My father worked for thirty five years in an organisation that many would claim has committed some egregious acts of violence against Indians. I have worked for six years heading a project with an agency that many would claim to be at the front line of some of those acts. The ‘organisation’ is the Indian state, and my father was reputedly a bureaucrat of integrity, probity and a deep sense of accountability. The ‘agency’ was the Karnataka police, with whom I coordinated a UNICEF partnership on violence against women and children, and I believe I did it with a deep sense of justice. Yet even if one were to acknowledge that these are not monolithic structures, and they are not peopled by monsters (however monstrous some of their actions may appear), it would be easy to accuse me of co-operating with the state and being co-opted by the police. Am I coercive and violent at worst, or naive and ineffectual at best? I would hope neither, though being ineffectual is a recurring nightmare.
… I understand how invidious ‘guilt by association’ can be, as an argument for damning someone.
Yet, in the current debate around Sonal Shah‘s nomination to the Obama advisory group – and her alleged links to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad through her family’s and her own varying levels of involvement with the organisation – the parallels stop here for two reasons. First, the Indian state is not the VHP (though it appeared co-terminous with the Gujarat government in 2002), and there are various ways, however convoluted or difficult, to hold the state responsible for its in/actions. Even more critically, the Indian state’s constitutional foundation is that of a democratic republic premised on principles of justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity to *all* citizens, however flawed its follow through might be; I am yet to believe that the VHP is a flagbearer for these principles.
The parallel also ends with the immutable fact that I have not been asked to join Obama’s advisory board (and never will be). However, if I were ever to be in a position of power, privilege and leadership – whether by appointment or implication – and I was challenged about my past ‘associations’ with the Indian state, I would not only welcome the challenge, I would think it irrefutably appropriate.
My key disappointment with the entire debate that has sprung up over Shah’s appointment – and her own response to it – is that it continues to be framed, if unwittingly, in problematic binaries: in the waning days of Bush, we still seem to settle on ‘you’re either with us, or against us’. On the one hand, Vijay Prashad is absolutely correct in demanding some sense of accountability for Sonal Shah’s political antecedents. If she was national coordinator of VHP-America till 2001, it means that at least until the age of 33 (she is reportedly 40 now), she was in a position of leadership in an organisation that has been implicated in egregious acts of bigotry, hate-mongering and sectarianism back in India. Amardeep Singh may claim that a scrutiny of Shah is not warranted till she is in a government appointed position that has connections with India; this seems to me to be a case of acquittal by dis-association… surely we have a right to ask probing questions of someone who is ‘representing’ both issues of ‘development’ and (even if unwillingly) issues of the Indian American community?
On the other hand, in Prashad’s somewhat lengthy telling of Shah’s history and VHP’s actions in Gujarat (while touching upon the Obama campaign and US interventionism), he fails to give us the substance of his conversation with Shah at a conference. I can well imagine that this is through the slippages of time and memory, but I would have found it helpful to hear a well-delineated argument about why he was convinced she understood, and did not repudiate, the political implications of her past associations. In personalising the encounter, and limiting its description to a ‘bitter exchange’, the very valid questions he poses lose some force. Singh’s defence of Shah is more subtle from this perspective: he posits that she may well have been involved with the VHP as she grew up, found its politics too problematic, and dis-engaged herself from the organisation. Still, this too seems disingenuous, given that she was 33 when coordinating earthquake relief in Gujarat; at this age, it is hard to think of her as being ‘naive’ about VHP politics… why not choose any of the many organisations also doing relief work with no right-wing antecedents whatsoever? This is when guilt by association slips into guilt by action (or inaction, as the case may be).
In fact, it worries me that if she was indeed unclear about the connections between disaster relief and the growing power of fundamentalist organisations (connections that have repeatedly been seen across the world, not just in India), then her understanding of the politics of development may also be suspect. In her own statement, she gives no indication that she understands that humanitarian work can be political in and of itself, or have deeply political impacts: she herself calls it ‘apolitical’. A more honest and self-reflexive analysis of her former position as VHP-A national coordinator would have helped support her claims of condemning the ‘politics of division, of ethnic or religious hatred, of violence and intimidation as a political tool’; instead she elides that past. I am deeply thankful, however, that she clearly and specifically disassociates herself from the ‘views espoused by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or any such organization’. Unfortunately, these organisations do not see fit to disassociate themselves from her; currently, the RSS is making arrangements to hold a public reception in her honour in Gujarat.
Complicating the debate, what I found both disturbing and thought-provoking, in the commentary for and against Sonal Shah, was this statement:
As far as second generation Indians affiliations with groups such as VHP, I too was raised attending some of their youth camps. I assure you they do not train us in weapons training or to hate Muslims. Being born and/or raised in this country, second generation Indian Americans have few options about learning about their faith or their culture. VHP has had a recognizable base in the US for as far as I can remember and I am 30 now. They were one of the few organizations that taught children belonging to Hindu families of their religion and culture. While we may not agree 100% ideologically with them, it does not mean we are fanatic by our associaton (sic) with them.
This is precisely the point at which the larger debate of activism around ideals of secularism and plurality, stumbles in India, and perhaps (as I witness it now), here in the US. Why is our analysis not able to convey the slippery slope between VHP summer schools and the genocide in Gujarat? Have we, as activists for a progressive world, so denounced a middle ground of faith, religiosity and associated ‘culture’, that we have ended up allowing the fascist right to take over that space? Is a VHP summer school the only option that a young Hindu growing up in America has for learning about her heritage, whatever this might mean? How far are we committed to having ‘youth camps’ about syncreticism, pluralism, and that most particular aspect of Indian heritage: secularism as both the church-state separation, as well as a respect for all faiths? With histories that include Hindu and Muslim worship at Baba Budangiri, or the Hindu and Christian celebrations at Velankinni?
