SAJAforum

GLOBALIZATION: OWS in South Asia

When the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement began on Sept. 17, 2011, in New York City's Zuccotti Park, it was hard to imagine that the protest would spread across many cities in the U.S., let alone go global.

Here's a look at OWS in various South Asian countries.

OWS IN INDIA: 2011 was a year of anti-corruption and "people power" protests long before anyone had heard of Zuccoti Park. Therefore, the traction that OWS has received in India has been mixed. 

Occupy Dalal Street was launched in October. Dalal Street of Mumbai is like the Wall Street of New York, but the "ODS" has failed to gain momentum. In October, Hindustan Times reported that ODS Facebook page had only 36 likes. As of today, the Facebook page has only 192 likes and it was last updated on Nov. 4.  However, other, more individualized protests have arisen in other parts of the country.

CONTROVERSY: An Edisonian Responds to Time's Joel Stein

Last week, Joel Stein, a Time essayist, wrote a piece about the changes in the New Jersey town of Edison. It been widely read and widely commented upon (see some of those reactions below, including a Time response to a WSJ article about this). SAJAforum was sent this guest post by RADHIKA MARYA, a recent graduate of the Journalism School at Columbia University and a member of SAJA. She is currently interning for NPR in Washington D.C. She's @RadTV on Twitter.

=> If you have a comment or observation about Stein's or Marya's pieces, please use the comments section below. Our thanks to SAJAer Shefali Kulkarni for her help editing this post.

Welcome to Edison, New Jersey.

Population: Brown people. Everywhere.

This is not an original observation. Edison’s heavy South Asian (mostly Indian) population is world renowned — noted in cultural studies textbooks and acknowledged by the South Asian diaspora. And this topic recently became the subject of Joel Stein’s Time magazine piece, “My Own Private India.”

In this little essay dated July 5, Stein — who grew up in Edison — laments the transformation of his hometown, referring to places like the Pizza-Hut-turned-Indian-sweet-shop. He goes on to make several gross generalizations about Indian-Americans, while waxing nostalgic about his youth.

As an Indian-American journalist, who spent her adolescence in Edison and graduated from Stein’s high school, I’m offended. I’m also not exactly sure if Stein has a point.

I started out livid when I first read the piece. I usually have a tendency to be less-than-politically-correct. I thought the outrage over Gandhi’s depiction on the MTV cartoon Clone High, in 2003, was silly. My relatively multicultural group of friends and I joke around about race all the time.

But even if Stein thought he was writing a hilarious little piece about how his once-white town is overrun by Indians, he just ended up sounding unfunny, uninformed and racist.

SLUMDOG: Opinion, essay roundup

[PLEASE SUPPORT SAJA: Help us meet our new $15,000 challenge grant:
http://saja.org/articles/saja-group-receives-prestigious-challenge-grant ]       

Don't forget SAJA/SAMMA's live, two-hour call-in show that begins as soon as the Best Picture Oscar is announced: Sunday night, 11:30 pm-1:30 am NYC time

