Category Archives: Politics

India’s Ailing Manufacturing Sector & Unions

Posted on by

The WSJ has a sobering article on the state of the manufacturing & labor relations in India –

COIMBATORE, India — This ancient city has turned itself in recent years into a manufacturing dynamo emblematic of India’s economic rebirth. But a homicide case playing out in an auto-parts factory here is raising concerns about whether the Indian industrial miracle is hitting a wall of industrial unrest.

“We can’t be a capitalist country that has socialist labor laws“Pricol Ltd., which makes instrument panels for the likes of Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Co., was rocked in late September when workers burst into the office of Roy George, its 46-year-old human-resources boss. Angry over a wage freeze, they carried iron rods, witnesses say, and left Mr. George in a pool of blood. Police arrested 50 union members in connection with his death, their lawyer says. Charges haven’t been filed.

The underlying question raised by this story is the size, shape & importance of the manufacturing sector for India’s long term economic development…

Continue reading →

“Currying” favor with Manmohan and India

Posted on by

I cannot claim credit for the eye-rollingly bad title. It appears that this is the media’s favorite play on words for this occasion. They really get a [spicy] kick out of their cleverness. The Beltway is all atwitter today in preparation for the state dinner in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit. Many have quipped, and I agree, that it looks like a big Indian wedding tent has been built on the White House lawn. Like out of Monsoon Wedding:

stdin.jpg

The Chef: Marcus Samuelsson of NYC’s Aquavit

The Menu: Top Secret…for now. Samuelsson reportedly did not create the menu, he is just cooking it. Manmohan is vegetarian though so expect there to be several vegetarian offerings. You can follow the latest on the menu @ObamaFoodorama

The Guest List: ~400 titans of the Beltway and Hollywood, including Oprah, AR Rahman, Bobby Jindal, Nancy Pelosi, HRC sans WJC, and…Deepak Chopra. Thus far no sign of Rajan Zed on the invite list. God I hope not. And what about Padma Lakshmi. Who, if not her, will opine on the quality of the food? Er, as long as there are no hamburgers on the menu, I mean.

So what is a state dinner all about anyways? Ken Adelman at WaPo explains:

State dinners are less “symbolic signaling” than “political greasing.” Sure, they indicate who is important – those invited are on the A-List of Washington’s socialite “plum book” – and what is important – cellist Pablo Casals for the Kennedys and Country & Western music for the Bushes. Beyond that, however, relationships are heightened and debts are deepened by State Dinner invitations. That’s more critical, since personal relationships are central to achieving results in politics, as in most endeavors of life. House Speaker Sam Rayburn once quipped that anyone who couldn’t size up another person in five minutes “doesn’t belong in my profession.” That clueless fellow probably doesn’t belong in many other professions, either. [link]

Politico.com has a convenient live feed set up for those that want to follow. Continue reading →

Which of Obama’s old roommates posted this?

Posted on by

Over the weekend Gawker drew attention to this Craigslist posting:

I’m working on a memoir, set in 1983, when I lived with Obama for a year.

The memoir is about my life and about what New York was like in 1983, and how we lived then, but Barack is obviously a player in the story. This is not a tell-all, it’s a friendly, gentle and literate book.

I work full time in a highly visible career and would like to work with a research assistant to help me stay focused.

This is you:

You live in Manhattan and can visit the Village frequently.
Your living situation is stable, as is your personal life.
Your income is stable.
You can work with a six month window. (ok, maybe a year. it depends.)
You are a fantastic and empathetic listener.
You’re creative and imaginative and a fine writer. You can shape material.
You don’t drink or use drugs. No psychological disorders I have to deal with.
You are in a graduate writing program at NYU or Columbia.
You want an opportunity to work on a visible book.
You are dependable, timely, punctual and highly motivated to succeed.

This is an internship, not a paid position.

I have already begun, finally, this week, after thinking about it for a the last year. Now is the time. My agent is waiting on the first 100 pages. Let’s go. [Link]

When I saw this post my first thought was, “is it Sohale Siddiqi?” How interesting would that book be? More importantly, would it be a better seller than “Going Rogue?” Anyone else have any guesses based on the time-frame in the ad and what you’ve read in Obama’s autobiographies? Even if this turns out not to be Siddiqi, I think at least one of his former desi roommates should write a book!

