Wednesday, July 6, 2022 — 5
Michigan in Color
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
A critique of Hindu American identity
ASHVIN PAI
MiC Columnist
CW: Racism, Transphobia
Disclaimer: The author of this piece
was a representative on CSG’s 11th
Assembly. They were not affiliated
with The Daily while holding that role
and they no longer have an affiliation
with CSG since joining The Daily.
Blind Spots
“Currently in progress! Protest
march against the Hinduphobic
conference
Dismantling
Global
Hindutva!”
My
phone
chimed
cheerily at the latest message
in the University of Michigan
Central Student Government (CSG)
GroupMe.
Accompanying
the
message was a picture of several
Indian students gathered in the Diag
holding handmade protest signs.
“Stop Anti-Hindu Hatred,” one
read. “Stop bigotry against Hindus,”
read another. Suspicious of the
sender’s intentions, I switched into
my browser, typing “dismantling
hindutva conference” into the search
bar. I scrolled through the results
with a sinking feeling in my stomach.
As it turned out, Dismantling Global
Hindutva (DGH) was an academic
conference
aimed
at
critiquing
Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, a
right-wing fascist ideology held by
the current ruling party in India,
the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). A
series of articles detailed how Hindu
right activists were attempting to
shut down the conference, engaging
in a wide array of actions from
pressuring universities to withdraw
their support of the conference
to sending death threats to DGH
organizers.
The
search
results
confirmed my initial suspicions; the
students on the Diag were Hindu
nationalists who were displeased
that the University was endorsing
a conference that would generate
awareness and scrutiny of their
activities. Utilizing slogans such
as “U-M vilifies Hinduism,” and
banking on the fact that most
people were ill-informed about
their ideology, the protesters were
blatantly
appropriating
concepts
of inherent criminality, typically
used
to
deconstruct
prejudices
such as Islamophobia and Anti-
Black racism, in an entirely cynical
attempt to evoke the traumas of
systematic
persecution.
Their
rhetoric was made all the more
sickening given the decades-long
history of persecution against Black
people and Muslims by Hindutva-
inspired organizations.
And, somehow, their tactics were
working! By the time I navigated
back to GroupMe, my phone had
chimed two more times.
Holy crap, how could U-M sponsor
such a thing?!
Very upsetting to hear U-M push
this hate. I will gladly co-sponsor
a
resolution
condemning
the
Department of South Asian Studies
for engaging in this xenophobia.
Fuck. Two messages of support
from
two
otherwise
staunchly
progressive
representatives
who
clearly had no idea what the DGH
conference, or for that matter
Hindutva, was. Going into damage
control mode, I quickly typed
out several messages attempting
to explain that there was a clear
distinction between Hinduism and
Hindutva — the former referring
to
a
wide
range
of
religious
practices while the latter was
an ethnonationalist project that
aimed to reformulate India into a
Hindu majoritarian state. As such,
I tried to argue, anti-Hindutva
movements — such as the DGH
conference — were not inherently
anti-Hindu. The Hindu nationalist
representative who sent the original
text matched me message for
message, at one point claiming that
Hindus were being subjected to the
same dehumanization tactics used
against Jews in Nazi Germany. He
was extremely persistent and our
back and forth continued for almost
an hour before I gave up. Turning my
phone off, I threw it across the room.
My frustration with the whole
situation was only heightened by the
fact that, in the days following the
GroupMe exchange, there was not
even the slightest concern within
CSG that one of their representatives
had promoted and participated in
a Hindu nationalist demonstration
on the Diag. Hoping to find some
support for my cause outside of
CSG, I turned to some of my Indian
American friends to vent. I was sorely
disappointed, however, when, after I
had recounted the DGH argument,
they did not throw their hands up in
anger and enthusiastically condemn
the Hindutva protesters as well as
the ambivalence of CSG. Though my
friends were aware of what Hindutva
represented and opposed the bigotry
it spread, their dissent was passive, a
private opposition that manifested in
ambivalence rather than action. Many
second generation upper-caste Indian
Americans, myself included, had
family members who were involved
with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS), a paramilitary Hindutva
organization founded in 1925 with
the stated goal of consolidating a
Hindu society along the lines of
European style fascism through “a
military regeneration of the Hindus.”
