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CounterPunch
December
5, 2002
Malign Money
and Misguided Multiculturalism
by ROMI MAHAJAN
When its either tolerance or simply charity instead
of justice that guides political formation, hate can be buoyed.
The recent revelations about the US-based non-profit India Development
and Relief Fund (IDRF)'s connection to right wing Hindu groups
in India brings this fact into bold relief --(documentation of
these revelations can be found at www.stopfundinghate.org.)
The assertions made by the organizers
of the Stop Funding Hate campaign are very clear: Through the
creation of a seemingly benign non-profit organization which
evinces a genteel (even noble) front, the Hindu Right in India
has managed not only to get donations from overseas Indians,
but also to cleverly use the IRS 501-C-3 provisions coupled with
"Matching Gifts" programs from large US corporations
to fund hate-directed largely at religious minorities in India.
These assertions are extremely serious and concern issues of
grave import: India has been witness to mass, coordinated, Government-sanctioned
violence against religious minorities (including a pogrom against
Muslims in the state of Gujarat.) The violence directed at minorities
is increasing, as is the "acceptance" of this violence
by the elite classes in India.
The second set of assertions made in
the extensive documentation concerns the Indian diaspora, specifically
the affluent Hindu minority in the U.S. This discussion should
be broken into two components, the first concerning the affluent
Hindu immigrants who display a particularly virulent form of
Hinduism, and the second concerning fairly well-meaning Indian
immigrants who donate money towards "development" and
other seemingly uplifting causes. The real danger emanates from
the machinations of the first set while the Stop Funding Hate
campaign rightly conceives that the second group would in large
part halt their funding of groups that, unbeknownst to them earlier,
fund hate.
Right Wing Hindu Immigrants: There are several forces at work that together
connive to create a virulent form of Hinduism and a tendency
towards fascist thinking in the diaspora. The phenomenon is too
complex and multivalent to probe deeply here, but it's worth
visiting a few of the trends. First of all, many members of this
group, recently immigrated to the US, to occupy jobs in the notoriously
libertarian high technology sector. Young, affluent, connected
(through technology networks), many of these folks grew up in
an India whose political landscape (for the last decade at least)
has been dominated by the Hindu right. The virulence exists too
in other members of this group (perhaps who immigrated decades
ago) who have a very narrow view, typical to diasporic communities,
of the religions and cultures of their birth countries: ossified
views engender conservatism and a struggle with political, cultural,
and racial identity in the new country creates religious and
cultural forms that are fundamentalist, in the sense that they
don't benefit from the dynamism in views and conceptions that
have occurred as society evolves in the birth country. In the
case of both of these groups, the existence of "liberalized,"
nuclear-capable, and increasingly Westernized India, in a sense
a new incarnation of what they consider to have been a "backward,
socialist, weak" country, emboldens them to adopt the macho
and militarist ethos of the U.S. Since both of their countries
seem to have a penchant for anti-Muslim violence, they are further
emboldened.
The second broad group of folks that
the Stop Funding Hate Campaign concerns itself with are the ordinary
decent Indian immigrants who simply want to donate some money
towards the development of India. These people can be influenced
to be more circumspect if they were to be told about the direct
connection between their donations and the hideous agenda that
the Hindu right is playing out on the Indian body politic. One
hopes that there is a critical mass of Hindu immigrants that
have not succumbed to the virulent strain and will be outraged
by their unwitting connivance in the propagation of anti-minority
hate in India.
The Stop Funding Hate campaign will have
a salutary effect on the political and moral landscape. This
is true not only insofar as it addresses the active funding of
hate in India and offers immigrants the information they need
to make moral decisions about the use of their money. While this
is incredibly important and while the rightward shift in the
Indian political ethos and its connection with conservative immigrants
must be exposed, the campaign also offers us a far more broad
message, one that applies to far more than is specifically covered
in the documentation provided by the campaign, much beyond its
direct focus. Interestingly, this is brought to the fore by both
groups of immigrants (both the ones practicing virulent, diasporic
Hinduism and the ones being hoodwinked.).
There are two planks to this message,
first that liberal notions of multiculturalism based simply on
"tolerance" for others in our midst can be fundamentally
damaging. Second, that paternalistic notions of charity that
don't consider questions of social justice can be extremely damaging
to the polities that are supposedly being helped. In the example
of right-wing Hinduism among immigrants in the U.S. and the concomitant
funding of Hindu fascism (though for some unwittingly) through
donation dollars from the U.S., it becomes clear that these two
planks are connected.
Tolerant Multiculturalism: The foundation of tolerant multiculturalism
is the notion of "respecting difference," irrespective
of the nature of that difference. While in an incredibly arrogant
and uneducated society, there is certainly something positive
about respecting difference, it is not the basis of a political
movement that seeks distributive international justice. In fact,
in the case of Hinduism in the U.S., it has had a deleterious
effect: Thousands of otherwise well-meaning Hindu-American kids
grow up celebrating their Hinduism by attending VHP camp and
by joining, in their college years, the Hindu Students Council
(HSC). These are formations of the Hindu right that impel these
kids to equate their "Indian-ness" with a "Hindu"
identity and to equate "Hinduism" in general with the
particular form of virulent Hinduism practiced in the U.S. (to
complete the logic, they thus equate their Indian-ness with virulent
Hinduism). In their search for identity and for a marker of distinction
in a racialized society, Hindu-American kids join these groups,
get subjected to what is essentially propaganda (that they have
no way of knowing to be untrue, unless they actually do some
digging), and become advocates for Hindu power. What is more,
tolerant multiculturalism actually allows these groups to get
campus funding since they are simply expressions of "difference."