Everyone, it seems, has an opinion about "Slumdog Millionaire." And with the Oscars being announced Sunday night, those opinions are being spouted all over the place - in Los Angeles, in Mumbai and everywhere in between. So here is the START of a roundup of the opinion pieces surrounding Slumdog (it's too much work to keep typing out the full title or to worry about quote marks). In order to make it more exhaustive (and exhausting to read!) please post essays, blog posts, links, etc, in the comments section below.

~~~

Before I get to the roundup, however, I wanted to get a little personal and  recount some of what happened this week across three generations of Sreenivasans, tell you of a childhood incident and share how I made peace with Oscar.

As we were planning this weekend's Academy Award-viewing plans, I mentioned them to my 5-year-old twins, Durga and Krishna. "Oscar Award?" asked Krishna, "is that when they give awards for garbage?" - referring, of course, to the green, garbage-can-inhabiting Muppet on Sesame Street, Oscar the Grouch.

As I tried to correct him, I realized his description of the Oscars would please his grandfather, my dad, T.P. Sreenivasan. If he'd heard Krishna, he might have said, "Yes, that's about right." After all, that's basically what my father thinks of the worthiness of Slumdog. He captured his feelings about the movie in a piece in India's Rediff.com entitled "Exploiting India." Among the, er, highlights:

* Having read the novel and seen the film, I cannot say that it has done more good than harm to India. This is not a matter of my wanting to shove the reality under the carpet.

GANDHI: The Mahatma's eyeglasses & chappals go on auction

Mahatma Gandhi's personal items are up for auction, March 5. From the AP:

The sale of Gandhi's belongings is specially significant because the ascetic leader of India's independence movement didn't have many possessions, Julien Scharer of the Antiquorum Auctioneers in New York said Thursday.

His trademark round eyeglasses, a pair of worn leather sandals, an inexpensive pocket watch and a simple brass bowl and plate will be sold as a single lot on March 5, with an estimated low bid ranging from $20,000 to $30,000.

Inquiries from prospective buyers have been pouring in from around the globe, Scharer said.

Dismay in India:

Former Speaker and Shiv Sena MP Manohar Joshi said the government must explore all means to bring back the items belonging to the father of the nation. "The persons who own these articles should be contacted to see if they are willing to give them to India, perhaps for a price. Otherwise, the government should consider being part of the auction and even contact the US government in this regard," he said. [TOI]

According to The Hindu, there's some precedent for repatriation:

Two years ago, a rare manuscript of Gandhiji was withdrawn from an auction in London after the Indian government intervened and arranged to acquire it.

That article also mentioned the provenance, which I found rather odd:

The officer had taken some photographs of Gandhiji and he gave him his sandals out of gratitude. They were passed down through the officer's family.

How weird is that? Is there anyone else in the history of India who's actually given someone their (heavily) used footwear, as a token of appreciation? My parents would give me serious beatings if I tried that, and they haven't spanked me in years.

HISTORY: 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's India visit

This year mark's the 50th anniversary of the visit to India by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and his wife, Coretta Scott King. And just a few days ago, a piece of history from that trip was rediscovered. From a press release from the  Embassy of India, Washington:

A few days before the Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Holiday in the U.S., researchers in India have rediscovered an electrifying message that Dr. King taped at the conclusion of his historic 1959 visit.  The message underscored the legendary civil rights leader’s intellectual debt to Mahatma Gandhi and foreshadowed Dr. King’s deep commitment to “nonviolent resistance” in the civil rights movement yet to come.      

The full press release, MP3 of the recording and transcript are below. The release says that "a delegation led by MLK's son, Martin Luther King III, with planned participation by members of Congress, legendary musicians and other distinguished Americans, will meet with counterparts in India next month to underscore the enduring importance" of King and Gandhi.

Listen to the MP3 of the 1959 radio address: MLK on AIR (MP3)

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Radio Address to India
All India Radio
March, 1959 

COMICS: "From Batman to Gandhi" at Museum of Comics and Cartoon Arts

One of the more unusual press releases: "From Batman to Gandhi: Three Events at the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Arts (MoCCA)" - including a discussion about "comics from super heroes to the nonviolent." Full press release below.

Post your comments, please.

[As you can see, the original poster had Gandhi spelled as "Ghandi." See our 2007 post about "Ghandi vs Gandhi."

From Batman to Gandhi:
Three Events at the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Arts (MoCCA)  MLK Week

Press Release
