Keynote Speakers
Biju Mathew
"Role of the South Asian Diaspora in Defense of Secularism,
Human Rights and Peace"
The
Indian left for youth solidarity summit, Taxi Workers Alliance
and all of the different organizations that I have been part of
in one way or another are present here in spirit. I just want
to pick events at random, that have been happening around us.
There has been a focus in the last half an hour of introductions
wherein we've located our anguish and our pain back in the sub-continent
in a very significant way. There's one very important thing for
me to remember as I begin talking which is that we are located
here. Right here and we are not going anywhere. We are not going
to pack our bags tomorrow and go back to India and Pakistan or
Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and start something out there. In some
ways I'm suggesting that many of our activities and our actions
must start, our imaginations must begin from an understanding
of where we are located. Since 1996, in New York City, in the
India Day Parade and the Pakistan Day Parade and the various attendant
"melas" that happened; one person has been killed, 7
people injured in either gunfire or knife battles and at least
14 or 15 incidents of violence in the middle of the parades which
celebrate the Independence and creation of India and Pakistan.
There have also been countless confrontations that have been part
of those events. Both in 1998 and 1999 during the India Day Parades
a group of young South Asians were standing on the side-lines
with posters ranging from "Brown, Loud and Proud" to
"Down with Hindu Nationalism". A participant had a poster
on which was written "I love Monisha" the name of the
actress Monisha Koraila. A whole range of posters and signs like
that on both these occasions. In 1998 and 1999 the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad of America and the friends of BJP contingent as they
marched down the parade chose to come and attack the small group
of young South Asians and for the first time in many years I was
happy to see the New York Police Department in the middle there-stopping
them from getting through and attacking these young people.
The year 1999 was also the World Cup Cricket season. The British
Press, once the English team was thrown out of the tournament,
chose to focus on what it hoped would be a mass violence between
Indian and Pakistani fans during the match-up between the two
countries. 1998 was also the year when for the first time in it's
history the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America the fundamentalist
fascist organization of the Hindu right in the United States had
its "Dharam Sansad" in the Pokonos Mountains in Pennsylvania.
The "Dharam Sansad" if you remember go back to India
and all the activities that happened in India from the point view
of the Hindu right. Over the last decade or more the "Dharam
Sansad" has marked the beginning of many different campaigns
of the Hindu right. And for the first time last year, there was
a "Dharam Sansad" held in the United States of America.
Amongst many of the things there a resolution was passed that
introduced a Hindu Code of conduct for Hindu's living abroad.
You can imagine what it's contents will be. I will discuss this
later.
A coalition of Women's Organizations in the New York, New Jersey
and Pennsylvania put out a statistic that more than 20 % of South
Asian families have some case of domestic violence within there
families. I'm almost willing to make a statement that domestic
violence has reached epidemic proportions in our community. And
if you look at another face of it, an organization called Workers
Are Us--- which is an organization of domestic workers---in New
York City is a testament to the fact that there is enormous violence
in close quarters of middle-class South Asian homes against domestic
help. Going back to the Indian Day Parade the past 7 years, the
South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association has been consistently
barred from marching within the parade. They are not just barred
but when they do protest they have been subject to the worst kind
of attacks by the parade organizers.
There have been numerous kinds of issues that we can bring up
here. For instance, I was at an Islamic Centre in New Jersey where
there was primarily an Indian and Pakistani Muslim audience. Speaker
after speaker after "Aftar" meal urged people on the
grounds that Islam in the sub-continent was under threat, to gather
forces and fight an Islamic battle. I was witness to that. I recently
got hold of the tax document, the tax returns of Vishwa Hindu
Parishad of North America of 1999 their official figures of the
collection for one year is $620 000. This only of course is the
official figure and it's only of one organization. There are seven
other organizations or eight other organizations that operate
as their front organization. And you can imagine what that means.
The official figures itself would be close to I would say 3 to
4 million dollars. Over and above, ofcourse the unofficial transactions
that happen. I would say the same amount or more is transacted
through a set of gold merchants in New York City and Chicago.
And I believe an equal number of front organizations in import
and export trade business have been set-up in the Pakistani Community
to move money back and forth with distinct connections both to
the Muslim league and to the Jamat back in Pakistan. So there
is much happening, there is much happening right here in the Diaspora.
And it is, I think, primarily these events, these incidents, these
issues that bring to focus for me what we all need to consider
together here.
So, I want to create a focus here, simply because of the fact
that we are here and we are located here and we need to be working
from here. What is happening in South Asia and its relation to
what is happening here, that link needs to be established and
that is what we need to be working on here. And I want to suggest,
one simple thing. The simple thing is that what should be of central
concern should for us here- is what I call a structure of conservatism
within our community. There's a particular way in which conservatism
is located within our community which needs to be taken seriously.
