Author Archives: siddhartha

Our Foremost Political Philosopher

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dineshbook.jpg“The worst nonfiction book about terrorism published by a major house since 9/11” is what Warren Bass, senior books editor at the Washington Post (and, the byline notes, a former staff member of the 9/11 Commission), calls the latest from desi Talking Android nonpareil Dinesh D’Souza. The book is called THE ENEMY AT HOME: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, a title that begs little further explication. Indeed, Bass points out at the end of a sharp review that’s less blustering and more cutting than that of Alan Wolfe in the New York Times, the whole exercise of D’Souza’s book seems so plainly intended to cause a kerfuffle in the blogosphere that I feel tawdry even bringing it up here, despite the Desi Angle (TM). As Bass notes:

Either D’Souza is blaming liberals for 9/11 because he truly believes that they’re culpable, or he’s blaming liberals for 9/11 because he’s cynically calculating that an incendiary polemic will sell books. I just don’t know which is scarier. One has to wonder why his publisher, agent, editors and publicists went along for the ride, and it’s hard not to conclude that they thought the thing would cause a cable-news and blogosphere sensation that would spike sales — a ruckus triggered not despite the book’s silliness but because of it. This sort of scam has worked before (think of Christopher Hitchens’s gleeful broadside against Mother Teresa or the calculated slurs of Ann Coulter), but rarely has the gap between the seriousness of the issues and the quality of the book yawned as wide. This time, let’s just not bother with the flap; this dim, dishonorable book isn’t worth it.

And perhaps, indeed, it isn’t. Still, as the rituals of the publishing biz dictate, Brother D’Souza has been getting his publicity on since the book’s release last week. Yesterday he had an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle that begins with a piece of logical reasoning that might have done Descartes proud:

The Pelosi Democrats sometimes appear to be just as eager as Osama bin Laden for President Bush to lose his war on terror. Why do I say this? Because if the Pelosi Democrats were seeking Bush’s success, then their rhetoric and actions now and over the past three years are pretty much incomprehensible. By contrast, if you presume that they want Bush’s war on terror to fail, then their words and behavior make perfect sense.

Continue reading →

Why Can’t They All Be Like Us?

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whacamole.jpgIt’s like playing Whac-A-Mole: Every time you think this “model minority” BS is swept away for good, in comes yet another set of generalizations based on wishful thinking and selective observation, deployed by some so-called expert who sets him/herself up to make claims about the community as a whole.

This time it’s Manjeet Kripalani, the Bombay bureau chief of Business Week and currently a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Kripalani, who first came to the US in the 1980s, has a piece today in the Los Angeles Times that a tipster kindly brings to our attention on the news tab. Behold the brilliant lede:

THE 2.2 MILLION Indian Americans in the U.S. constitute a model minority, highly educated and well paid. And now, following in the footsteps of earlier immigrant groups such as the Irish, the Jews and the Cubans, Indian Americans are emerging as an influential force in Washington.

I’m not going to rehash the whole critique of the concept of a “model minority.” At this point, either you get it or you don’t. Instead, I simply want to point out that by writing entirely in generalizations, some conveniently free of backing evidence and others normative and therefore unprovable, the sister not only has carried out very shoddy journalism, but also — thanks to the L.A. Times editors — been set up as an expert voice rather than a reporter investigating an issue. Continue reading →

Diplomatic Impunity: Slavery in the Suburbs

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According to a complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. (thanks, tipster Ashwini!), in the summer of 2005 a Kuwaiti diplomat and his wife brought with them to the United States three Indian women as domestic workers. In order to obtain for the workers the appropriate visas, they presented contracts in which they promised each woman a monthly salary in the range of $1,300 for 8 hours of work per day, 6 days per week.

You know where this story is going. Once established at the residence at 7027 Elizabeth Drive in McLean, Va., according to the complaint, the couple proceeded to demand of the three women that they work non stop, 7 days a week, 18 hours a day, for which they were paid in the range of $250 each month, which they never saw as it was sent directly to their families.

