Maybe it’s because I live in L.A. and everyone here is working on the latest greatest movie/script/t.v. pilot but I have a great idea for a docu-travel-reality show.
Picture this: As South Asians have slowly immigrated over and made their mark on America, they have also brought along their iconographic image of Mahatma Gandhi. The bronzed image of a walking and robed Gandhi, stick in hand, has been popping up all across the U.S. recently with a statue in almost every major city. Each statue erected has a unique associated story, for the most part an active first generation Indian American community rallying for a statue in their adopted hometown.
1. Riverside, CA: I started thinking about this when I literally stumbled across a Gandhi statue in front of City Hall in downtown Riverside, CA. The statue is surrounded by quotes, and plaques with Desi names surrounding it. I learned later, the local Muslim community was in uproar about the statue getting put up. A compromise was eventually reach.
Among the concessions the city was willing to make were naming a street beside the local mosque after a Muslim leader, and considering a sister-city relationship with a Pakistani city. Currently, the city has a sister relationship with Hyderabad, India.[rediff]
2. San Francisco, CA: On the Embarcadero, the statue is located right behind the Ferry Building by the trash dumpsters.
The statue was given to the city in 1988 by the Gandhi Memorial International Foundation, “a controversial non-profit organization run by Yogesh K. Gandhi,” who Gandhi family members claim was a “scam artist” and the White House called “clearly disreputable” when he asked to visit. Then in the 1990’s Yogesh then was the subject of an investigation, and the US Dept of Justice charged him with tax evasion, mail and wire fraud and perjury. The Foundation continued for a few years but then ran into more legal troubles as they found out Yogesh still had his hands in things.[yelp]
3. NYC, NY: At the southwest corner of Union Square, the statue was added in 1986, to mark Union Square’s history of social activism.
4. Atlanta, GA: A match of non-violent leaders, the statue is at the MLK Jr. Historical Site.
“A statue of Mahatma Gandhi was unveiled at the Martin Luther King Jr. Historical Site in Atlanta on January 24, 1998. This historical event, taking place in the course of the 50th anniversary of India’s independence, was made possible by sustained and concerted efforts made by the National Federation of Indian-American Associations (NFIA), along with the enthusiastic support of the National Park Service of the U.S. …The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) donated the statue, which was sculpted by Mr. Ram Sutar of New Delhi.[indianembassy]
5. Skokie, IL: Once a Jewish community, the city is Abhi’s birthplace and home to a rich diversity of 80 languages spoken in the home. The 8-foot statue was dedicated on the 135th anniversary of his birth. [sepiamutiny]
6. Milwaukee, WI: On your way to Summerfest, you can now swing by the Milwaukee County Courthouse. The statue was placed in 2002, and is “…being donated by the Wisconsin Coalition of Asian Indian Organizations. The group is raising $50,000 to pay for and maintain the statue. County Board members recently accepted the donation of the statue… According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Asian Indian population in Milwaukee rose 49% over the last decade, to 2,313 from 1,551.”[rdn]
7. Houston, TX: In Hermann Park, the 6-foot statue was “…sculpted in India by renowned artist Ram Sutar, has been gifted to the citizens of greater Houston by the Indian government as a gesture of goodwill and friendship.”[sepiamutiny]
8. Washington D.C.: Located in Dupont Circle in front of the Indian Embassy, it took a Congressional authorization to establish this monument in 1997. Then President Clinton gave the dedication speech.
9. Cleveland, OH: The Indian Cultural Garden in Cleveland was unveiled in October 1, 2006 with an unveiling and dedication of the Mahatma Gandhi statue. Who was at the event? Special guest seen in the photo stream linked here was Dennis Kucinich and his much younger wife.
10. Liberty State Park, NJ: The local Federation for Indian Organizations has been campaigning to erect a statue in the park since 2008.
12.High Point University, North Carolina.
13. SOKA University, Mission Viejo, CA.
14. Cal State University, Fresno, CA.
16. International Peace Gardens. Salt Lake City, Utah.
18. UNF. Jacksonville, Florida.
19. Charlotte, North Carolina.
20. James Madison University, Virginia.
21. Lake Eola Park. Orlando, Florida.
National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, TN.
Mahatma Gandhi Community Center, Houston, TX.
