Monthly Archives: May 2010

The soft bigotry of fake license plates

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I was horrified upon reading this. While growing up in diverse northern California in the early 80s this is the one thing that really stuck out to make me feel like a minority. 25 years later it seems this continues to be a problem for our peoples.

HAYWARD, CA– Dinesh Parekh, 9, continues to struggle to find a bicycle license plate with his name on it, the Indian-American child reported Monday. “This is the third store I’ve checked today,” said a dejected Parekh, exiting a Toys “R” Us near his Hayward home. “Derrick, Diane, Dillon and Dylan, Dirk… no Dinesh.” Parekh, who has pedaled his brand-new Schwinn to more than a dozen stores during his three-week search, said he plans to ask his mother to drive him to the KB Toys in San Leandro next weekend. [Onion]

Can’t we just ask prison inmates to add a bit of diversity to their plate making assembly lines? Until at least Fremont, Edison, Sugarland and other U.S. cities start carrying “Dinesh, “Rahul,” “Ravi,” etc., we will never really be accepted.

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Switching it to the higher side

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speak english.jpgIf you have a business and are looking for content writing services, you may want to consider Muneek Shah’s company in Gujarat. According to its website, the company “has assembled a team of the best writers from around the India.” If that isn’t impressive enough, here’s the sales pitch on the home page of the website:

Professional copywriting service is the way to feel customers confident about their business and switching it to the higher side by the words. So those who really want to stand out different and innovative among all others choose us or effective and strong web presence.

When a potential customer gone through your writing, you have just a seconds to prove you’re self by catching their attention. Though the literature has same fonts, color and style, it should be eye catchy. They should be attracted and convinced them to stay to read what you have to say. Along with the best service marketing tool is essential to target the perfect mass and capture the business.

Choosing a professional copywriting service can really make all the difference on the business world. It takes a special kind of skill and experience to create a winning writing, whether it is an online presence, articles, marketing campaign, or any other type of collateral. In fact, good copywriting is critical to the success of your business.

Here at our team, that is what we do. Our professional writers dedicated to providing you authenticated, informative and heart winning copies that will attract the potential customers. They just hypnotized the customers in favor of yours by the ornamental words. [Link]

So what are you waiting for? Switch it to the higher side.

And while you’re at it, please tell these guys that they’re spoiling it for all the Indians who communicate well in Engish and are trying to market their services worldwide, as they should. (There you go, Kerala Cookies.)

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David Cameron in India, 2006: on Globalization

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Here are excerpts from a speech David Cameron gave in India in 2006, relating to globalization:

I would especially recommend the last 30 seconds or so of the clip.

Isn’t David Cameron essentially a reprisal of Tony Blair and the “Third Way,” with an only slightly more “conservative” complexion? How is this rhetoric any different from the pro-globalization, pro-liberalization line taken by Blair/Clinton centrists since the early 1990s? Finally, do you find his references to “compassion” convincing?

Cameron also made several other stops he made along the way during a 2006 India trip: here. He did make a stop in the Mumbai slums (link), and stop to ride the Delhi Metro (link). And he seemed to respond with appropriate sobriety when a minibus accompanying his motorcade had an accident with a pedestrian that left a woman critically injured.

Of course, this was a few years ago, when he had just become the Conservative party leader, and was not yet a household name. (I’m sure the trip would look very different now.)

And here’s a speculative question: how might the UK/India and UK/Pakistan relationships change under the new Conservative/LibDem. government? Continue reading →

Fast food chains keep moo-ving to India

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Taco Bell recently opened its first outlet in India, selling tacos for Rs. 18 and cheesycow shaker.jpg tortillas for Rs. 20 in Bangalore, making people think they’re eating Mexican food. Like McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and others, Taco Bell had to tailor its menu to Indian tastes and preferences, as Saritha Rai writes in GlobalPost.

