If you get a chance, check out the full slide show of the parade from this past weekend in Jersey that I wrote about in the previous post. In one or two of the pictures I observed a level of militancy and jingoism that made me feel uneasy. I am pretty far removed from such sentiment so I am not sure how strong such opinions are in Indian Americans. I believe nobody should ever parade children this way:
I want to stress that most of the pictures in the set are of perfectly appropriate displays. This one really threw me off though.
Wow! And just think, this whole time I thought Rob, Yoga Fire, and Lupus Solitarius were grown men.
Wow, what’s the need to have an India Day parade? Do they have a parade for every country each day?
Parades are fun though, usually. But I can see it taking up street space and affecting traffic if done too often.
The banner says “India’s Secularism”, there are many Indian-American Hindus who have a problem with the Indian brand of secularism that is invested in vote bank appeasement etc (which in the end also hurts the progressive elements of minority community). Most of that group would prefer a more American style of secularism but I don’t doubt that there are “Hindu Unity.org” types that want India to be turned into a Hindu version of Pakistan. I am in the former category, Indian secularism needs to be perfected, not rejected.
I know you will disagree Abhi, but it is the reluctance of people from a Hindu background in the progressive segment of the desi community (i.e. most of the media, all of academia) to address legitimate grievances that helps fuel this extremism. Secular Hindus are taught it is rude to bring these issues up and Muslim progressives seem incurious. The only time it was even suggested that Hindu Bangladeshis may have suffered disproportionately in 1971 in this blog was when it was brought up in the context of a book review.
Anyway, I agree that it is disgusting to use kids this way and the organizers should not have allowed such a sign
Well, it’s India Day Parade and some Indians ( likely Kashmiri Hindus ) are bringing attention to the plight of Kashmiris, who happen to be Hindus. I don’t deny that some organizers subscribe to Hindutva and are against Islamism, but I see no problem with some marchers highlighting the human rights violations of a certain Indian demographic. The sentiment expressed in the foreground though exaggerated is a true reflection of the feelings of many unbiased Indians.
oh come on guys… not fair. give the kids some slurpees and carry your own banners.
i swear. the irish get drunk on saint paddy’s day. the island peeps bring out the floats on caribana and shake the boody. desis bring out old religious guys with long beards and that’s the fun part. Then they have grim looking engineers and architects walk by in a float. vaat yaar. MLID
I don’t think its right to use kids this way (for one, I don’t think the kids carrying the banners have actually thought about what it means; for the same reason I’m opposed to kids carrying banners in any political rally); especially since its supposed to be “India Day,” and that includes all Indians, not just Hindu critics of Indian secularism.
Why does secularism imply Anti Hindu? I would say names like Hindustan implies anti secularism
Back in the day we only used to go to these to check out the eye candy and maybe meet some girls. That still happens. Went to Pakistan day concert last weekend. Girls were dressed up like the were going to a wedding..
Ok, the sufferings of MINORITY Hindus in Kashmir or Bangladesh are one thing, but the claim that secularism within India/Bharat is “anti-Hindu” relies on the notion that protecting Muslims and Christians will somehow hurt the Hindu MAJORITY! That’s what’s objectionable about these kinds of signs. Ever since the Hindu Right has invented this notion of “pseudo-secularism” they have used it to describe the plight of the majority (how silly that sounds!) in India, not the legitimate sufferings of Hindus in Bangladesh or Pakistan (which, by the way, are far less secular states than India nominally is).
The only time it was even suggested that Hindu Bangladeshis may have suffered disproportionately in 1971 in this blog was when it was brought up in the context of a book review.
i have mentioned this is in the comments several times, for the record. i came to the conclusion relatively late in life after noting the patterns of the sorts of people who my parents mentioned being killed in the war (my mother was shot by mistake, so she talks about the people who were killed every now and then, the ones she knew were invariably arts intellectuals, extremely political, or hindu).
I have always wondered about vote bank politics in india……muslims for e.g. make up ~ 13% of the entire population and other than JK (~65%) no other state has more than ~30% muslims. so why would politicians indulge in vote bank politics? do I need to go more microscopic (to a district level for e.g.) to understand the vote bank phenomena?
In contrast to the majority opinion on this thread, I love this! We need MORE! BIGGER! displays! Self sabotage can be way more effective and rapid way to cast discredit to certain ideas, than any amount of editorializing by intellectuals or bloviation by those with a reputation for partisanship.
