Let’s start with the funny. Prem Panicker, on his blog, gives a list of public statements from Rajan Zed, the “acclaimed Hindu American spokesman,” during the month of August (go to Prem’s blog for links to the original news stories):
Rajan Zed fears a Julia Roberts-starrer will depict Hinduism in bad light. [A reference to “Eat, Pray, Love”]
Rajan Zed says that ‘namaste’ is a greeting that symbolizes love and respect.
Rajan Zed asks that the makers of the Cities of Love series [New York, I Love You, etc.] include Mumbai in the list because it is home to the largest movie industry.
Rajan Zed wants prominent Australian entertainers to respond to AR Rahman’s gesture and hold concerts in major Indian cities.
Rajan Zed urges celebrities to explore the spiritual side of yoga.
Rajan Zed believes AR Rahman opening a studio in LA will help further popularize Indian music.
Rajan Zed argues that the Oscars will gain added credibility by introducing a Best Bollywood Movie award [the gent clearly hasn’t heard of Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Orissa, Bengali and other vibrant language movie industries] where Hindi movies can compete among themselves. (link)
Looked at one way, Rajan Zed sure seems awfully preoccupied with Hollywood, movies, and entertainment, much more than one would expect of an “acclaimed Hindu American spokesman.” Of course, Zed isn’t the author of these articles; he’s getting called by reporters for a brief comment, and he can’t help it if reporters want a quote about Julia Roberts rather than the Rg Veda.
That said, remember that though he does have one great achievement to his credit (the invocation in the U.S. Senate), Rajan Zed is not exactly Swami Vivekananda. (You can see a little bit of his CV on Wikipedia, and decide for yourself whether “acclaimed” is the right adjective.)Along with Rajan Zed, via our news tab I came across a column by another Hindu American spokesman, Aseem Shukla in the Washington Post, on the recent decision of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to put India on its “watch list.” Shukla’s column is a very defensive piece, with its own biases. Among other questionable statements, Shukla characterizes the people who murdered Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati as tied to “fanatic missionaries,” when in fact they were actually Naxalites/Maoists.
In general I actually agree with Shukla that it doesn’t make sense to put India on a religious freedom watchlist, by comparison to many, many other countries that are markedly less tolerant. India, for its flaws, does religious freedom better than many of its neighbors in Asia.
On the other hand, according to the USCIRF’s own system, the “watch list” countries are places where religious freedom could be better protected, but they are nevertheless better off than “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPCs). Current Watch List countries are: India, Egypt, and Russia. Some current Countries of Particular Concern are: China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.
Also, the USCIRF is still certainly right when it says:
“It is extremely disappointing that India, which has a multitude of religious communities, has done so little to protect and bring justice to its religious minorities under siege,†said Leonard Leo, USCIRF chair. “USCIRF’s India chapter was released this week to mark the one-year anniversary of the start of the anti-Christian violence in Orissa.†(link)
Indeed, as often happens in cases of communal violence in India, not much has happened to redress the violence that occurred in Orissa last year. (Nor should we expect a whole lot, given the history of the past 25 years.)
But all this is somewhat beside the point. What Shukla doesn’t really address is the fact that the USCIRF, as an independent commission, has no weight on U.S.-India policy. If anything, the U.S. State Department has been distancing itself from this press release, as Jacqueline Salmon says in another column in the Washington Post:
Yesterday, a State Department spokesperson stressed that the commission is an independent federal commission. “It doesn’t speak for the U.S. government,” she said. “While the State Department considers its recommendation very carefully, it is not bound by them.” (link)
In short, it may be defensible to disagree with the decision of the USCIRF to put India on its religious freedom watch-list, though one should bear in mind that a “watch list” is not the same thing as “condemnation,” as Aseem Shukla interprets it — especially since the USCIRF itself has the more severe, CPC designation (which has Pakistan on it, ok? Remember to breathe. Try Yoga.). It is also not defensible to completely exonerate India of failures regarding religious freedom, as Shukla wants to do.
But even as we do all that, we should keep some perspective: the USCIRF is not an official organ of the State Department; it has no clout. It does not make sense to explode with defensive outrage over this. A better response would be to think about ways to actually address the problem it mentions.
This is ALL, I repeat ALL Ms. Bansal’s doing…A panel of Abrahamics likely would not have even noticed.
December 5, 2007: Malaysia: USCIRF Concerned Over Destruction of Hindu Temples and Need for Protection of Freedoms
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dec. 5, 2007
Contact: Judith Ingram, Communications Director, (202) 523-3240, ext. 127
WASHINGTON—The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom is concerned by recent actions taken by the Malaysian government, directed against the Hindu minority, curtailing their human rights including the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and several other religious freedom concerns. Two weeks ago, police used tear gas and water cannons against peaceful demonstrations by an estimated 10,000 members of the ethnic Indian Hindu minority. Authorities sought to prevent the protests, locking down roads and parks in Kuala Lumpur and arresting suspected organizers. Over 700 protesters were gassed, beaten, and detained after taking refuge in the Batu Cave Temple in Kuala Lumpur. Police used similar violent tactics last month against demonstrators for electoral reform, including using tear gas against those seeking refuge at Kuala Lumpur’s Jamek mosque.
The demonstrations last week were organized to bring attention to the economic, social, and religious discrimination against the Indian minority in Malaysia, including the demolition and destruction of Hindu temples and shrines. Attempts by lawyers and activists to stop the destruction of temples have met with little success. In late October, authorities demolished the 100-year-old Maha Mariamman Hindu Temple and reportedly assaulted its Chief Priest. Just this week, the Sri Periyachi Amman Temple in Tambak Paya Village, Malacca was demolished by local authorities, despite having received a ‘stay order’ from state officials.
