“It may well be in our interest to sing Musharraf’s hosannas, but it is far from clear to me that he can undertake a series of profound reforms to rescue the Pakistani polity from its near-decrepit state,” Professor Sumit Ganguly tells CNN in a cloyingly American accent.
“When you say ‘our’, you mean India?” asks the flummoxed anchor. A horrified look laced with hurt suddenly takes the swagger out of the South Asian expert. “I speak as an American,” Gunguly says with renewed gusto.
Fustians like him can cry till the cows come home about being American, talking like Americans, and acting like Americans, but the bottom line is that the big white guys in the corporate media are still loath to think of desis as Americans. In any event, Indians form a critical mass in the eyes of Uncle Sugar of America. Having metastasized to a whopping 1.7 million today, they have galvanized into a hegemonic, chauvinistic and expansionist community, bankrolling US economy and playing the money grubbing game with their banya business deals, tech-savvy industry, sophisticated hotels and restaurant chains, centuries-old arts and culture and eye-catching Indian goods scattered from Bloomingdales to petty Patel stores dotting USA.
“Jews are the jewel in the American crown while you are about to see our raj and our widespread influence drown the Diaspora to become a juggernaut,” says an Indian-American Vimal, owner of a fast food chain which is making him a millionaire many times over. Proudly, he proclaims “The Jews and the Indians have a deep relationship centred around their common hate for Muslims. And we are fast getting there.”
Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld make three birds which the Jews and Indians already have in their claws - so why bother with more in the bush?
Time magazine recently impugned Indian PM Vajpayee, saying the fat old fogy was getting so forgetful that the nuke button under the geriatric’s finger should be removed. Penned by its New Delhi correspondent, Alex Perry, Asleep at the Wheel? got the Indian community here cringing fatuously. Particularly, the Modi couple. Husband Dr Mukund Modi, founding member of the Overseas Friends of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and wife Kokila, a doctor who gave Vajpayee his annual exam for decades, streaked into the Time Managing Editor James Kelley’s office at the Time House in Manhattan. Throwing the 20-year-old medical records at Kelly, while half a dozen editors watched, the Indian ‘delegation’ of powerhouses like Rajeev Khanna, president of the India American Chamber of Commerce, Ramesh Diwan, a university professor, and N. Lakhan, a wealthy businessman hotly demanded a retraction!
Indians have a terribly short fuse when it comes to being criticized. Crying murder, BJP President Jana Krishnamurthy alleged a “foreign hand” (Pakistan, who else?) behind the Time story, saying, “It is a deliberately planted story. We will have to see who planted it.” Eat your heart out JK!
The only laid back response came from Rahul Bedi, of the UK-based Daily Telegraph: “It is not saying anything that is untrue. Most of it was common knowledge and Time magazine only published it.”
India’s newest best friend on Capitol Hill, Congressman Frank Pallone, is from New Jersey. A Democrat and a defender of New Delhi, Pallone is the founder and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans.
Urging stoppage of any and all military aid to Pakistan because Musharraf, he says makes “empty promises” on fighting terrorism in Kashmir and “lies about holding democratic elections.” It is imperative that “there must be some system for ensuring that Pakistan is accountable for the money that has been allocated by the US. We should demand evidence that although economic aid may be going to schools and other social projects, that the investment is not then freeing up money that is reallocated towards weapons for Islamic militants and resources at terrorist camps.”
Obviously, the Indian-centrics here have done a swell job in handing a hate brief to Pallone, 51, who despite holding an MA in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, acts as a fledgling in foreign affairs. Bypassing the Kashmir conflict, he instead goes for Musharraf’s jugular. Son of a policeman, he has ratcheted up the Indo-Pak rivalry to ingratiate himself with the large Indian community residing in New Jersey, America’s most populated state.
“If truth be told, the Indians here have received a slap on their face from Bush mollycoddling Musharraf while slicing Vajpayee,” says an Indian Muslim Hammad. Having lived here for 30 years, he is disgusted with how India is treating its Muslim minority. “We have a soft spot for Pakistan,” he says and is convinced that the attack on Indian parliament didn’t have Islamabad’s support but was the “work of RAW (Indian intelligence agency).”
However, Indian Americans, gigantic in numbers and power (compared to Pakistanis) are staunchly homogeneous when it comes to “special interest” demands. Acutely aware of and persistently seeking government grants - available for community organizations and religious celebrations - they snatch their pound of flesh from the US government. With several hundred Indian Americans in the school systems - enough to flex their muscles in seeing the school environment more conducive to their needs - like inclusion of Indian history in the curriculum! “We are the largest and have the most prominent status to date, it would be foolish not to leverage our clout to get better services for our community,” argues one woman activist.
Culturally, Pakistan is a wasteland, nowhere to be seen on the American landscape. While the Indians are omnipresent - Bollywood of course is best buddies with Hollywood. Now America is bombarded with ethnic films - producer/writer Mira Nair being the high priestess (Monsoon Wedding) - Shebana Coelho, producer of Desi, a documentary that examines the South Asian diversity is the latest to hit us. American Chai, has already made an impressive debut in exploring issues of assimilation, generational conflict, and interracial dating. Threading the same theme is Sunaina Maira, Professor of Asian American Studies at Amherst, in her book, Desis in the House. She writes about nostalgia, authenticity, and the aesthetics of “cool” in the subculture of second generation Indian American youth in New York City.
Nisha Ganatra, director, writer and star of Chutney Popcorn gives more of the same in the shifting relationships in an Indian-American family, in which veteran actress Madhur Jaffrey and her real-life daughter Sakina Jaffrey address issues of assimilation, surrogate motherhood, lesbianism and family. Health guru, Sarina Jain has created Masala Bhangra Workout, an aerobic exercise routine that combines dance, with high-energy cutting-edge aerobic moves! How more imaginatively materialistic can one get?
But here comes the Indian anti-hero armed with his needle (The Karma of Brown Folk) which pokes the Indian-American bubble by challenging the stereotype of Asians (read Indians) as a model minority. Vijay Prashad, well-known activist, professor of International Studies at Trinity College and Z Magazine columnist simply says that Indians are deployed as “weapons in the war against black America.”
“How does it feel to be a solution?” ‘kill joy’ Prashad asks the unwanted question, denuding the Indian-Americans of their hubris. http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/dmag8.htm
This Professor Sumit Ganguly guy is a big joke… American my foot
