Category Archives: Issues

Not A Hate Crime

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…unless the crime was self-hate. In a story that keeps getting sent my way, it turns out that a Sikh teenager in Scotland lied about having his hair cut during a racist attack (via the BBC):

The boy from Edinburgh reported the alleged racist attack in November and the case was widely publicised.
The cutting of his hair was an act which was seen as deeply insulting to the Sikh faith.
Lothian and Borders Police confirmed the attack had not taken place and said the boy had expressed remorse. They said no further action would be taken.

The Sikh community in the United Kingdom rallied around the child:

More than 200 Sikhs from around the UK gathered in Edinburgh to hold a two-hour prayer vigil following the boy’s claims.

It turns out that the boy cut his own hair and injured himself to simulate a crime:

The teenager is believed to have had personal problems and was also having cultural identity issues brought about by differences between his Sikh upbringing and Western society…
Police officers sent a report on the incident to the procurator fiscal but it is understood the teenager will not face charges for wasting police time because a prosecution is not felt to be in the public interest.

One thing I have a question about is the phrasing of this line from the BBC article I quoted throughout this post:

Hair is a religious symbol for Sikhs and it is strictly against their faith to have it shorn.

If it’s strictly against Sikhism to cut your hair, what does that make all the Sikhs who have done so? I’m not satisfied with some of the answers I’ve read online, so I’m going to more reliable sources, i.e. you. 🙂 Is it a question of only needing to keep your hair if you were baptized? I always thought it was an “ideally, you’re not supposed to cut it” situation, not a “strictly against Sikhism” one. I know I will be edified in oh, approximately four minutes. Such is the power of the Mutiny.

While I wait for that inevitable development, I’ll state that I’m really sad for this kid. As is the case for most of us, being a teenager sucked for me– and I feel compassion for him because I, too, so wanted to cut the hair that fell to my KNEES, which I wasn’t allowed to leave loose, let alone get rid of– but I still can’t imagine a moment when I’d feel compelled to do similar. My heart goes out to him and everyone else who was affected by his actions. Continue reading →

The Real Hard-Knock Life

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jayz_arunabha_bella.jpg

Erstwhile Sepia guest blogger Saheli is amazing for many reasons, but now I have confirmation that it’s obviously genetic; her Uncle is Arunabha Ghosh, who recently accompanied rapper Jay-Z to Africa. Uncle Arunabha (do you like how I totally mooched him?) is involved with many worthy issues:

He worked on the rights of indigenous people, international migration, and the rise of culturally intolerant movements around the world. He recently delivered a lecture on the integration of immigrants at the Universal Forum of Cultures in Barcelona. [link]

What caught my attention and what Saheli just blogged about, however, is water:

Over a billion people lack access to clean drinking water. Every day–including today, Christmas Eve–over 4000 children lacking good drinking water will die of diarrhea-causing diseases.
It’s hard to wrap our heads around such astonishing statistics, or understand what causes this great gaping need, and how simple some of the solutions are. Last month MTV put up a set of videos in which Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter went on a tour of a home and a school in Africa to understand the basic issues. He was accompanied by his “homeboy,” my uncle, Arunabha Ghosh, a Policy Specialist and one of the authors of the UNDP Human Development Report. Arunabha has spent the last few years tirelessly running around the world, raising the alarm about development needs and spreading the word about development solutions. Last week he addressed an Indian Parliamentary forum on national water issues.[link]

Saheli does a fantastic job of breaking down the plight of children who spend hours fetching something which most of us shamefully take for granted, as we let the faucets run while brushing our teeth (wasting 3-7 gallons per minute). See for yourself, on her “More Fantasticness” blog, here. And if you want to know what I want for my birthday, see for yourself, here. Continue reading →

The Myth of “Martial Races”

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Gurkha.jpg Though I’ve always been proud of the Sikh tradition in military service — particularly in the First and Second World Wars — the fact that the British Raj designated certain ethno-religious groups as martial races makes me uneasy. And recently I’ve been reading a book on the Gurkha regiments, (Byron Farwell’s The Gurkhas), and after reading a number of chapters I’m ready to throw out the designation entirely.

For those who are unfamiliar, the Gurkhas (or Gorkhas) come from a region of Nepal west of Kathmandu, and have been actively recruited by the British for service as mercenaries since 1815. It so happened that the British discovered the Gurkhas’ military aptitude after defeating them in a series of particularly tough battles — just as they did with the Sikhs, the Marathas, and indeed, the Zulus (all of whom would be designated “martial races”; see the full list here). Often, troops from one recently conquered region would be instrumental in defeating the next group (the Gurkhas were deployed in the Anglo-Sikh Wars, for instance).