Contact:    Karl Erickson or Ellen Abramowitz eabramowitz@moccany.org      
kerickson@moccany.org

From Batman to Gandhi:  Comics from Super Heroes to the Nonviolent

Three Events at the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art, Manhattan--MLK Week:

Jan. 19th, 2-:30pm, Workshop-Urban Empathy: Living with Compassion in the Big Apple

Jan. 22nd 7pm, Moderated Discussion & Launch of Urban Empathy

Jan. 24th 1-3pm, Workshop-Making Comics in Adobe Flash

No other city can boast as many super heroes as New York---Superman, Batman, and Spiderman all play out their larger-than-life adventures in the Big Apple.    Yet what happens when the action figure genre is applied to a different kind of risk and adventure---every day interactions between New Yorkers? And rather than using physical force or finesse---like Superman and Spiderman---it's communication skills to the rescue?

GANDHI: A rare English recording surfaces

In an exclusive story this week, Shankar Vedantam, a staff writer and columnist ("Department of Human Behavior") for the Washington Post, was able to contribute to our collective understanding of Mahatma Gandhi.

According to Vedantam, only two speeches that Gandhi gave in English have been recorded. One was from the 1930s and, as described in "Saying His Peace":

Recently, however, the second speech surfaced in -- of all places -- downtown Washington. It had been lovingly preserved for 60 years by John Cosgrove, a former president of the National Press Club. Cosgrove's copy came from Alfred Wagg, a journalist who recorded the speech in New Delhi and produced four 78-rpm LPs that included both Gandhi's voice as well as Wagg's own commentary about the Indian independence leader. Cosgrove discovered the significance of the recording during a chance encounter with Rajmohan Gandhi, when the author came to the Press Club this past spring to promote his new biography.

Gandhi's speech -- made with the uneven diction of an elderly man who sounds as though he has lost most of his teeth -- had the same themes he visited over and over throughout his life: the importance of nonviolence, the eradication of the caste system in Hindu society, amity between South Asia's Hindus and Muslims, and a world united against violence and exploitation.

"A friend asked yesterday, did I believe in one world?" Gandhi says at one point in the speech. "Of course I believe in World One. And how can I possibly do otherwise? . . . You can redeliver that message now in this age of democracy, in the age of awakening of the poorest of the poor."

Read the rest of the piece here. You can listen to the recording below and then watch his grandson and biographer, Rajmohan Gandhi talk about the recording and about his grandfather.

Asked how get got this scoop, Vedantam told SAJAforum via e-mail: "Serendipity + luck. I happened to be at a dinner table with Rajmohan Gandhi when John Cosgrove came by to introduce himself." And the rest is a piece of recaptured history. Vedantam wrote a guest  "On Faith" column for WP & Newsweek.com.

Listen to the Gandhi recording:

SPORTS: Jerry Manuel, New York Mets Manager, Gandhian

Jerry Manuel, the newly appointed interim manager of the New York Mets, is not your typical baseball lifer.  Manuel replaced the fired Willie Randolph earlier this week and the ensuing press coverage has noted his intellectual bent.  “Cornel West, Reinhold Niebuhr and Gandhi are just three men whose thoughts and philosophies he says have influenced him,” according to Wednesday’s New York Times.

A February 2007 Times profile elaborates further on Manuel’s interest in Gandhi, which stemmed from his study of Martin Luther King.

It was while he was reading about King that Manuel saw a photograph that showed King reading a book with the word “Gandhi” on it.

“Whatever he was reading was good enough for me,” Manuel said.

Manuel began scouring for books about Gandhi, and he still reads highlighted passages in a Gandhi memoir. Every winter, he makes a point of watching a movie version of “Gandhi.” And from Gandhi, Manuel found Tolstoy.

“They move men,” Manuel said. “I always wanted to move men, to take them to a level that they’ve never seen before. Let’s see how far you can go is how I feel.”

Here's his official Mets profile.

Please post your comments below.

Earlier on SAJAforum: SPORTS: Dante Culpepper, Quarterback and Gandhi Quoter

DESI SPOTTING: Stephen Colbert on Mahatma Gandhi at Princeton and TV

Stephen Colbert, the star of "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central, was the keynote speaker at Princeton's Class Day for graduating seniors on Monday, June 2. According to a report on the Princeton site:

[Colbert] deplored the effect the class members could have, saying "you people are like a virus that will soon be unleashed upon the world, with your unstoppable drive and your infectious enthusiasm."

Colbert blamed this fervor for changing the world on leaders such as Mohandas Gandhi and Al Gore. "Please don't try to change global warming," he said. "The older generations cut down the forest and sprayed millions of tons of CO2 in the air for a reason -- because they felt a draft in here. ... When you're older, you'll understand that it is a lot easier to raise the ocean temperatures a few degrees than to remember to bring a cardigan."

