Being Indian Abroad, II

[Guest guest]

Francois Gautier

Being Indian abroad, II

http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/oct/10franc.htm

 

My article, Being Indian abroad, I triggered such a massive reaction that I

felt it is better writing another column to respond to points made by

readers, rather than answer e-mail.

 

Obviously, America is not only fast food, artificial lights, cars and a

superficial vitality. There is a certain openness about America, a

willingness of the American people to listen to other points of view, which

is unique. Yes, America is also a land of freedom where in the

last 300 years, people from all nationalities, social classes, have been

given the chance to make it good. They have in turn responded to this unique

trust by giving the United States their 100 per cent, which makes it the

leading industrial and military nation in the world. One finds too a sense

of collectiveness, a caring for others, which gives America some of the best

road systems in the world and first-class public amenities, such as the

community centers found in many American cities.

 

But is America really the benevolent, casteless society some readers are

convinced it is? Well, I am not sure. For one, what the White Americans did

to the Blacks not that long ago must rank amongst some of the saddest deeds

perpetuated by one class of humanity on another;

not to speak of the terrible and shameful treatment inflicted upon the

hapless Red Indians, the original inhabitants of their land, a karma the US

will have to pay for sooner or later.

 

There are also a lot of inequalities in the States: extremely rich people

and some incredibly poor folks, mostly Blacks, for such a country of

tremendous wealth. Secondly, are the Blacks today on a truly equal footing

with the Whites? I am not convinced either. Barring a few exceptions here

and there, one still finds an invisible and subtle ghetto, an unwritten

caste system existing in the US between the two communities and their

problems are far from solved.

India has had an untouchable President. Has the US ever had a Black

president, or vice-president? American journalists and human rights

activists like to highlight the 'oppressed' condition of women in India. But

as early as the late sixties, India democratically elected

a woman prime minister, the highest post of the nation -- and that for

nearly twenty years. Can the country of triumphant feminism and gender

equality boast of a woman President? The problem is that most Indians suffer

too much from an inferiority complex vis à vis the

West, to point this out to the Americans who are constantly criticising

India for its human rights in Kashmir and Gujarat.

 

Yes, in America one enjoys the liberty to do whatever one wants without

bureaucracy and heavy taxation that one is subjected to in India, or even in

industrialised countries such as France. But after September 11, freedoms

have been heavily curtailed in the US, especially if you have brown skin.

Compare this to India: I have lived here for 33 years, I have gone to the

most remote places, traveled to sacred spots with my cameras, tape recorder

and white

face. And never once have I been aggressed, never once has my passport been

asked for in the streets (try traveling in the subway in Paris if you have a

brown face and a leather jacket), never once have I been mugged at late

nights in Delhi, Mumbai or Chennai, whereas in Washington, the capital of

the 'land of freedom,' we were told not to go out alone in certain parts

after 8 pm.

 

Some e-mail dealt with the extraordinary 'religious freedom one can enjoy in

the US, where nobody bothers whether you are a Jew, a Hindu, or a

Christian.' Fair enough. But let's put it that way: the American population

is overwhelmingly Christian and nobody there finds anything to say that the

President of the United States is sworn in on the Bible, or that in some

states a Christian prayer is uttered before the start of the school.

 

India has a thumping Hindu majority (80 per cent), but imagine the uproar if

Atal Bihari Vajpayee had been sworn in on the Bhagavad Gita! And remember

what happened when Murli Manohar Joshi wanted to introduce the chanting of

the Saraswati Vandana in schools. Yet,

India has today a Muslim President, the third one since Independence. Did

the US ever have a Muslim President?

 

Some of you have a point: when I say all Indians settled in the US should

regroup themselves under a 'Hindu American banner,' it does look as if I

want to exclude Christians, Muslim and Sikh Indians. Indeed, most of the

protesting e-mail were from Christians, Muslims and Sikhs. Let's answer the

objections from Christians first. One Christian reader tells me: 'Christians

have no freedom in India, or else they are killed like Australian missionary

Graham Staines.'

There is no denying this was a horrible crime and that its perpetrators

should be punished -- and they are in the process of being punished. But

this is an isolated case and our friend

disregards what the Christians have done to Hindus over centuries.

 

The first Christian community in the world, that of the Syrian Christians,

settled in India in the first century. They were not only allowed to

practice their religion in peace, but they prospered here, whereas at the

same time they were persecuted in Rome and later in

many Arabic countries. But when Vasco da Gama landed in India in the 16th

century, the Portuguese, with the active collaboration of many Indian

Christians, unleashed a reign of terror in Goa and some parts of Kerala,

crucifying Brahmins, razing temples, forcibly marrying their soldiers to

Goanese women.

 

The British, even if they did not use such violent means, gave a free hand

to missionaries to convert huge parts of India, particularly in the

Northeast. Today, American or Australian dollars are used to still convert

unethically, by using the economic incentive amongst tribals and

untouchables, teaching the new converts to hate their culture and customs

and creating a spirit of separatism, as the Christian Bodo and Mizo

militants have shown.

 

A few Sikh friends also resented my not having mentioned Sikhism. Let me

quote straightaway from Sri Aurobindo: 'The Sikh Khalsa was an astonishingly

original and novel creation and its face was turned not to the past but to

the future. Apart and singular in its theocratic

head and democratic soul and structure, it was the first attempt to combine

the deepest elements of Islam and Vedanta. But it could not create between

the spirit and the external life the transmitting medium of a rich creative

thought and culture. And thus hampered and

deficient it began and ended with narrow local limits, achieved intensity

but no power of expansion...'