The defendants, Waleed al-Saleh and his wife Maysaa al-Omar, abused the workers physically and emotionally:

They were subjected to threats and verbal and physical abuse, including one particularly violent incident in which Sabbithi was knocked unconscious after being thrown against a counter by Al Saleh. The women were often not allowed time to eat or to use the bathroom and frequently were deprived of food. Two of them were allowed one hour off a month to attend church. The workers had their passports taken away and they were isolated from contact with the external world.

“I was scared of my employers and believed that if I ran away or sought help they would harm me or maybe even kill me,” said Kumari Sabbithi, who is now living in New York. “I believed that I had no choice but to continue working for them even though they beat me and treated me worse than a slave.”

Some examples from the complaint: Continue reading →

Posted in Law

I Love A Woman In A Uniform

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4_21_011907_female_peacekeepers.jpgA few outlets today picked up a report by Muneeza Naqvi of the AP on the imminent departure for Liberia of a contingent of 105 Indian women police officers (Thanks, tipster kit-and-kumari!). This is the first-ever United Nations all-female peacekeeping contingent, another achievement in the lengthy record of service that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have contributed to UN peacekeeping missions for decades.

Liberia has already benefited from a strong woman’s touch: the democratically elected president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is Africa’s first female elected head of state, and is considered to be doing quite a good job thus far dealing with some pretty intractable problems, like mass unemployment, a completely collapsed national infrastructure, and widespread trauma from the civil war. Now, some strong Indian sisters are going to be lending a hand as well:

There, they will likely be called on to train Liberia’s national police, help conduct local elections or assist with prison security as the West African country struggles to recover from years of civil war. ..

However, this is the first all-female peacekeeping team, and participants have said it would have unique advantages in conflict zones.

“Women police are seen to be much less threatening, although they can be just as tough as men. But in a conflict situation, they are more approachable and it makes women and children feel safer,” Seema Dhundia, a unit commander, said recently.

This news deserves more coverage. Here in the US though, aside from a few papers running the wire report, all we have is some ignorant and vulgar comments from… Rush Limbaugh. Here’s what America heard on talk radio today:

Well, it was on this program, if you listen to this program, by the way, you are on the cutting edge. It was a long time ago, it had to be the early nineties, during the discussions of women in combat in the military, that we came up with the unique idea of the All-American First Cavalry Amazon Battalion, a bunch of combat ready females on PMS, way to go, great tactic. … Well, the United Nations has ripped me off.

After reading part of the wire story, he continued:

Okay, well, interesting theory, keep an eye. Make a note. Keep an eye on Liberia. Let’s just see if women as peacekeepers are more approachable by women and children. You know, a lot of UN peacekeeping forces engage in rape and child rape, particularly in Africa. WeÂ’ll see if there’s any change in that behavior here with the all-babe police force.

I’m in the mood for a lathi-charge right about now. Continue reading →

Red or Green?

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Red or green? It isn’t just the state question of New Mexico anymore. But we’ll pick up on that in a moment. As some of you may have noticed, I have a fairly liberal personal definition of what constitutes a Desi Angle (TM) for your consideration. Perhaps this is due to my own mixed-up background — subconsciously, I probably worry that if you define desi too narrowly, there won’t be any room left for my mongrel ass. But it’s also that desi angles pop up in the darndest places. For example…

I have been working almost everyday on the drive to the double-wide. The last couple days I moved 53 tons of #2 gravel onto the drive. I believe I will need one more load to have everything covered good on the drive and to have enough to put a few around the entrances to the barns. It gets really muddy anywhere the animals gather up in the winter. At the ends of the barns is a soupy mess. Mud doesnÂ’t bother the cows, but it is a breeding ground for worms. Goats are very succeptable to parasites so they donÂ’t do well in moist places. ItÂ’s also hard on the horsesÂ’ shoes. It seems to suck them right off. Not to mention I hate walking in it.