And in fact, well-meaning liberals of the majority community
in the U.S. too support them, again because they believe in "diversity
for diversity's sake" and, in their ignorance, have no understanding
of the malign nature of the Hindu right in India. Under girding
all of these threads of analysis is the simple fact that kids
inculcated in the politics of seeking justice and not some self-aggrandizing
expression of their "identity," would not join an organization
that requires entry on the basis of and only of religion. Tolerant
multiculturalism unfortunately has no problem with that.
Paternalistic Charity: This discussion too must be broken into two
components, one a direct offshoot of the tolerant multiculturalism
discussed above and the second relating to the broader question
of donating money to causes in India.
For the people discussed in the multiculturalism
section, Hindu-Americans, who grow up equating India with the
propagandized, ossified Hinduism they've been exposed to, donating
money to "help" India usually means donating to groups
affiliated with Hinduism or, worse, directly with the Hindu Right.
In the conception of many of these donators, they are doing something
good by sending money to help India. But as we know, the money
is often put to use in malign ways. Reasons for the incredible
disconnect between what the donators mean to do and what is done
include 1. The fact that charity of this sort is rarely meant
really to create positive change; it's generally about assuaging
the donators' guilt and, as such, once the check is written,
why do I care about what happens with the money? 2. For most
Indians living comfortably in the U.S., India is an abstraction
that is used for one's own needs, either as a place to visit
during Christmas break or as the source of the "great culture"
that all diasporic Indians are proud to be "heir" to.
To the extent that this is true, Indian-Americans rarely know
or care about what is happening on the ground in India. 3. Any
notion that the majority of Indian-Americans care deeply about
either the financial well being of the country or the maintenance
of human rights in the country is simply not true. Two examples
can be adduced here: First, with regard to the financial well-being
of the country, the fact that Non-Resident Indians bought billions
of dollars of India Development Bonds only because of high interest
rates and the moment, in late 1990, that India's foreign exchange
reserves fell to critically low levels signaling danger to the
investment community, these "patriotic" Non-Resident
Indians starting withdrawing their funds instantly, precipitating
a huge forex crisis, that eventually lead to India's beggary
by the IMF. Second, when earlier this year, Gujarat was plagued
by anti-Muslim pogroms, the Hindu-American community was noticeably
silent; in fact, a mini "victory" for the community
was announced after a largely Hindu-American group successfully
lobbied the U.S. Congress not to issue a statement denouncing
the violence in Gujarat.
So for some, "helping India,"
certainly a noble notion, is directly translated into funding
the Hindu Right. No doubt with regard to others, the more malevolent
and educated ones, they know precisely what they are doing just
as people who fund the KKK know exactly what they are doing and
what the funds are used for.
With regard to the broader topic of donating
money to India, the wisdom and effectiveness of simple charity
must be called into question. The point here is not original:
donating money, while good and helpful, must be part of a larger
political movement for social justice. This is not to imply either
that everyone who donates money must involve themselves actively
in such movements (thought it would be nice) nor to imply the
absence of such involvement should turn off the money spigot.
Instead, what is being gotten at here is that one must approach
the question of donation, through the hallway of politics. The
point of entry into the question should not be "I want to
donate money to something" but "I believe in social
justice and will donate money in accordance with these beliefs."
Approaching donation through this aperture puts responsibility
on the donator: one must understand to what end the money is
used. My experience in raising money for donation to causes in
India and in donating myself is that groups that are fighting
the fight in the grassroots, that are not affiliated with any
religious group or obscurantist creed, that actively fight for
communal harmony, and that hold the banner of justice as their
main credo are the ones to which one should donate money.
According to the Stop Funding Hate campaign,
in the case of the IDRF, well-intentioned people, who believe
in simple charity, could possibly have seen their money be donated
to causes that run afoul of their morals. Donators need to take
it upon themselves to understand the money trail, to understand
the basic forensics of groups' accounting, so as to ensure that
their money is not being used for hate.
After the campaign brought these assertions
about IDRF into the public domain, several large corporations
have cut off their matching funds to IDRF. One hopes that for
people who simply want to help India and don't want to push a
right-wing Hindutva agenda, the process of politicizing charity
will impel them to find other groups to fund.
Applause to the campaign for doing the
work and exposing the money trail. When its either tolerance
or simply charity instead of justice that guides political formation,
hate can be buoyed.
Misguided multiculturalism and simply
charity, when combined with narrow and virulent religious ideology,
make for a dangerous brew. In the case of Hindu-Americans funding
the Hindu Right in India, it is up to us to close the institutional
channels of fund transfer. The victims of the virulence in India
need us to be alert.
Romi Mahajan
can be reached at: Romimahajan2000@yahoo.com
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