“Continued discrimination against members of the ethnic Indian Hindu minority, including the destruction of sacred places and images, only fuels religious unrest and intolerance,†said Commission Chair Michael Cromartie. “The Commission urges the U.S. government to raise the destruction of Hindu temples with Malaysian authorities and insist that immediate measures be taken to protect sacred sites and prevent further destruction.â€
Police arrested three of the demonstration organizers: P. Waytha Moorthy, his brother and another associate. The three men were later charged in court with allegedly making seditious comments, which carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison. A local court judge dismissed the charges against them on a technicality, but new charges may be filed at any time. In addition, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi threatened to employ the Internal Security Act (ISA) to prevent future demonstrations by Indian Hindus, a law that allows detention without trial for an extended period.
“We urge the U.S. government to raise the cases of the demonstration’s organizers and seek promises that no charges will be filed against them, including detentions under the ISA,†said Cromartie. “Malaysia should ensure that internationally protected rights to peaceful assembly, expression, and freedom of thought, conscience, and religion are protected.â€
Demolitions of Hindu temples and shrines have increased markedly over the past several years, spurred by religious and political competition in the countryside and battles over eminent domain in the cities. Most demolitions have purportedly occurred due to the extension of expressways and other development projects in and around Kuala Lumpur. Mosques and some Christian churches either have received compensation or successfully diverted these projects, but Muslim politicians have ordered the destruction of Hindu statues and shrines on private property in the countryside, including the shrines erected by former migrant workers on land now owned by Muslims and by Hindus whose statues were visible from a busy highway.
Temple destructions are only one of the issues facing Malaysia’s religious minorities that the Commission is concerned about. With the support of many politicians, Malaysia’s sharia courts have expanded their jurisdiction in recent years, threatening secular Malaysia’s civil courts and the country’s commitment to religious pluralism. Because the Federal Constitution deems that all Malays are Muslim, the sharia courts have weighed in on a number of high-profile cases involving conversion, marriage, divorce, child custody, and burial rights of non-Muslims. In one prominent case from earlier this year, Malaysian authorities ordered a woman who was born to Indian Muslim parents but raised as a Hindu by her grandparents to spend 180 days in a “rehabilitation center†for the purpose of “re-embracing†her Islamic faith. Because she married a Hindu man, her child was also seized and custody given to her Muslim parents. In another prominent case, a Christian convert from Islam, Lina Joy, sought to change the religious status on her identification card in order to marry her Roman Catholic fiancé. After a nine year legal battle, her case reached Malaysia’s Supreme Court last June. The Court denied Lina Joy’s request, deciding that Malays cannot convert from Islam, at least not until the Federal Constitution is changed.
“Article 11 of Malaysia’s Federal Constitution protects every person’s right to profess, practice and propagate his religion, and should be applied to everyone,†said Cromartie. Malaysia’s government should be encouraged to protect fully the rights and freedoms of all its religious minorities. The rights of one religious group should not trump the most basic of all individual human rights, the right to follow one’s own conscience.â€
Malaysia is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. An estimated 58% of the population are Muslim, 22.9 percent are Buddhist, 11.1 percent are Christian, 6.3 percent are Hindu and 2.6 percent practice Confucianism, Taoism, and other traditional Chinese religions.
Few questions 1. Does any one really believe that USCIRF is impartial? (if yes, then UN is impartial too) 2. Coming to the root cause analysis of what happened in Orissa, the conversions triggered it. From the history we can easily make out that religions are made for the people in power to control others and religious freedom is a irony (unless you decide to become an atheist). This boils down to what did the conversion of poor tribals achieve? Do the poor really care about the religion? (when all they think is to find food for themselves & their family) 3. India is the birth place of many eastern-religions but why don’t we have a middle-east here? (The place where the great Abrahamic religions were born & are fighting from the times even their gods can’t remember) So let us say we avoid Orissa riots and then get what? With the relentless conversions, another Middle-East? 4. Why only poor Hindus are converted (hence believe in religious freedom) and why not middle/upper class Hindus? or Why not Muslims? 5. If one religion wants to spread and the other wants to stop it, which one is right? spreading or stopping? (What if the Sikhs never resisted the conversions by Mughals and everyone got converted, Would Bhangra still be alive?)
A Jain, unless forced by extreme economic duress, could not more live in current-day Malaysia than he could live in the Jim Crow South of the US (thankfully, history).
Bless 1000x the Sikhs, but, Bhangra–who cares??!! Most of us ABCD’s hate it!! Punk lives.
“· Jinendra on August 17, 2009 11:56 PM “
Jinendra, nobody asked you to come to Malaysia,or Fiji,or Guyana,or Suriname,or Mauritius or East Africa, or Australia.Stay put in your Bharat and leave the rest of the world alone. We will appreciate you staying away from our land. India is a gigantic country that dreams to be a megalomaniac and a superpower – many nations that took Indians in are fearful that these PIO will be used by India as tentacles to rape our sovereignty with its lachrymose propaganda.
Disparate, I am not trying to pick a fight–why are your posts so obscure? The truth is simple. Stop hurting others. I hate your hate, only.
What happened to Floridian’s advice?
Disparate,
Are you alleging that the documented issues that non-malay minorities including hindus have faced in Malaysia don’t exist ?
The idea that the Indian govt plans to ‘rape’ ‘your’ soverignity thru the use of those us in the diaspora is pretty laughable. And in any case we have as much claim to our adopted countries as you do .
