It’s a fascinating read with real-life accounts from former RSS-ers and includes some hilarious points, for instance, what was the RSS’s stand during the Quit India movement?

However, the portion that stood out to me most:

“Hindus have lived in India since time immemorial; Hindus are the nation because all culture, civilization and life is contributed by them alone; non-Hindus are invaders or guests and cannot be treated as equal unless they adopt Hindu traditions, culture etc…; the history of India is the history of the struggle of the Hindus for protection and preservation of their religion and culture against the onslaught of these aliens; the threat continues because the power is in the hands of those who do not believe in this nation as a Hindu Nation; those who talk of national unity as the unity of all those who live in this country are motivated by the selfish desire of cornering minority votes and are therefore traitors; the unity and consolidation of the Hindus is the dire need of the hour because the Hindu people are surrounded on all sides by enemies; the Hindus must develop the capacity for massive retaliation and offence is the best defence; lack of unity is the root cause of all the troubles of the Hindus and the Sangh is born with the divine mission to bring about that unity.”

Replace “Hindus” with “White Christians”, “India” with “USA” and “non-Hindus” with “immigrants”,”Muslims” or “any other minority group” in the above paragraph and you have the template of a conservative talk show host in the US. Fascinating, huh?

© Santosh for Über Desi, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: christians, hindu, india, rss, USA, whites

I started out writing along rant about our resident , omnipresent,self appointed guardian of all things Hindu.
Instead it was just easier to present this visual.

Causes :
Mints
Holy Skateboards
Sex -pushing coach
Julia Roberts
The LoveGuru

© Runa for Über Desi, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

(Image: from wesh.com)
Its pretty obvious that this was some cheap wrapping paper made in India or China and targeted to the Diwali gift market. Post -Diwali, the paper finds its way to the dollar store and creates a sensation. Not helping the situation is the Rabbi quoted in the article:

But Rabbi Rick Sherwin said even if the perceived swastika is a Hindu symbol, he feels it should not be used in our culture out of respect for the horrors the swastika is associated with.

“There should be sensitivity to the awful things that symbol represents,” he said. “The swastika has been outlawed in Germany.”

Personally, I think its time we reclaimed the swastika (the one with the dots and all). I do go out of my way to make sure that no religious icons I display have the symbol overtly in my neighbors faces but this incident is a bit much. Isn’t it time people broadened their horizons a little to recognize that the swastika (in the Hindu form ) is not the same as the horrible symbol of the unforgivable atrocities of the Holocaust?

What do you think?

© Runa for Über Desi, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

The Obama White House deserves a lot of credit for sharing their videos on the world wide interwebs via the U-tubes. Penn Masala makes an appearance, and I’m a big fan of them, but their choice of song appears to not jive with the occasion. Barack Obama flanked by a sea of South and East Asian faces launches into a 10 minute monologue ending with “saal mubaraq”. Obama’s South Asian connections need to do a better job providing him with the right word for the occasion “badaai” (congratulations in Hindi) as opposed to “mubaraq” (congratulations in Urdu). Finally, there are Sanskrit prayers by a beaming Hindu priest, who probably earned himself the moniker of “White House vadiyar” or “Obama vadiyar” (priest in Tamil).

Easy as it might be to nitpick the White House Diwali, it’s refreshing to see a performance by Penn Masala, the diya lighting by Barack Obama and shlokas by a Hindu priest, all celebrating Diwali in the White House of all places – 21st century desi ishtyle.

© Santosh for Über Desi, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Obama’s Diwali celebration upsets Indian-American community.

Here’s the back story – ex-president Bush started the practice of hosting a Diwali event since 2003, courtesy request of the Indian-American community and it’s been a practice ever since. Some of the events have been full fledged and upto two hours long, while some, like last year’s,  have been less flashy.

While the article about the first Obama-era Diwali, quoted above, points out reasons why Indian Americans are upset (mostly elderly immigrant Indians), the rest of the article quotes two second generation desis – both staffers at the White House (including Kal Penn – supposedly the organizer for the upcoming event), deny that this would be a ‘diluted’ event. Couple of changes include, the venue  is now moved INTO the Whitehouse as compared to previous occasions when it was hostedn in an adjacent building, and also George Bush never made it to any of the Diwali events since 2003, always sending a   representative instead. Obama however, will attend the event this year. And this time, the event is open to all Asian-Americans and not exclusive to desis only.

The glitch however, seems to be that none of the community activists have been invited (yet), and since Kal Penn – a first timer is in charge of the event, it may well be  be a miss for those waiting to get an invitation to the Whitehouse for Diwali.

Scouting for news articles – I did not, however, find any statements from any acclaimed Hindu statesmen (yet).

So what do readers think? Is Fasicst Obama trying to dilute ‘our’ Diwali event, so that Kenyan festivals are more popular in Whitehouse (this is where, you add a smiley in your head)?

Or is it a case of some senior (and quite possibly invitation -deserving) activists feeling left out and blaming clueless Obama for trying to ‘dilute’ a celebration?

And just another snippet of info, an article dated from 2004 (by the same author as in Obama’s article, Aziz Haniffa from Washington D.C.)  -

Bush’s snub of White House Diwali celebration irks Indian American supporters and guests alike

Me thinks, we are way too touchy about having Diwali, in WhiteHouse, in the way we want it. (It’s Whitehouse – not our own house).

Shout out your thoughts in the comments section below.

© Sidhu for Über Desi, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: desi, diwali, hindus, Kal Penn, obama, uberdesi, Whitehouse