As a side-note, though most Gurkha regiments joined the Indian army at independence, the British did retain a small number of Gurkhas for the British Army after 1947 — and they still actively recruit them today (on a fully voluntary basis, of course). Gurkhas were deployed in the Falklands’ War, in Kosovo, and are now in Afghanistan. Retired Gurkhas are also probably going to be deployed to monitor the fragile peace agreement between the Maoists and the new government of Nepal. Joining the Gurkha regiments in the British Army is considered desirable, but it’s a tough gig to get: one of the physical tests in order to be accepted involves running uphill for 40 minutes with a 70 pound bag of stones strapped to your back!

The author of the book on the Gurkhas is mainly a military historian, not an anthropologist, so it’s probably too much to expect to ask him to deconstruct the idea of “martial races.” But it’s extremely frustrating that in episode after episode Farwell seems to reiterate a few straightforward stereotypes as explaining the Gurkhas’ effectiveness in battle on behalf of the British: they are simple peasants, they are hardened by life in a mountainous region, and they have a strong sense of cultural identity. The same could be said of many other ethnic groups, most of whom were not designated “martial races.” So why the Gurkhas?

It seems hard to escape the conclusion that “martial race” is a convenient term created by the British to continue military recruiting patterns favorable to the progress of imperial expansionism. Continue reading →

Thrust into Greatness

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The reason why no ideology has ever created, let alone sustained, the world it envisioned, is that by definition it could not account for unintended consequences. The same is true of more modest ventures. A war meant to be short and sweet turns out anything but. A campaign meant to steamroll the opposition clears the field of all rivals but one, the most dangerous and unexpected. Observing something alters its nature; naming it alters its meaning. If you’ve ever planned anything – a career, a vacation, a party – you know this already.

And so, when things happen – interesting things, significant things, things that surprise us and thus lead us to feel – they result only partly from deliberate action, and as much from the gremlins of serendipity, who can inhabit any of us for any period of time. Thrust into greatness, we signify; the moment passes, the world changes, we fade to obscurity.

salonsidarth.jpgAre you having a macaca moment yet? In 2006, desis were thrust into greatness in the person of S. R. Sidarth. Senator AllenÂ’s view of SidarthÂ’s ethnic happenstance differed so radically from that of a majority of Virginia voters, that the (near-) accident of the brother being there set in motion events leading, it is argued, to the change of power in Congress.

Macaca was about revealed perception. The perception was AllenÂ’s; but the revelation stems from Sidarth. Without Sidarth, the perception would not have been revealed. The tree might have fallen in the forest, but no one would have heard.

This is old news to us; in this community at least, weÂ’ve followed the macaca story from the start and have no disagreement as to its significance. Where we differ is in what we make of it for ourselves, the extent to which we identify with Sidarth or the fate we wish on the word macaca itself.

timecover.jpgOld news, yes. But this weekend Sidarth was made to reappear, once more in his capacity as the embodiment of macaca, as two news outlets produced their round-up of people who mattered in 2006. Salon names Sidarth its Person of the Year. Time’s Person of the Year is You – you, the diffuse and disparate emanators of content, the users who generate that which is user-generated – and Sidarth is one of the Yous the magazine profiles.

ItÂ’s interesting to compare the interpretations that each of these outlets apply to Original Macaca. Salon, the established survivor of first-generation Web journalism, sees in him less the agent of a brave new world of representation than an embodiment of an America undergoing demographic and attitudinal change. Time, a behemoth of a pre-Internet era when The Press told The Public what to know and believe, now celebrates Sidarth as one of a non-organized army of little people upending the plans and certitudes of the great.

Both treatments have in common, however, that ultimately they are not about Sidarth – not the “real” Sidarth, biologically and spiritually unique, but what he seems through various filters. It was the year of You perceived and revealed, by your own doing and by that of others. That trend will continue, as attested by the fact that you read this blog, perhaps comment, perhaps have established an identity here and elsewhere on the Web.

We are learning that representation matters. We manage our identities lest others manage them for us; in a way the two processes are dialectically the same. What remains is spirit: mercurial, contradictory, and if we will it, potentially free. Continue reading →

Aishah, You’re Fired.