Amardeep,
As a Sepia Mutiny transient lurker, I really love your posts–thanks for an opportunity to finally have reason to jump in! I’m still trying to interpret the juxtaposition with Rajan Zed, though I hope the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) record on advocacy distinguishes our work quite clearly!
Posts before me have clarified a few issues, so just to reiterate, from the horse’s mouth:
1) I did not write that “fanatic missionaries” killed Swami L.S.. I wrote that they opposed his presence and then he was killed. It amazed, though did not surprise me, that the USCIRF left out the details as to how the Swami’s work, presence and rising influence led to an earlier attempt on his life in December 2007 before he was killed in August 2008. Incredibly, the chapter blames him for the attempt on his life and his murder.
2) You say, “What Shukla doesn’t really address is the fact that the USCIRF, as an independent commission, has no weight on U.S.-India policy.” But I wrote, “Created by Congress in 1998, the Commission can only advise the State Department, which has its own list of countries of concern and amiably ignores the Commission’s recommendations. But the Commission’s pronouncements still carry the symbolism of an official government entity judging the fitness of another’s country’s human rights record.”
3) I could quibble with your view that I infer “condemnation,” which is different than a “watch list,” but I’ll leave that to semantics. But I will quibble with your take that “It is also not defensible to completely exonerate India of failures regarding religious freedom, as Shukla wants to do.” I really don’t give India, or America for that matter, a pass on religious freedom protection. Indeed, at HAF we have a laundry list–you won’t be surprised–of policies inimical to Hindus in India! But to your point, my essay for the Post–based on a long-standing engagement HAF has had with USCIRF staff members–meant to call into question the methodology and ideology of a Senate appointed panel that could bear witness on India without exploring the provocations and context behind each of the attacks discussed in the report. It was the same with the Human Rights Watch Report after the Godhra train attack, and USCIRF after Orissa–the partisans of these groups don’t seem to understand that ignoring provocations means the denial of grievance and antagonizes victims and empowers the fundies that will harness this anger to their own ends. I sought to give context to those terrible riots–not to deny them or minimize very real human tragedies.
4) You say my assessment of the Commissioners’ composition is “disingenous.” I’d like to be clear on this: we know from our work with USCIRF, that Preeta Bansal worked hard to bring balance there while she was on the Commission–she, with Commissioner Felice Gaer, of the American Jewish Committee, worked to remove India from the “watch list” after it was put there after the Gujarat riots, and Gaer opposed this latest placement. I could not mention her expansive and articulate footnote dissenting from the rest of the Commission at the bottom of Page 1, but I should have. It was only after Bansal left, and Gaer was left without a corroborator, that the USCIRF succeeded in censuring India this year. And despite a multitude of requests to Congress–by design, the Republican Minority leader, Mitch McConnell will make the next selection–no replacement to Bansal has been announced.
So, thanks Amardeep–no props from you, perhaps, but you gave the issue some very important play-time. USCIRF has no teeth, but as I wrote, “symbolism matters.” I don’t really care about the listing, but the underlying subtext behind such listings is something we should all be examining–it will happen again.
“Disparate,
Are you alleging that the documented issues that non-malay minorities including hindus have faced in Malaysia don’t exist ? “
Malaysia practiced affirmative action – to correct the injustice that British left behind after 200 years occupying and plundering Malaysia. This affirmative action is also applied to indigenous people of Sabah and Sarawak ( who are overwhelmingly Christians..so stop turning this into Hindu-Muslim issue).
The Black Economic Empowerement in South Africa is a carbon copy of Malaysia’s affirmative action (a post-apartheid nation embraced the same affirmative action practiced in Malaysia).Dr. Amy Chua of Yale university who herself is a Filipino Chinese argued in support of this action in Malaysia when she observed: “She goes on to explain how the East Asian Chinese think Filipinos are lazy, unintelligent, and really don’t want to work. Then she says that they are also suffering extreme poverty, indignity, and hopelessness. So why are such a desperate people also so lazy? She never gets beyond these simplistic explanations and she is unable to accept that the East Asian Chinese have an average IQ of about 105 versus an average IQ among South Asians of about 90. Once intelligence and ethnocentrism are taken into account, World on Fire starts making sense.”
The Hindus of Malaysia ( whenever Hindu nationalism needs a cover,it hides behind Indian nationalism) has 8% quota for university entrance for many,many years.This allowed Hindu students easy entrance into universities without competing with Chinese and therefore increased their partipations in Malaysian universities.(Remember many of these Hindus are low-caste people who if they have stayed put in India will be considered as Backward caste) . After the meritocracy was introduced,the Hindus could not compete with the Chinese.
But Malaysia has slowly trying dismantle this affirmative action. The 30% quota has been annulled.
Strangely, India is stuck with its “justified” quota and affirmative action while bashing Malaysia’s affirmative action as a form of “injustice”.Pot has no mirror.
Aseem wrote:
“at HAF we have a laundry list–you won’t be surprised–of policies inimical to Hindus in India!”
surprised!!
“She never gets beyond these simplistic explanations and she is unable to accept that the East Asian Chinese have an average IQ of about 105 versus an average IQ among South Asians of about 90.”
Please don’t bring this Vdare/SF BS into this forum. Stick to sucking up with your white sounding handles and alleviating your personal anxieties by posting anonymously and generalizing about entire populations. We Indians don’t care about our IQ. Bleh. 90 eh. Guess we are pretty dumb. So excuse us as we dwell unremittingly on how we brought civilization to the Malayan jungle and lay claims based on atavistic pride, and meh.. our sheer numbers. In the end numbers trump everything. Firm and irrevocable is thy doom 🙂
The reason for this is probably that if you go to most South Asian spaces, they are India-centric (among other things). So the civil and human rights issuse that concern Indians and its diaspora tend to take more space than others among ‘progressive’ spaces as well as others. That’s just my hypothesis.
