[Reader-list] Vijay Prashad: Sonal Shah's Membership Has Expired, Guilt by Participation

[Shambhu Rahmat]

From: "Sekhar Ramakrishnan" <rr6 at columbia.edu>

http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad11132008.html

         November 13, 2008

         Sonal Shah's Membership Has Expired

         Guilt by Participation

         By VIJAY PRASHAD

Barack Obama's victory in the U. S. presidential election warmed the
hearts of millions around the world. When Jesse Jackson wept, I cried
too. I had worked for Jackson's campaign in 1988. With Jackson's
defeat came the long hibernation of American progressivism. Obama's
victory awoke that tradition. A few days later Obama began to
announce his transition team. The names were not from the
progressive tradition, but from the more cautious, even conservative
side of the Democratic Party. In the list I saw the name Sonal Shah.

That day, I wrote an essay for counterpunch.org calling attention to
Sonal Shah's affiliations with various Hindutva groups. In this viral age,
essays such as this leave their locales and take on a life of their own.
This one created a little kerfuffle. People excited by the Obama victory
and by the ascension of an Asian American to a position of authority
were miffed that I had rained on their parade. Some claimed that I had
stooped to the Sarah Palin tactic of guilt by association. Just because
her parents are closely affiliated with the Hindutva groups does not
mean she is associated with them, they said. I agree. Sonal Shah
released a statement against "baseless and silly reports" on the
Internet. She forthrightly pointed out that her "personal politics have
nothing in common with the views espoused by the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (VHP), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or any such
organization." The VHP and the RSS are well known to spread hate
and to have participated in ghastly acts of violence within India against
Muslims, Christians, and oppressed castes, not to speak of spreading
the general misogyny that their ideology preaches.

Sonal Shah's statement is gratifying, but unpersuasive. The VHP's
Shyam Tiwari recently said, "Sonal was a member of the VHP of
America at the time of the [2001 Kutch, Gujarat] earthquake. Her
membership has expired." This was eight years after the 1993 Gujarat
riots, when the VHP had an active, and ghastly role. Ms. Shah was 33
years old then. Her parents were active in Hindutva organizations. How
could she not have known of their role, and the controversy surrounding
them? She was not from an apolitical household, but an activist one. I
brought up her parents only to suggest that she cannot claim now that
she was ignorant of the VHP's role in India. She must have known. And
yet she participated in its activities. There were a host of other agencies
that raised money for the earthquake survivors. All the earthquake
survivors: credible media reports showed that the money raised by the
VHP did not go to Muslim survivors, only Hindu ones (for example,
"Communalizing Relief: VHP seizes earthquake opportunity,"
Statesman, Kolkata, 12 February 2001 and Vijay Dutt, "Discrimination
in Distribution of Relief against Dalits in Gujarat Causes Concern,"
Hindustan Times, 27 February 2001). This is hardly an act of charity.

The VHP says Ms. Shah left the organization in 2001. Three events
from 2004 bear mention:

(1) Ms. Shah delivered a keynote address at the Hindu Swayamsevak
Sangh young conference. The HSS is the U. S. branch of the RSS. The
University of Chicago's Martha Nussbaum describes the RSS as
"possibly the most successful fascist movement in any contemporary
democracy." The RSS "guru" (teacher) M. S. Golwalkar wrote glowingly
about Nazi "race pride," and called it a "good lesson for us in
Hindusthan to learn and profit by."

(2) Ms. Shah delivered a keynote address at an Ekal Vidyalaya
conference in Florida. The Ekal Vidyalaya's are schools set up in tribal
areas. The RSS's Chief of Service work, Premchand Goel, said that the
RSS and the VHP run "thousands of Ekal Vidyalayas." One Ekal
Vidyalaya teacher, Mohan Lal, told Frontline reporter, T. K.
Rajalakshmi, "We go for the RSS shakha [branch] meetings regularly.
The teachers are selected only if they subscribe to the RSS way of
thought."

(3) On her behalf, her brother Anand Shah received an award from the
Gujarat government in the presence of Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
When Mr. Modi became Chief Minister of the State in 2001 was the first
RSS pracharak (volunteer) to be in the position. The RSS celebrated its
victory. Human Rights Watch's 2002 report calls attention to the way
the RSS and Mr. Modi have used Gujarat as "Hindutva's laboratory,"
stacking the higher administration with RSS-VHP cadre. No Muslim
police officer has a field posting. As Frontline reporter Praveen Swami
wrote at the time, "Chief Minister Narendra Modi has become
something of a hero for many Hindus because he presided over the
pogrom."

At none of these events did Ms. Shah or her brother raise their voices
for the broken hearts and bodies, the survivors and victims of the 2002
pogrom in Gujarat. By 2004, even mainstream human rights
organizations and media outlets had recognized that the Gujarat riots
were state-engineered, and that their author was Narendra Modi. In
2005, the U. S. government refused to allow Mr. Modi a visa on these
grounds. And yet, Ms. Shah received an award given by Mr. Modi. The
novelist Amitav Ghosh refused to be considered for the Commonwealth
Prize in 2001 because it commemorated imperialism. That is a sign of
sound moral judgment. To have taken an award from a man who
conducted a pogrom is a sign of moral turpitude.

It is a dark cold day if high expectations are to be dashed by such
convoluted ethics.

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian
History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford,
CT His new book is The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third
World, New York: The New Press, 2007. He can be reached at:
vijay.prashad at trincoll.edu