If we can attach our efforts to looking at conservatism within
our community right here in North America I think we will then
be able to move a lot of things and open up a lot of avenues for
issues back at home.
Our focus should look at what this conservatism means, how it
works, how it comes about, what are it's primary perimeters of
operation. There are multiple lines in which we can look at it.
One is that we tend to ignore the conservatism that is rooted
so deeply in our community here. Partially because of the fact,
that there is a particular guilt by which we constantly end up
focusing back at home rather than our lives out here.
Secondly, that it does not effect all of us uniformly. The effect
of this conservatism, that I'm talking about within our community
is faced most clearly by women, especially young women and by
lesbians and gays and workers, poor people etc...So there are
a set of marginalized communities within our larger South Asian
Community who take the brunt of conservatism that is rooted so
deeply within our community.
Third, much of the conservatism is product of an immigrant experience.
In other words, part of an immigrant experience- the very existence
of an immigrant experience points to an unmooring of an identity.
Identity has become unhinged. It is a response to the unhinged
identities an effort to regather, to find some way, of understanding
the self in the context of a new society. And in response to the
racism that is constantly faced by each of us as we lead our daily
lives in North America that some of that conservatism comes about.
I have had conversations with far too many people, especially
young people, especially marginalized young people. Basically
for instance when I was doing Outreach for Youth Solidarity Summer,
which is a summer program that we are part of, I've run into situations,
where young women come to me, who come up to us during Outreach
and ask can you hold something in our schools on Friday evenings.
It is specifically young women who do this. Why? Because they
say that our families will let our sons go out and do whatever
they want during whatever times during the day. It is a specific
structure of oppression that young women are faced with and they
are asking if we can respond to that. So there are ways, in which,
we need to understand that the conservatism in the communities
is rooted in unhinged identities of first and second generation
but with different dynamics. First generation in terms of coming
away, locating oneself here, and wanting to preserve a certain
culture. The second generation in terms of racism on a daily basis,
having to find resources to respond to that racism. So, both of
it leads to a certain effort to regather tradition, to recoup
tradition. Often times, the right, the religious right, is perfectly
positioned to offer packaged forms of tradition. And that is where
we get hit, that's where fundamentally the problem begins. In
another end, it is also the fact that, you know, we try to deal
with this racism, we try to deal with the unhinged identities
through a certain, let say, through a certain structure of nostalgia.
And this structure of nostalgia, actually works and feeds itself
into the hands of the right as they position themselves offering
package forms of religion. If you go and look at any of the right-wing
websites for instance, what is most critical about those websites
is the way in which they package stuff and is readily available
for the professional classes to consume. I mean, with very little
investment. I think it's these kind of things that we have to
pay some attention to. I specifically mention all the different
marginalized groups because of the fact that I think that when
we try to imagine non-resident Indians and non-resident Pakistanis,
there is a natural tendency coming out of positions of power to
forget about the marginalized groups, whether it's women, whether
it's young people, whether it's labour, whether it's lesbians
or gays within our communities. There is a particular way in which
we marginalize even as we think along progressive lines.
So, what I want to submit to you, to open this up for discussion,
much more than anything else is a discussion, not just aimed as
a conversation with me, but amongst us. There are three things.
One is that our battle is against conservatism. Conservatism which
is a product of an immigrant experience. Conservatism that is
very different from the kind of conservatism that we find back
at home. Why? While conservatism back home it is loosely structured,
it is not structured in the way, that it is structured here. I'll
substantiate that through an example. When you think about religion
here, most immigrants, faced with packaged religion have access
to religion which is completely homogenized. There's no, let say,
contradictory trends within religion, no contradictory trends
within culture etc...that are accessible to most people. I want
to for instance use the idea, of let say an organization which
is the student wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of a way of understanding
this. The Hindu Student Council, it's 57 chapters of it,exist
across North America, both U.S and Canada by last count. I've
been to many of their chapter meetings. There could be a chapter
meeting where all they are do is reading the Bhagavad Gita. Twenty-five
young people, show up for a meeting. Only one, or two, of them
are ideologically motivated. That is only one or two of them are
clearly connected to the leadership of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
or to the RSS or anything like that. The rest of them are young
people out there, battling racism, looking at questions of identity,
and trying to find a way to deal with their daily experience.
And an offer to read the Bhagavad Gita together produces an idea
of solidarity which is why they find themselves there.
One might say what is wrong with it. What is fundamentally wrong
with it, is that for those twenty-three other young people, Hinduism,
then translates into the Bhagavad Gita, right? It becomes a unified,
completely, homogenized notion of what Hinduism means. And that's
precisely the project. That's precisely how it works. By homogenizing,
by packaging, by making one such structure unified piece. Which
is exactly, the same thing that happens within Islamic Centres,
wherein conservative forces are unleashing packaged, non-contradictory
ideas of Islam to young Muslim youth.
