Powerful Hindutva Lobby Flexes its Muscle in California
Last year, California lawmakers voted 31-5 to approve the first state-wide bill (SB 403) explicitly banning caste discrimination. The bill, enjoying broad support among California voters, was sponsored by Senator Aisha Wahab. It was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom under pressure from wealthy political donors belonging to the Hindutva lobby.
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| Senator Aisha Wahab with Supporters of California Law to Ban Caste Discrimination |
Hindutva Lobby:
The Hindutva lobby's opposition to the California anti-caste discrimination bill was spearheaded by Ramesh Kapur, a wealthy Massachusetts entrepreneur. “If you want to be our next president, veto the bill”, Kapur told the governor in no uncertain terms, according to a recent investigative piece written by British journalist Andrew Cockburn and published in the Harper magazine. Here's an excerpt from the article:
"The ultimatum was decisive. Kapur said that Newsom emailed him three hours before going public: “I’m going to veto it.” Newsom’s move dashed the hopes of all who had fought for the bill, but it seems likely to reap him rich rewards. “Now that he has made that decision, he has become the champion of the Hindu cause,” Kapur told me over the phone from California, where he was busy organizing the first in a series of fundraisers for the governor in Silicon Valley, Chicago, and New Jersey. “Newsom is hot in the Indian-American community!”"
In recent years, Hindu Americans have become the highest-income group in the United States. Most of them support Hindu Nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP party. There are many billionaires among them, and they are willing to use their wealth to influence the US political process. They see AIPAC, the Israel lobby, as their inspiration.
California AB 3027:
California bill (AB 3027) banning transnational repression was introduced in response to the attempted assassination of an American Sikh leader. The US government believes that the assassination was plotted by agents of the Indian government. This bill is strongly opposed by the Hindutva lobby which calls it "Hinduphobic". It is supported by law enforcement agencies in the state. The bill would provide an improved sense of personal security to many Indian Americans who are facing threats for opposing the Modi government in India. It is currently stalled in California Senate committees. Hindutva supporters see Zionists as useful allies in their effort to draw parallels between antisemitism and “Hinduphobia.”
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| California Hindutva Group Marches with Zionists in Support of Israel's Gaza Genocide |
Donor Power:
Gavin Newsom's veto of the bill to ban caste discrimination illustrates the power of the donors crushing popular will, making a mockery of democracy. The power of the Israel lobby (AIPAC) backed by rich Jewish-American donors is the most egregious example of this, as is the power of the gun lobby (NRA).
Polls consistently show that the majority of Americans oppose US shipment of weapons to Israel while it slaughters tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, mainly children and women. But the Biden administration continues to send arms, ammunition and explosives to the Israeli government. Both Biden and Harris pay lip service to the need for an immediate ceasefire but refuse to stop giving Netanyahu the bombs that he is using to sustain the Gaza genocide.
Similarly, the majority of Americans want laws to restrict gun ownership in the country. Polls after each mass shooting confirm broad support for gun control laws. But the US politicians refuse to pass such laws because of the power of the US gun lobby.
American Muslim Vote:
There are enough Muslim voters in battleground states, particularly Michigan, where their vote can make a difference to the outcome of this year's presidential contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. But there is little difference between their positions on Gaza. Both have expressed strong support for Israel, thanks to the power of AIPAC and its wealthy billionaire donors. Nonetheless, it is interesting to look at the numbers. Here is an excerpt from the Harper piece on this:
"Since October 7—coincidentally the same day that Newsom announced his veto—the ongoing slaughter in Gaza has brought electoral peril for the Democrats. Polls report withering support across important components of the coalition that brought Biden to victory in 2020, especially among the Muslim community, which gave him up to 85 percent of its votes in that election, according to some polls. Although Hindus were less supportive of Biden than Muslims were in 2020 (25 percent went for Donald Trump, according to certain estimates, a slight uptick from 2016), some see their votes as the perfect replacement for the Democrats’ faltering Muslim coalition. “We can make the difference!” Kapur exclaimed, brandishing a state-by-state breakdown of Hindu and Muslim populations to show that his fellow Hindus could deliver votes as well as money. Muslims outnumber Hindus in America, 3.5 million to 2.5 million. But in key swing states, the numbers Kapur presented to me, drawn mostly from 2014 data, almost balance out: Pennsylvania is home to 130,000 Hindus and 150,000 Muslims. In Georgia, the state’s 172,000 Hindus outnumber its 123,000 Muslims, while the 110,000 Hindus in Michigan provide some counterweight, Kapur implied, to the quarter million Muslims, many of whom are outraged by the Biden Administration’s support for Israel. In Nevada, Hindus outnumber Muslims by almost three to one, while in Virginia, Hindus have an edge of 200,000 to just under 170,000. During the 2021 Virginia governor’s race, both the Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe, and the Republican, Glenn Youngkin, paid attention to this voter pool and dutifully visited Hindu temples, but Youngkin reportedly made the stronger impression—he “listened deeply” to their concerns, as American Hindu Coalition chairman Shekhar Tiwari put it, especially their complaints about local schools’ efforts to promote diversity by modifying admissions policies at their expense. And Youngkin was not the first Republican to cultivate and enjoy Hindu support. In 2015, the Chicago billionaire industrialist Shalabh Kumar set up the Republican Hindu Coalition, which describes itself as “modeled after the highly successful Republican Jewish Coalition”; Steve Bannon was an honorary co-chair of the group. Kumar and his wife poured money into Trump’s 2016 election campaign, which was making major media buys in swing states. Trump even recorded a message in Hindi".