However, the idea that there is not a venue to talk about transnational human rights issues is totally false – it’s like the charge of the alleged ‘liberal media.’ You can turn either to 1) most of the institutions of the Euro-American world, which attack Wahabism, Islamism in all its forms, or to 2) Indian nationalists and Hindutva advocates (separate creatures that sometimes overlap) or 3) to international secular human rights groups like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch.
For example, from HRW:
These three have varying aims, sometimes interesect with each other, sometimes are at odds with each other, sometimes overlap.
In addition, I know for a fact there are specific groups and people both from within and from without South Asian and non South Asian spaces that are calling out gender abuses, violence, or any number of other issues, including transnationally. For example, Action for a Progressive Pakistan published an apology in a Bangladeshi newspaper for the 1971 genocide, though it did not raise the issue of targeting people on the basis of actual or perceived religion, which perhaps it should have. Ensaaf raises attention to the failure to have justice for the killings of Sikhs and others in India in the 80s. At PTR, we’ve written extensively about and documented abuses in Sri Lanka. Moreover, there are entire disciplines devoted to studying the “export of hate across borders” – that’s what the study of imperialism fundamentally is – this is just one form of that. These are the ones that I would be more likely to ally myself with.
So the charge of selectivity is actually best turned on its head. It’s not only that one state or another or one interest or another is being selective, but that communalism as a mode of politics has been promoted by many many many political actors. So if you support progressives and radicals in all places that are drawing attention to this, rather than trying to pooh pooh some and then use very divisive language for others, then that would probably do more to reduce the level of communal and extremist violence in the world.
On an aside, ‘Kashmiri Islamism’ posed as a cross border issue implies that all of Kashmir is part of India which is both de facto false and without a clear moral argument in its defense.
Aseem,
Thanks for your comment. Perhaps I didn’t respond to your column as thoroughly as I might have. However, if anything I feel I may have been too gentle with you.
I do think that your reference to “fanatic missionaries” suggests that their involvement had something to do with the murder. “Fanatic” is a very rhetorically loaded word to use — it is almost impossible to prove or disprove. Some might even say that Swami Saraswati himself was a fanatic, as it was alleged that he was behind attacks on Churches in the area before his death (link), though I personally am not invested in branding him one way or the other. However we brand him, he certainly was not innocent in terms of fomenting communal feeling in this district of Orissa. If you want people to tell the whole story, it is important not to leave out that part either.
His murderers, who I have condemned, were Maoists, they had a caste grievance, and, yes, their conversion to Christianity may have been mixed up in their motivations for killing the Swami. However, all of these should be acknowledged as factors: is not at all clear that they were specifically religious “fanatics,” or under the influence of religious fanatics. Casteism and Maoism are themselves kinds of “fanaticism,” but they are in a different category.
There were other things in your article that reflect bias, which is unfortunate, since your primary point about the USCIRF report is that it is actually biased. For future reference, the only rhetorically effective way to combat what you claim as bias is to present as unbiased a perspective as possible.
Look at how you characterize Gujarat in 2002: “Riots between Hindus and Muslims in the state of Gujarat that broke out after a Muslim mob torched a train full of Hindu pilgrims killing 58 in 2002” Here, you give a list of 58 Hindus killed, but not the number of Muslims killed subsequently. And look at where you place the most rhetorical weight: “a Muslim mob torched a train full of Hindu pilgrims.” The riots that followed were not simply “riots between Hindus and Muslims,” as you characterize them. The riots were actually an organized effort to target Muslims, in which high level members of the state government were involved — and have admitted as much on tape (in the Tehelka sting operation that was conducted last year).
Another problematic assertion is this: “A terrible riot that left hundreds of Muslims and Hindus dead and occurred closer to a decade ago mandates an entire section, but the ongoing attacks by jihadis in India’s Kashmir targeting Hindus; several recent bombings in Hindu temples carried out by Islamists, and Hindu temple desecrations in Christian Goa;” But the problem here is that terrorist attacks and criminal acts committed by individuals fall into a different category than large-scale communal violence. Jihadist terrorists have been bombing all kinds of things in India, not just Hindu temples, killing hundreds (thousands) of people of all religious backgrounds in recent years. They are a global menace and must be stopped. But these are not human rights or religious freedom issues, but criminal justice issues.
But the biggest difference between your approach and my own is rendered evident when you said this in your comment above: ” Indeed, at HAF we have a laundry list–you won’t be surprised–of policies inimical to Hindus in India!”
You are an advocate for Hindus; that’s what a group like the Hindu American Foundation is chartered to do. Fine.
But, as minor a person as I may be (I am just a blogger, not a leader like yourself), I consider myself an advocate for human beings, not members of any one religious community.
In the course of normal discourse we generally make some statements which we expect we can take for granted without having to waste time explicating. Battlestar Galactica has a fantastic soundtrack, kimchee tastes foul, and Guernica is an overrated work of art. These, and other observations, can be argued but if it’s ancillary to the point there isn’t much gained is there? So unless someone wants to dispute that there is a White Christian male in American culture and society there isn’t much point in expounding.
Or you could, like, expose the bias. It might make it more palatable from a PR perspective, but someone who is interested in the truth-value of claims shouldn’t get sidetracked by what are essentially ad-hominems arguments against the people making the claim. In this case HAF might have its own biases and that may be relevant under certain situations. But in evaluating their case as to whether the USCIR is sufficiently unbiased in writing this report or making this classification, that is irrelevant.
