Category Archives: Religion

The Army needs a “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” Policy

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The Los Angeles Times (free registration required) sheds light on one of the Justice Department’s well kept open secrets: It’s religious police.

One of the main jobs at the Justice Department is enforcing the nation’s civil rights laws. So when a nonprofit group was accused of employment discrimination last year in New York, the department moved swiftly to intervene — but not on the side one might expect.

The Salvation Army was accused in a lawsuit of imposing a new religious litmus test on employees hired with millions of dollars in public funds.

When employees complained that they were being required to embrace Jesus Christ to keep their jobs, the Justice Department’s civil rights division took the side of the Salvation Army.

Defending the right of an employer using public funds to discriminate is one of the more provocative steps taken by a little-known arm of the civil rights division and its special counsel for religious discrimination.

The Justice Department’s religious-rights unit, established three years ago, has launched a quiet but ambitious effort aimed at rectifying what the Bush administration views as years of illegal discrimination against religious groups and their followers.

The U.S. having religious police sounds really foreign, huh? To be fair though, the religious police have scored many a victory for the good guys:

For example, the Justice Department prevailed last year when a Muslim girl’s right to wear a head scarf to class was upheld — she had been suspended for violating the dress code at a public school in Oklahoma. The department also has challenged the practice of making residents at some youth detention facilities in the South participate in religious activities.

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The Court has Hindu friends

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Earlier this week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Van Orden v. Rick Perry (Governor of the Red State of Texas). Slate explains in their “oh so irreverent” manner:

Imagine a bunch of elderly, black-robed medieval clerics absorbed in a scholarly dialogue on the number of angels (better make that “secular” angels—candy stripers or maybe Hell’s Angels) able to dance on the head of a pin. You’d have a good idea of how oral argument went this morning in the pair of cases involving displays of the Ten Commandments on state property.

At one level everything appears scholarly and doctrinal. Until you realize that the doctrine is a mess, and the justices are so tangled up in old tests, old glosses on old tests, and new glosses on new tests that they don’t even know how to talk about the Establishment Clause cases, much less how to resolve them. Perhaps the court is waiting to resolve the chaos until there are as many different Establishment Clause tests (legal scholars currently count about seven) as there are commandments.

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” That ban has been interpreted to sweep in state and local governments as well. The disaster-on-stilts the court has used to determine whether such an establishment has taken place is known as the “Lemon test,” vomited forth upon the land in a 1971 case called Lemon v. Kurtzman. That test asked whether the government’s conduct had: (i) a secular purpose; (ii) a principal or primary effect that neither enhances nor inhibits religion; and (iii) did not foster excessive entanglement with religion.

Among the many groups that had their day in court was the Hindu American Foundation. Continue reading →

What do Hindu Nationalists Smell Like?

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Several news organizations including ABC News, report the story captured in the Reuters picture shown here. cowurine.jpg

Alongside life-size posters of Hindu nationalist leaders, Indian political activists can now buy lotions, potions and pills to cure anything from cancer to hysteria to piles – all made from cow urine or dung.

A new goratna (cow products) stall at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) souvenir shop is rapidly outselling dry political tracts, badges, flags and saffron-and-green plastic wall clocks with the face of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

“You won’t believe how quickly some of the products sold out,” Manoj Kumar, who runs the souvenir shop along with his brother, Sanjeev, said.

“The constipation medicine is a hot seller.”

But the biggest seller is a “multi-utility pill” that claims to cure anything from diabetes to piles to “ladies’ diseases”.

But what business does the BJP political party have in selling cow piss?

BJP spokesman Siddarth Singh says the stall aims to promote village industry, one of the biggest employers in India.

“If you go back in the history of India, this belongs to our culture,” he said.

“There’s no commercial value to us. Village industry in this country needs to be promoted.”

Who would have ever suspected that cow piss could be used to garner votes? If U.S. politicians ever find out… Continue reading →

Smashing icons

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Spiderman isn’t the only heeero taking a Bombay local to browntown. Two veteran comic book artists have launched a new comic called Vimanarama about a British Muslim from the tinderbox formerly known as Bradford (via Desi Flavor).

The fashionably-tousled Ali is slouching toward his inevitable arranged marriage, but his retro-hip persona perks up considerably when he finds that bride-to-be Sofia is a babe. Meanwhile, toddler Imran accidentally unleashes the Forces of Darkness, and not just in his diaper; it’s up to jolly Ali to save the world. It’s all very soapy, if not so very Lollywood.

Never letting cultural accuracy get in the way of the almighty pound, the artists are watering down the Muslim angle:

Although his research into the religion was extensive, the author says this won’t be evident in the comic, as all concepts have been translated to be accessible by all audiences. So ‘Allah’ is referred to in the text as God and ‘Hajj’ as pilgrimage… “Islam frowns on representational art and I’d imagine that for some sects comics are possibly the most blasphemous art form imaginable”, the Glaswegian told Newsarama.