And finally, do people not have the right to find some sense of meaning for themselves in a complex and violent world, even if those meanings are not always our own? Do we negate the nuances of spirituality, faith and religiosity by hardily lumping them together with conservatism and fundamentalism? Surely the common values should be of peace, equality and humaneness, even if the approaches are different? As an activist in India post the Gujarat genocide, I asked myself precisely these questions in an essay entitled ‘Fundamentalisms of the Progressive‘; knowing fully well that I could be accused of being naive at best, and renegade at worst. Yet I think those of us fighting the long fight against the politics of hate and oppression, need to keep analysing our own positions and strategies, and have the wisdom and honesty to acknowledge past omissions and commissions, an honesty I equally expect from someone like Sonal Shah. And unlike the somewhat blunt debate of is-she-isn’t-she, I see this process of probity being less about guilt, and more about responsibility by association.
Really interesting post, Anasuya. I too remember attending VHP conferences as a teenager growing up in the US and I had no idea of the political affiliations until I lived for a bit in India around age 17. Naturally, I was not in any kind of agreement with the VHP platforms, philosophy or actions and I even wrote a small piece about the American “face” of the VHP for The Telegraph!
And as a second generation Indian American, Indian politics were not a topic in the home and VHP conferences were a parentally-approved weekend outing since we were with other Indian friends. The fun part was our more responsible friends would drive us all to the place and we’d take over a cheap motel and party. Otherwise at that age, a weekend away would have been strictly forbidden.
I don’t remember too much about the conferences themselves–there were a few interesting group discussions/breakout sessions. I didn’t see any political content. If anything, the parents saw it as a way to participate in a big somewhat religious gathering, seeing as how more established religions in the US had youth events, whereas Hindus did not.
The social part of it was what appealed to me. I didn’t think that any conference would answer the questions I had about my dual Indian-American identity or even help in any way other than spending time with friends who were going through the same thing.
All of this to say, if you are part of the leadership of such an organization that may seem just another religious youth org on the one hand and an actively partisan political entity on the other, there is some explaining to do.
Just my 2 paisa.
Thanks, I agree with most everything, and I suppose I’ll have to remain uncommitted on SS’s own motives till I know more. I’m still going to go with ‘dangerously naive’, with an emphasis on the dangerously.
I couldn’t agree more with the last two paragraphs, where you raise my pet peeve. Whatever work I’ve done with RSS or VHP members in India has usually been cultural to some degree. I happen to think neither Sanskrit education or Carnatic music are so irredeemably tarred by their place in the history of casteism and Hindu communalism as to be out of bounds for progressive parents to teach them to their children, and it’s such a pity we live in a world where both are gradually dying out.
Have you read Martha Nussbaum’s The Clash Within? Her chapter on the subject of liberal education is v good (long quotation follows):
‘The creation of a liberal public culture: How did fascism take such hold in India? Hindu traditions emphasize tolerance and pluralism, and daily life tends to emphasize the ferment and vigor of difference, as people from so many ethnic, linguistic, and regional backgrounds encounter one another. But as I’ve noted, the traditions contain a wound, a locus of vulnerability, in the area of humiliated masculinity. For centuries, some Hindu males think, they were subordinated by a sequence of conquerors, and Hindus have come to identify the sexual playfulness and sensuousness of their traditions, scorned by the masters of the Raj, with their own weakness and subjection. So a repudiation of the sensuous and the cultivation of the masculine came to seem the best way out of subjection. One reason why the RSS attracts such a following is the widespread sense of masculine failure.
At the same time, the RSS filled a void, organizing at the grass-roots level with great discipline and selflessness. The RSS is not just about fascist ideology; it also provides needed social services, and it provides fun, luring boys in with the promise of a group life that has both more solidarity and more imagination than the tedious world of government schools.
S o what is needed is some counterforce, which would supply a public culture of pluralism with equally efficient grass-roots organization, and a public culture of masculinity that would contend against the appeal of the warlike and rapacious masculinity purveyed by the Hindu right. The “clash within” is not so much a clash between two groups in a nation that are different from birth; it is, at bottom, a clash within each person, in which the ability to live with others on terms of mutual respect and equality contends anxiously against the sense of being humiliated.
Gandhi understood that. He taught his followers that life’s real struggle was a struggle within the self, against one’s own need to dominate and one’s fear of being vulnerable. He deliberately focused attention on sexuality as an arena in which domination plays itself out with pernicious effect, and he deliberately cultivated an androgynous maternal persona. More significantly still, he showed his followers that being a “real man” is not a matter of being aggressive and bashing others; it is a matter of controlling one’s own instincts to aggression and standing up to provocation with only one’s human dignity to defend oneself. I think that in some respects, he went off the tracks, in his suggestion that sexual relations are inherently scenes of domination and in his recommendation of asceticism as the only route to nondomination. Nonetheless, he saw the problem at its root, and he proposed a public culture that, while he lived, was sufficient to address it.’
Anasuya, my emailganger, what a fascinating insight into the sociality of the VHP-A! I love the fact that your parents would allow you the weekends out for these events and none other… the strange permissiveness of particular religio-cultural moments (like the Durga Puja or Navratri celebrations back home). 🙂 I’m sure I would enjoy reading that Telegraph piece of yours, if you can hunt it down.
More seriously, though, your comment supports the fact that not everyone who ‘participated’ in VHP events were necessarily fanatic by association (as Sonal Shah’s defender points out), while as you emphasise, the critical issue is of her leadership position(s). I agree, it is precisely for that reason that we should ask Shah for some explanations.
But what I find fascinating is your moment of repudiation, even of the social space that was the VHP-A. Was this only because of your spending time in India? Do you think it would have happened if you had continued to live on in America, without necessarily knowing the implications of the organisation’s work in India? I’m really interested in understanding the different ‘perceptions’, if you like, that second generation Indian Americans might have of the VHP-A and its connections with the VHP in India.
I also think we have to acknowledge that human beings make complex decisions about who and what they are at different moments in their lives, and I would be really interested in hearing from you whether you and your friends made radically different decisions about your own politics, despite/because of sharing the congeniality of those young Indian American ‘social events’.
