[Assam] In Jews, Indian-Americans See a Role Model in Activism

Tue Oct 2 12:26:32 CDT 2007

>Since Indians cannot unite as depicted by some

**** Can they?

Is it a DEFINITIVE proof?

At 10:21 AM -0700 10/2/07, Dilip/Dil Deka wrote:
>The following article from the NYT caught my 
>attention. Since Indians cannot unite as 
>depicted by some in this net, how do these first 
>generation Indians in USA manage to run an 
>organization as written here?
>Comments from netters, especially those in 
>California who may know more about the group, 
>will help us all in understanding better. There 
>may be organizations like this in the east coast 
>too.
>Dilip
>
>From the New York Times
>
>In Jews, Indian-Americans See a Role Model in Activism
>
>Heidi Schumann for The New York Times
>A dance class at the India Community Center in 
>Milpitas, Calif., which was created by 
>Indian-Americans based on models by Jewish 
>groups.
>by 
><http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/neela_banerjee/index.html?inline=nyt-per>NEELA 
>BANERJEE
>Published: October 2, 2007
>When Anil Godhwani and his brother, Gautam, 
>looked into creating a community center for 
>Indian-Americans in Silicon Valley, they turned 
>to the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco 
>as a model.
><http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/us/02hindu.html?th&emc=th#secondParagraph>Skip 
>to next paragraph
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>Heidi Schumann for The New York Times
>Rajiv Hora in a yoga class at the center, which 
>promotes the variety of Indian culture.
>When the Hindu American Foundation began, it 
>looked to groups like the 
><http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/antidefamation_league/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Anti-Defamation 
>League and the 
><http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/w/wiesenthal_simon_center/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Simon 
>Wiesenthal Center for guidance with its advocacy 
>and lobbying efforts.
>Indian-Americans, who now number 2.4 million in 
>this country, are turning to American Jews as 
>role models and partners in areas like 
>establishing community centers, advocating on 
>civil rights issues and lobbying Congress.
>Indians often say they see a version of 
>themselves and what they hope to be in the 
>experience of Jews in American politics: a small 
>minority that has succeeded in combating 
>prejudice and building political clout.
>Sanjay Puri, the chairman of the U.S. India 
>Political Action Committee, said: “What the 
>Jewish community has achieved politically is 
>tremendous, and members of Congress definitely 
>pay a lot of attention to issues that are 
>important to them. We will use our own model to 
>get to where we want, but we have used them as a 
>benchmark.”
>One instance of Indians following the example of 
>Jews occurred last year when Indian-American 
>groups, including associations of doctors and 
>hotel owners, banded together with political 
>activists to win passage of the United 
>States-India Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Act, 
>which allows New Delhi to buy fuel, reactors and 
>other technology to expand its civilian nuclear 
>program.
>“Indian-Americans have taken a page out of the 
>Jewish community’s book to enhance relations 
>between the homeland and the motherland,” said 
>Nissim B. Reuben, program officer for 
>India-Israel-United States Relations at the 
><http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/american_jewish_committee/index.html?inline=nyt-org>American 
>Jewish Committee and himself an Indian Jew.
>The American Jewish Committee, like some other 
>Jewish groups, has worked with Indians on 
><http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>immigration 
>and hate crimes legislation. It has taken three 
>groups of Indian-Americans to Israel, where they 
>have met Arabs and 
><http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/palestinians/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>Palestinians, 
>as well as Jews.
>Many Indian-Americans, like the Godhwanis and 
>others with the India Community Center in 
>Milpitas, Calif., have taken an avowedly 
>nonsectarian approach in creating institutions. 
>But among Hindus, who are a majority in India 
>and among Indian-Americans here, some assert 
>that a vital bond they share with Jews is the 
>threat to India and Israel from Muslim 
>terrorists.
>“Some on both sides of the discussion feel that 
>way, and take a stance that is anti-Muslim or 
>anti-terrorist, depending on your point of 
>view,” said Nathan Katz, professor of religious 
>studies at Florida International University in 
>Miami.
>Most Jewish groups, however, have tried to avoid 
>a sectarian cast to their work with 
>Indian-Americans. Instead, Jews said they were 