H. Lee Dennison Building, Hauppauge Hamlet, Islip, NY.
Millsaps College, Jackson, MS.
26. Mahatma Gandhi Center, St. Louis, MO.
The Life Experience School, Sherborn, MA.
Honolulu Zoo, Honolulu, HI.
Gandhi, King, Ikeda Peace Exhibit, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA.
City Park, Denver, CO.
I have counted fifteen — scratch that, THIRTY — statues scatter all across the U.S. and I am pretty sure there are plenty more that I have missed. I am fascinated by the communities that have raised the funds, the stories behind the sculptors, the photos of the inaugural events. For the most part, the statues have all been put up in the past fifteen years, a time where the first wave generation of immigrants have turned into elderly auntie and uncles that are of donor/giving back age, and this is how they chose to make their American mark. They chose to mark their American dream with a bronzed statue of Gandhi in their adopted hometown.
I find something poetic and bizarre about the whole thing. I don’t know much about Gandhi, but I do think the development of the iconography of Gandhi-the-person to Gandhi-the-bronzed-6-to-9-foot-statue somehow to me seems counter intuitive for what he believed in. This could also be because I was raised in a religion where idolatry was deeply discouraged, and the physical image of our prophet was never to be turned into an idol or icon, thus, not existing. Gandhi wasn’t a prophet, but he is revered. And here we are in 2009, with multiple Gandhis bronzed and larger than life. Maybe that’s why I find the propensity of these statues popping up in the U.S. right now as an identifying marker of hyphenated political collective identity for the South Asian American community so fascinating. It’s a part of our living history, undocumented and in the raw. Or freshly cast bronze.
What do you think, Mutiny/producers/investors? I’m sure there are other statues that you have probably heard about that I’ve likely missed (I’d appreciate links to them in the comments). It would be the ultimate road trip to hit up each of the cities the statues are in and converse with the community that initiated the effort. And I have the perfect South Asian American docu-travel-reality host for it.
You would have to cross the sea on your road trip to see the Gandhi Statue in Honolulu
Usually the argument says he gave too much to “Muslims” but really it’s the accession to the Muslim League, a specific political party, that was the problem. Essentially he acknowledged the Muslim league as speaking for Indian Muslims which later gave them the authority to push for partition.
On top of that the fact that he and the rest of the Congress leadership consistently bent over backwards to accommodate the Muslim league while undermining and ignoring the Hindu Mahasabha kind of set up the tradition of Indian secularism as being more about which religious group has political power than a principled stand about separation of spiritual and temporal authority.
My personal opinion is that most of the complaints come in only after the benefit of hindsight. In his shoes it’s hard to say he wouldn’t have done the same thing. Independence for the freedom fighters wouldn’t have seemed as much of a fait accompli as it does to those of us reading about it in our history books.
Oh yeah! There’s a bust of him in Lake Eola Park in Orlando, FL. (The only link I could find was this: http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/1663R-27391)
Last comment, I promise: I found a list of 19 statues here: http://gandhism.net/gandhistatues.php
Well, two examples would be (1) allying with the Khalifat movement in 1920 and (2) starting a fast “unto death” not to prevent Partition but, rather, to make sure Pakistan got its share of the British India Treasury, even after Pakistan had attacked India.
Gandhi statue in Moscow, Russia.
A well-captioned, authentically Moskovski photograph of the same.
While searching for a web-based image of that statue, I found this tidbit on the Wikipedia page for him:
Gandhi bust from St.Louis, Missouri representing.
In looking for the Gandhi bust in St.Louis I came across this site, Waymarking that shows the location of Statues of Historic figures.
Wow…I never knew there were so many statues of Gandhi in US!
It is sad that some people of the Pakistani community protested against it (Taz, I believe all Muslims don’t think alike…Indian and perhaps Bangladeshi Muslims wouldn’t think in such hostile way necessarily). I read through the rediff article that Taz had provided: it says ” (Jamil) Dada was part of a group of Pakistanis who blamed Gandhi for failing to prevent the deaths of Muslims during Partition”. It is ironic that they protest honoring the man who started the fast unto death to stop this ridiculous process of partition and the haphazard way it was being executed. If anyone should be blamed, it should be Mountbatten, Jinnah (definitely) and Nehru (for poor execution). And the thousands of death’s of Hindus are immaterial ?