So there you go, just a simple treatise requested in response!
Nakul, thanks muchly for the attention you’ve paid to this. I’m really interested in hearing what Sonal Shah has to say over the next few days, or how her actions on the advisory team play out… Like I said to you a while ago, my inner jury is still out. 🙂
However, thanks even more muchly for this important excerpt from Nussbaum’s book; The Clash Within has been on my list of things to read for the last year or so, and I see now that I need to read it post-haste. I’m also amazed (at myself) that I make some of the same arguments in Fundys of the Progressive, though obviously with far less analytical sophistication; also, since it’s the transcript of a talk that about our advocacy, I left it raw and basically unedited. It is particularly around the issues of ‘community’ and ‘solidarity’ that I put emphasis, because I think that is key to the ways in which constituencies are expanded; Anasuya’s comment above only adds to that argument.
But I entirely agree with you that I see no reason for Carnatic music, Sanskrit education and yogasanas (amongst many many other things) to be taken over as the domain of the right. There are certain cultural anchors we all have in a deeply rich and complex set of histories, mythologies and practices, and we need to acknowledge them – both for ourselves, and for the vision of the plural world we feel so strongly about. Being closet culturalists or spiritualists (as I know many progressive advocates to be) doesn’t quite cut it.
Shall we work on putting together our own versions of ‘summer school’? I’m serious; I think it would be an important enterprise for us to work on.
Postscript to Nakul: this is not to say that I don’t think the attempts are already being made; I know at least of a couple of progressive groups in India who do versions of the ‘camps’, but my worry with them too is that the organisers tend to be less inclusive – strangely – of differing perspectives *within* the progressive community, so it ends up as an activity of a particular NGO, or group, rather than a shared endeavour of a multiple set of individuals and institutions.
I am still trying to explore what avenues are available here in the US; I don’t know enough about this landscape yet. Any comments/suggestions from others who read this post most welcome.
And newsflash: here’s a letter that a group of well-known people in India have written in defence of Sonal. Excerpted from http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/nov/13sonal-eminent-persons-respond-to-charges.htm
“All of us have known Sonal for considerable periods of time and can affirm this without reservation: She does not in any way support, excuse, condone, justify or do special pleading for political groups that foment hate and/or engage in the kind of violence that was perpetrated in Gujarat. Associating her with the RSS and VHP is an outrageous attempt to insinuate doubt about her commitment to human rights, toleration and the rule of law. There is no reason whatsoever to take these insinuations seriously. You can judge Sonal for yourself. But we urge you not to judge her by false and misleading media reports.”
Now while I respect some of the individuals who’ve supported her on this list, and worry about the politics of a couple of the others (this is not meant to be innuendo, I hasten to add; just disclosure!), I’m glad they’ve collectively written the letter to support the Sonal they know. It still begs – for me – the question of Sonal’s *leadership*, not participation, in a VHP-related activity. And I so wish the Sonal they know would say more about her own sense of whether some of her past activities and associations are simply ‘dangerously naive’ (as Nakul puts it), less or more; I would really welcome that conversation. And yes, in a civil, respectful fashion that doesn’t preclude asking the tough questions of *all* of us, across the political spectrum.
I am quite sure that being associated with the state is not the same as being associated with the VHP (not so much because the Indian state doesn’t commit acts of violence – it sure does… but since they are both founded on quite different principles, as you yourself note). But I
can understand that you have probably struggled and reflected a lot on what it means to work with the police. And so I understand that you start the post with that for that reason. After all, it does raise similar questions of responsibility-by-association – a point that I liked very
much since it makes the questions we still have for Sonal Shah more productive
(rather than the guilt-by-association angle). The question of responsibility-by-association is, in fact, a question that we all need to pose to ourselves. But I won’t go there.
Also, I remembered something else while reading your post. If it becomes a ramble, I
apologize in advance!
I’d read that very comment on Sepiamutiny that you put up in this post. Where
someone pointed out that the youth camps organized by the VHPA were the few spaces
for second-generation Indian-Americans to learn about “their faith or their culture”
and that it doesn’t mean that everyone who participates in these spaces is fanatic
by association. I appreciate and agree with this latter point – yes, it does not
make every participant fanatic by association. But I’ve been curious about the
question of “what alternate spaces are available” in the diaspora to learn about
one’s faith and culture…. Read on…
Few months ago I had a conversation with a relative who lives in the Bay Area. I was
actually quizzing him about what spaces are available for
Indian-Americans to interact and what kind of a space is the India
Community Center in Milpitas (because I knew that they were trying to
invite a particular person to come give a talk and so it seemed to me that they must
be progressive to invite this person… and that seemed promising since it is
apparently one of the largest Indian cultural centers in the US). well, so the
relative-being-questioned was telling me that the Center is a good alternate space
to the temples for the Indian/Indian-American community (I’ll return to the temples
in a minute). But that while the top leadership of the Center is very progressive,
most of its activities end up having a “Hindu” angle to it since they are organized
by people from the Indian-American community around there, which is majority Hindu.
The relative-being-questioned also told me that while non-practising Indian
Muslims come to the Center, attend their events, etc, practicing Indian
Muslims rarely ever go there and instead prefer to use the spaces offered to
them by Pakistani-American and Bangladeshi-American organizations. Now there is
nothing wrong in any of this in my understanding… but it points to the difficulty
of creating plural spaces in the diaspora.
About the temples… so the relative-being-questioned was saying how the temples in
the Bay Area have overwhelmingly become the spaces where Indians/Indian-Americans
(Hindus that is) meet each other. Now I’m not equating the temples in the Bay Area
with the Sangh Parivar by any means (I have no evidence personally to say so one way
or the other) but it is most definitely not a space where Indians from different
religious backgrounds can meet and interact.
