Narendra Modi’s US visit elicits mixed reactions from Indian-Americans

by suniyee on September 25, 2014November 22, 2014

The new Indian leader is as controversial as he is popular, and many still remember his inaction during 2002 riots.

Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, Sept. 18, 2014. His upcoming visit to New York has exposed a political divide in the Indian-American community. (Harish Tyagi / EPA)

If Indians living in the United States had been allowed to vote in this year’s Indian elections, says Bharat Barai, “Narendra Modi probably would’ve gotten an 85-to-90-percent vote — far better than he got in India.”

Barai is the chief organizer of a reception for the new prime minister, to be held at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sept. 28; the free tickets were snapped up in a matter of weeks. This will be Modi’s first visit to the United States since the U.S. Congress denied him a visa in 2005 for failing to protect religious freedom during riots in 2002 in the western Indian state of Gujarat, during which more than 1,000 Muslims were killed. The visa decision was reversed earlier this year after Modi’s political party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, swept the Indian elections in May.

Now Modi’s upcoming visit is exposing a political divide in the Indian-American community. While the Indian American Community Foundation, the organizer of the Madison Square Garden reception, is pulling out all the stops for the event — which will have upward of 20,000 attendees and live telecasts in Times Square and online — a coalition of progressive South Asian and civil-rights groups is planning a protest outside the venue. For most Indians in the United States, Modi’s ascent signifies a more powerful role for India on the world stage, especially economically. But a determined minority is keeping the memory of the riots alive and raising questions about what a divisive government means for India’s secular identity.

India’s new leader favors the Hindi language, which is a problem for the country’s 50 million Urdu speakers

by suniyee on August 1, 2014November 22, 2014

I spent several months in Lucknow, India, studying Urdu.

I knew that it would be a daunting task. But I had a leg up — it wasn’t going to be completely new. Several years ago, I’d studied Hindi, which the native tongue of about 25 percent of Indians. The country’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, appears to favor Hindi, which has alarmed speakers of India’s many other languages.

To the untrained ear, Hindi and Urdu sound similar. They share a lot of the same vocabulary. But they use different scripts. And they have different connotations.

Is it time for India to look inward or outward?

by suniyee on June 30, 2014November 22, 2014

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (left) is greeted by his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif after Modi took the oath of office at the presidential palace in New Delhi May 26, 2014. Reuters/Adnan Abidi

As freshly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet make their first visits abroad, many analysts argue India’s new government seems intent to “go regional” in order to boost India’s international profile. Modi’s swearing-in ceremony included invitations to every single SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Corporation) nation, including an historic first-time visit from Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. His first visit abroad was to Bhutan (where he had an “oops moment” and accidentally referred to the country as “Nepal” while addressing the Bhutan Parliament). Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj recently returned from visiting Bangladesh, a visit that’s also been touted as an “effective model of development” for strengthening ties throughout India’s South Asian neighborhood.

But as Indian columnist Nilanjana S. Roy writes, Modi’s inclination to reach out to regional neighbors isn’t just a sign of India looking outward — it’s also reflective of India’s search for a stronger Indian identity, and an inherent suspicion of the West:

Remembering India’s Emergency (and the vital importance of punctuality)

by suniyee on June 29, 2014November 22, 2014

This week, India celebrated the 39th anniversary of the declaration of the Emergency, the 21-month long period under which then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi virtually made India a police state in order to seize all control in the country and rule by decree. “All the fundamental rights were suspended, politicians were arrested and a heavy censorship was imposed on the media,” Mahak Raigarhia writes in DNA India.

Language politics in the new India

by suniyee on June 24, 2014November 22, 2014

When Narendra Modi of the right-of-center Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was sworn in as India’s newest prime minister on May 26, political observers — and language enthusiasts — started speculating whether his rule would lead to a renewed interest in Sanskrit, the ancient language of India’s Brahmin scholars. At least two dozen newly elected members of Parliament took their oaths in Sanskrit, Hari Kumar of the New York Times reported. The language is widely backed by the Hindu right wing, which helped Modi come to power (the BJP is a spawn of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a volunteer Hindu nationalist group).

Hindu nationalists “see the language as a link to a civilization uncorrupted by Persian-speaking Muslim emperors and English-speaking British viceroys,” the New York Times’ Ellen Barry wrote in a letter to readers. “Early independence leaders had hoped to phase out English as an official language, but that provoked widespread protests in the country’s south, where Hindi is not widely spoken.” Hindi and English are both considered official languages in India.