 

Unfortunately, the Sikhs, because they had to defend themselves against the

terrible persecution by the Muslims, cut themselves from the mainstream

spirit of Hindu tolerance -- from where they originally came, and where they

might ultimately return. But do they

not come from the great Hindu family? Has not till lately every good Hindu

family donated one of their sons to Sikhism? Do not Hindus still today go to

gurdwaras? Yet today, many expatriate Sikhs want to have nothing to do with

Hinduism, and sometimes even with India.

 

What about Indian Muslims? Today we see, even though they benefit in India

from a freedom they would not have in Saudi Arabia, or even in Pakistan,

Indian Muslims often feel their first allegiance goes to Islam and not to

India. The irony of it all is that Muslims invaded

India, ran it with an iron hand, attempted to make India a totally Islamic

country by forcibly converting millions of Hindus -- and today they manage

to portray themselves in the eyes of the world as the persecuted.

 

Another strong objection from some readers: religion divides. First let me

say Hinduism, as Sri Aurobindo or Vivekananda, or Sri Ramakrishna envisioned

it, is not a religion but a living spirituality which has given to the world

-- and still gives it today -- wonderful tools: hata-yoga copied all over

this planet, meditation, or pranayama. Secondly, at a time when the two

largest monotheistic religions of the world, Islam and Christianity still

claim their God is the only true one, while Hindus, through the

extraordinary concept of the avatar, recognise that God manifests himself at

different times, in different countries, under different names and thus

grant to everybody the right to worship God under any

form. This is a very precious spiritual (and not religious) knowledge which

has been lost to the world and which, even the most humble Hindu peasant

spontaneously practices.

 

It is also true that things in India are not as they should be. Hindus there

are not united, India is divided along caste and religious lines by

unscrupulous politicians. Yes, Hindus can also be racists, as one rediff

reader remarked; they do suffer at the same time, as another one commented,

from a big inferiority complex, as well as one of superiority, quite an

achievement! Yes, it is as well correct that expatriate Indians do often

tend to become more

conscious of their roots than India Indians: they will send their children

to learn Bharata Natyam and will remember all the festivals. Good, there is

a whole generation of upper middle class kids in India who are so

desperately aping the worst of the West, that they are lost for India.

 

Yes, Hindus can be selfish, passive, cowardly, miserly, whereas many of them

are extremely rich. But nevertheless, they remain a wonderful people, alive

with an inbred joy and spirituality.

 

Contrary to what one of the readers assert, there is a definite atmosphere

in India, something special, something unique, which is there nowhere else

in the world. Those of you who spent a lot of time abroad will notice a

certain quality in the atmosphere as soon as you enter India, if you are a

little sensitive.

 

Indian Americans or Hindu Americans? To start with, there are already Indian

Americans, those that Columbus mistook for real Indians and you can't usurp

their names. Secondly, it ultimately depends on the Christians, the Sikhs

and the Muslims, who in the last few decades, have drifted more and more

from the Indian psyche, striving to strike a fundamental identity of their

own. We have also seen that the numerous Indian Americans associations in

the US, where there are indeed Muslim, Christians and Sikh Indians, are

frequently paralysed

by these three groups.

 

Thus, if Hindus in the United States regroup themselves under a 'Hindu

American' label it might prompt the three minorities to wake up to the

reality of a stronger, overwhelmingly Hindu majority. It will give a

clear-cut identity to Indians in the States, dissociating

them from the Pakistanis, the Bangladeshis, the Saudis, or the Afghans. It

will also help make known to the average American the extraordinary

achievements of the Hindu community in the US.

 

Lastly, it will help the Indian government, by creating a powerful and

effective lobby in the US, free from the shackles imposed by Christian, Sikh

and Muslim Indians. Ultimately, it will be up to these three minorities to

decide whether they want to re-join this great family that is 'Induism.' For

we should then give back to 'Hindus' its proper meaning: Indus from the

civilisation of the valley of Indus, probably the most ancient civilisation

of the world

still active today. Once upon a time, Indian Christians, Parsis, Muslims and

Hindus were called 'Indus' by the invaders without differentiation of caste

and religion. Is it not time to put back this habit into practice?

 

Finally, is America going to be perpetually the El Dorado that still make

Indians dream? Not sure. There are certain signs which show that the US

economy is entering a period of darkness: the slump in the stock market, the

packing up of half of Silicon Valley, the near

bankruptcy of many American airlines, and more than that, the erosion of the

American confidence.

 

There are bound to be more terrorist attacks on the US in the next few

years, as Samuel Huntington's prophecy of a 'clash of civilizations' between

Islam and the West, with China siding with Islam (let's us not forget that

Beijing already gave Pakistan the technology to build its nuclear weapons)

and Hindu India allied with the West, will prove more and more true. This in

turn will trigger more panic, more loss of confidence amongst Americans and

eventually a stock market crash on the lines of the one which happened in

1929.

 

On the other hand, India, this 'Third World country,' has learnt to live

with Islamic terrorism, its people do not panic as Americans do, it has a

relatively stable stock market, its software business is still expanding and

is beginning to offer salaries which will compete with the West. Could it be

that this great brain drain towards America could be reversed and that NRIs

start coming back to their country of origin in search of greener pastures?

One could even dream: today one still sees this huge humiliating queues in

front of

the US embassy in Delhi, where visa applicants are treated like cattle. Will

we one day witness Americans waiting in line in front of the Indian embassy

in Washington to obtain working visas in India? It will happen my friends.

One day.

 

Post Script: Out of the 350 e-mails, nearly 80 per cent were messages of

praise and encouragement from Hindus. Out of the 20 per cent who disagreed,

14 per cent were (surprisingly) from Indian Christians, 3 per cent were from

Sikhs, 2 per cent from Muslims and 1 per cent from Hindus.

 

 

 

 

 

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