Ahh! Not Hannah Montana…
oh yes. You meant the sign… that is pretty scary too.
Hehe!
All countries should be secular – neither promote nor discriminate against any religion, minority or majority. The banner did not say secularism is anti-Hindu, it said India’s secularism is anti-Hindu, and if that is the case then what is in India is not secularism. Indians in India should have a discussion on what there goes beyond secularism into discrimination. More dialogue, not less is what is needed.
Yeah I’m sure the kids in the picture had an in depth discussion and then decided, ok lets go with what mom and dad want.
To be fair, as a kid raised Catholic I went around toting a “Pro-Life” button when I was 10 or so. I really had no idea what the real debate was over, someone just taught me that we need to ‘keep babies from being killed’.
Atleast my parents weren’t so into it like those pro-lifers who make their little children carry around the giant grotesque signs of aborted babies. Shudder.
I’m sure these kids have no idea what that sign really means either.
Actually I WOULD like to know what exactly they (whoever made it and put it in those kids hands) mean by that sign. Unless they are among the crowd who thinks India should be a Hindu state, as someone mentioned above.
Personally I don’t think there should be special status to either ethnicities or religions in the US or elsewhere. Temporarily there is affirmative action for African Americans and Latinos and Native Americans here in the US, but the goal is not for them to have special status forever. The goal is to get to a point where affirmative action is not needed like it was in the past. The goal is a secular society where no ethnicity or religion is supported or discriminated against, where people find jobs and build lives based on their individual choices and however they balance their individualism with their community.
I wasn’t talking about the kids. I was talking about more discussion happening in India among Indians.
“The goal is a secular society where no ethnicity or religion is supported or discriminated against, where people find jobs and build lives based on their individual choices and however they balance their individualism with their community.”
I always wonder why they didn’t just base affirmative action on income rather than race then? Same goes for anywhere in the world. There was an interesting problem when Brazil decided to try American style affirmative action for “blacks” in Brazil… the only problem is that Brazil is so mixed people don’t really define themselves in terms of black or white.. so they actually had to take pictures of people applying through affirmative action, and a committee would look at the picture and determine if they looked “black enough” to qualify for affirmative action. (In one case, two identical twin brothers applied, one was approved, and one was denied!)
Since, due to past discrimination, African-Americans, darker skin-toned people in Brazil, etc tend to be poorer, why didn’t they just base it on income in the first place?
I am not sure focusing on the economic background alone when Affirmative Action started in the US would have been enough at that time. I think eventually it will go towards helping economically disenfranchised individuals in the US and elsewhere instead of ethnicity or religion. I think excellent public schools are key to a more egalitarian society, where students regardless of economic ability to pay are able to get a great education and develop their talents. I would also support free or low cost higher education. Then the rest is making sure one isn’t discriminated against for their race, religion, sexual preference in the workplace and other areas.
Why not? If Jonathan Krohn could do it at the age of 13, surely “beta, you can do better than that other boy” and be more precocious?
LinZi, Why on earth should there be affirmative action for poor people?? Blacks were mistreated in this country; the poor, not so much.
I think that is the concept of a swing vote. You try to get a subpopulation to vote in your favor. It particular helps when no candidate enjoys a compelling advantage over the others.
Three cheers for that sign; stop the Haj subsidy.
rob: “LinZi, Why on earth should there be affirmative action for poor people?? Blacks were mistreated in this country; the poor, not so much.”
Umm, duh. What’s the point of affirmative action?
Anyways, poor people are mistreated everywhere. They are generally the one’s who do the crappiest jobs under the worst working conditions (in our country, that probably means no access to health care,and working multiple part time jobs with no security and horrible working hours, in India that might mean conditions that cause illness, etc).
You think all the non-Black people who ended up poor in this country are all just a lazy buncha good for nothings who wanna mooch off the government?
It’s pretty easy to see how mass discrimination against one group of people can cause poverty (also non as inequality), so why is it so hard of a stretch to try and give opportunities to poor people who WANT to study, etc to have the chance?
non= known
agreed! also, the affirmative action for the large numbers of hindus! and that vande mataram song in ceremonies!
I have always wondered about vote bank politics in india……muslims for e.g. make up ~ 13% of the entire population and other than JK (~65%) no other state has more than ~30% muslims. so why would politicians indulge in vote bank politics?
