Tattva

“Who am I?” or “Who are you?” are questions both profound and quotidian. The answers could be mundane, convoluted, enlightening, “real” or “false”. The eighth century Indian philosopher (788-820 couC.E. ) Ad I Shankara, following Yagnavalkya, may have argued “ayam atma brahma” (this self is Brahman).

More ordinarily we may simply introduce ourselves by our name, and unless pressed further not try unscrambling our multiple identities. Those multiple identities can be avowed or ascribed. Avowal is how I portray myself: I am Ramesh, an Indian-American, a Hindu, an associate professor, a husband and son and father. In contrast, ascription is how others attribute identities to a person. I am a South Asian for some, a Hindutvavadi for some others, a discriminated brown for yet others, and an oppressor Brahmin for my politically inclined detractors. We know that issues of identity are particularly important in intercultural encounters, and especially so for new immigrants in the rather conflict-ridden setting of the United States.

Conflicts arise when there are differences between who we think we are and who others think we are.

The South Asianists:

For the first generation young Indian students (I teach in a public undergraduate liberal arts institution with an enrollment of about 30 to 40 students from India) the most important identity issue seems to be one of distancing themselves from India and their Indian identity. Not one of them turned up when I organized some lectures by a visiting Indian scholar on matters Indian! For Hindu second-generation Indian-American students the options seem to be quite a few but somehow problematic.

Starting a Hindu Students’ Council or an Indian Students Association could be exciting but somehow they find it unattractive. Why it is unattractive is never explained or made explicit. Is it that they don’t want to identify themselves as Hindu? As Indian-American? The South Asia option therefore seems to be a way out: no one can really figure out what “South Asia” stands for, unlike what a “Hindu” or “Indian” stereotypically is. I have found that many Indians who usually cry hoarse about multiculturalism, or who flay Hindu “majoritarianism,” have very little knowledge about the Indian past and the Indian arts. These people are the products of the “Macaulayite/Nehruvian” education system, which has made them more fluent in English than in their mother tongue. They are more familiar with Western popular music or jazz than with the text of “Bhaja Govindam” or the nuances of Carnatic classical music.  

Check out the names of the founders and members of the various South Asian American groups and you will find that they are mostly Hindu and Indian. They desperately seek people from other countries of the sub-continent to join their groups, for without the token Pakistani or Bangladeshi or Sri Lankan or Nepali member the claim to their South Asian American identity is suspect. Labeling Game Rajeev Srinivasan rejects the South Asian label for three reasons: 1) loss of brand name; 2) refusal to cater to American prejudice; and 3) refusal to submit to intellectual laziness. He points out that nations, like corporations, earn goodwill associated with brand names. Indians, by giving up the India brand name, suffer great loss in terms of brand name recognition and goodwill.

Srinivasan reminds us that India has brand value dating back to millennia. India has both a sub-continent and an ocean named after it. What used to be identified as India in the past is now South Asia, say some. They assert that “for constructive engagement between identities, the larger the common pool of historical resource from where we can all draw sustenance, the more accommodating the encounters will be.” They ignore the fact that after seventeen years of SAARC we have little to show in terms of cooperation and goodwill among the seven countries in the region.

Indians have been the victims of White prejudice in the past, and it is only recently that India and Indians have achieved a level of visibility and power that could give them some standing and recognition in the multi-cultural society that the U.S. is. It is time for Indian-Americans to avow their identity. Those who love to embrace their South Asian neighbors and make them feel “comfortable” should remember that the embrace here will make no difference “back home” where people are at loggerheads.

Also “the presumption of commonality” is an indication of intellectual laziness and willful ignorance of ground realities. That these calls mostly come from Indians and Indian-Americans is not only indicative of the inclusivist streak among Indians but of their desire for self-effacement. The contradiction between those two desires – for inclusiveness and for self-effacement — and the complex political dynamics that make some embrace “South Asianism” should indeed be studied carefully.

I know I am Ramesh. I was born in India and I am now an American citizen. I am an Indian-American. Doubts about identity are for sages and seers. We, mere mortals, know what we are unless we are in search of fashionable, multiplex, deracinated identities.

Ramesh Rao is professor of communication at Truman State University. 

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