In India, there are groups who are trying to create plural spaces but
they are few and far inbetween… compared to what we need to create a
powerful alternate space that can reappropriate hinduism, spirituality,
etc from the Sangh Parivar organizations and bring it into a larger arena
that emaphsizes pluralism, syncreticism…
Anyway, to end … after that conversation with my relative, I
was in a bus and found myself sitting near two Indian guys who work in Silicon
Valley. They didn’t know each other but one of them (Mr. X) was talking in Gujarati
on his cell. So after his phone call ended, the other guy (Mr. Y) turned to him and
introduced himself. He was Gujarati too. The conversation that ensued in Gujarati
was very interesting (and included exchanging information about the cities they came
from in Gujarat, their last names which are indications of caste/community
backgrounds – I know this from how the exchange of last names took place, there was
even conversation about whether Mr. Y who had recently moved to the Bay Area had
found other Gujaratis to live with – which apparently he hadn’t even though he had
looked). Anyway, so Mr. X gave Mr. Y his email and phone number and told him to call
him anytime. He told Mr. Y that on sundays he and some friends go to the temple
(they’re part of a youth group at the temple) and he was welcome to join them
anytime. They chatted a bit more and Mr. X asked Mr. Y if he went to the temple
often, and Mr. X said No, he doesn’t go very often.
It struck me that even those who don’t go regularly to temples while living in India
might do so in the US in the search for an Indian social space. But the nature of
this social space… well, its a religious space – and I’m trying to not be an
atheist/agnostic fundamentalist, but it IS a matter of concern that temples might be
the only organized “Indian social space” for much of the diaspora. While this
doesn’t make one fanatic or intolerant, I do think if this becomes the only “Indian
social space” it restricts the space for engaging with a broader idea of what India
is, what “our culture” is…
Anyhow, I’m not a member of the Indian diaspora and during the several years that I
spent in the US I never went to a temple there (or to the Milpitas India Community
Center) – so what I write above about the kind of spaces available for the Indian
diaspora for learning about or for getting in touch with their culture, with other Indians, etc, are my musings (and questions) on the subject rather than any firsthand experience of it.
So, this lady was “born-again” at 40, just like GWB was. Good for her. Sorry, Alo, I read the whole thing. I’m tired, and that’s all I could think of.
As far as temples go, sometimes, that’s the only place to go to, for excellent puliyogare and spicy pickle with curd-rice. Yummy!
Manu, well if she is ‘born-again’, and thankfully on the side of peace, non-violence and human rights (unlike Dubya), then I hope she’ll say it more obviously in the coming days. And hey, what about puliyogare and mosra-anna/thayir shaadam in the Sengupta-Mathew household, huh?? 🙂
Renu, I think you raise enormously important questions about how to create plural spaces – particularly in a diaspora, where ‘cultural’ spaces may very well also be ‘religious’ spaces… I remember going to a particular cultural center when we first arrived in the Bay Area (because an uncle had a concert there), and finding that half the hall was for the ‘cultural’ events, and the other half for the ‘religious’ – with deities and darshan. I found that really interesting, and wondered about exactly the same issues you’re now raising.
Much of this may well be for lack of space and funds, but how does one ‘transcend’ (in Obamaspeak) the barriers, while being conscious and sensitive to the underlying politics? And yes, very much, create plural spaces of community and solidarity? Hmm…
Don’t forget reiki as well…what a spiritual abode you have there!
…Will the real Sonal Shah please stand up???
For: a long list of defenders for Sonal, including personal friends who are Christian, Muslim and Google; they all affirm in no uncertain terms that Shah is not a bigot. http://wetware.blogspot.com/2008/11/in-defence-of-sonal-shah.html
Against: another article by Vijay Prashad: http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad11132008.html. As well as at Pass the Roti…: http://www.passtheroti.com/?p=872.
As well as an NDTV interview with the General Secretary of VHP-America, in which he claims she was on their governing body: “She was just coming out of college. We were trying to get the younger generation involved in the VHP-A. So she was taken into our governing body. Then the earthquake happened in Gujarat and she worked on that. She was there for 3 years.”
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/uspolls2008/Election_Story.aspx?ID=NEWEN20080072540&
I’ve given up. I’m going to bed. Permanently.
Wonderful post. I don’t wholly buy your distinction between state and non state coercion and violence on principle, but I think the more relevant point is the openness to explanation that you’ve demonstrated and the request for dialogue. I think this is precisely the point that has been missing from Ms. Shah’s responses over the years (and it has been years since these issues were first raised) and others who have quetsioned her, including me, have been guilty of it at points as well.
I agree that there is a problematic binary (or rather two – religion vs. secularism and Vijay Prashad vs. Sonal Shah). On the first, I think that the terrain for a religiously informed socialism or social democratic context is not just available, but has always existed and been employed in India. Any community organizer worth their salt knows that sometimes you need to speak to people in the language that they can hear you in.
I think the other binary, however, demonstrates why this is not the primary issue here – though it is one of several. There is a person who has been asked why she has participated in various forms wtih a social movement that has perpetrated enormous acts of violence – a social movement that continues to do so in large and small ways. She has essentially refused to answer those questions. At the same time, she would like to be in a high-ranking position in the most powerful institution in the world
(the U.S. government) and simultaneously would de facto be among a handful of the most powerful South Asian Americans in the politics of the United States. It is for these reasons that I think the repeated questions and calls for accountability are necessary and why her responses over the years and in recent days have been inadequate.
It is, I agree, a polarizing situation – but it didn’t have to be. I think some of the statements that have raised questions about her could have been framed in more open terms, but ultimately, I believe the responsibility lies with her. If she at any point had taken the approach that Obama took in the speech on race in March, then we could decide what we think, one way or the other, of her affiliations. However, she instead has put out a statement that assumes a level of blindness on our parts that is galling to hear – how can one believe that one could raise funds for VHP-A and not be involved in American politics? As a result, the situation has become the beginning of a dialogue among South Asian Americans about what it means to connect to the Hindu right (or other forces) in South Asia, but it also is simultaneously an effort to declare, again, that no people in positions of power have the right to tell us whatever they want, regardless of how implausible it is, and expect us to stay silent despite misgivings.