India has a winner-takes-all electoral system, and many contests are multi-cornered fights. They can be won by securing votes from 30-40% of the people polled. Thus, elections can be won by building caste or religious coalitions that can get to the magic %age. For example, the way the most successful party (INC) has done this traditionally, is by using the KHAM votebank – Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim. If some other party is able to get some fraction of these constituents to vote for them, INC starts losing elections. Hence the need to indulge in vote bank politics.
“My tusks were red at the Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore, and I would not wake that smell again.” – Hathi.
I don’t know why so many posts are going on (and on) about the movie and tv series, they really have nothing to do with Kipling’s Jungle Books (there were two).
The above quote from Hathi should make that clear. Not “Colonel” Hathi. Please.
Read the books, folks.
I call Photoshop!
If the first banner reads “India’s Secularism Implies Anti-Hindu”, then any true Indian (i.e., one who is familiar with elementary logic that one studies in any half-decent computer science undergrad course, which of course all true Indians have attended at some point in their lives, unlike those fake wannabe-Indian Bohemian poseurs who attend liberal art-fart courses) would have ensured that the second banner would read “Not India’s Secularism Or Anti-Hindu”. Which it doesn’t. Therefore it’s fake.
It’s the little touches like these that contribute to the realism of a good Photoshop image.
Wow! And just think, this whole time I thought Rob, Yoga Fire, and Lupus Solitarius were grown men. <3
DUH!
As per Article 30(1) of Constitution, “All minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.†Article 30 (1A) restricts the State’s right to acquire property of a minority educational institution whereas Article 30(2) prevents State discrimination against a minority educational institution.
This means that Hinduism alone*1 has had no protection from a usually corrupt, power hungry govt, with no checks and balances. for nearly 60 years. As a result of this the grassroots the of Hindu institutions have withered. e.g. In Christianity, the money collected in a large institution, such as the St Patricks, goes back into supporting the local parishes, the money raised in a local parish is used to support Sunday school and also K-12 institutions. Which in turn nurtures another generation of catholics who are, by and large, highly inclined to support their institutions. On the other hand, the govt ensures that Tirupati’s money is spent on govt shortcomings, while thousand year old institutions are starved of funds.
Furthermore, the dictates of first across the post politics, have ensure that minority religious institutions (which remained strong) wield enormous power relative to their size — power that is in turn used to further strengthen their institutions (such as govt subsides of private minority institutions instead of investment in secular public schools)
The point above has been made along with several others — Govt backed assault of priests in TN, the sale of temple lands in AP, The control of temples in Kerala, govt funding the establishment of Madrassas, instead to building secular schools, in several states (including J&K ), Haj Subsidy, Article 370 and the resulting state sanctioned treatment of Hindus in J&K.
I picked this particular one because it is one of the examples of bias written into the damned constitution itself, and I feel that the fundamentally unfair field it has created, combined with time, has led to the vastly diminished power of traditional Hindu institutions.
To argue that Indian govt is secular, in spite of hard facts, goes way beyond willful ignorance. But I bet that tons of people are going to still argue that India is secular. Heck, Abhi, himself has probably read these before. And he still posted this post with a prejudiced note.
(*1 to be more technically correct Jainism and Sikhism are clubbed with Hinduism for the purposes of this article. Sikhism has reacted rather harshly though, so the govt has acted in deeply undemocratic ways assuage the Sikh religious institutions — the sacha dera sauda arrest comes to mind. )
100% correct. My dads, to his credit, has arranged a (soon) meeting with the President of an Ivy-League University to press this very point home, in terms of the BS that is going on under the rubric of “South Asian studies.”
ah, this is the root of your complaint. why can’t minorities know their place, and allow reinterpretation of a democracy as a tyranny of the majority?
I personally think it’s weak for Indians to ever, ever hold a parade in the US, on the basis that the Jews are impressive and basically run the economy, and don’t hold parades, while, say, the Puerto Ricans and Irish do hold parades. Parade = loser.
Your out of context quote is B.S. and you know it. And using the words of John Stuart Mill mindlessly does not change the fact your statement is B.S.
This was the rest of the sentence ..” — power that is in turn used to further strengthen their institutions (such as govt subsides of private minority institutions instead of investment in secular public schools)”. Support for a secular public schooling system is a liberal pillar in the US is’nt it? Why the the mindset change when it comes to India?
One typical counter folks supporting pseudo-secularism*1 make in such discussions is that Hindus form a huge majority, so it must be ludicrous that the Indian govt works against Hinduism.