I don’t want to get into another discussion on Godhra, but once again you’re ignoring that the post-Godhra riots went both ways with about a quarter of the deaths being Hindu. It is also important to note that the media frequently starts the story with the post-Godhra riots rather than the incident at Godhra that sparked it. So far as that goes it is important to put the rhetorical weight on the facts with which people are not acquainted rather than the stuff people already know.
You, like everyone else, have groups and causes that are nearer to your heart than others. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous. Just because you tend to make disproportionate levels of posts on Sikh issues doesn’t mean we should assume you care about Sikhs to the exclusion of all others does it? Because this blog has a South Asian focus doesn’t mean that’s all you care about personally does it?
Amardeep, I would like to make a different, a non-religious point.
If you have not noticed, Indians do not liked to be lectured to or judged by a 3rd party in variety of contexts. The indignation that is felt in India over detention of Shah Rukh (even though in India a big majority believes that he overdid it) is very similar to indignation over being put on a watch list by US created non-official government organization. Nobody really cares about the little details that there is even a worse category than a watch list. It is the same indignation that people in India feel when Modi is denied a visa even though Indians for most part themselves reject his rhetoric (as evident in the recent elections). It is also the same indignation when we have preachers/evangelists coming from the west who tell us how terrible our (for most part Hindu or Hindu derived) belief system is…to put it mildly. So without regards to the facts in the case above, a large chunk of India/Indians are going to protest at the smallest slight, and many times justifiably so. The problem is that because of economic/military superiority, Americans will be looked at like a teacher with a big stick – minding a country here and a country there. And people from a large country like India will never like to be shown down…
Now in this particular case, invariably this press release will be looked at like a stick. By the way, Christians in Orissa have rejected this report. Here – http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/orissa_christians_reject_us_report_on_indias_secularism.php
Gosh Amardeep, so the tone changes and gloves come off (!)…I am a partisan advocate and you advocate for human beings?
We at HAF have condemned the post-Godhra violence on numerous occasions, and your attempts to paint my essay as another absolution of the horrific riots is tired and specious. Let’s not take this down the tired Gujarat discussions again…Mutineers have had enough of that. Go ahead, call it a pogrom, a holocaust, anything–those are not loaded words, but calling a missionary a “fanatic” makes me culpable…
Yes, I co-founded a group that advocates for Hindus…numerous Sikh groups, CAIR, AJC do the same; Hindu Americans need advocacy…and SM has blogged before over our amicus brief cited by Supreme Court Justic Stevens in the Ten Commandments case and our lawsuit against the State Board of California. My effort in the USCIRF piece was to argue that the Commission ignored Hindu grievance and elicited Gujarat as a red herring (happened 7 years ago), to load the gun to condemn India for its real interest–the Christian riots.
I had expected more from you after you took the time to meet with Anand Shah during the Sonal issue…I thought you could be an honest broker again.
YogaFire,
Just because you tend to make disproportionate levels of posts on Sikh issues doesn’t mean we should assume you care about Sikhs to the exclusion of all others does it?
I dispute this. Since January I have done exactly 2 posts on Sikh related issues. I have done approximately 49 posts on various other issues, many of them (recently) involving rights for gays and lesbians, political and military crises in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, immigrant issues in the diaspora, as well as a large number of less serious posts.
“Robin, I don’t know what the point of arguing with you might be…”
I agree there would be no point. The USCIRF’s assertion can be summarized in its Chairman Leonard Leo’s words “It is extremely disappointing that India, which has a multitude of religious communities, has done so little to protect and bring justice to its religious minorities under siege”. It seems you either agree with that overarching denouement – that India has done little and that its minorities are under siege – or find it more important to poke holes in the only public challenge to that assertion by the commission. This is your blog. What you find post-worthy, poking-hole worthy or battle worthy is your priority. I have no quarrels with you.
Outside of the nitty-gritty, I disagree with the commission’s observation. Please do not go into semantics, the overall message that India should be placed under some watch list alongside Somalia is harsh. Whether the commission is toothless is quite immaterial, but I do believe – given the media coverage in India – it is perceived as an official message. Coming from the nation I adopted about the nation I was born in, this sweeping adjudication certainly makes ME uncomfortable. I also think it makes many other like me uncomfortable. Please do not ask for “proof” of how I know about others!
Cheers!
Aseem hit it on the mark. The HAF seems to be focused on issues facing Hindus of all nations, and as such has little to answer for in terms of violence perpetrated by political gangs and caste warfare in India. Since the HAF has condemned the riots, it is foolish to continue to rail on an incident irrelevant to the HAF’s aims. The only reason this (the Gujarat issue) is brought up, is to attack advocacy from Hindus by alleged (and nonexistent) association.
This more or less encapsulates at least a portion of the aims of the USCIRF.
Mutineers have had enough of that. Go ahead, call it a pogrom, a holocaust, anything–those are not loaded words, but calling a missionary a “fanatic” makes me culpable…
Oh yeah. Let’s just wash that under the bridge as if it’s not ongoing:
Sure, we’ve talked about it endlessly, but have we really said anything yet? By the way, that’s from Communalism Watch, but just as some of us are trying to do rightwing Hindu groups the courtesy of acknowledging realities they might point out without accepting the framework they point it out in, please help us understand why we should stop talking about Gujarat now, rather than START talking about it again, but in a different way- not as an incident in the past to be brushed under the carpet, but as ongoing, as gendered, as violent, and as a very, very very good example of a total lack of accountability. (so far)
That about says it all. Any word yet on whether the subcabinet level U.S. government official, Sonal Shah, has explained why it was appropriate to use a U.S. Treasury department e-mail (i.e. work email) while serving on the governing council of the American wing of an organisatino that has engaged in and supported human rights violations in India? Among many other things. Maybe you can find an honest broker to help us understand that. And please do keep bringing it up. By all means. I’m sick of the issue, but I’ll keep responding every time someone pretends that it’s not a gross indictment of the Obama Administration’s guidelines for appointees that a former VHP-A governing council member is working for them, but a ton of other South Asian progressive women are being ignored by them.