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The debate over multi-culturalism is back in the news ‘cross the pond, in the land of the pickled: Niqab.jpg

An Indian origin Muslim teaching assistant in west Yorkshire, suspended earlier for refusing to remove her veil during school hours, has now been dismissed from the job.[link]
Aishah Azmi, 24, lost a discrimination and harassment case at an employment tribunal last month, and saw support collapse among parents at Headfield Church of England junior school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, over what was seen as an uncompromising stand.[link]

That “lost the support of parents”-angle is extra interesting, considering

The school where Azmi was teaching had 530 students, aged seven to 11, and 92 percent were Muslim, mainly from India and Pakistan.[link]

A bit of backstory:

Mrs Azmi, who was awarded Ă‚ÂŁ1,000 by the tribunal in Leeds because of mishandled disciplinary processes, was dismissed yesterday after a hearing at the school. She started work a year ago but was suspended in the spring when she refused a male teacher’s request that she remove the veil when helping children in her role as a bilingual support assistant.[link]

This latest controversy comes on the heels of a column written by Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, which provoked international debate about veiling and identity:

Straw wrote in a newspaper column last month that he asks women who visit his district office wearing veils that cover almost their entire face to remove the garment when they meet with him…
He said the piece he published in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph newspaper had been thoughtful and respectful, and that he had never challenged women’s right to wear a veil.
He emphasized that he only requested — and never demanded — that women remove the veils in his office and said he did not support banning the coverings.
He said those living in Britain should have a stronger sense of shared identity based on the country’s democratic values.[link]

Continue reading →

Mon Frere?

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Before I begin, forgive me for any inadvertent formatting and presentation mistakes. I don’t use MovableType, and quite frankly WordPress is a hell of a lot easier when it comes to aligning images, doing text wraps, that sort of thing. In other words, my posts may look like a hot mess, but I promise you they will taste like seriously good chaat masala.

Frere-Hall.jpg Carrying on…

In my experience (limited though it may be), of all the cities in Pakistan, Karachi probably has the greatest number of intact buildings left over from the days of the British Raj (Lahore has prettier and larger ones, but not perhaps as many). Which is not to equate “intact” with “well-preserved”; in many cases, these building are little more than shells and facades, while others have faded into the background under the manic pressure of urban decay expansion (not unlike many aging aunties struggling with foundation and surma in a desperate effort to hold back the ravages of time). Naturally, the city government finds it a complete waste of time to actually try and maintain these buildings, with a handful of exceptions, preferring instead to focus on cramming as many slum areas into one space-time locus as the laws of physics will allow.

This is important to me, I like the pretty, and I like it a damnÂ’ lot. Continue reading →

A Cyber Farewell

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It is with great relief and extreme sadness that I leave the mutiny today ending the sequel to my Mutiny-Wallah gig. I think there may have been a way to bribe the head macacas to hang around the bunker blogging some more, but my lawyer and I have decided against it. I came back on board to Sepia Mutiny months ago with the expectation of blogging on the 2006 elections and am leaving today having spent more time researching cyber law than should be legal (bad pun, I know). You didn’t think I was going to leave without sharing some of the research I dug up, now would you?

1) It is a misdemeanor in the state of California to be sent multiple e-mails after you sent one that said stop contacting me, even if the perpetrator is in another state (check to see what your state’s laws are). My advice: never block or delete e-mails until you’ve accumulated enough evidence, never respond to the e-mails except for a one liner that says ‘stop contacting me’ and file a report with the police immediately.

2) Those IP addresses are a tricky thing — they are often anonymous to protect the bloggers and commenters. But IP addresses can be tracked with a court order, and sites like MySpace, Friendster, or Blogspot have a wealth of IP information that they have to give to the police if given a court order, especially if the perpetrator used those sites to contact you. Also, if you do blog, get a sitemeter, and monitor those IP addresses religiously.

3) If you Flickr, photolog, whatever — copyright your pictures. According to blog laws, sites such as Brown People can post your pictures up legally as long as they link to the source. If you copyright your pictures, they are not allowed to take your image. The laws around image copyright infringement are pretty harsh (known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act), and the Google law team is standing by to make sure Blogspot users don’t infringe this aspect of the law. You should copyright your blog too.

4) Save everything, take screenshots (go to File, Save page as…) of everything. In a world where the Internet can be so easily manipulated and deleted, it is important that you save things immediately. Not just saving e-mails in your inbox, but take screen shots of profiles, blogs, websites and accumulating your data. Both your lawyers and law enforcement will be pleased to see that you have evidence to back your claim.