Dr. Anonymous, your comment is immensely helpful and clarifying for me, particularly since I had very little sense of the history around the conversations with and around Sonal Shah here in the US (having arrived off the boat only last year); therefore my request that Vijay Prashad be more specific in his terms of engagement. About the state-vs-non-state coercion and violence, yes, that’s certainly a debate in itself (one I would love to have), but what I was trying to point out – as you generously acknowledge yourself – is that we live complex lives, full of omissions and commissions of various kinds, and there is need to build constructive dialogue through honesty and self-reflexivity.
I wholly agree with you that it is this honesty and self-reflexivity that I would most like to see from Sonal Shah at this point in time. I do not know her personally, but I respect some of those who vouch for her, and yet, as someone passionately against Sangh politics, her silences are deafening. And her current statement completely inadequate. I feel like I am in a Sonal Shah inspired Matrix – as I asked despairingly in my last comment, will the real Sonal Shah please reveal herself??
I also agree there are two sets of binaries and many narratives here, and Sonal Shah’s accountability is paramount in the moment. In the longer term, however, the complex of religion and secularism is personally compelling for me. As someone who’s worked in India on the issue for a few years now, yes – of course the terrain exists; we live it and we work it, in every sense of the term(s)! Bring us into the ambit of public/academic/A-list of activists’ discourse, however, and we are very wary of demonstrating our facility, and indeed, the criticality, with and of that language. The terrain becomes the unacknowledged presence in the room, hovering but not spoken to, or spoken of… I’ve struggled with this for a very long time (as my post suggests), and it would be fascinating to continue this particular conversation, both with the communities here and back home. I look forward to it!
why is the ‘pass the roti’ site down? i’ve been trying to reach it for about an hour to no avail.
anasuya/all, campaign to stop funding hate’s statement on sonal shah might interest you. you can read it at http://www.stopfundinghate.org or http://sanghsamachar.wordpress.com/2008/11/14/csfh-statement-on-sonal-shah/
Nice post. I have a theory. maybe SS is circumspect about criticising VHP because she does not want to hurt her parents. In my eyes that would absolve her.
@odear: the site seems back up now. Perhaps the debate overheated the servers?!
@ravi: thanks very much for pointing out the statement. It’s a substantive and yes, ‘civil’ document, and I hope Sonal Shah is able to respond appropriately.
@bunty: I’ve thought about this myself; but I also do believe that there are ways of substantive critique that do not need to compromise – even if they do make difficult momentarily – her relationship with her parents. Speaking for myself and others around me, we have had disagreements of more or less significant degrees – and yes, of a political nature – with our parents, and our relationships have survived, and been stronger for it. But this is an entirely personal take on the matter. I appreciate your thinking about it though: as a feminist, it brings home to me (literally), all over again, the fact that not only is the personal political, but even more, the political can be deeply personal.
Hi Anasuya—am always happy to respond. I haven’t thought about those conferences in a long time and it brought back a slew of memories. To give you an idea of my “Indian education,” I grew up in Harrisburg, PA, a small city with about half a million people living there and in the surrounding suburbs. I feel very fortunate to have grown up among Indians from all over—there were just a handful of Bengali families there at that time and so everyone socialized with everyone else. If you stuck to your own regional groups, you were seriously cutting down on your social life—and there was no point in that. Our parents were far from home and spending time with others like them was a lifeline. In Philadelphia where I had relatives, there was a Bengali association, and I suspect it was harder to form deeper relationships with Indians from other regions. I was lucky to have friends whose parents came from all over India and though it was unintentional, it gave me a better understanding of and greater exposure to the pluralism inherent in Indian culture.
I would think that for a lot of Hindu Americans like me, our connection to the religion came three ways. No surprise that the first space was the home, where there was always a small shrine or prayer room, and my and my friends’ parents held pujas at least once a year. Some were small affairs and some were huge events. I can’t say that the content or intent ever spoke to me in a profound way, but certainly for my parents and their friends, there were very important. For kids, attendance mandatory. And nothing spells “other” better than the neighborhood kids seeing you with a red splotch of vermillion your forehead and Indian clothes!
Second space: we had a local Hindu temple with a swamiji and after a few years, a Sunday school started. There were language classes (Hindi and Gujrati, sorry, South Indians!) and religion classes (these were more like discussing philosophical issues and quite interesting) and also of course, dance. I have two left feet, so was spared. The teachers were parents of friends who volunteered their time and I remember it being quite fun, more socializing and exposure to Hinduism than serious study. From the Sunday school idea, I can now see how our parents sought to use the mainstream American religions and their organizations as a template for our religious activities. Along the lines of—Sunday isn’t a holy day for Hindus, but let’s have Sunday school. Or say, Catholics go to their clergy for advice and counsel, so why shouldn’t our swamiji be someone who fills that role as well? This last one particularly freaked me out. As if I wasn’t feeling “other” enough, my father expected me to share my deep teenage angst and alienation with a celibate man in saffron. I really wasn’t convinced he’d have any wise counsel about how to get my parents to allow me to date. And I was certain he didn’t listen to the Smiths.
But here’s where the VHP-A fits in. In the world of Indian immigrants I knew, I heard next to nothing about US or Indian politics. People were busy assimilating—working, saving, raising kids. Of course being Bengali, I could overhear the men getting heated discussing the CPIM, but I never knew much about it or participated. So consider the timing and climate, this was late 80s and early 90s, the BJP had not gotten into power yet and as I said, Indian politics never came up. I was always very interested in politics and I am a political reporter now, but at that time, I can easily see my parents thinking, VHP—World Hindu Conference—everyone else’s kids are going….sure, no problem. Besides, the Catholics have CYO and other religious have big youth gatherings. Why shouldn’t our youth do the same? Underpinning all of this of course, is that generation’s anxiety about our Indian-ness—would they lose us completely to American culture? (Side note: I find it funny now to see how American they have become—I don’t think that was factored in—or even valid— at that time.) So the third and most diluted space could be a big conference like the VHP-A or various organizations like the NABC (North American Bengali Conference.)