To add onto this, keep in mind what’s going to happen to Hindu kids going to school in the Bible belt once reports like this start making their rounds through the fundie circuit.
Fine. But if anyone buys into the claim that certain issues are not nearer and dearer to you than others please send me their number. I know of a Nigerian prince in need of assistance.
My second example, that this being a “South Asian” blog doesn’t have to imply that the writers herein are not interested in issues concerning humanity more broadly still stands though. The whole point was that it was unfair of you to accuse HAF, its donors, or its supporters of being narrowly focused while overlooking the blinders you have on yourself. The main point is, what exactly was gained by you including that dig about HAF shockingly taking a stand on issues of concern to Hindus? I am genuinely curious as to how you thought that sort of comment would help keep this discussion civil.
Amonymous,
A double digression on both Sonal Shah and Godhra? I was under the impression that there was a new “zero tolerance policy” on posts that drag us into yet another pissing match between the usual suspects. Might I suggest you reserve that line of discussion for a more appropriate thread before the ban-hammer falls?
I would be perfectly happy to be banned or have my comments deleted for responding to topics that have already been raised which are quite serious but have been brought up in a totally blase way as if there were no murdering involved. Like how you reference Godhra rather than the pogroms in Gujarat. Sure, maybe it will never be resolved in this space – or maybe people who believe that it’s okay to perpetrate mass murder and then laugh about it will eventually shut up and go elsewhere. I’m a commenter – it’s not my call.
Try bringing that shit up in this way at PTR though 😉
.
Well, Dr A…you’ve been known to treat mass murder in very blase way yourself.
Why not be slightly less self aggrandizing and just say .. Ave Amardeep morituri te salutant :-)?
So…can I shamelessly change the subject to health care?
My latest post for the Washington Post…
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/aseem_shukla/2009/08/improving_health_care_access_is_our_dharma.html
Manju and Dizzy Desi, lol. E-mail me off line for this kind of sh£t.
@Aseem
Sure, as soon as you acknowledge that your blogpost totally misrepresents the report (pdf) it uses as a news peg and, further, contradicts itself entirely. As a result, your complaint comes across as that the Commission is not overtly siding with India / Hindus rather than that it is not evenhanded though perhaps the two things mean the same thing to you 😉
In point of fact, unless we’re reading different documents, you got everything wrong from the page count (12) to the level of detail in the report. The report goes back to at least the 1984 anti-Sikh violence, chronicles various forms of communal violence including anti-Hindu violence (contrary to the headline of your blogpost which I hope you didn’t write since you yourself note that the Commission points to anti-Hindu violence) and states the reason for placing India on the watch list is as follows:
“Because the government’s response at the state and local levels has been found to be largel inadequate and the national government has failed to take effective measures to ensure the rights of religious minorities in several states, the Commission decided to place India on its Watch List…The failure to provide justice to religious minorities targeted in violent riots in India is not a new development, and has helped foster a climate of impunity….” and so forth.
Anyone can read the report itself and see that although it’s lame, your description is lacking.
What is more relevant though is that by opposing a report that focuses only on anti-minority violence and speaks in communal terms with a blogpost that focuses only on violence against the ‘majority’ and speaks in communal terms, you’re both just perpetuating communalism. The entire blog post is about communalism in India, which completely undermines your point that India should not be on the watchlist for religious freedom. This raises the question of why you would write an entire post- shamelessly slanted though it may be – that simultaneously states that India is diverse, pluralistic and secular and that Hindus are under attack all over India. Any thoughts, since you’re purporting to represent and speak for many of the people who comment on this site- who are Hindus (among many other aspects of our personalities) or raised in Hindu households – on the blog of a major American newspaper?
The decision of the Commission (and really its very existence) is basically an enormous act of hypocrisy and completely omits some of the relevant points you make (e.g. the imposition of Christian fundamentalist agendas onto other countries, including India), but your blogpost does nothing to stop communalism – if anything it perpetuates it, and does so in many of our names.
Who Cares
awwwright, since this discussion has quietened down, it is only fitting that it end in the same spirit of humor it was initiated. While Rajan Zed tickles Amardeep’s funny bone, this is what really got the USCIRF’s goat:
Outsourced prayer lines confuse callers
Outsourced prayer lines confuse callers
hahaha
I think they were pissed off that Slumdog was such a big hit in India. Hey, we’re making fun of you Indians. You’re supposed to be angry.
“I was stunned,” Danes says. “It was like I’d called a demon prayer line.”
This is too funny, way too funny.
I think Zed is how he keeps his heritage otherwise he would be Rajan Zee.
A bonafide Hindu priest is someone with a name like “Mr. Rompicharla Bhattar Venkatramana Charuyulu”.
I think his given name was Rajan Leppelin.
nah man! Zed is Zed! one who Ving Rhames would go medieval on nothing Amardeep has seen! [Zed is the guy making cringing noises in the background]
BTW homies…. totally love the demon prayer line!
Rajan Zed is almost an exact replica of Bill Donahue of the Catholic League. They get pissed off at every meaningless, little thing. The worst part about Zed is the way news sites refer to him as some sort of a spokesman for Hindus. Rather than indicating that it’s just one person, the titles are usually along the lines of “Hindus protest against such and such.” I doubt most Hindus, especially those in India and Nepal and probably even most of us in the diaspora, have any idea who this guy is.