Revelations of such history can be quite
jarring; I still remember my disbelief
when my mother told me that my uncle
had attended one of the infamous
RSS training camps in his youth. One
friend explained to me that, faced
with such family history, they had a
hard time outright condemning the
Hindu right as it felt akin to marking
their loved ones as hateful and
bigoted. I was further disappointed
to find that a small minority went to
even greater lengths in order to avoid
cognitive dissonance; they saw little
to no problem with Hindutva ideology,
spoke in support of the demonstration
on the Diag and argued that any
anti-Hindutva activism — the DGH
conference included — was inherently
Hinduphobic.
The debacle of the DGH conference
took place in early September of
2021 and, thankfully, the Hindu
nationalists did not organize any
further. Though many of the DGH
organizers continued to be harassed
by Hindutva activists, the conference
went on as planned and CSG did not
release a resolution condemning the
University for promoting it.
SAARHTAK JOHRI
MiC Columnist
To answer your question — no,
the puzzle wasn’t that hard. When
I say I was crying over a puzzle, I
mean that I decided I needed to cry
and simultaneously do a puzzle.
It was a quiet Saturday night
after the rest of my family had gone
to bed. I needed to cry. If you want
to know why, you can look to any of
the other reasons I’ve confessed to
crying over and take your guess. All
I need you to know is that the puzzle
I was doing wasn’t the cause. The
puzzle, I figured, was something
that I’d been meaning to do and
could finish tonight while I worked
my feelings out.
The process was simple enough.
As I brought out the “Spider-Man 3”
puzzle my friends had bought me as
a present from Goodwill, I queued
up a few songs by one of my favorite
bands — Current Joys — to cry to.
As the solitary, somber chords of
“Become the Warm Jets” echoed
through my bedroom, I poured the
pieces out of the box and the tears
out of my eyes.
As I sobbed, I used my typical
puzzle-assembling strategy — find
the four corner pieces first, and then
begin assembling the frame using
edge pieces. The singer mourned
the pain of nostalgia so distant it
was an unreachable memory as
I split my mind in two between
Spider-Man and sadness.
The basic beat of “Fear” began
its
melancholic
melody
and
countermelody,
invoking
being
afraid of loss and the pain it brings.
I finished the frame and began
sorting the inside pieces by color. I
was still sniffling.
As I wept and went through the
same motions as I had with any
other puzzle, the quiet absurdity
of my actions occurred to me,
splitting my mind into three. This
wasn’t how I usually cried or how
anyone usually cries: on night
drives scream-singing my heart out,
clutching my pillow/stuffed animal
(Mr. Beary and Mr. Terry have been
invaluable companions) to my chest,
in the arms of a loved one. I’ve cried
softly, muffled and wailed out in
my empty house, listening to my
cries echo around the building like
a dying animal. Crying is a funny,
accumulating experience for me.
It seems to gather up everything I
could possibly mourn into my mind,
like taking everyone else’s donations
to Goodwill because well, you’re
already going there. Sitting with the
lump sum of my past and others’,
neatly packed into boxes to never be
seen again. Simple strifes like minor
inconveniences or stress buildup
turn into existential crises and the
emotional infection of old wounds.
Donation is where the analogy stops
though, as my tears pass on to no one
but emptiness in their evaporation.
The
lonely
drumbeats
accompanied
the
comforting
repetition of strumming as the
singer began “A Different Age.” The
synth grew into a dull roar as cymbal
crashes joined the guitar, while the
vocals bemoaned a disconnect of a
self-hating artist from the people
he creates for. They reached toward
me in harmony and moved my hand,
wiping my tears. I matched the
darker pieces with logos, symbiote
Spider-Men and city backgrounds.
My thoughts spiraled off into
complexities until they reached one
of my most common conclusions
— the fact that I could write about
this — this out-of-the-ordinary,
cathartic
and
appealing-to-
readership moment; a chance to
make the anguish of my emotions
into art. Splitting my mind into four,
I began to write out prose in my
head.
Read more at michigandaily.com
TAMARA TURNER/TMD
Read more at michigandaily.com
Crying over a puzzle
TAMARA TURNER/TMD