Monday I noticed someone had used my tractor while I was at work. Turns out BJ had to feed hay to Mamaw and Papaw StaleyÂ’s cattle. Papaw said she did it like she had been doing it all her life. I told him it was just that she had a good teacher. Today I went and set out some rolls of hay to the same cattle. Same story where he has their cattle. Pretty much a soupy mess. They have rented my great uncle FredÂ’s old place and have about 25 head running on it. A few weeks back someone shot two of his cows. They must have done it in the night and just left them to die. There is enough loss in farming without such senseless things as that.

Let’s play Spot the Desi Angle, shall we? In the preceding quote, the Desi Angle is…

(a) Great-uncle Fred is Hindu, and his cows were sacred

(b) The writer is a share-cropper at the Maharishi’s farm in Iowa

(c) The writer is a blogger for an Indian farm equipment company

(d) Don’t be fooled by the names. This story takes place in Madhya Pradesh.

And the answer is… Continue reading →

“Dharmacracy” – Dem Are Crazy

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In a proper Hindu spiritual life you must wake up long before dawn each morning and perform several hours of austerities to center yourself before you engage the tawdry goings-on of the material world. Well this morning I woke up before dawn and contemplated mystical concerns to do with Lords Vishnu and Shiva, as made manifest in my life by the writing of one Jonathan Haidt, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, in a Los Angeles Times op-ed that tipster AfroDesiAc brought to our attention yesterday.

And I feel much wiser for the effort. Consider these insights:

As Democrats change the drapes on Capitol Hill and relegate Republicans to minority status, both parties would do well to look to the ancient East for advice on how opposites should — and should not — work together.

In Hinduism, two of the main gods are Shiva the destroyer and Vishnu the preserver. They are not enemies but partners in the governance of the world, and Shiva’s “destruction” is really change, as in the change of seasons or of generations. Another Eastern tradition, the Manichean religion of ancient Persia, holds that the forces of good and evil eternally battle for control of the universe, and we humans get hurt in the process.

Which of these two models is most appropriate for our two-party system? It ought to be Hinduism.

Oh no! It’s the Ancient East again! I will let you read for yourself the full development of this argument — the article, by the way, is entitled “The Spirit of Dharmacracy” — but I ask that you consider whether, in your participation in American political and cultural life, you speak for Shiva or Vishnu:

Robert F. Kennedy spoke for Shiva when he said, “I dream things that never were and say ‘why not?'” … The conservative philosopher Irving Kristol spoke for Vishnu when he said, “Institutions which have existed over a long period of time have Â… a collective wisdom incarnate in them …”

If I want to see Professor Haidt confronted by a frothing-mad female superhero waving instruments of destruction in her numerous arms and hissing at him with a pitch-black tongue, does that mean I speak for Ma Kali? The professor inquires:

How can we make our two-party system more beneficial for the nation? What can we do to become more “Hindu?”

(Insert joke about fistfights in the Lok Sabha here.)

But wait! There’s science behind all this:

In my research on the role that emotions play in morality, I have found that acts of virtue, nobility and honor create feelings of moral elevation in those who witness them.

Alert the IgNobel committee! This is some (sacred) bullshit. Continue reading →

The Kids Are Alright

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Intentblog, the weblog aggregation of the Chopra spiritual-aspirational empire, is a strange mishmash of largely desi-written key-issues insight (Sepia friend Dave Sidhu), New Age preening (nympho-striver Saira Mohan), and general bloviating (too many to list), generating awkward, fawning comments, many of which seem to be from Polish guys named Marek looking for a date.

Amid all this are entries from the Chopras themselves, including the big man and his progeny. Of these, the oddly-spelled Gotham has earned some visibility for his own projects and initiatives beyond the family business. These include the Virgin Comics line of desi superhero tales, which I’ve seen a couple of copies of and look pretty damn cool, even to my untrained eye, and more dubious ventures like the midtown Manhattan “Kama Sutra-themed” K Lounge, which one astute Citysearch user reviewed as follows: “Pros: easy jersey booty; Cons: bad bartenders, bad jersey booty.” We’ve also mentioned Gotham here in the mutiny’s early days, smoking out various fans, haters and impersonators in the process.