In other words India’s aped-from-the-british judicial system is a colossal failure, like practically everything else in India.
You got to admit that there is something truly evil about these swamis who convert tribals into low caste or outcaste hindus.
Actually 90 is the global average IQ. The indian subcontinental IQ average is 81. The argument that racists use to establish the usefulness of these IQ scores in predicting success in the modern age is: just look at India and Africa. Despite their use of european languages and european style political and economic systems, south asians and subsaharan africans still lag far behind the rest of the world.
“You got to admit that there is something truly evil about these swamis who convert tribals into low caste or outcaste hindus.”
Its a wiki article, so take it for what its worth…but I’ve read other things similar to it. Might be interesting if someone wants a little bit of background on “Adivasis”
*As a Lemurian admirer, I find the term “adivasi” offensive.
You got to admit that there is something truly evil about these swamis who convert tribals into low caste or outcaste hindus.
Maybe they don’t have enough to eat?
For people interested in one perspective on the history, racism, and other failings of intelligence testing, ideas about intelligence, and the application of both, see Stephen Jay Gould, Mismeasure of Man. I’m not qualified to evaluate it, but it provides a LOT of food for thought.
Sorry, forgot the link…
Its a wiki article, so take it for what its worth…but I’ve read other things similar to it. Might be interesting if someone wants a little bit of background on “Adivasis”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adivasi
The outsources prayer call center article is a joke guys. That site is a gag newspaper like the Onion.
Is there something likewise evil about missionaries who promise them sunshine and roses if they convert to Christianity only to have them find that having water sprinkled on your face doesn’t magically erase class issues and social tensions?
Actually if you read upthread you’ll notice that I mentioned both Godhra and the post-Godhra riots. Just because I opted not to use loaded language like “pogroms” doesn’t mean what you think it does.
I don’t even know what that means.
You’re conflating communalism with communal violence and suppression of religious freedom. Nice semantic wordgame, but that’s like saying you identifying yourself with the GLBT community must mean you are, likewise, perpetuating “communalism.” We’ve played this game before, though. Any attempt to bring a balanced or holistic perspective on matters by including mention of the same crap when it is perpetrated against Hindus becomes unconscionable, so if people like Dr. Shukla (I mistakenly referred to him as Mr. earlier) were not doing what they were doing all you would have is a conversation about evil Hindu murderers and innocent oppressed minorities rather than a more factually accurate profile of a nation being riven by mutually antagonistic communal tensions.
It’s a fair point to make which revolves around how people understand things like communalism (e.g. if you have an overcompensation towards one side, do you then overcompensate on the other side?). Personally, I think the best way to do it is to point out the failings in the entire way of speaking and thinking that makes up communalism (which, to draw an anology, many Palestinian rights supporters do by making sure people understand the distinctions between zionism, the israeli state, israeli society, and jewish people). So you can make an argument that he provides a socially valuable service through his description from a Hindu communal vantage point.
However, the problem with this argument is that the audience he is addresses is in the Washington Post and in the United States and on the Internet. The space is ALREADY biased against Muslims and does not need any more of that, ALREADY inclined to take both sides of the issue on Gujarat because they don’t know what the dynamics actually are. As I pointed out above, it IS useful that he is pointing out the connections between evangelical Christianity proselytization, but he doesn’t take it a step further and view it as a form of soft imperialism – in fact, his main complaint seems to be that India and the U.S. should unite against Pakistan, and then to lay out how he thinks that might happen.
So perhaps you are right that this is the best way to generate a factually accurate profile of a nation riven by mutually antognistic communal tensions. It is true, I believe, that I would not have had my attention drawn to the issues facing religious minorities and other disempowered groups in Bangladesh if Hindutva commenters here and elsewhere had not raised them frequently and complained about the lack of attention they receive. However, I STILL beleive that it is worthwhile to make a much strnoger attempt at accurately describing the world as it is, rather than how we would like it to be, much less how we think it is best described in order to manipulate public opinion to meet our political agenda, than what Shukla does. It is simple good faith and openness and a different brand of politics that does not depend on polarisation and fear but instead on some amount of epistemological rigidity, but much less so and coming from stronger traditions of establishing ‘true’ statements about the world.
You can notice it in the way that I respond to you here rather than how I responded to Shukla’s blogpost – I am expressing more willingness in this comment to accept that you are speaking in good faith than I could with Shukla’s blogpost. You are presenting an explanation I can argue with despite that it is one that I disagree with pretty strongly, of the value of having Hindu communal lenses on India/the US/the world, and you are speaking only for yourself, not for all “Hindu Americans”.
The basic error you’re making is in assuming that I think that Hindutva is a group, rather than a political movement/set of ideas/part of a discourse/organising principle for seeing the world. This is different from a person who identifies as Hindu or as part of a Hindu community, in some fashion or another. So the equivalent statement would be that if you are are identifying with GLBT separatism, you are promoting ‘communalism.’
Further, the correct version of the argument that you are attributing to me (whether group identification is intrinsically problematic) has been made and written about extensively and has been made quite forcefully. I think it’s not very useful and some version of strategically identifying in a group identity depending on power dynamics are (in India, ‘Hindus’ rank higher in the communal discourse), what the context is (whether you are talking about Bihar, California, New Jersey, London, women, men, heternormative, LGBT, etc.), and your overall worldview, is more useful. This also has its issues and taken in the wrong context can lead to things like Hindutva, but it seems to make more sense if your basic concern is with issues of power and disempowerment and you’re more inclined to humanism than Hindu unity.