Translation: I’ll take one hit comic, hold the hitman — make my just desserts fatwa-free. The comic fuses religions with a title from Hindu mythology and a lotus-and-multiple-arms motif on the first issue’s cover. The arms evoke Doc Oc, The Matrix and Japanese tentacle porn (or so I’m told), and the beetle-browed protagonist has a Gorillaz scowl. It’s a masala comic — they’ve outdone Lahore.

Previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; and let’s not forget the comic book-inspired, unintentionally hilarious Lollywood effort International Gorillay.

Would you turn down a quarter million dollars?

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Here are two stories of anti-Sikh discrimination which I seem to have missed over the past couple of years (disclaimer: the attorney in both lawsuits is a friend). In ’03, a software executive sued Delta Airlines after a flight attendant told passengers he was a potential terrorist:

Thomas began to harass [Hansdip] Bindra after he stood to retrieve a magazine. He contends that the attendant, who is white, told him that “here in America we have rules” and that “because of the situation in the Middle East, you have to keep a low profile.” Bindra, a native of India, said other passengers on the flight later told him that Thomas had warned them that “the man up front with the turban” might be “trouble” and that with no justification, she told them: “When I give you a signal, come help subdue him.”… Bindra said he and about a half-dozen other passengers on the flight filed written complaints about Thomas with the airline, but that none received a reply. [NJ Star-Ledger]

In ’02, a turbaned Burger King franchise owner sued Fleet Bank for refusing a quarter million dollar deposit before 9/11. Interestingly, the New Jersey teller ordered to reject the customer is also desi:

… [Inderjeet Singh] Chowdhary contacted the branch over the phone after the bank advertised an attractive interest rate… for [a] certificate of deposit. Chowdhary said he spoke to a bank employee, Jaya Balasubramanian… On the appointed day, July 30 of [2001], Chowdhary claims to have visited the bank with all the documents he was required to produce. While Balasubramanian was processing the his application, Alicia E. Eagleston, the branch manager and a defendant in the case, called Balasubramanian aside. “When she returned, she looked visibly upset, and said I would not be permitted to open the account,” Chowdhary told News India-Times. He also claimed that Eagleston said, “We look at the customer and decide.” [News India-Times]

I’m sure Balasubramanian was thinking either a) ‘That’s cold, making me discriminate against a fellow desi’ or b) ‘There goes my commission.’

Fleet Bank was also accused of terminating Muslims’ accounts after 9/11 without cause. The bank settled with Chowdhary in ’03 and pledged not to discriminate against Sikhs.

Previous posts on anti-Sikh discrimination: 1, 2, 3; and discrimination by airlines and cops.

The Passion of Bobby Jindal-Part II

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As promised, here is a pointer to the follow-up of the story of the religious transformation of Bobby Jindal as reported by Francis C. Assisi and Elizabeth Pothen of Indolink.com:

Not yet out of High School, Jindal acknowledges that it was “a time of constant prayer and struggle” as he anticipated the ultimate confrontation with his parents. It came, rather unexpectedly, when he was recovering from a serious car accident and his mother wanted to know “which God” he had thanked for his safety.

Jindal explains: “I had resolved not to lie when faced with such direct questioning and admitted my Christian faith. I had prepared myself for the worst. I knew my parents had every right to end their financial support or kick me out of their house. I realized the consequences of my decision and was ready to face these hardships. I had decided the freedom to worship Christ was more important than the material comforts provided by my parents, including the privilege to attend Brown that fall. I even made plans to attend a local university and had arranged housing as well as a job to support myself.”

But Jindal, who had secured his financial position with a generous academic merit scholarship, was not as prepared for the emotional battles. He was also careful not to lie to them. As he rightly asks: “Is any faith worth having if it motivates its adherents to deception, especially between parents and children?”

I’ll let you read the rest of the article for yourselves with one exception. The following was my favorite quote:

Jindal’s “search for truth” continued even though several members of the clergy advised him that in certain instances deception could be justified.

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The Passion of Bobby Jindal

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Francis C. Assisi and Elizabeth Pothen of Indolink.com decide to delve into Bobby Jindal’s life-story to see what makes him tick when it comes to his oft maligned religious beliefs:

jindalreligion.jpg

The question that intrigues most Indian Americans is this: How and why did Bobby Jindal abandon the faith of his forebears to embrace Christ and the Catholic faith.

As it turns out, the story of Piyush Bobby Jindal’s transformation from a devout young Hindu to a zealous Catholic offers an intriguing glimpse into the struggle, often traumatic, of a young Indian American caught between his heritage and his parents on the one hand and his intellectual and emotional turmoil in America.