Continue reading →

When History Fell In India

Posted on by

While on the topic of why India didn’t liberalize sooner, an article posted to the SM’s News column points at one important factor. In his “Letter from India” column in the NYT, Akash Kapur reflects on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall the impact it had on India –

Most of the media coverage has, quite understandably, focused on Europe. But the tremors from Communism’s collapse were felt far beyond the immediate battlegrounds of the Cold War. The breakup of the Soviet Union had a profound impact on India. In many ways, it paved the way for a reinvention of the country

Akash Kapur

While an important socio-political milestone, Kapur notes the equally important intellectual milestone – an event Francis Fukuyama memorably christened The End of History. History in this sense didn’t mean an “end to events” but rather, the (potential) end of a type of dialectical debate about political systems. Continue reading →

A Desi Woman’s Voice On The Hill

Posted on by

Kiran Ahuja.jpgRemember last month when I blogged about how President Obama signed the executive order to reinstate the Asian American and Pacific Islander Advisory Commission and White House Initiative? You know, when Penn Masala sang at the White House?

Well, Kiran Ahuja has just been named Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

This federal-wide effort was first established in June of 1999 by President Bill Clinton… The office will be housed in the U.S. Department of Education and include a Federal Interagency Working Group (IWG) co-chaired by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke.

> Kiran has a rich history of leadership in government, public policy and AAPI communty advocacy. Most notably, she was the Founding Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF). [[aapimomentum](http://www.aapimomentum.org/blog)] I first met Kiran when we were both sitting together on a panel after the 2004 elections. She was sincere and genuine, her personality reflecting a precision and knowledge reflecting a strategic firmness. I have no doubt that she will be the new voice of change needed to truly shift the political paradigm inside the beltway, with regards to how our AAPI communities are organized. > For almost twenty years, Kiran Ahuja has dedicated herself to improving the lives of women of color in the U.S. Well-known as a leader among national and grassroots Asian and Pacific Islander and women’s rights organizations, Kiran served as the founding Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum from 2003-2008….Kiran grew up in Savannah, Georgia, where her understanding of race, gender and ethnicity was formed as a young Indian immigrant. She attended Spelman College and worked for Georgia’s first African American Congresswoman since the Reconstruction.[[aapimomentum](http://www.aapimomentum.org/user/1/blog/kiran-ahuja-named-executive-director-white-house-initiative-asian-americans-and-pacific-)]> Congratulations Kiran! We look forward to what you bring! Continue reading →

What if India had Liberalized Sooner?

Posted on by

Historical “what-if’s” are notoriously difficult to prove but also notoriously delicious to discuss. Would WWII have happened if Hitler had been killed in the trenches of WWI? [W]ith earlier reform, 14.5 million more children would have survived, 261 million more Indians would have become literate, and 109 million more people would have risen above the poverty line.Would there have been a WWI if Franz Ferdinand survived the assassination attempt? What if Al Gore got his Florida recount? What would have become of Sonam Kapoor’s career if she skipped the flop that was Saawariya?

Arguably, while many of the most famous what-if’s focus on chance events in history, prominent Indian econ journalist Swaminathan Aiyar, writing for the Cato Institute, decided to take on a far more considered, deliberate economic policy “what-if”. He asks “what if India liberalized its economy 10 yrs earlier?” Put differently, what if 1970s India followed the economic path pursued by Korea, Japan, and Taiwan?

Until the 80s/90s rounds of liberalization, India followed a Soviet-inspired economic model resulting in stuff like this –

Continue reading →

Tunku Varadarajan: Off the Deep End

Posted on by

By now, many readers may have seen Tunku Varadarajan’s controversial column for Forbes from last week, “Going Muslim.” In it, Varadarajan coins a new term to describe Major Nidal Hasan’s rampage at Fort Hood two weeks ago. “Going Muslim” is Varadarajan’s variation of “going postal,” a phrase coined a few years ago, after a string of (non-Muslim) U.S. postal workers went on killing sprees. Here is how Varadarajan defines the term:

This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American–a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood–discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans.

The most irksome part of Varadarajan’s column for me was the following paragraph:

The difference between “going postal,” in the conventional sense, and “going Muslim,” in the sense that I suggest, is that there would not necessarily be a psychological “snapping” point in the case of the imminently violent Muslim; instead, there could be a calculated discarding of camouflage–the camouflage of integration–in an act of revelatory catharsis. In spite of suggestions by some who know him that he had a history of “harassment” as a Muslim in the army, Maj. Hasan did not “snap” in the “postal” manner. He gave away his possessions on the morning of his day of murder. He even gave away–to a neighbor–a packet of frozen broccoli that he did not wish to see go to waste, even as he mapped in his mind the laying waste of lives at Fort Hood. His was a meticulous, even punctilious “departure.”