“You are presenting an explanation I can argue with despite that it is one that I disagree with pretty strongly, of the value of having Hindu communal lenses on India/the US/the world, and you are speaking only for yourself, not for all “Hindu Americans”.
Dr. A, I see your point, but which groups out there even the ones who “advocate for human beings” don’t end up in some shape or form speaking on behalf of a group. Think, the Congressional Black Caucus doesn’t speak for all African Americans or AIPAC represent all American Jews-but they put forth their arguments as if they do.
Quite frankly, the “South Asian” progressive groups do it as well-I think its pretty clear that they usually don’t speak for a large section of the South Asian Americans but they act as if they do, and vice versa with whatever Hindu group might enter the fray.
In an ideal world, this wouldn’t happen, but its how things are. And as such, HAF has stepped in to fill in the void by bringing attention to Bangladesh, Kashmir etc.because no one else will, or at the very least, presenting an opposite viewpoint which at times has very legitimate perspectives. In fact, I think that it demonstrates the failure of South Asian groups that present themselves as being against communalism to actually try and represent all south asians that people felt the need to start something like HAF.
Lastly, I think its a serious stretch to say that the HAF is a “hindutva” group-last I checked they weren’t advocated the Hindu identity to be placed onto Indian religious minorities or even saying it should be india’s dominant culture for everyone, which is what Hindutva is.
Actually this is the basic error that I think bothered me about your post. The assumption that any social or political advocacy, activism, or involvement that is Hindu centric or Hindu motivated is automatically Hindutva.
They might find common cause with the Hindutva movement on a variety of subjects, but if the worldview is fundamentally different it doesn’t make sense to lump them all together on a list of “enemies.” I understand it’s fashionable to sling the label around since it helps load the language in one’s favor, but exploiting biases isn’t going to persuade anyone except the already biased.
If it looks like a duck, but doesn’t walk or quack like one, then it’s probably a platypus. But I have found that the reaction has frequently been to assert that platypuses are secretly “soft ducks,” or “duck sympathizers,” or any other formulation that lets us otherize those who don’t share our political beliefs.
What makes you think I won’t feel the same criticisms in those cases 😉 There are two concepts that I think are relevant – ‘strategic essentialism’ which is basically putting yourself and organising a group identity when it makes sense in terms of your overall politics in terms of power; and democracy – which is an ideal, but there are considerations of ethos, of institutional structure, what mechanisms are used to generate the appearance and/or substance of consent, to what extent divergences of opinion or differences are taken into account, etc. That’s why I am more inclined to favor membership based organisations than organisation that depend on funding sources, for instance.
But I digress.
Fair enough. However, I think it’s fair to criticise the ideas of people who don’t share our beliefs and that at particular moments, I can be subject to the tendency to criticise the person rather than the behavior or action or to attribute values or beliefs to people who do not share them. However, that’s the process of learning – I make mistakes, and if I have been unfair, I feel bad. I try to apologise.
Tell me what standards you use to judge whether or not to use a ‘Hindu’ identity in supporting a mobilisation. For me it is when the issue itself is about people being attacked for being or perceived to being Hindu, when there are broader issues of power at issue, and when there are not other identities or groupings that I would rather ally myself with (including in conjunction with Hinduism). For example, the dotbusters comes to mind – so does the Simpsons depiction of Hinduism.
But the central issue for me is that it is about social justice, or about togetherness, or about political activism that actively questions and combats issues related to power. That makes it very hard for me to imagine a circumstance in which I would be actively allying myself with someone who ‘finds common cause with the Hindutva movement on a variety of subjects’ because we probably wouldn’t share the same outlook and moreover would be attentive to issues of power (which are central to me) at different levels. Sometimes, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it might not be a duck, but it’s close enough to avoid because it really really likes ducks. engaging with or talking to very much because it really really likes ducks and thinks they have a lot to contribute 😉
All that said, again, yes, when I make overly broad statements or am unfair, that’s not right. However, it wouldn’t be right to not call attention to specific failings of language or action (whether in accuracy, strategy, or, in some cases, moral). This can be done in a variety of ways, but it has to be done, because regardless of what anyone says, there IS an active and virulent rightwing Hindu fundamentalist social movement that is centered in India but operates in the diaspora as well.
Well, I won’t, and hopefully haven’t, commented on the group without sourcing what I was saying, but based on the blogpost of Shukla and his comments here, I wouldn’t be surprised. It also doesn’t help that their founder and President, Mihir Meghani, was a member of the VHP-A governing council (google it). A lot like Sonal Shah (google it). Whose sister is the HAF’s development director (google it).
Start to see some connections?
I actually think a deeply objectional part of their work is defining who is a Hindu and who is not – and specifically that their version of Hinduism is the ‘correct’ one. That Hindu American Foundation was deeply involved in the California textbook rewrite effort. It’s bad enough to have to deal with the bullshit that non Hindus will give you about Hinduism, but when the response that comes from alleged spokespeople for you flies in the face of academic scholarship and lived realities, that’s embittering.
But I guess I’m not a Hindu according to their ally’s definition of Hinduism, since I don’t care what the Vedas say and they’re “the source of Hinduism.” 😉 Personally, I prefer this broader reading of what Hinduism can or should mean.
The radical leftist tripe on the forum is getting tiresome. They – the radical leftists did their damn well best to keep Sonal Shah out of the Obama administration and failed; they poked their nose into the California textbook controversy and failed there too; they tried gaining critical mass in their leftist “youth forums” and failed their too, attracting the same old hippies year after year. HAF does a good job representing the mainstream Hindu viewpoint in the US. If other potential spokespeople think they can do better, they should get out and do some fundraising – the American way after all.