Now, just less than a month since the new government came to power, the focus has shifted away from Sanskrit and onto one of its language descendants: Hindi.

Hindu Nationalism in the Age of Modi

by suniyee on June 8, 2014November 22, 2014

RSS volunteers at their morning shakha. (Sonia Paul) — RSS volunteers in Lucknow at their morning shakha. (Sonia Paul)

It was barely 6 AM, but the vast park in the center of Lucknow, the capital of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, was already bustling with people taking advantage of the early morning cool before the stifling May heat set in.

Children were playing on the trim grass, swings, and miniature rock walls. Adults dressed in tracksuits and salwar kameezes were walking briskly on the cement path.

And secluded in a corner of the morning hustle, in plain sight to anyone who cared to cast a glance, a group of five men were performing their morning drills. They began with simple stretches.

Twitter diplomacy: A taste of foreign policy under Modi

by suniyee on May 24, 2014November 22, 2014

In the wake of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory over the incumbent National Congress Party, a host of in-depth commentaries and analyses (as well as jokes and Internet memes) have come out discussing the outcome of the Indian elections and its coverage.

The bulk of these pieces focus on how startling Narendra Modi’s defeat over Rahul Gandhi was, and the root causes behind it. As Modi gets ready to become inaugurated this coming Monday, however, the topic has moved quickly from domestic concerns to international ones — just what might India’s foreign policy look like under Modi?

Who is India’s average political candidate? It may not be who you think

by suniyee on May 13, 2014November 20, 2014

With 545 seats up for grabs in India’s lower house of parliament the Lok Sabha, lots of different characters end up running in the elections (as we mentioned before in our field guide to the Indian elections, India’s current election is really a series of 545 individual contests). During this year’s vote, for example, much media attention has focused on how more than 1,200 candidates hold criminal charges. India’s business elite — the “armchair critics,” as one such professional called herself — are also now entering politics and challenging the status quo of contenders.

And let’s not forget the big three capturing national and international spotlight: Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Rahul Gandhi of the National Congress Party, and Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party are all running for seats in parliament, although the media tend to focus on their respective candidacies for prime minister.

But a recent analysis from The Hindu, one of India’s leading English newspapers, shows that the average candidate seeking election doesn’t quite fit any of these profiles. As Omar Rashid and Rukmini S. write, the standard candidate could very well be “a mild-mannered social activist from Lucknow” (Lucknow is the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state).

Among the characteristics they identified of the typical candidate:

male
around 45 years old
identifies as an independent
has access to higher education
has no criminal record
is not poor
works in agriculture, social service, or business
is from Uttar Pradesh
bears the last name “Singh”

The Hindu has a full profile of the “common Indian electoral candidate” here.

This piece was originally published on May 13, 2013, on Link TV’s World News website.

Coalition equation: Modi’s BJP forecast to take most seats, but can he persaude others to join him in government?

by suniyee on May 5, 2014November 22, 2014

Photo: A supporter of India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, wears a mask depicting party leader Narendra Modi before a campaign rally in Chennai, April 13, 2014. Reuters/Babu

To win an Indian election, a political party must win a majority of seats in the lower house of parliament, or Lok Sabha. Since there are 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, this majority would amount to at least 272 seats.

Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s candidate for prime minister, is the current frontrunner in the Indian elections and is widely believed to be the country’s next leader. The ultimate success of the “Modi wave” rippling through India, however, depends on this arithmetic equation within the Lok Sabha. “Most polls have shown Modi’s BJP winning the largest number of seats while falling short of the 272 needed for a majority when election results are announced May 16,” Bibhudatta Pradhan writes in Bloomberg.

To actually become the country’s next prime minister, Modi must band together with other political parties willing to offer him support so he can control the number of seats he needs to succeed. Continue reading…

Modi’s selfie oopsie: Could a mistimed tweet change the course of India’s election?

by suniyee on May 2, 2014November 22, 2014

Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s candidate for prime minister, caused a stir on Wednesday when he delivered a political speech and snapped a selfie of himself holding up a cutout of a lotus flower with his ink-stained finger after voting in his home state of Gujarat. The lotus flower is the party symbol of the BJP.

The problem is that what he did is against the rules of India’s Election Commission, the federal authority that monitors electoral processes in the country. Continue reading…