In chili pepper-loving India, you might think that spicy Mexican food would be an easy sell. But it isn’t quite that simple and Taco Bell has made big changes from its American cousin. “It took us over two years to perfect our three Vs for India — value, vegetarian and variety,” said Bajpai. [Link]

Yeah, but what about the fourth V: vindaloo. A chili pepper-loving country needs its burrito vindaloo.

Following in the footsteps of McDonald’s, beef is off the menu in this Hindu-dominated, cow-worshipping country. Taco Bell offers chicken instead. [Link]

Upon reading this, I decided to write a letter to the president of Arby’s.

Dear Mr. Smith,

I heard that Arby’s might be interested in opening a franchise in India and thought I’d tell you a little bit about the country to help you make decisions about your menu, decor, employment, etc. India is a Hindu-loving, cow-dominated, chili pepper-worshipping country. No, wait … that isn’t quite right. It’s a chili pepper-loving, Hindu-dominated, cow-worshipping country. That means, of course, that you won’t be able to sell any roast beef sandwiches there — not a single one — but don’t worry, you’ll be able to sell billions of roast chili sandwiches.

Considering that it’s a Hindu-dominated, cow-worshipping country, it’s very important that you put a big sign outside your front door that says: “Cows eat free.” Make sure your entrance is wide enough for customers to bring their cows with them, and your employees are waiting with garlands and incense. It’s also wise to put pictures of cows on all your signs, with no reference whatsoever to roasting them. Cow-shaped chili-pepper shakers would also be a nice touch, as would a cow-shaped manager.

Another thing: If you happen to get any employment applications from Muslims, Sikhs and Christians, please check their identity carefully. India’s growing economy has attracted people from all over the world, many of whom do not speak the local language and, even worse, have never kissed the feet of a cow.

Finally, you may want to consider changing your name slightly. Arby’s is a fine name, but if you want to score points with Indians (and a certain blogger I know), please consider the name Abhi’s.

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“Internet Hindus”: Another Twitter-versy

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After reading the recent article in the New York Times on corruption in the IPL, I went over to Amit Varma’s blog, India Uncut, to see if he had any comments on Lalit Modi et al. I didn’t find anything right off, but instead a reference to yet another Twitter controversy that I’d missed, in this post.

A journalist with IBN Live, Sagarika Ghose, had posted a few Tweets (for example) lamenting that a group of what she called “Internet Hindus” had attacked her for comments she had made: “Internet Hindus are like swarms of bees. they come swarming after you at any mention of Modi Muslims or Pakistan!”

Other journalists have also picked up on the phrase. Here is an interesting column by Ashok Malik in the Hindustan Times that picks up on the critique. Amit also linked to a column by Kanchan Gupta defending the “Internet Hindus” here, along the lines of “screw the pseudo-secular MSM,” though I personally wasn’t all that impressed by the overblown rhetoric. (Call me an Internet Skeptic.)

Actually, Amit Varma’s own comments on the phenomenon of extremism on the internet seemed wisest to me:

If Ghose was, indeed, bothered by trolls, she would have done well to keep in mind the old jungle saying, ‘Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and the pig enjoys it.’ The internet empowers loonies of all kinds by giving them a megaphone–but no one is forced to listen to them. The noise-to-signal ratio is way out of whack on the net (Sturgeon’s Law), and any smart internet veteran will tell you that to keep your sanity, you need to ignore the noise. Ghose, poor thing, had tried to engage with it.

We all know that people are more extreme on the net than they are in real life. The radical Hindutva dude who wants to nuke Pakistan on the net will, in the real world, sit meekly at Cafe Coffee Day arguing the relative merits of Atif Aslam and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. (link)

Yes, exactly. Varma goes on to discuss Cass Sunstein’s recent study on “group polarization,” and has some thoughts on what that might mean for India-Pakistan relations. It’s worth reading the whole thing.

Meanwhile, here is my own humble contribution. There is indeed such a thing as an “Internet Hindu” — by which I mean, someone who expresses extreme views online while living a very moderate or even secular lifestyle in the real world. But there are also Internet Muslims, Internet Sikhs, Internet Christians, and Internet Marxsts — all of them potentially irksome if you say something they don’t like. Hindus do not have a monopoly on saying extremist things online.