In fact, reports from Hasan’s colleagues strongly suggest a profile of a person who was borderline psychotic for several years, but who finally snapped around 2007. Yes, he gave away his broccoli on the day he went on a shooting spree. But that is in fact entirely in keeping with how psychotics behave.

What Varadarajan doesn’t realize is that the kind of paranoid argument he is making about immigrants in “camouflage” could very easily be used against any other immigrant group, including Hindus, as a pretext for mistrust or active discrimination.

Varadarajan also make a claim about “integration” into American society that is simply not supported by any facts. The diverse groups of immigrants who are Muslim have done just fine in terms of their economic performance, civil participation, etc. By coining this pernicious phrase, and by promoting an argument based self-evidently on bigotry, Varadarajan has shown us why we no longer need to take anything he says seriously.

Continue reading →

Pakistani Rock Queried by the NYT

Posted on by

Let’s start with this song by the Pakistani rock group co-VEN, “Ready to Die”:

co-VEN was featured in a recent New York Times multimedia video by Adam Ellick (not embeddable) which can be seen here.

Other musicians mentioned in the Times story include Ali Azmat and the band Noori (identified in the video as the Noori Brothers). To me, Ali Azmat comes across as a blithering idiot in the Times video, but I found the comments from co-VEN more compelling — at least coherent. (For the most part, I agreed with the Pakistani journalists in the Times’ video, not the musicians.)

What was interesting to me was the fact that Ellick, in the Times video, seemed to be putting co-VEN forward as an example of a band that criticizes the west but not the Taliban.

I haven’t heard much of co-VEN’s other music (none of the songs on YouTube seem political) or looked closely at their public statements, but the lyrics to the song above are present in the YouTube video, and they seem more ambiguous than Adam Ellick suggests. While “Ready to Die” does put forward the idea that there is a pattern — and a long history of failure — to western policy in the Muslim world, I don’t necessarily think the song reflects Pakistanis in denial. You can be opposed to the “game of chess” co-VEN is talking about while also being opposed to what the extremists have been doing in Pakistan in recent months. I’m not sure co-VEN is actually willing to go there, but it seems like a stretch to put an interesting indie/metal band next to the more banal pop music of Ali Azmat and Noori, as if they’re all the same.

Oh, and one more thing: it’s a shame that this irreverent and upbeat song, Laga Re by Shehzad Roy, was apparently banned on Pakistani TV. (I wonder whether it might have circulated anyway through the internet etc.) Continue reading →

Is Being Brown Enough To Get Your Vote?

Posted on by

Our friend Bassam Tariq from 30 Mosques in 30 Days just posted a fascinating story over at Times.com about a Bangladeshi candidate that ran for local office in NYC. (hat tip, Sharaf!)

It’s the classic story, with a modern twist. Bangladeshi immigrant Mujib Rahman wants to be elected to New York’s City Council. It’s the story of an immigrant, running for office on the Republican ticket, wanting to make a difference for his community. The clip shows how he tries to campaign in the local Bangladeshi community to gain votes – to get one of their own Bangladeshis in office. But the campaign he’s running on is based on a divisive message – letting voters know his opponent is gay.

I was conflicted as I watched this. On one hand you want this hard working Bangladeshi uncle to achieve the bootstrap American dream. He’s getting himself and his community involved in civic engagement. But on the other hand, his closed minded smear campaign just reflects all the reasons I stopped talking politics with my father’s generation of uncles. Were any of our readers involved in Mujib’s campaign? Did any of you have the chance to vote (or not vote) for Mujib? Continue reading →

Lanka Solidarity: Washington, DC-Area Fundraiser for IDPs in Sri Lanka

Posted on by

LSforSM.png

I suspect I’m about to set a personal record for question marks used in an SM post.

As a South Asian-American and diasporic blog, SM has hosted numerous conversations about Sri Lanka and related communities. I’ve been involved in many of those conversations–first as a lurker, then as a commenter, and finally, as a writer, journalist, and blogger. No matter my role, it seems that the bigger the Internet gets, the scarier it is for people to talk about Sri Lankan/diasporic politics (or any polarized issue). Off- and online, as like finds like and people reinforce their own beliefs, entrenched polarization makes it hard to listen, hard to talk, hard to *stay *for the very real pain on multiple sides. Sometimes it’s easier to check out. And people do. But don’t we deserve better than that? Is it possible that there might be a little… nuance? What’s a person in the middle to do?

Well, here’s my attempt: I’m one of several individuals behind a new multi-ethnic Sri Lankan diaspora group called Lanka Solidarity.

Continue reading →