Its also very ironic, that iGandhi went and took stand more of a pro-muslim stand during numerous riots (some prelim in a really old nytimes article found here). Wherever there were communal tensions, he would walk in to calm it, even where the law-enforcement people were scared to step in. I never recall Jinna stepping out of his comfortable mansion to save poor souls of any religion.
The Pakistani people who did this must be really ignorant! After all, isn’t Gandhi’s tireless work responsible for Pakistan’s independence too !
He didn’t fast against Partition; sorry.
well, they possibly finally show him what’s what with that godse guy, so… yippee?
he was leveraging its forces in the greater war against british imperialism, muslims were a substantial part of the population and their support during the non-cooperation movement due to gandhi’s alliance with khilafat was crucial.
in fact, it is well known that gandhi had been strongly against partition for a long time, and with other precursor proposals, but it was people like patel who convinced him this was the only possible choice. after that, his fast unto death was crucial in ending the communal violence, and in the light of such widespread violence, his logic with the treasury funds was specifically to prevent lasting enmity between hindus and muslims by denying pakistan the previously agreed monies.
it is truly perverse and ahistoric to accuse gandhi of conceding too much to muslims.
Regarding partition, he said “Before partitioning India, my body will have to be cut into two pieces.” Well, he did go on a hunger-strike in order to try to stop the violence during partition, according to bbc, and Hinstory.com.
More glimpses of Gandhi’s effort from communal harmony from Time.
Right; and to make sure Pakistan got its share of the British-India Treasury; but, he did not go on a hunger-strike vs. Partition; he acceded to Partition, in spite of his long-standing disapproval of it.
Well, you’ve got an excuse for everything, but the Khalifat movement had nothing to do with South Asia qua South Asia; it was a pan-Islamic fundamentalist movement (more like, well, you know. . .). Even the Muslim League was against it.
I’m not radically opposed at all to the “ahistoric” charge; Yoga Fire said as much above. It’s difficult to put ourselves in that time, when India was, after all, a British colony–absolutely. “Perverse”–I don’t think so–Gandhi gave in to the people making the biggest threats–100’s of thousands of deaths, maybe a million, caused by Partition were worth the glories of the modern Pakistani state?! (Granted, you’d have to take account of increased death from inter-communal violence had India not been partitioned, but–let’s be honest, your much-vaunted Gujarat riot death-toll pales in comparison to Partition’s toll.
I wondered how long it would take to get there. Jinnah is now the arbiter of what’s right for the Indian subcontinent?
Every other mainstream political leader was against Gandhi when it came to Partition, and thanks to Jinnah’s acquiescence to communal electorates, the genie was out of the bottle.
Yes, Khilafat, which led to widespread muslim participation in the non violent non cooperation movement = Al Qaeda. Good stuff!
Either that’s a non-sequitur or it isn’t. I wonder which interpretation I should choose.
Not for everything, rob.
Apparently that’s the view of our ever-so-lovely South-Asian diaspora writ-large–that’s why they had to name a street after him in Chicago!
I’m no Gandhi-hater (though I’m definitely a skeptic of his lionization); I stepped in to answer why some people are against him. I do wish he had done a hunger-strike against Partition rather than to make sure Pakistan got its $$, but perhaps that’s too “presentist.”
Yeah, different tactics, 90 years apart = different ideology. Good stuff, dhimmi!
This is typical of the indian “liberal” doublethink and doublespeak that has made ruined the intellectual atmosphere of india
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moplah_Rebellion This thread had been brought up several times before, and it has also been pointed out previously that the Moplah Massacres of Hindus was one of the expressions/byproducts of the Khilafat movement.
Politically, I feel India would have been better off without Gandhi. He was shrewd, and the position that he built up his movements to was remarkble. But his lack of clarity in the big picture, and a bad endgame led to disasters.
Look at his movements one by one. Look at his primary and secondary objectives. See how each movement ended. In the cases were it ended sucessfully, see if the gains made were durable. The results are not kind to Gandhi
Since Khilafat movement is being talked about, I’ll use it as an example.