From what I can remember, there was no political content in the VHP-A conferences. There was however saffron colored ice cream, do with that detail what you will. The last time I attended one was in fact in the summer of 1992. I remember it being a really good time with my friends—we were all in college at the time and the major headache was finding a hotel that wouldn’t see a bunch of university students coming and quickly turn us away. After my fun weekend, I don’t remember thinking much more about it until I ended up in India shortly thereafter. I spent a semester in Kolkata as in intern at The Telegraph and was exposed to Indian national politics for the first time. It was quite the realization to find out the VHP and the VHP-A were one and the same. My article, as far as I remember, was about the VHP’s American face and whether or not Indian Americans had any idea of its political philosophy at home. Also it occurred to me the organization could be raising money this way for its activities in India. I remember a registration fee for the conference, but I don’t remember the amount and besides, whose parents wouldn’t gladly give them 20 or 50 bucks to participate in a Hindu youth conference? This was just months before Ayodhya and a few years before the BJP became the government. I was shocked that it was possible that NRI dollars were going towards communalist, hateful organizations in the homeland. I doubt my parents or my friends had any idea about this. I went back to the US about a month or two after Ayodhya, I likely discussed it with my father and have followed Indian politics, to varying degrees ever since.
As for my dear friends, I don’t think those conferences mattered a bit to us and I have never had political discussions with them. For whatever reason, I was always a bit different, but that never mattered and I love them to this day. My closest Indian American girlfriends from that time married men like us, settled down, and had kids not too far from our parents, while I took off for different corners of the world. I think that Indian American culture is developing so rapidly that these women, who a decade ago married Indian men raised in America, who felt that doing so was important for them, their families and their future children, may not necessarily feel the same societal pressures today. I think that is less of a factor now as my parents’ generation have become quite American and don’t have the same knee jerk reaction if say, one married outside. They’ve seen that marrying an Indian does not guarantee happiness, nor does marrying outside of Indian culture mean ostracism or an unhappy life. That said, you’d better believe that there’s a full on Hindu ceremony at the wedding. And Indian food naturally!
So to return to Sonal Shah….there is no way for her not to have known about the VHP’s activities in India. For me, the idea that she was “just a college student” doesn’t wash—I too was a college student and it didn’t take reading much more than the Indian papers to see what was going on. Her parents were also involved—she didn’t come from an apolitical background—and it’s a world away from simply being temple trustees. It seems highly dubious that such an intelligent, accomplished and well connected person would not have anything to say on this topic considering the scope of VHP activities in the past 15 years. Also from what I have read, the Obama team is being extremely careful about vetting their people, asking them specifically to disclose affiliations that may prove embarrassing to the Obama administration. But it could also be completely unremarkable— Hindus are far from the spotlight and have little effect on the mainstream.Though it’s not an exact parallel, and of course, SF is now fully part of the Irish political process, imagine the response if she were Sally O’Sullivan instead of Sonal Shah and was formerly the youth leader of something called Sinn Fein America?
Thanks for a very thoughtful post and discussion. I’m also especially happy to see your “emailgangers” comments (i.e., the other Anusaya).
If I do a follow-up post on this subject (I might not — it’s a little exhausting!), I will certainly be linking to this.
Anasuya, your slew of memories is absolutely fascinating, and immensely helpful to think through the complicated histories of the diaspora we now live in. I think it’s well worth your doing a longer article on it as some point in time, if you feel up to it.
…I particularly loved the saffron coloured ice-cream, what a hoot!
And I take seriously your point that the slippages between VHP-A and VHP India would be/was fairly obvious to someone as intelligent and accomplished as Sonal Shah (and you!), but I also see that there’s a great deal of work to be done in those liminal spaces of culture and identity. ‘Belonging’ is a construction of so many different, complicated, desires, and unless we acknowledge that complexity, and work with it, we lose out on an expansion of constituencies, if you will, ourselves.
But thank you again for these incredibly thoughtful, reflective and helpful comments. As always, my friend, I’m proud to share my name with you!
Amardeep, thanks for dropping by, and I empathise entirely with your exhaustion. I’m feeling it too, and I’m not even as remotely hooked into the churning of the blogosphere as you are!
But what I like most, and what I take away from all of this at the moment, is that there is a greater clarification and condemnation of ‘politics of hate’, and a solidifying of a community that is willing to work on the issues of liminality that we’ve talked about, both through the post and the extremely reflective comments that have followed. Perhaps those are the conversations we should be having now, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on them.
Sorry to take this off-topic from such an insightful discussion, but I really have to ask this. Is Anasuya Sanyal the third anasuya here? or is she the second who finally decided to make things clearer for poor souls like me desperately trying to find out who said what the last time. 🙁 🙂
Hi Sandip, I’m chuckling out loud as I write this – so the sense of schizophrenia isn’t restricted to Sonal Shah, hmm?! There are *two* Anasuyas in this conversation – Anasuya Sengupta (writer of this blog post… erm, ‘me’) and Anasuya Sanyal who decided to make things clearer in her second comment which followed on from her first (as you will see, in the long history of the discussion, right at the beginning of the comments section).
For further off-topic history on how we’re friends (or emailgangers, as we now call ourselves), an earlier post: http://blogs.sanmathi.org/anasuya/2008/04/11/my-yahooganger-story-whats-yours/
Anasuya, excellent post, and a set of very interesting responses.
Given that Obama’s team includes Rahm Emanuel, may include Lawrence Summers, and that the Attorney General may be Eric Holder (see article by Mario Murillo in counterpunch – http://www.counterpunch.org/murillo11192008.html), Sonal Shah doesn’t stand out. It seems a bit beside the point, at this stage, to expend energy on scrutinizing her association with VHP many years ago while giving her a pass on her current views on development. In that sense I found Vijay Parshad’s article somewhat irresponsible.