Lately Gotham’s been waxing worried about the decline of desi cultural identity in the multiculti American stew, having traveled to the belly of the beast — the notorious SASA conference which Abhi roundly dissed yesterday — and been horrified by the brown binge-drinking buffoons and playa and hoochie wannabes he found setting the tone of the proceedings. Gotham was so alienated that he had to move out of the conference hotel to a more spiritually centered location. After several days of processing, he wrote this cri de coeur, and though I admit I’m vacillating in my tone here between snark and sympathy, I have to say I feel for the brother. Here’s what he saw:

I, myself, am only 30 years old but found myself so shockingly displaced from the South Asian community congregated down at the conference that I’ve been unable to articulate my thoughts the last few days and even blog about it. This is my best shot.

Thr primary focus, it seemed, amongst the over 1000 20-somethings (and yes, this is a broad generalization so take it for what it is) was oft articulated by the attendees themselvs, was to ‘get drunk and hook up.’ Not unlike, their other generational brethrens of any other cultural or racial background…

Not surprising in itself, he says, but here’s the real problem: Continue reading →

To the Mountaintop

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I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment [December 1964] when twenty-two million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award in behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.

I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeing to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept segregation. …

After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time — the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.

Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.

— Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, December 10, 1964 Continue reading →

Ascension

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alice.jpgSwamini A. C. Turiyasangitananda, who passed away on Friday in Los Angeles, was a working-class, African-American daughter of Detroit who embraced her spiritual calling nearly 40 years ago:

During the end of 1968, Swamini, directed by God, entered a most significant period of isolation. The Supreme Lord provided wisdom, knowledge, guidance, and instruction consonant with and essential to her designated lifeÂ’s tenure… Swamini received her initiation into the renounced order of sannyas directly from the Supreme Lord. … Swamini took mantra initiation with Swami Satchidananda.

It was a time of great cultural turmoil and motion in American society, and Swamini had found herself at the heart of it. Known to the secular world as Alice McCleod Coltrane, she met John Coltrane in 1962, married him in 1965, and joined his band, playing piano and other instruments, in 1966. After his death of liver disease in the summer of 1967, she continued on both tracks of the path they had traveled together: the musical and the spiritual. Journey in Satchidananda, the album she released in 1970 featuring among others Rashied Ali, Charlie Haden and Pharoah Sanders, is an early document of her progress and the depth of her research and dedication. It still listens well today, one of the strongest surviving documents of the sincere fascination the creative music scene had with both Indian music and Hindu spirituality at that time, a far cry from the more superficial flirtations of the Beatles or the ephemeral Haight-Ashbury philosopher-kings.

For the rest of her life Alice was considered a recluse, recording at a limited pace and rarely appearing in concert; her vow of sanyas and commitment to the spiritual life meant that she spent most of her time at home with her family, at the ashram she founded in the Santa Monica Hills, or traveling to India to worship with Sri Satya Sai Baba.

In 2004, Alice Coltrane released a spectacular album called Translinear Light. It features sons Ravi and Oran on saxophones, Jeff “Tain” Watts and Jack DeJohnette on drums, and once again Charlie Haden — a veteran of the final Coltrane bands and a deep humanist, in addition to a master of his instrument — on bass. (The group conducted a rare tour last fall, and I am sad that I missed their October gig at NJPAC in Newark. It’s a reminder that one must never miss an opportunity to see a great master perform as you never know when she will be taken from us.)

The passing of Alice Coltrane is a sad moment for jazz. It is also an chance for those of us who live at the intersection of American and South Asian cultures to honor someone who embraced that conversation at a very deep, creative level. On the day we honor Martin Luther King, Jr., who learned so much from Gandhiji, it’s another fitting reminder that the conversation has a rich history, and that its potential is far from exhausted. Continue reading →