I’m really not interested in having a discussion along the lines of “who are the worst offenders?” if it’s at all possible not to go down that route. (Pretty please?)

Rather, I would be curious as to whether we could use this as an opportunity to reflect on the issue of “group polarization” Varma mentions, and how and whether the habit of talking to people on the internet is a factor in magnifying differences. How have your own views and habits changed as a result of being on the internet, talking about issues related to the Indian subcontinent? What are some positive effects, and what are some negatives? Continue reading →

Dubai Can Bite Me, Ctd

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We have often had harsh things to say about the treatment of South Asian guest workers in Dubai/UAE in many posts here (for instance), but here is one that hit home for me as an academic.

Syed Ali is an American citizen of Indian descent who teaches sociology at Long Island University. In 2007, he was in Dubai on a Fulbright with his family. One day before he was to leave the country, he got a knock on the door, and five men in white robes and a woman in police uniform asked him to come with them. What followed was a rather bizarre kind of interrogation by the UAE police:

Then the questioning began. Why are you here? Who do you know? He explained that he was a Fulbright scholar, on a grant by the very U.S. government that was the United Arab Emirates’ main strategic partner.

Ali, now 41, was in Dubai researching about second-generation expatriates from South Asia for an academic paper about how professional Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis living in the Persian Gulf were adjusting to life and work far from home, in a place where they could live in for decades but could never gain permanent residency. He was shocked that his line of inquiry would set off alarm bells.

“It ended up I was interviewing people who were quite well off,” he said. “That’s why I was so really stunned. I never had any sense that there was anything objectionable about what I was doing. No one had any serious complaints about being there.”

Yet despite the reams of information they had on him, “there was a lack of basic information that they didn’t get or have or really understand,” said Ali, who wrote about his experiences in Dubai for Britain’s Guardian newspaper. They didn’t seem to get what a Fulbright was. “‘We think you’re working for the ‘Jewish,’ ” one interrogator accused Ali, who is a secular Muslim. “‘Maybe also the CIA.'” (link)

Note that he was researching white collar workers, not the folks working in construction (whose miserable working and living conditions have been amply documented). Eventually they let him go, warning him not to return to the country to do any further research: “The research you are doing is creating divisions in our society and we will not allow it” (See Syed Ali’s original account of his experience here.) They also took his laptop and the IPod he had been using to record interviews. They later returned the computer without its hard disk, and bought him a new IPod instead of returning the old one. So much for the months of research!

Now Syed Ali’s book, Dubai: Gilded Cage is out from Yale University Press. Revenge is a dish best served with coverage in the Chicago Tribune (above), The LA Times, and the Independent.

Maybe someone should mail a copy to Dubai’s secret police: here’s that scurrilous book by the “Jewish” “CIA” agent named … umm… Syed Ali. Continue reading →

Chemical Cremation?

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A bill headed to the California State Assembly, and expected to pass, will be of special interest to our Hindu readers, especially “environmentally conscious” ones. The question is, should chemical cremation be legalized as an alternative to combustion cremation (the latter having a larger carbon footprint)?

Funeral homes and crematoria want to use a liquid chemical process to dissolve bodies instead of cremating them with fire.
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“It’s green. It’s clean. It’s environmentally friendly and it reduces the carbon footprint,” said California state Assemblyman Jeff Miller (R-Corona), who wrote legislation to make the so-called bio-cremation method legal.

Miller said his bill was prompted by a funeral home director in his district who might may buy a bio-cremation machine. The measure would broaden the definition of cremation to include the use of either both fire or and water. Two committees already have approved the measure unanimously, and the full Assembly must pass it before it goes to the Senate. [LAT]

Chemical cremation is properly known as “resomation.” The website of a Scottish company explains the process and benefits:

The coffin is placed in a special chamber and, instead of fire, resomation uses a water and alkali based method which uses the same chemistry as in natural decomposition but is much quicker…

The resomation process takes roughly the same time as cremation and the funeral ceremony will be the same. However, it uses less energy than cremation and produces significantly less CO2 and avoids putting mercury and other harmful contaminants into the atmosphere…

After resomation, bone remains are left behind in the form of pure white ash. As with cremation these remains can be placed in an urn and returned to the loved ones. Relative to cremated ash, resomated ash is fine and pure white as can be seen in the photographs on the right of the page. [Link]

So far only one state, Florida, has passed a law legalizing this form of cremation (although services are not yet operational).