The task for us is to make sure that we do our best to inform the Obama administration about India and not leave it to the likes of Sonal Shah.
Having got that off my chest … and moving on to the larger question:
“Have we, as activists for a progressive world, so denounced a middle ground of faith, religiosity and associated ‘culture’, that we have ended up allowing the fascist right to take over that space?”
In part, there may have been a rejection of the middle ground of faith, but I think the more important factor is that this “middle ground” has been ignored. For instance, “pluralism” is a concept which is often used so narrowly that the axes of identification of plurality are either religious or ethnic. Thus, in the post and in many of the responses, “Hindu” is used without any nuance of its immense internal diversity. This is I think is a mistake, and is playing into the hands of the VHP leaders. This may be obvious, but perhaps it is so obvious that we miss the whole terrain, where we can challenge the VHP squarely from within historical and actual “lived” Hinduism.
Now, here is a tricky point that I hope I can explain clearly enough: contrasting the VHP brand of Hinduism with traditional, tolerant Hinduism (as Martha Nussbaum does) is not what I mean by “challenging from within”.
Rather, it is an exercise of finding different axes along which pluralism is defined so that it naturally cuts through (for example) members joining the VHP-A, and as a consequence limits the spread and extent of the VHP in direct proportion to its fundamentalist agenda.
Getting back to Martha Nussbaum’s book, she describes the incidents that led up to the violence in Gujarat and used the words “Muslims” and “Hindus” as descriptors innumerable times. One exercise in seeking to find new axes of pluralism (in order to isolate fundamentalisms) would be to re-write those sections of the book conveying the full horror
of the events without using the words “Hindu”, “Muslim” (or synonyms) and “genocide”.
Hi RS, thanks for a really challenging set of thoughts. I’m not entirely sure that Prashad was letting Shah off the hook on the ‘development’ agenda – though I think it was hard to tell from the article, phrased as it was. But I do mention in my post that if indeed naivete was her sin, then it seems dangerous from the ‘development’ standpoint as well as any other. The issue is that her views are still so in the realm of conjecture – other than very specific information like her being on the governing board of the VHP-A, or her brother accepting an award for their organisation from Modi in 2004 – that I would hate to be accusatory without substance. Her being a gatekeeper for Indian American views and people in the Obama administration still makes the issue important, I think, though I agree it’s certainly not *only* about her.
The larger issues you raise are fascinating. I agree that it’s about a terrain of lived and experienced ‘Hinduism’, but I certainly feel that it is that terrain from which I understand pluralism. However, re-defining the axes of pluralism more broadly is a far tougher task; I understand what you mean – I think – but in shifting vocabularies and creating new-from-old/re-defined spaces of encounter, we must be careful not to lose sight of critical issues of identity politics as they are played out. There are certain ways in which ‘Hindu’, ‘Muslim’ and ‘genocide’ get set up, yes, but there are also realpolitik reasons for that setting up of semantics; shifting the struggle shouldn’t be about dismissing the realpolitik as unimportant.
I don’t know if I’ve misunderstood the point you’re trying to make – I welcome a further enunciation from you – but overall, I certainly agree with enlarging our progressive strategies through new/renewed understandings of pluralism, and thereby limiting fundamentalists’ effectiveness.
And perhaps I would be careful about not setting up the ‘Hindu’ ‘Muslim’ conjunction in the same breath as ‘genocide’. There is specific need to differentiate a state-supported massacre of people from the terminology of ‘riots’… should we really see them on the same continuum of semantic (and other) politics?
Thanks for a very thought-provoking and enlightening discussion.
But all this just serves to remind me that while there is so much debate in civil society about the ethics of someone who was involved in the Diaspora’s version of the VHP, the very perpetrators of all the heinous crimes are still in inviolably high places, back home.
This, I think is the pertinence of our(this discussion’s) moment, that while one part of the world is awakening to the potential of participatory democracy, another is being lulled to sleep by regressive religious skulduggery…
While I think that this discourse is important, and am swept off my feet by the erudition of some of your commentators, I cannot help but contemplate the distance between our discourse and it’s thin rarity in the clamour that is present day politics in India.
Forgive my skepticism.
Hi Raheema, sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to the blogosphere, and to your comment. I honestly don’t think this is about ‘one part of the world’ vs. another, I think it’s very much a debate that matters as much within India as it does to the diaspora here in the US and elsewhere (and it’s not as though the discourse here on the Sonal Shah issue has been devoid of invective or shrillness; far from it). Globalisation is a process of material as well as ideological consequences – and yes, embedded in it are the possibilities of both global exploitation as well as inspiration.
This particular conversation itself demonstrates that: commentators are from both India and the US; discourse travels. Sometimes in unexpected ways – including your own participation! So while I understand your skepticism, I think it’s worth pushing its boundaries… I think the fact that you’ve found the discussion thought-provoking has much to do with the generosity and erudition of the commentators on this page, and how it carries forward depends muchly on the passion and will of people like you, who have the ability – and I know well, the courage – to carry the nuanced arguments into action.
I entirely agree with the anger re the lack of justice around the perpetrators of the Gujarat genocide; the Sonal Shah debate though, already seems to have caused a fundamental solidifying of opinion against them, which I think is remarkable in and of itself (including in her own statements). So perhaps that hackneyed – and ironic – phrase of ‘cautious optimism’ has some use after all?!
To keep this post updated for those who might be interested, Sonal Shah issued another statement recently, quoted in an article in the National Journal: http://lostintransition.nationaljournal.com/2008/12/shah-renounces.php
The article also quotes an email sent by her to her supporters, asking for help: “I need your help… This is gaining legs as the National Journal also picked it up and likely Fox. I need to moblize [sic] people against the leftists and the right wing. There is a likely chance that they will ask me to resign as team does not need my publicity.”