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by William Hartung
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhartung/2024/09/26/is-the-uae-a-force-for-stability-in-the-middle-east/
During a White House visit earlier this week, President Biden and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan expressed their desire to intensify cooperation between their two nations on a variety of fronts. Most notably, President Biden designated the UAE as a Major Defense Partner, which the White House said “will allow for unprecedented cooperation through joint training, exercises, and military-to-military collaboration, between the military forces of the United States, the UAE, and India, as well as other common military partners, in furtherance of regional stability.” But the UAE’s recent track record raises serious doubts about its interest in promoting stability in the Middle East, and highlights its pursuit of its own narrow interests, often through military means. The new designation amounts to a virtual endorsement of the UAE’s aggressive, destabilizing history in the Middle East and North Africa.
With Israel escalating its Mideast war into Lebanon and the presidential campaign heating up, the news that the United States is strengthening its alliance with the United Arab Emirates is far off most people’s radar. But it shouldn’t be. The Biden administration’s decision to double down on its relationship with the UAE is yet another example of its misguided approach to the region, from enabling Israeli aggression in Gaza and Lebanon to attempting to broker a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Far from sowing the seeds of stability and peace, the administration’s maneuvers are bolstering three of the most disruptive, destabilizing states in the region – in essence rewarding them for their recent histories of aggression and human rights abuses.
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Is this the record of a nation that is likely to be a force for peace and stability in the region? The UAE has its own agenda – developing a security network and port access across the Persian Gulf and North Africa – that may or may not coincide with U.S. policy or long-term U.S. interests.
The next administration needs to take a careful look at U.S. security policy in the Middle East and recalibrate its relationships with governments engaged in aggression and human rights abuses, from Israel to Saudi Arabia to the UAE. Continuing down the current path is a recipe for continuing war and dangerous escalation.
White America crafted a tempting story to explain the ascent of Asian Americans—“an important racial minority pulling itself up from hardship and discrimination to become a model of self-respect and achievement,” as a 1966 article in U.S. News & World Report described Chinese Americans. Those once seen as “Yellow Peril” and “Dusky Peril” became a “model minority,” creating a new racial category: Asians were those who could assimilate into whiteness but maintain a distinct cultural identity. In America, riches await, and with a little grit, anyone can reap them. The story tempered the racial progress of the civil-rights era, as if to tell Black people: If those Asians can be so successful, why can’t you? Racism was a part of America’s sordid past. The success of these new Asians proved that. Indian Americans have since been allotted a specific prominence within the context of this story. In 2009, the year I graduated from college, an article in Forbes declared Indian Americans “the new model minority,” hailing families like ours as “the latest and greatest ‘model.’ ” Within a little more than a generation, Indian Americans have become one of the wealthiest and most highly educated immigrant groups in the country, earning a median income of more than one hundred thousand dollars. The steep ascent of Indian Americans reified the pernicious model-minority myth. They called us exceptional. We fulfilled their prophecy. But the story of our subcommunity’s rise wasn’t one of genetics, nor can it simply be explained by work ethic, as pundits may have one believe. The true story, as described in The Other One Percent: Indians in America, is largely due to a rigorous but invisible selection process that often begins in India itself. In India’s highly stratified society, middle- and upper-class Indians from dominant castes typically access the best schools and jobs that feed into opportunities in America, which favor immigrants who bring specialized skills in tech and science. The result: an American diasporic community that is roughly nine times more educated than Indians in India. These conditions enabled Indian families like ours—families that had been thrice-filtered and stratified—to prosper like few other immigrant groups have ever done in America. Even though pockets of Indian Americans still struggle, this insular group has become the poster image for America’s post-racial fantasy.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/10/01/g-s1-25437/macarthur-genius-grant-caste-dalit-india-shailaja-paik
Shailaja Paik was born into India’s Dalit community — one of the millions who belong to historically marginalized and oppressed castes due to their professions. They’re so scorned that they were for centuries known as “untouchables.” And even though modern India is changing, caste discrimination refuses to go away.
Paik faced prejudice both as a Dalit and a woman. She credits her parents, especially her father, for helping her (and her three sisters) defy the prejudices they faced as Dalits and as women. He made sure they got an education.
For Paik, schooling was a path to teaching history in the U.S., writing books about the untold plight of the Dalits — and now being dubbed a genius.
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A research professor of history at the University of Cincinnati, Paik is not a public figure as some recipients are. She has documented the deep social inequity rising from India’s repressive caste system that she is a part of. Her focus is the plight of Dalit women like herself.
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"My family moved to Pune, the nearest city [four hours away by road] in the 1960s, where I grew up. We lived in a one-room house in a slum area in Yerawada, on the Ahmednagar highway, which made it easier for my father to make trips to our native village so he could keep in touch with his family. Our house was about 20 by 20 feet, and we didn’t have access to toilets"
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"This is something that especially high-caste elite liberals do not want to talk about. Some [Indians] are quick to talk about the racial discrimination that they face but do not want to talk about the caste discrimination that they perpetuate."
"So we should talk about it and stop pretending that there is no caste, in India and elsewhere. There are very intense conversations taking place in the U.S. today, especially [around] caste and race."