Stated: To restore the Ottoman Caliphate (No Kidding.) End result: Abject Failure. The movement was held even as Turkey was moving away from the Caliphate and an Islam based society.
Indirect: As a faith building exercise to establish closer ties with the muslim community End Result: Short term sucessful in obtaining a voice in the muslim leadership Long term: 1. weakened the positions of the more moderate Muslim leareship of the time. Many of these modeate leaders subsequently became more fundamentalist (most prominaently Jinnah). 2. relations became much worse than before the movement (since Gandhi called off his support after Chauri Chaura, it was considered a betralyal by the leaders of the Kilaphet movement) . For instance the Ali Brothers, who led the Khilaphet movement promoted seperate electortes and are considered one of the founding fathers of Pakkistan.
Strategically, the support of the Kilhafat movement became a collosal blunder in the medium and long term.
Dizzy Desi,
Good analysis. This is information that I didn’t know about before. Not that I agree with your analysis of Gandhi, but its interesting all the same.
I think Gandhi’s critics are much too hard on him — granted that he shut down other leaders like Subhash Chandra Bose, and Savarkar (to name a few), but it was his moderatism and middle-of-the-road approach that made ordinary Indians rally behind him. Bose, Bhagat Singh, and Chandrashekhar Azad were polarising figures that the British refused to do business with. Honestly, think of the implications if the Indian National Army had come to the forefront of the freedom struggle. Taking on the British militarily would have been foolish, to say the least. I also think that 1857 had something to do with Gandhi’s approach to the freedom struggle.
Not very articulate since I am at work and short of time!
I have been told from childhood through history textbooks in India that Khilafat movement is a just struggle against British imperialism.
So finally I tried to learn what it is and found that Khilafat movement is a movement as the name indicates (Indian term for Caliphate) that strives to restore the Turkish Caliphate that was on the verge of dismantlement by the allied powers because Turkey was on the losing side in the First world war.
On further reading it looks like in the first world war Arabs were fighting along side the Brits (Lawrence of Arabia) to overthrow Turkish imperialism from their lands. It is a shock to me that Gandhi was actually supporting the Turkish imperialists rather than the Arabs whereas he is opposing the British imperialists in India.
On further reading it looks like the only caliphate the Khilafat movement in India established was the caliphate in the Moplah regions of Kerala where the Muslims took the cue and and some dude claimed himself as the caliph and went on to treat the non Muslims (esp. polytheists / idolators) according to the religious scriptures. 🙂
I admire Gandhi, but Khilafat movement is probably the biggest disaster for him and the Indian independence movement.
Waiting for Nilufar to make her divine appearance on this thread…
The opposition is due to envy over their not having any founding fathers of global appeal. We’re not going to see Jinnah in an Apple ad anytime soon. That being said I would have preferred that India had a pragmatist instead of an inspirational figure. I fault Gandhi for idealizing village life….what charm do educated elites find in non-mechanized dry farming? I also fault Gandhi for not promoting the necessity of modern education (due to same romanticizing of village life) and opposing birth control. But I no longer fault him over Partition, it was inevitable and he did all he could to try to minimize the violence
Ha ha. I too have read these textbooks. I first started hearing different from foreigners, Muslim sympathizers even. Later there was all this debate, or should I say criticism, about the BJP rewriting the textbooks. Well, if the textbooks were slanted one way, they definitely needed to be rewritten. I don’t know what the textbooks look like now or even what the BJP textbooks looked like. But surely a textbook, like the one I had where Muhammad bin Tuglak was depicted as just another good king when in fact he was a complete megalomaniacal nutcase, needs a rewrite.
Rob,
I think Hindutvadis should come out of the ‘partition is bad – mindset’ . It is the best thing to have happened to India. If you look at the alternatives like the Cabinet Mission Plan, which is nothing but Hindus voluntarily accepting the dhimmi status in post British India you’d figure that partition is the best deal and that’s why Nehru, Patel and Gandhi were for it.
Yes, Ponniyin, good point. Perhaps you are right. That diversity of thought on so many important issues is part of what makes our movement so valuable. I am constantly learning. 😉
Ponniyin Selvan: Thanks for pointing it out. If partition has not happened, India would have had 30 – 35% religious minority. With due respect to everyone I shudder to think how things would have turned out. Democarcy? Military dictatorship? or Totalitarian communism? As such India and Pakistan can not stand each other outside their borders. How would they have fared under one roof?