>struck by the parallels between the issues that 
>Jews and Indians had faced.
>“It echoes 30 years ago,” said Rabbi Abraham 
>Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal center. 
>“There is the same feeling of a growing 
>community that says, ‘We want our voices to be 
>represented, and how do we that?’ “
>For years, many Indians who immigrated to the 
>United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s 
>considered India their home. Now, most are 
>rooted in the United States, as are their 
>children, and they have moved with astonishing 
>speed into politics, said Representative Frank 
>Pallone Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, where there 
>is a large Indian-American constituency. Mr. 
>Pallone is a founder of the Congressional Caucus 
>on India. Representative Bobby Jindal, 
><http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org>aRepublican 
>from Louisiana who is Indian-American, is 
>running for governor of his state, and 
>Indian-Americans hold or are vying for other 
>local elected positions nationwide.
>Indian-Americans have reached out to American 
>Jews, in part, because of the growing friendship 
>between India and Israel, whose chilly cold war 
>relations began to thaw in the 1990s.
>Indian and Israeli heads of state have recently 
>visited each other’s countries. The countries 
>have strengthened trade and intelligence ties. 
>In February, the chief rabbi of Israel, Yona 
>Metzger, met with Hindu leaders in India, after 
>which the Jewish and Hindu clerics declared 
>common beliefs, among them that their 
>“respective traditions teach that there is one 
>supreme being.” The statement was a breakthrough 
>because many Jews had long considered Hinduism a 
>form of idolatry, Professor Katz said.
>Inspired by the Wiesenthal Center, which 
>produces a CD annually that compiles Internet 
>hate speech, the Hindu American Foundation 
>issued its own report this year about “online 
>hatred and bigotry against Hindus,” Suhag 
>Shukla, the foundation’s legal counsel, said. 
>The foundation also learned from the success of 
>Jewish groups that it needed a full-time staff 
>member to lobby Congress.
>The Hindu American Foundation is among those who 
>contend that Jews and Hindus are natural allies 
>because of the common threat Israel and India 
>face from Islamic terrorists. “There are the 
>shared terrorist threats where we are the 
>religious minority, for example Jammu-Kashmir 
>and Islamic terrorism there or the situation in 
>Israel,” Ms. Shukla said, referring to the 
>anti-Indian insurgency in the northern state.
>Those parallels disturb some Indian-Americans, 
>who contend they veil a deeper anti-Muslim 
>sentiment.
>“This makes me relatively suspicious, because 
>there is the desire to reduce the complexity of 
>the issues in a conflict,” said Vijay Prashad, 
>professor of South Asian history at Trinity 
>College in Hartford.
>The India Community Center in Milpitas, Calif., 
>represents the nonsectarian approach many 
>Indian-Americans take to replicating the 
>experience of American Jews. When Anil Godhwani 
>began talking to other Indians in Silicon Valley 
>about opening a center, “more than one person 
>talked to us about making this a Hindu community 
>center — sometimes in very strong terms,” he 
>said. That was never his intention, though he 
>was raised Hindu.
>A Silicon Valley millionaire who sold his 
>company to Netscape in the late 1990s, Mr. 
>Godhwani said he and his brother envisioned a 
>place that promoted the variety of Indian 
>culture to Indian-Americans and non-Indians 
>alike. The Godhwanis canvassed other ethnic 
>centers and the 
><http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/y/young_mens_christian_association/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Y.M.C.A. 
>But the Jewish Community Center model resonated 
>with them. It celebrated Jewish culture while 
>avoiding the divisiveness of politics and 
>religion. And it welcomed outsiders. The India 
>Community Center occupies a 40,000-square-foot 
>building that offers, among other things, free 
>medical care for the uninsured, Indian language 
>classes and Bollywood-style aerobics but keeps 
>out religious activities.
>Talat Hassan, chairwoman of the center’s board 
>of trustees, said, “Those of us who grew up in 
>the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s in India grew up in a 
>truly inclusive atmosphere, and that is the gift 
>that India can give to rest of the world: the 
>ability to embrace diversity in very deep way.”
>“Then we came here, and maybe India was changing 
>in this way too,” Ms. Hassan said, “but 
>Indian-Americans were organized around religion, 
>and we found that to be very divisive. We 
>thought there should be a place where people can 
>come together as Indian-Americans, period, 
>regardless of religion.”
>
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