Turns out the Colbert was much more specific about Mahatma Gandhi, but you can see why Princeton's PR department glossed over it.

On Thursday's show, Colbert reprised parts of his address, including the following line:

Sure, Gandhi said, "You must be the change that you want to see in the world," but he also drank his own urine.

As he said that, the words "What Frat Was He Pledging?" showed up on the screen.

You can watch the segment below.

I gather Colbert and his writers were confusing Gandhi with Morarji Desai, the former Indian prime minister, who was famous for his belief in urine therapy.

According to an article on the Internet (so it must be true): "In 1978 Dan Rather, on CBS's 60 Minutes, interviewed Desai, who spoke at length about the great value of drinking urine. Newsweek reported (August 21, 1995) that Mohandas Gandhi was a urine drinker, but this was later denied by India's Gandhi Institute."

UPDATE: I turned to one of the foremost experts on Gandhi, Prof. Dennis Dalton of Barnard College. His response: "Sushila Nayyar, Gandhi's personal physician, told me that Gandhi did not believe in this practice, though Moraji definitely did. There is no reference in Gandhi's works to it. Arun Gandhi at the Gandhi Institute denied it and Arun is a sound authority on Gandhi."

Post your comments below, please, after the video.

CLIMATE: Saving the Environment through Satyagraha - Q&A

As with so many other problems of this modern world, the crisis of climate change begs the question: What would Gandhi do?

A coalition of environmentalists and other activists think Mahatma Gandhi's notion of satyagraha--nonviolent resistance (literally "truth force")--has powerful relevance to the struggle to save the planet. Last year, Al Gore cited Gandhi in a speech to the Sierra Club, calling for a morally courageous stance:

We ought to have a mass movement around a carbon freeze; it's scalable from the individual level to the company, community, state, and national level. Gandhi used the word Satyagraha or "truth force." In American politics, there have been soaring moments throughout our history when the truth has swept aside entrenched power. In the darkest hours of our Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said, "We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." We need once again to disenthrall ourselves.

Gore also apparently drew upon Gandhi in using the phrase "An Inconvenient Truth." That's according to Pavan Sukhdev, an environmentalist from India who also serves as Managing Director in the Global Markets division of Deutsche Bank AG, based in London. He was recently commissioned by the G8+5 to spearhead their new report on environmental degradation and deforestation.

In this SAJAforum Q&A, Sukhdev answers questions surrounding his involvement as a member of the Garrison Institute ahead of its recent event, the Satyagraha Public Forum. The event, that took place on April 13th in New York City, gathered people like Gandhi biographer Rajmohan Gandhi and world famous composer Philip Glass to talk about climate change (Glass' opera "Satyagraha" is currently being performed at the Metropolitan Opera). They were joined by Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, founder of Sri Lanka's Sarvodaya movement, and Billy Parish, founder of the Climate Campaign.

SAJAforum spoke to Sukhdev for his thoughts on India’s role in climate change, the importance of satyagraha and his relationship with Al Gore.

What can an event on climate change and satyagraha hope to accomplish?

Garrison's weekend program is a very novel initiative driven by a powerful idea. It picks up on the lineage of civil disobedience, from Henry David Thoreau to Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr. It also sees and dwells on the spiritual dimension of this challenge to human society.

How do the concepts of satyagraha and civil disobedience, once used to refer to direct oppressor-oppressed relationships, now relate to climate change? How does the re-appropriation of such terminology help to better address the struggle for climate change?

Struggle and truth: these are the heart of "Satyagraha." The challenge for our generation is to figure out how to apply this powerful idea and its methodology of peaceful struggle not to an oppressor without, but to an oppressor within. Who are the oppressed? Our children--they should inherit the Earth but might instead inherit a living hell. Who are the oppressors? It is us and our own triple-whammy of old-world habits: over-consumption, careless materials/energy use, and an addiction to fossil fuels. [Although] these are all habits [that] can each be changed by conscious choice it needs the determined power of truth, or satyagraha, for each of us to address them. Understanding truth comes first, then meditation and deep thought and, finally, solutions.

Can you tell me about your interactions with Al Gore and his involvement in this project. Why did Al Gore name his film "An Inconvenient Truth"?

I was invited by Vice President Al Gore to train with him for the India launch of his program, The Climate Partnership in New Delhi last month. I was also one of their two "local" speakers on the subject. Al Gore was deeply inspired by Gandhi's satyagraha movement and said that was also an inspiration for the name of his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.”