali Dal go back to the days of the Emergency, which is where the RSS and the Jamaat-e-Islame-Hind too came together. It is an insult to the intelligence of the Indian electorate to be patronised with such poorly developed Right-Left political models imported from Europe and the US.
And since when did V.Prashad become an expert on the many religions he holds forth on? What is this brahminical Buddhism/Jainism he is blabbering about?
Camille: I understand the distinction. No one is going to argue that Christianity and Judaism are the same religion, though every serious scholar of Christianity looks at the origin of that faith through the prism of the Judaism at that time. There was Hinduism in Punjab 500 years ago and the early adherents of Sikhism came from this background. I find it telling that you can’t even seem to allow this point.. you seem to feel that Sikhism merely originated in South Asia and that’s all that it has in common with Hinduism. I think this is hyperbole, Sikhism as a Hindu sect is the most pernicious piece of misinformation? Compared to what? While I accept that it is not true, please tell me what great tragedy has befallen the Sikh people based on this? Were the directors of the anti-Sikh pogroms motivated by a desire to humble a breakaway sect? Where do you put this on the scale of misinformation between “You can die from eating poprocks and drinking coke at the same time” and the Blood Libel does this fit?
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Simultaneously inclusive and othering
Are we still on Sonal?
Ennis & Camille, There are Sikhs who consider their faith to be completely outside the realm of Hinduism and there are Sikhs who do see a connection between the two. This is specially true in India and probably less true in US/Canada (going by all the Khalistani posters i have seen in gurudwaras in the americas). There are Hindu families (Sindhi & Punjabis)who have direct Sikh relatives. In India, you will see Sikh worshippers in temples and Hindu worshippers in gurudwaras. In fact even now many sindhi gurudwaras in India have a sikh priest but the worshippers are primarily Hindus.
Is there and has there been tension between RSS and Sikh organizations. Ofcourse it has and will continue to be. But it is also true that Sikhs abroad – maybe due to identity issues – have tried to drive more of a wedge between the two communities than is true on the ground in India. I have a liberal Sikh friend who got radicalized while here in US but is now back to original himself after going back to India.
(Kloser, for the record, there were not 300 posts when i asked the intern to shut it down. It was just an approximation. I just get frustated on this issue because we have the same repeat performance from posters – perhaps even from me. Not sure if one person has changed their mind on the issue at hand)
This is going into nitpicking space, but there is nothing else one can do when goalposts change.
I was responding to:
You say now:
I don’t consider your latter statement as supporting hostility. Sikhs were part of RSS shakhas before the Khalistan movement. Even now, the BJP has an electoral partnership with Akali Dal. The BJP has Sikh MPs, and it was the BJP and RSS who stood up to the Congress goons during and after the Delhi riots. I consider all this an indication of cordial relations.
I also don’t consider the RSS assimilative, in the sense of asking to “become one of us”. It doesn’t ask anyone to give up their other identities and follow Hinduism. The RSS says everyone living in India is part of Hindu culture, but people have other identities beyond that. I consider that approach integrative, rather than assimilative. You can quibble about this, but that doesn’t amount to hostility in my book. Hostility is when someone says only their identity is right, other identities are wrong, and have no right to exist. Then there is no meeting ground, which is clearly not the case between RSS and Sikhs in India. Though, given your experience, I am not sure about the Sikhs in this part of the world.
No, I picked up history by being alive before 1970. And yes, also by speaking to elders. You are right that I haven’t spoken to older generation Sikhs about their feelings towards RSS, but that’s not something you ask when you see Sikhs in shakhas. Things changed after 1980s, but not because of the RSS.
337 · jyotsana said
because you told me to, you pompous bilious frothing idiot? when you are called a pompous bilious frothing idiot, stop being bilious and frothing. idiocy seems more deeply ingrained, so i won’t ask you to eliminate something that you can’t.
when you call what the rss/vhp does “consideration”, it says that all one needs to know about you.
keep frothing and perpetuating the cycle of hate. that seems to be the only thing you’re good at.
has sonal shah been kicked to the kerb yet?
soul harvesting is the most hilariously and paranoically eerie sounding concept ever. ooga booga!!!!
Ok, as I was going to come back and agree with you on ONE of your points Ennis, I see that my previous post has been erased. Thanks for that. I won’t even bother.
343 · liberal said
I don’t care for the loser strain of Hindutva. They may have some legit grievances against the central govt over the control of Hindu temple revenues & charities, but trying to outlaw or prevent conversion is ridiculous. If they cut it out and made the tribals a better offer, i.e. supported their indigenous religious practices/languages and provided them with education & health without strings it would be far better than what the Baptists have on tap. Not to mention the anthropologist who are the only other group you find out there would suddenly be singing the praises of the Hindu groups and they tend to drink with their journo buddies.
Maybe. But Israel is trying it too.
Not really. Why are the rich Israelis worried about conversion? Even Catholic churches in Kerala are worried about Evangelical conversions. This is a much more complex issue than money, though the credit crunch should see the evangelical ethusiasm dropping a bit.
Port, interestingly, I’ve told a few (well, 5 so far) of my posher friends that I joined a “Hindu nationalist movement” and they, to a person, responded with the sentiment that that was “cool.” Again, I think to be surprised at this fact is to misleadingly conjoin campus politics with American politics. Apparently, academics these days ranging from Vijay Prashad to Martha Nussbaum are slandering Hindus, and too many youngsters are getting brainwashed into believing this claptrap. But, your average American views Hindus as (1) model minority and/or (2) as co-equal victims (of That Which Must Not be Named), and not as bad guys at all. Also, keep in mind that the posh set stateside includes a lot of Jews, and they tend (in my experience) to be quite aware of the Hindu right/Israel affinity.
liberal
It sure is
and india should become a theocratic state too.
i agree, intimidation and violence are what these losers resort to, because conversion at least offers some of these communities the hope of leaving the caste system – however meaningful that might be, whereas the hindu orgs could win their hearts and minds by providing tangible services that would actually help them.. but that would be too hard. much better to whinge about pamphlets and soul harvesting to defend the vhp as the losers here do.
348 · Lupus Solitarius said
and those who fear it are as crazy as those who work towards it.
347 · rob said
so it is moral as long as your elite buddies ok it? interesting.