So, this is what we fundamentally have to focus on. How, do we
challenge this. The structure of conservatism, the structure of
conservatism, is helped along by the immigrant experience of both
unhinged identities and the racism of North American society to
which we need to respond. How do we do this? We do this, in my
mind through multiple dimensions or multiple lines of action,
one is to take on the domain of culture very, very seriously.
To unhinge, or to unhook culture from religion and locate it,
both within history and with the real working conditions that
many people experience here. Locate culture here, produce culture
here, produce and work with people who are experiencing oppression
or exploitation on a day-to-day basis to produce cultural forms
here. That is one. We really need to take on the cultural battle,
unhook-it from religion, locate it within history and within the
economic and let say working experiences, day-to-day experiences,
our people located here. That's one clear way we can do it, there
are lots of examples of it already happening. For instance organizations
like FOPA, Teesri Duniya or various organizations that are already
doing various parts of it and I think that we need to learn, we
need to surface the kind of ideas that are floating around and
work with those.
Once we talk about taking control, taking the battle of culture
on, then we have to find ways of bringing the most marginalized
people into the leadership structures of these institutions or
coalitions or whatever we are talking about.
So, I would say, that there cannot be a solution to fighting
conservatism unless we find ways of bringing women, young women
especially, lesbians and gays, working-class South Asians, all
of them into the leadership of these organizations. Because, I
must say, that over the last seven or eight years of work the
best places for me to work, have been within these communities.
There is no question about it. When I was living in Pittsburgh
I worked for the longest period of time with various Indian middle-class
organizations. And I must say that the experience that I got from
that, was one wherein I really felt that there are certain defensive
lines that we must draw and work within; rather than hope that
change will fundamentally be sparked in these middle-class organizations.
I already mentioned the huge strike that we had in New York City
last year. Wherein, 24,000 taxi drivers, 24,000 drivers, 16,000
of them who are South Asian went on strike on one day in New York
City. Brought, New York City to a standstill. There were Indian,
Pakistani, Bangladeshi, a few Sri Lankan drivers. We must realize
that this happened exactly at the same time, when the Indian State
and the Pakistani State were exploding bombs. The press, the New
York Times especially, made every effort to try and find a way
to create a cleavage between Indian and Pakistani drivers at that
point in time. But I must say, that for an organization, that
is a mass organization, I was extremely proud. That Indian and
Pakistani drivers, stood shoulder to shoulder and did not blink
through that mobilization. It is not that there were no disagreements,
there were various points of view. But, we also understood as
to what oppression means, what exploitation means, and how we
need to stand united.
So, what I'm saying is that solidarity of the sort which can
make a difference, comes from experiences of marginalization and
therefore it's very important to find ways of producing leadership
out of these structure. And in this context, I think there is
a word of caution more than anything else that I want to throw
out there which is when progressives sit down and talk about solutions
we constantly accuse the Right of freezing the tradition. This
is true. It's absolutely true. This is precisely why for instance
the whole focus on women; because women then become the carriers
of this purity, of this pure tradition etc...And then they are
forced to face up to the load, to the burden of keeping this tradition
in its purest form alive for the community.
But, is there a similar nostalgia and freezing that happens with
the Left, when we look back to India and Pakistan. This is the
important question to ask. I think there is. There are various
kinds of ethos. Various kinds of left ethos that we harken back
to. And it is not, my claim is that we should not abandon that
but that we need to understand its place and locate our work here.
Not necessarily through the frozen frame of left. But, through
a dynamic frame which recognizes the slogan don't wrap rap. For
instance, you'll find far too many first generation South Asians
who have not made the effort to understand new forms of protest,
new forms of culture or culture-making that are coming out from
within the community. And from the community of not just second
generation but also from the first generation. And so that is
extremely important to understand the modes of pleasure that are
created here in response to the problems here. In other words,
part of this culture-making as I said is that we need to unhook
it from religion and locate it within daily experiences here.
Part of those experiences is for instance things like racism.
Much of the consolidated frozen identities that the right constantly
offers, comes out of a need to respond to things like racism.
There is no question that one of our activities should be to respond
to racism but not through the frozen hide-bound kind of cultural
reforms. All I'm suggesting is that there are multiple axis or
acts on which we need to think about this. One is the very act
of creating culture, how do we take it on; who are the people
involved, how an who do we bring in; what are the modes of doing
this; what is its relation to the larger society;how it works
and what are our responses going to be to racism etc. etc. I want
to end by saying that this process is going to be fraught with
contradictions because I do believe that North American multiculturalism
finds a way of playing itself out into the hands of the Right.
So we need to be careful about that. Somebody mentioned that the
State actively promotes to marginalize various groups. In the
case of Hindu students councils on various campuses they have
been excellent in using the multicultural policies of liberal
institutions and promoting themselves. We need to be careful about
how we connect to these Liberal institutions and how we fight
racism and how we create culture and who assumes the leadership.