So what do the Hindus out there think? The resomated ash does look finer and should be easier to disperse. This process has the side benefit of making it really difficult to go all Sati. But in all seriousness, part of the point of cremation is that you are doing away with your body because it is a discarded piece of nothing once your eternal soul has left. The act of turning the body to ash aids in releasing the soul. If one believes that, then resomation should be no problem. Right?

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In Britain, the Ethnic Hostility is a Tad Less Subtle…

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British National Party (BNP) Parliamentary candidate Bob Bailey ran into a group of three Desi toughs in East London while campaigning earlier today, and the following is the result:

If you look at the reaction in the YouTube comments, as well as in the coverage of the story at the Daily Mail, there is an overwhelming consensus by readers that the Asian “thugs” got what was coming to them.

And yes, it’s hard to deny that the smaller South Asian kid in black started the physical altercation by spitting in Bob Bailey’s face. Unfortunately, the commenters on these sites are using the incident to unleash wads of racist bile… Pretty disgusting to read.

At least at Pickled Politics, the commentary on the incident is more sane. My favorite comment there is “Platinum786,” who writes: “If someone spits at you and you punch them, fair enough it’s almost instinct. If that leads to someone punching you back, pushing you, you fight back, again that is instinct. Once they’re on the ground, kicking them, that’s BNP” (link)

My own question is this: what exactly was Bob Bailey saying as the youths approached him on the street? My suspicion is that they thought he was accusing them of being “robbers,” but he may not have intended to say that. Can anyone work it out?

In the end, it doesn’t really matter that much — a brawl is still a brawl. But I can’t help but wonder: was this thing was the result of a misunderstanding caused partially by British accent differences?

Update: Here’s a little bit of backstory on Bob Bailey. Quite the character! (Now I understand better why he was on foot to begin with…) Continue reading →

Even if He’s Just a Pakistani…

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When Nilanjana sent me this graphic earlier today, I have to admit that after my initial anger, my second reaction was one of resignment. After all, the arrest of Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad earlier this week brought with it the usual blanket condemnation of all things Pakistani. Even funnyman Stephen Colbert milked laughs with his emphasis on the name ‘Faisal.‘ Was it so unreasonable to think that the New York’s Metropolitan Transportation System would issue posters saying ‘If You See Something, Say Something. Even if You’re Pretty Sure He’s Just a Pakistani?’ Given the treatment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, I was not at all convinced this was a hoax. Continue reading →

Why does he hate our freedoms?

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Today, at noon, Joe Lieberman will introduce legislation designed to strip American citizenship from anybody who chooses to affiliate with a foreign terrorist organization.

The bill is a reaction to the fact that Shahzad was read his Miranda rights, something that Lieberman claims will make it harder to fight terrorism even though (a) anybody arrested in America is read their rights (citizen or not) and (b) Shahzad has been singing like a canary.

Why will Lieberman’s political grandstanding effect you? After all, you’re not planning on becoming a terrorist. One reason is that the Lieberman’s remarks suggest that this bill will be incredibly broad:

under federal law, the “choice” to affiliate or associate with terrorism may be an innocent, unknowing financial sale or purchase, or it may simply entail making a charitable donation for humanitarian purposes to a group that the executive branch suspects of terrorism. [cite]

Remember that under current law, even human rights advocates working with non-violent political groups to help them resolve their conflicts non-violently can be charged with giving material support to terrorists if they also have an armed wing which is classified as a terrorist organization.

Another reason why you should be worried is that he is suggesting doing this by administrative means, even though you would have the right to contest such a finding in court:

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