I think that we can’t judge from the present time and reason backwards as to whether Partition was a good or bad thing.
“As such India and Pakistan can not stand each other outside their borders. How would they have fared under one roof?”
The whole reason for Indo-Pak tension has to do with the borders drawn at Partition and because of the dispute over Kashmir. Also, because of the fact that it serves the interests of a large portion of the Pakistani establishment to define themselves as the “anti-India.” If Partition hadn’t happened, then these border disputes would never have occured, so this tension wouldn’t have existed (which is not to say that tension caused by other things wouldn’t have existed). Also, India still has more Muslims than Pakistan so I don’t understand why people think having 30-35% religious minority would have been such a bad thing.
Also, just to correct the impression that Jinnah was in favor of Partition all along, it is important to remember that the League accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan, which would have prevented Partition. It was Congress which rejected this proposal. Anyway, I think blaming one party or the other for Partition is counterproductive.
Ponniyin, I agree that partition has turned out to be a blessing in disguise for India in the short to medium term, for reasons that are plainly obvious. However, partition was a civilisational loss. A long term vision for the geographical and spiritual reclamation and reconstitution of Akhand Bharat is essential in the philosophy of Hindutva. It may not get us back those lands, but it will ensure that we hold on to what we currently possess.
Suketu Mehta is working on a new translation of Gandhi’s autobiography. Mehta: Once, I was telling my father how I think The Story of My Experiments with Truth is really not well written, how it’s long-winded, even if the material is certainly fascinating. My father said, “But it’s really beautifully written. It’s really elegant and concise.†I said, “We’re not talking about the same book.†He said, “Which one are you talking about? I’m talking about the original, in Gujarati.†Then we compared the Aatmakatha with the English version. This book was written in the salad days of the century and it was translated by two of his political secretaries—Mahadev Desai and Pyarelal—who were very good political secretaries but not necessarily good writers in English. Gandhiji did look over the translation and corrected it, but, you know, he had a few other things on his mind, like leading a country to independence! Llink
re #41: shaad, thanks for the detailed reply.
That’s right. That’s why I said
No wonder Jinnah and Maulana Azad accepted CMP while Nehru and Patel opposed it and Gandhi later joined in the opposition.
I’d phrase it as praising instead of blaming.
Ok, I don’t know a lot about the intricacies of the Cabinet Mission Plan but I think the characterization that “Hindus would accept dhimmi status” sounds extremely biased.
Also, this Akhand Bharat idea is (IMHO) completely out there. It’s rhetoric like this that lends credence to the Pak army’s contention that India “wants to swallow us up”. While I very much wish that Partition had not happened, and that Indian Muslims had not been insecure that British Raj would necessarily become “Hindu Raj,” unfortunately Partition did occur and now we have three indepenent nation states on the Indian subcontinent. In my opinion, India and Pakistan should solve the Kashmir dispute and work towards being peaceful neighbors and creating a prosperous South Asia. Maybe in the future, once the animosity has died down, someone can propose an EU type union of South Asia, while leaving the individual countries some sovreignity over their internal affairs. After all, France and Germany hated each other for centuries, and now they’re part of a union. There’s no reason why India and Pakistan can’t eventually get to that stage too.
Kabir: I like the tone of your post (may be the content too). When I came to America many moons ago, the first thing I noticed was how open the borders are between Canada and U.S. and how peacefully they coexist. I wished India and Pakistan to emulate this model of neighborliness.
apples and oranges, Hoi.