The rest of the list continued after the jump…

Continue reading →

Keeping up with the Joneses

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There is a more political way in which there is a “tax” on some South Asian names, and that is when it comes to gaining citizenship. We all know that since 9/11 the gap between the political rights of citizens and non-citizens has grown. Now there is another gap that has arisen amongst applicants for citizenship, between those with relatively common and uncommon names:

The first step involves a computerized search of the F.B.I.’s Universal Index of 94.6 million records for all mentions of a name, a close date of birth and a Social Security number. Different permutations of the name are tried, like the first and middle name only. Nearly a third of naturalization cases come back as having a potential match….

“Common names (such as Mohammed, Singh, or Smith) may result in hundreds of potential matches,” government lawyers wrote. “The sheer volume of the requests has also resulted in delays…” [Link]

This cases sit in limbo even as the INS has promised to eradicate its backlog of applications, since they have simply defined these cases as outside its purview. In fact it now

… takes responsibility for fewer than 140,000 of the 1.1 million immigrant applications that it identifies as pending for more than six months. [Link]
Continue reading →

What’s in a Name?

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With what seems to be the ongoing theme on Sepia Mutiny this week of (self) identification of South Asian Americans and racialization of America, I had to share the following story I got in my inbox this morning. My friend’s name is Nirva. Nice desi name, right? Nirva is shopping for a bicycle, and found one on craigslist…

Nirva: I saw your add on craigs list about the bicycle sale. And, I’m really interested in the nishikisport and murray women’s bikes. Are both of these frames lightweight and are they new? Thanks, Nirva

Craigslist Bike Seller: what nirva, whateva

[What exactly deos the “whateva” mean? Was it an insult to her name? Or was it a “we have no bikes for you”?]

N: i am sorry what did you say?

CBS: oh yeah righ they are brand new for 80 dollars yes. come right over this is hollywood and you can buy a bike nishiki brand for 80 dollars. what boat did you just get off?

[“What boat did I get off?” Kind of presumptuous to get all of that simply from her first name, don’t ya think?]

N: Excuse you…..First of all. It’s a question. If you want to answer it then answer it right. Damn you’re great with customer sales. Ya really want the bike now. Go take some happy pills and think twice before you get on a high horse and act anti-immigrant.

CBS: anti-immigrant? I just saw the movie Borat and you can not take a Joke! I do not think you want the bikes since they are not Brand New. They are used and I am sorry if I offended you but you are obviously too serious.

[Oh no. She didn’t go there with a Borat reference…]

Continue reading →

Where are Desis in Affirmative Action?

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Sunday marks the 10 year anniversary of the overturning of Proposition 209 in California. Thursday, here at UCLA students of all colors got together in the morning for a funeral procession for the Death of Diversity. Students dressed in black staged a silent “walk-in” by walking into law classes and standing in silence, in an effort to depict what a classroom should look like if it were representative of the population of CA. There were over 50% minorities enrolled in the law school in 1995, the year before Prop 209 took place, far more than there have been since that year.

Ten years ago this Sunday, California voters passed Proposition 209, which banned the use of race, ethnicity, color, gender or national origin as a factor in hiring and admissions in public institutions….Since then UCLA has seen a substantial drop in the number of black, Latino, Chicano/a and Native American students who are admitted.

Out of the 4,422 students in UCLA’s freshman class of 2006, 100 are black. The low enrollment numbers have incited criticism from the UCLA community as well as national media outlets…Alina Ball [in the UCLA Law School Class of ’08] …found herself to be the only black female student, and one of nine black students total, in her class of more than 300. [daily bruin]

At UCLA, Johnson and other speakers noted that African American, Latino and Native American students continue to be underrepresented at UCLA and other UC campuses, with their numbers at the schools well below their proportions in the state’s population. The numbers plummeted the year after the ban took effect, and although they have recovered since then for the UC system as a whole, they have remained low at its most competitive campuses, including UCLA and UC Berkeley. [la times]

But what does this mean for desis? South Asian Americans were out at the rally in full force, with members of the South Asian Law Student Association (SALSA) and Muslim Student Association (MSA) making an appearance. If the law school were to directly reflect the 1.24% [p.48] South Asian American population that we have in California, that would mean of the 340 law students in the 2008 class, there should be at least 4 desis in the entering class. I’m not sure about the exact stats, but I believe last year’s class had 13 South Asians. To further complicate the matter in trying to get stats on how many South Asian Americans are in the UC system, as far as categorization in the UC system is concerned, ‘Pakistani’ and ‘East Indian’ are lumped in with ‘Other.’

Last month, the satirical article written by Jed Levine at the UCLA Bruin caused some ruckus in the Asian American blogosphere…His main gripe? There are too many Asian Americans on UCLA’s campus and their numbers on campus should be limited to make room for other ethnicities… Continue reading →