The text of the statement:
“I was recently maligned by a professor at a college in Connecticut who wrote an article in CounterPunch accusing me of association with Hindu extremism. Then, a few days ago, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, published an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer, to which this site linked, that echoed the CounterPunch accusations. These attacks sadden me, but they share one other thing in common: the accusations are false.
In reaction to these attacks, my closest friends — and many strangers — have rallied to my side. I am touched by this outpouring of support. And as painful as this episode has been for me personally, I welcome the opportunity to discuss this issue with the seriousness that it deserves, but the conversation should proceed on the basis of verified facts and reasoned argument, not innuendo and defamation.
Indian politics and history are contested and emotive, but also unfamiliar to most Americans. I understand why so many Indians and Indian-Americans feel strongly about religious extremism in India, because I share the same concerns.
I am an American, and my political engagements have always and only been American. I served as a U.S. Treasury Department official for seven years, and now work on global development policy at Google.org. And I am honored to serve on the Presidential Transition Team of President-elect Obama while on leave from Google.org.
I emigrated from India at the age of four, and grew up in Houston. Like many Americans, I remain proud of my heritage. But my engagement with India has been exclusively cultural and humanitarian. After the devastating earthquake in Gujarat in 2001, I worked on behalf of a consortium of Indian-American organizations to raise funds for humanitarian relief. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHP-A), an independent charity associated with the eponymous Indian political group, was among these organizations, and it was the only one to list my name on its website. I am not affiliated with any of these organizations, including the VHP-A, and have not worked with any of them since 2001.
The experience with the Gujarat earthquake did, however, teach me an important lesson. It pointed up a lack of dedicated infrastructure to help alleviate suffering in India, so together with my brother and sister, I founded Indicorps, an organization modeled on the U.S. Peace Corps that enables young Indian-Americans to spend a year in service to marginalized communities in India. The fellows come from every religious background, and have worked among every religious community in India. Indeed, some Indicorps fellows focus on inter-faith dialogue as part of their projects.
In 2002, Gujarat suffered one of the most profound tragedies in its long history, when extremist political leaders, including some associated with the VHP, incited riots that resulted in the deaths of thousands. Had I been able to foresee the role of the VHP in India in these heinous events, or anticipate that the VHP of America could possibly stand by silently in the face of its Indian counterpart’s complicity in the events of Gujarat in 2002 — thereby undermining the American group’s cultural and humanitarian efforts with which I was involved — I would not have associated with the VHP of America.
Sadly, CounterPunch and Senator Santorum have suggested that I somehow endorse that violence and the ongoing violence in Orissa. I do not – I deplore it. But more than that, I have worked against it, and will continue to do so. I have already denounced the groups at issue and am hopeful that we can begin to have an honest conversation about the ways immigrant and diaspora communities can engage constructively in social and humanitarian work abroad.”
My quick thoughts on the second Sonal Shah statement.
I actually am more disturbed now than I was when the whole controversy began, because I was hoping that her second statement would demonstrate honesty and self-reflexivity, and be a response to the questions posed to her by a large swathe of the Indian diaspora (and, from what I gather, a great many respected academics working on South Asia; not just Vijay Prashad).
I would actually have liked to have felt uncomplicatedly proud of all that Sonal otherwise represents: a young Indian-American woman, involved in issues of development, a gatekeeper for the issues and possibly, the region, in a future adminstration… but having an ‘honest conversation’, as she asks us to do, surely needs to begin with her? Hypothetically, I would have been better pleased with even a terse *Those associations have complicated histories and I renounce them* than this statement, especially when she calls Prashad’s essay a process of ‘maligning’. Since when is the asking of valid questions (if badly constructed, as we’ve already said in this conversation), a process of maligning?
Instead of the honest conversations we hoped would begin with and from Sonal, we have a statement that seems to be a response not to the Indian-American community or to other concerned groups, but to the growing publicity the issue is getting in the mainstream media. That’s unfortunate in and of itself.
Secondly, I find it difficult to accept that she can claim that VHP-A is an independent charity organisation, when its links to the Sangh Parivar back home are clear and continued (and at the very least, coming from a family involved with the Sangh gives you knowledge by association). She denies affiliation, when she was on the governing council/coordinators’ list (http://www.hindunet.org/lists/vhpgc-l).
The 2001 watermark for dis-association is also problematic; the VHP and others of the Sangh had been associated with egregious acts of violence and bigotry far before 2001, ranging from, and not limited to, the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 to Graham Staines and his two son’s horrific murder in 1999. As Anasuya Sanyal has mentioned elsewhere in this conversation, Sonal could have not failed to know about all this.
But let’s accept (again hypothetically) that she may not have known. That someone who seems remarkably intelligent, sensitive and passionate about issues of development (from those who know her and vouch for her) may not have kept in touch with news from the sub-continent. Then WHY, Sonal, why in 2004, did your brother Anand, accept on your and his own behalf, an award for Indicorps from PM Vajpayee, in the presence of the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, called ‘Gujarat Garima’ (Gujarat’s Pride)?? (http://www.nriinternet.com/NRIappointments/USA/Politics/A_Z/S/Sonal_Shah/index.htm) For an organisation in which some members have actually worked on issues of communal harmony and ‘inter-faith dialogue’, surely accepting this award – at a time when Modi and the rest of the Sangh’s complicity was clearly established – was an act of disrespect to the values the organisation itself stood for?
In all of this noise, I find Anand Shah’s comments far more honest and reflective than that of his sister’s; he reportedly said, “If the situation wasn’t what it is, if it was someone else, I would be asking these questions… It’s not a non-serious issue; the questions being raised are legitimate ones.” But the National Journal article from which this is excerpted (link above) goes on to say: “he added that he hoped people would judge his sister by her own words and actions, and not by her associations.”
I’m trying to do exactly that, Anand, to judge Sonal by her own words and actions, and I remain both terribly disturbed and disappointed.