Thanks hoi polloi:) I really think it’s time for us to get over this whole “India vs. Pak” thing. After all, when in the dispora, Indians and Pakistanis get along really well together, much better than Pakistanis get along with say Saudi’s or other Middle Easternerns, how can we deny that in many ways we are the same people? A Punjabi from Lahore has a lot in common with a Punjabi from Amritsar, perhaps more in common than the Amritsar-walla has with someone from say Chennai. So this whole Indian vs.Pak thing is totally socially constructed and I feel we need to get over it by focusing on our similarities as South Asians rather than our differences.
re #84: kabir, whilst i understand your point and your optimism, i think you’re mixing two things: the “south asia” of the diaspora and the south asia of south asia. the diaspora is not the geographical south asia. sitting in foreign lands and not having to face the realities there -whether they be in pakistan or india – and coming under the influence of whatever factors are in play in south asia. it’s easier for the diaspora to focus on their similarities in cushy circumstances where all south asians are generally the minority. and it is laudable. i’m not saying that it’s not possible in the geographical south asia, but it certainly is much harder to accomplish given the ongoing events there. mainland chinese and taiwanese may get along in the diaspora, but there are real thorny political problems back home.
also, while i understand your comment about how much punjabis across the border have in common compared to what they have in common with the deep south or northeast of india, india is not punjab alone, neither is pakistan punjab alone. sometimes i find those sorts of statements dismissive of the rest of india and their worries, although i know it’s not meant that way in the least.
Whose God it is anyway, I totally agree with you that it’s much easier to focus on our similarities in the diaspora then in South Asia. But I think we can at least start here: Sepia is a disapora-oriented blog so I think it would be nice if we could discuss issues here as South Asians rather than strictly as “indians” or “pakistanis”. Too many threads descend into sort of blanket “Paki-bashing” forgetting all the nuances of South Asian history.
And the Punjabi thing was just an example. I was just trying to say that there are other identities other than “indian” or “pakistani” that are important to a lot of people. Speaking from a Pakistani point of view, one could even argue that there isn’t really a “Pakistani” identity: people think of themselves as Punjabi, Sindhi, Pathan, etc first and then as Pakistani. I know that a lot of Indians also think of themselves as Punjabi, Tamil, Gujrati, etc. before thinking of themselves as Indian (which is not to say there aren’t people who think of themselves as Indian first).
This is news to me. From what I’ve heard, Pakistani-Americans (and Bangladeshi-Americans) tend to identify as “Muslim Americans,” rather than “South Asian Americans.”
Also, I’ve heard rumors about clashes between Indian and Pakistani immigrants in the UK. I don’t know if they’re true, but they poke a hole in your idea that “Indians and Pakistanis get along really well in the diaspora.”
TTCUSM, I can’t claim to speak for all Pakistanis in the diaspora, but my family clearly identifies as South Asian American, and not “Muslim American”. In fact, most of our friend circle is desi and not Middle Eastern or Muslim. My point is that beyond religion, what do Pakistanis and Saudis or Jordanians (for example) really have in common? Most Pakistanis don’t speak Arabic, but with Urdu we can easily communicate with Hindi-speaking Indians. Pakistanis and North Indians have similar cuisine, clothes, and culture, so we relate much better than Pakistanis and Middle Easterners. Again, this is from my experience, and I can’t generalize to all Pakistani-origin people everywhere. But I feel that as long as we don’t have overtly political discussions, about say the future of Kashmir, we get along really well. Even political discussions can be had in a mutually respectful context, though that is a struggle sometimes.
Also, both sides of my family include people who came from India after Partition (Agra on dadi’s side and Amristar on my nana’s side) and those people were largely nostalgic for India and what they had left behind. In fact, my mother knew so much about the geography of Amritsar that when she travelled in India as an adult, people thought she had been born and brought up there instead of in Pakistan. I firmly believe identies such as “Indian” and “Pakistani” are socially constructed. 60 years ago there was no such thing as “Pakistani” and we were all Indian. Realizing that is the first step towards getting along.
kabir, i guess i got things mixed up then. i thought your statement applied more to the current state of geographical india-pakistan relationships rather than to the diaspora/sepia threads. but although this is a self-described south asian blog, i think it’s sometimes hard to maintain that bonhomie or wider identity when the topic itself concerns the geographical south asia and not the south asian mindset of the diaspora or south asian diaspora culture.
as for the punjabi thing, again i thought you were applying it to how india-pakistan should see themselves. sorry.
but you ask how we can deny that we are all the same people really (leaving aside all the regional identities in both countries). again, if applied to the geographical south asia, and not the diaspora, i think partition negated the idea of everyone being the same people – at least at that time in those circumstances. but families can split and still reconcile or regain some level of cordialness down the road.