The first part reveals the background and the struggle towards his conversion, while the second part examines his involvement with two young women whom he has acknowledged as being key to his spiritual re-birth.

Beginning with his Junior year (1991) at Brown, and for seven years thereafter – including his two years on Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford, and while Secretary, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals – Jindal revealed details of his conversion and its aftermath, in a series of first person accounts.

Much of those writings reveal an agonizing spiritual quest.

Ooooh, juicy! This sounds like an even more interesting read than the journey of the Buddha.

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Thou shalt not kill

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Forget Babri Masjid — temple officials are shooting each other in a struggle over wealthy temple trusts in Ayodhya:

The rivalry spilled over after a meeting on January 31, when the two rival chief priests came to blows, prompting their associates to draw out double-barrel guns and fire… Earlier, in 2001, Nrityagopal had survived a bomb attack in the ongoing dispute over the trust… Gripped by a sense of insecurity, officials of temple trusts are rushing for gun licences… At least 350 Ayodhya residents, most of them temple-trust heads, have acquired licensed arms. The town has over 1,500 such trusts… Most key temple trusts have also installed their private army of securitymen…

Murder is but the least of their talents:

The temple town was further sullied when police in Lucknow said they were looking for another mahant [temple official], Shyam Shukla alias Shyam Maharaj, in the abduction of a Kanpur industrialist and two of his associates… “The mahant needed money. He asked us to abduct Ravinder Kedia. We kept him in Bahraich till we obtained ransom…”

Who gets the microphone?

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The NYT reviews the latest book by Wendy Doniger, a University of Chicago professor who studies Hinduism:

Though sexual imagery is found throughout Hinduism’s baroque mythology, many groups would like to minimize its importance. They have different concerns: some with purity, some with Hindu power, some with minimizing the influence of “Eurocentric” commentators…

… threatening e-mail messages were sent to Ms. Doniger and her colleagues. And in November 2003, an egg was lobbed at her at the University of London… Scholarship about Hinduism has also come under scrutiny. Books that explore lurid or embarrassing details about deities or saints have been banned. One Western scholar’s Indian researcher was smeared with tar, and the institute in Pune where the scholar had done his research was destroyed. Ms. Doniger said one of her American pupils who was studying Christianity in India had her work disrupted and was being relentlessly followed. [NYT]

What struck me about this story is the degree to which the reviewer absolutely, unquestioningly takes Doniger’s side without acknowledging there might be another point of view. She’s pushed the envelope, to say the least, on sexual, Freudian interpretations of Hindu mythology and reportedly called the Gita ‘a dishonest book’:

Sri Ramakrishna, the 19th century Hindu saint, has been declared by these scholars as being a sexually-abused homosexual, and it has become “academically established” by Wendy Doniger‘s students that Ramakrishna was a child molester, and had also forced homosexual activities upon Vivekananda… Other conclusions by these well-placed scholars include: Ganesha’s trunk symbolizes a “limp phallus”; his broken tusk is a symbol for the castration-complex of the Hindu male; his large belly is a proof of the Hindu male’s enormous appetite for oral sex. Shiva, is interpreted as a womanizer, who encourages ritual rape, prostitution and murder, and his worship is linked to violence and destruction. [Sulekha]

This is a hairy issue, so let me tease out various threads here. I’m not in favor of right-wing Hinduism; I’m certainly against any form of academic intimidation. And there are, in fact, rich veins of sexuality in Hindu mythology. It’s one of the ways Hinduism feels more organic, less Puritan to me than the fire-and-brimstone self-abnegation of the Bible.

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Use the shakti, Luke

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This post is from the files of Mr. ‘Everything Comes From India’ and the chest-thumpingly nationalist father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

An author who’s a Hare Krishna is penning a tome on how Star Wars was inspired by Hindu myths. In his formulation, The Jedi and the Lotus, the Force comes from Brahma, Yoda and Luke are guru and disciple, Jedi training is yoga and the Jedi rules are the warrior code of the kshatriya.

[J]ust as Star Wars takes place in deep space, most of the battles in the Ramayana take place in sophisticated aircrafts, and Arjuna, too, in the Mahabharata, is said to engage in many battles while in outer space… Ancient Indian myths are perhaps the earliest examples of these world myths, while Star Wars is merely among the most contemporary… I look at George Lucas’ major influences, from Flash Gordon to Joseph Campbell, and how Indian tales form the central core around which his series is modelled.

So much sci-fi rips from warrior mythology (samurai, cowboys), I find it hard to believe a claim of exclusive inspiration, although there’s an interesting argument for the ferengi and Klingons in Star Trek being desi in origin.