Let’s start with the funny. Prem Panicker, on his blog, gives a list of public statements from Rajan Zed, the “acclaimed Hindu American spokesman,” during the month of August (go to Prem’s blog for links to the original news stories):
Rajan Zed fears a Julia Roberts-starrer will depict Hinduism in bad light. [A reference to “Eat, Pray, Love”]
Rajan Zed says that ‘namaste’ is a greeting that symbolizes love and respect.
Rajan Zed asks that the makers of the Cities of Love series [New York, I Love You, etc.] include Mumbai in the list because it is home to the largest movie industry.
Rajan Zed wants prominent Australian entertainers to respond to AR Rahman’s gesture and hold concerts in major Indian cities.
Rajan Zed urges celebrities to explore the spiritual side of yoga.
Rajan Zed believes AR Rahman opening a studio in LA will help further popularize Indian music.
Rajan Zed argues that the Oscars will gain added credibility by introducing a Best Bollywood Movie award [the gent clearly hasn’t heard of Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Orissa, Bengali and other vibrant language movie industries] where Hindi movies can compete among themselves. (link)
Looked at one way, Rajan Zed sure seems awfully preoccupied with Hollywood, movies, and entertainment, much more than one would expect of an “acclaimed Hindu American spokesman.” Of course, Zed isn’t the author of these articles; he’s getting called by reporters for a brief comment, and he can’t help it if reporters want a quote about Julia Roberts rather than the Rg Veda.
That said, remember that though he does have one great achievement to his credit (the invocation in the U.S. Senate), Rajan Zed is not exactly Swami Vivekananda. (You can see a little bit of his CV on Wikipedia, and decide for yourself whether “acclaimed” is the right adjective.)
Along with Rajan Zed, via our news tab I came across a column by another Hindu American spokesman, Aseem Shukla in the Washington Post, on the recent decision of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to put India on its “watch list.” Shukla’s column is a very defensive piece, with its own biases. Among other questionable statements, Shukla characterizes the people who murdered Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati as tied to “fanatic missionaries,” when in fact they were actually Naxalites/Maoists.
In general I actually agree with Shukla that it doesn’t make sense to put India on a religious freedom watchlist, by comparison to many, many other countries that are markedly less tolerant. India, for its flaws, does religious freedom better than many of its neighbors in Asia.
On the other hand, according to the USCIRF’s own system, the “watch list” countries are places where religious freedom could be better protected, but they are nevertheless better off than “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPCs). Current Watch List countries are: India, Egypt, and Russia. Some current Countries of Particular Concern are: China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.
Also, the USCIRF is still certainly right when it says:
“It is extremely disappointing that India, which has a multitude of religious communities, has done so little to protect and bring justice to its religious minorities under siege,” said Leonard Leo, USCIRF chair. “USCIRF’s India chapter was released this week to mark the one-year anniversary of the start of the anti-Christian violence in Orissa.” (link)
Indeed, as often happens in cases of communal violence in India, not much has happened to redress the violence that occurred in Orissa last year. (Nor should we expect a whole lot, given the history of the past 25 years.)
But all this is somewhat beside the point. What Shukla doesn’t really address is the fact that the USCIRF, as an independent commission, has no weight on U.S.-India policy. If anything, the U.S. State Department has been distancing itself from this press release, as Jacqueline Salmon says in another column in the Washington Post:
Yesterday, a State Department spokesperson stressed that the commission is an independent federal commission. “It doesn’t speak for the U.S. government,” she said. “While the State Department considers its recommendation very carefully, it is not bound by them.” (link)
In short, it may be defensible to disagree with the decision of the USCIRF to put India on its religious freedom watch-list, though one should bear in mind that a “watch list” is not the same thing as “condemnation,” as Aseem Shukla interprets it — especially since the USCIRF itself has the more severe, CPC designation (which has Pakistan on it, ok? Remember to breathe. Try Yoga.). It is also not defensible to completely exonerate India of failures regarding religious freedom, as Shukla wants to do.
But even as we do all that, we should keep some perspective: the USCIRF is not an official organ of the State Department; it has no clout. It does not make sense to explode with defensive outrage over this. A better response would be to think about ways to actually address the problem it mentions.