Whose God is it anyways, I agree with you that Partition in many ways negated the idea of everyone being the same people. This is what I keep saying that “Indian” and “Pakistani” are socially constructed identities. I just hope that those of us in the diaspora, with 60 years of historical distance from Partition can realize that prior to 1947 we were all Indian. Yes, post-independence our nations have taken radically different turns in many cases. India has emerged as a secular democracy while Pakistan is an “Islamic Republic” which has been ruled by the military more often than not. But all these were historical contingencies. There’s no organic or essential “Indianness” or “Pakistaniness” ( I took a course in college on the anthropology of ethnicity and nationalism and it really formed a lot of my views on how ethnicity and nationality are socially constructed).
I don’t mean to say that we should erase our national identies. People should be free to be proud of being Indian (or Pakistani, though there is much less to be proud of at the present time), but we should realize we’re not all that different from each other. I think this view would help lead to conflict resolution. Unfortunately the demands of South Asian politics, perhaps esp. in Pakistan demand keeping this difference alive.
Kabir wrote:
I know that SM is “diaspora-oriented,” but what’s preventing Indians in India or Pakistanis in Pakistan from coming here and posting comments? Are they expected to suddenly drop their national identities, even though they have to deal with them every day?
I’m sure this issue has been discussed here before. But if you’re willing to call yourself a South Asian American, then more power to you…
TTCUSM, I’m not expecting anyone to drop their national identities, just expressing a hope that at least those of us in the diaspora could try to see things from a south asian perspective. As a side note, Pakistanis in Pakistan wouldn’t really comment on this blog because they wouldn’t identify as South-Asian American. Not that they don’t comment sometimes, but it would be rare in my opinion.
I try very hard to identify as South Asian. It upsets a lot of people some of whom see it as betrayal when I don’t correct people on the street who ask me “Are you Indian?” Hardcore patriots would have me tell them “No I’m Pakistani”, but to me it’s not that big of a deal. Sometimes the constant “India vs. Pak” thing gets very frustrating though.
Maybe you should know about Cabinet Mission Plan . Yes, Even nominal Hindus like Nehru did not accept the CMP (and the implied dhimmi status) and hence the partition.
Wikipedia entry on Cabinet Mission Plan.
It failed for many reasons. Also, different personalities supported and opposed it for different reasons.
Heh, give it time. If you predict a withering away of hardcore Islamism once the oil money dries up I don’t think a European Union style coalescence of the Subcontinent would be too hard to imagine. With Indian culture and the expanding size of the Indian economy it wouldn’t be too hard to create lasting bonds of commerce with India’s neighbors in the long-run. It probably would not happen in our lifetimes, but eventually.
Taz totally shot down my suggestion that Padma Lakshmi should be her co-host on the show, because there’s this small problem with ordinary women trying to host alongside supermodels. I get it. She’s looking for a male co-host. A non-violent hottie. Any suggestions?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think “Akhand Bharat” refers to an EU-type arrangement, it refers to the idea that Pakistan and Bangladesh should be subsumed into India. That’s something that I don’t think Pakistanis or Bangladeshis will ever agree to. An EU type arrangement with each country retaining its own status as a nation is one thing, but being subsumed into India is quite another.
And why is the philosophy of Hindutva even an acceptable basis of ordering any society?
In a way, yes. SM was created by people who focused on the similarities between people from those nations vs. the differences. We never set out to write for Indians in India, Pakistanis in Pakistan, Indo-Guyanese in Guyana or anyone else besides those who cared to examine things with an open mind.
Back on topic, please.
OK, I have a (well-educated) Turkish couple staying with me this weekend–I worked in a reference to the Khalifat movement and they were like–WTF–who would want that back again. They are totally in favor of banning women who wear the Hijab from attending universities–the woman in the couple said it was “not consistent with modern values.” LOL–OK, I am now in favor of smart people, and not so anti-Muslim (I’d only known them casually before, but they don’t have enough $$ to stay in NY at hotels, so when they e-mailed me saying they’d be in NY, I said I’d gladly put them up). Haha, I have them staying in my guest-bedroom, w/ my Ganesha statue. . . They are sleeping, and have not said peep about the statue. Maybe my parents went a bit overboard about the Muslims–of course, the modern Turks are well-known for their Europhilia–I guess it extends to Indophilia!