*1 I have shown clearly that what goes under the name of secularism in India is not the actual meaning of secularism in my previous comment. So the use of this word is accurate and is not name -calling.
Please post on how it went later on, when you get the chance.
government subsidises schools of many many hindu castes and subcastes. i wonder why these are counted as subsidies of hindus? because it is inconvenient.
The banner behind it says “Kashmiri Hindus want a secular homeland”. I’m guessing it is part of the same group. Their concern is very much valid and their banner on Indian secularism makes sense. The current model can rightly be called pseudo secular.
Over the years of blogging on SM I have found that I can immediately guess the ideology of someone based on whether or not they use the word “pseudo-secular” in their comment. I don’t even need to read the rest of the comment to know what it is probably about.
Red Herring after Red Herring.
Do castes promote their community interests or their Hindu interests? Besides do you really think that caste is unique to Hinduism?*1 The situation has been so bad, that educational institutions run by Hindu reform movements have even style themselves as non-hindu in order to escape govt control. (did not work)
*1 For example Nadars run a lot of educational institutions. The Nadar Caste / Community contains both Christians and Hindus.
This gross and inaccurate generalisation taps into hundreds of years of anti-semitic discourse, whether or not it was intended to be anti-semitic, which I have no way of knowing. If you wouldn’t mind apologising or elaborating, I would be grateful. Thanks!
I have also mentioned this numerous times as well as a human rights and social justice issue, alongside other human rights and social justice issues and posted links to web posts by groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights watch that have raised this issue. I’ve also elaborated on the reasons why the way in which it is brought up have a lot of bearing on the situation. If it is brought up in a Hindu rights/victimisation framework to bolster Hindutva work, that is very different from if it is brought up by radicals, human rights liberals like Amnesty International. I’ve also argued that the reason it is ignored is the reason that many human rights situations are ignored in Bangladesh (E.g. the ahmadis or climate change or general poverty) – because it is in Bangladesh.
What I haven’t brought up is how obvious it is why this continues to be brought up in ways that show the context – what connection do attacks on disempowered minorities in Bangladesh have to an anti-secularism rally in New Jersey? There is one, and I’m sure I’ll be flamed for saying this, but the connection is that they both come from the same political standpoint – broadly speaking, Hindutva.
Yes, please do elaborate. I’m interested as someone who attended an Ivy League school that did not have a South Asian studies program so had to make my own informal one and then went on to do a Masters in it 😉 Also, if you or he can arrange a similar meeting for me or my family members on the BS that is going on under the rubric of “Economics”, I’d be grateful. Thanks very much!
Right on. Its a plague frankly that needs to be spoken against at every opportunity.
There is a growing number of Hindu “madrasahs” in the US. This banner was probably prepared by the “uncle next door” who so gladly volunteers his time teaching our little children, holding Hindu summer camps, organizing Ramayan plays and shakhas. (I don’t mean to generalize. Most of them are right minded people – oops, I meant left.)
They will probably never teach our kids to kill, but distorting a child’s perception of the world is dangerous enough. If you are a desi parent trying to give your children a little Hindu schooling in America, you have to be very careful who the teachers are. Attending some of their classes with your kids is the best way to filter the undesirables out. Been there, done that. Could write an essay on all the peculiar stuff we have observed in our very own desi community.
Somebody upthread equated parades with losers. Gays have done well for themselves with the parade approach. There is no harm in Hindus trying it as long as there is no jingoism involved. In fact, parades are a natural part of a lot of Hindu festivals in India, though they are usually called processions.
Forget the kids with the banners, did anyone else notice the pear shaped sikh? priest. It was disconcerting to say the least to see a middle aged man with the body of a frumpy middle aged woman. A lot of the other Indian-Americans seem to be quite out of shape too, not quite land whales as they live in affluent New Jersey, but definetly packing on the tires. Oh and why did Falun Gong show up at an India independence day parade? Where did they even get the marching band? I’m also surprised no one picked up on the other political hot potato banners, such as this one raging against the conversions of Hindus to Christianity. http://www.mycentraljersey.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=CN&Date=20090809&Category=NEWS0101&ArtNo=908090803&Ref=PH&Profile=1003&Params=Itemnr=50
Over the years of commenting on SM I have found that I can immediately guess the ideology of someone based on whether or not they use the word “Hindutva” in their blogs/comments. I do read the rest of the blogs/comments for fun.