Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

Release of the RSS book at World Hindu Congress in Chicago If you are alarmed at the outcome of the Indian election 2019, you should be. This is the largest democracy (used to be) in the world that has now turned to full blown Hindutva fascism. You should also be alarmed with the knowledge that a large chunk of the money funding Hindutva fascist party, the BJP, and its sister fascist organizations, the RSS, Bajrang Dal etc. comes from the diaspora. How do you recognize a Hindutva fascist?  From the surface you can’t.  Not especially in the diaspora. You see, Hundutva fascists use the sort of cultural tropes that fit perfectly the Western liberal ideas of multiculturalism. His/her performance of culture will serve the perfect recipe of multiculturalism to your claims of being diverse. He/she won’t be the scary image of the lumpens shouting Ram chants with spear in his/her hand.  More likely, he will be suited booted. More likely, she will be decked up in t...

The Zip Code 4412 in New Zealand, the address of our first rental home. This zip code on the map is Highbury. Highbury, a space that is the site of racialized classist stigmas. Highbury, labeled as the poor area of Palmerston North. As the crime-prone area of New Zealand. As the place to avoid. Deciding to live in Highbury as a family in our first years in New Zealand has beautifully shaped our sense of space and our relationships. How we belong, how we craft our identities, and how we understand our aspirations are weaved into our understandings of this community. Much like Gary, Indiana, where our team carried out our heart health advocacy project in collaboration with African American communities, Highbury bears on itself the stigma of the forbidden place. Negotiating people's responses when we say "we live in Highbury" is a reminder of the many racist comments made by Indians in the diaspora when I would share our work in Gary. Questions such as, ...

The phenomenon of the suited-booted Sanghi in the diaspora is a strange apparition. Unlike an apparition however, the suited-booted Sanghi is a grotesque reality of the diaspora. An everyday diaspora reality that threatens Indian democracy. His ideas of hate, hidden carefully by a well-managed front that appeals to Whiteness, are the ideas that make up the infrastructures of the Hindutva terrorist groups in India. The suited-booted Sanghi comes in both male and female versions. Dressed up to assimilate. With the suit and the designer sunglasses. Or with the shade of Dior and Christian Louboutin. With the designer bag. And the accented English. It might be a Kiwi accent, or a put-on British accent, or an American-midwest accent. The suited-booted Sanghi is your model immigrant. At least on the surface. He works hard, is polite in the office, stays up until late to get his work done. You would think this is the face of multicultural US, or multicultural UK, or multicul...