International Journal for the Study of Hinduism Volume 23.docx

International Journal for the Study of Hinduism
Volume 23 December 2011
ISSN 1016-5320

Nidān
Theme: Hinduism and Materiality
2011
December

Durban, South Africa
Printed at the
University of KwaZulu-Natal
• Nidān is an international journal which publishes
contributions in
the field of Hinduism
• Articles published in Nidān have abstracts reflected in the
Index to
South African Periodicals
• Articles published in Nidān are now available on Sabinet
Editor
P. Pratap Kumar
Guest Editor
Pankaj Jain
University of North Texas, USA

Managing Editor
Beverly Vencatsamy
Local Editorial Board
P. Pratap Kumar
Beverly Vencatsamy
M. Clasquin (University of South Africa);
International Editorial Board
Prof. T.S. Rukmani, Concordia University, Canada
William Harman (University of Tennessee, USA)
K. Jacobsen (University of Bergen, Norway); M. Bauman
(Universität
Luzern, Switzerland);
P. Bilimoria (Melbourne University, Australia);
Y. Sawai (Tenri University, Japan);

R. Lamb (University of Hawaii, USA); K. Knott (University of
Leeds,
UK);
ISSN 1016-5320
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Criteria for Submission of Articles
Articles should relate to the study of any aspect of Hinduism.
As such,
the study of Hinduism is broadly conceived to include, not
merely the
traditionally recognized areas within the discipline, but includes
contributions from scholars in other fields who seek to bring
their
particular worldviews and theories into dialogue with Hindu
studies.
Articles that explore issues of history, ecology, economics,
politics,

sociology, culture, education and psychology are welcomed.
Papers will be subject to evaluation by referees drawn from a
pool
of local and international scholars. Papers should be prefaced
by an
abstract of approximately 100 words, setting out the gist of the
paper.
The article itself should not exceed 6000 words.
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for the sense intended.
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article is the
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should be
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Private Bag X10, Dalbridge, 4041, Durban, South Africa.
Tel: +27(31) 260 7303/3120 Fax: +27(31) 2607286
Email: [email protected]
Volume 23 December 2011

Theme: Hinduism and Materiality
Introduction P. Pratap Kumar 1
Performing Materiality through Song:
Hindu Female Renouncers’ Embodying Practices in Rajasthan—
Antoinette DeNapoli 5
Steeples and Spires: Exploring the Materiality of Built and
Unbuilt Temples
Hanna H. Kim 37
Backdoor Hinduism: A Recoding In The Language Of
Spirituality
Amanda J. Huffer
53
Contesting Hindu Material and Visual Cultures,
Forging Hindu American Identity and Subjectivity
Jonathan H. X. Lee
73
Preface
In an attempt to internationalize Nidān, we have embarked on a
partnership with

Prof. Pankaj Jain (at the Department of Anthropology,
Department of
Philosophy and Religion Studies, University of North Texas,
USA.) who has
become the guest editor of this volume. We hope to continue
this partnership
into the future. I wish to thank Prof. Jain for undertaking this
editorial
responsibility of this volume and introducing a theme: Hinduism
and
Materiality. The articles published in this volume deal with
material culture in
Hinduism as well as Hindu spirituality. We hope that readers
will find these
articles illuminating and useful in understanding Hinduism and
the various issues
related to it. All the articles have been externally peer reviewed
before
being published in this volume. We thank the authors for
choosing to publish
their research work in Nidān.
Editor
Prof. P. Pratap Kumar
University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa
Contesting Hindu Material and Visual Cultures, Forging Hindu
American
Identity and Subjectivity
Jonathan H. X. Lee

San Francisco State University
Abstract
Based on the 2010 Census, there are roughly 1.85 million Indian
Americans
residing in the United States.1 They comprise the third largest
Asian American
community in the U.S., following the Chinese and Filipino
Americans. Indian cultural
influence in America dates back to the early 19th century, and
has deep and rich
roots.2 Western culture admires yoga, the Eastern concepts of
internal and
external peace, sexual chastity, and vegetarianism, yet, at the
same time, it
fancies products like flip-flops, underwear, and doormats
sporting images of
Hindu icons. Are these two fads contradictory or do they
illustrate something
about the interplay among modernity, secularization, and
religion? The West
likes to consume everything Hindu, from nag champa incense to
Hindu icons and
the Bhagavad Gita. Recent trends reveal problematic
misappropriation of Hindu
icons for sale in unexpected and uncommon places (i.e., bikinis
and flip-flops
shoes). What is the interplay between Hindu/Hindu American
activism against
capitalistic misappropriation of Hindu icons and their
subjectivity and identity?
How can we analyze and re-think assumptions about the
secularization thesis?

The examples analyzed in this article provide rich material to
re-think modernity
1 U.S. Census Bureau
http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/produ
ctview.xhtml?pid=DEC_10_DP_DPDP1&
prodType=table (last accessed May 30, 2011).
Indian Americans are people of Indian origin who have
migrated to the United States since the 17th
century, either directly from India or from Indian communities
in the diaspora (e.g., Europe, Australia,
Middle East, Southeast Asia, South Africa). Indian Americans—
also known as “Asian Indian,” ‘Eastern
Indian Americans,” and “South Asians”—are generally
considered part of the broad heterogeneous
umbrella label “Asian American.”
2 During the 19th century, Indian traders came to the United
States carrying silk, linens, and spices. The
early immigrants during this period were largely Sikhs who
came as railroad workers and agricultural
laborers because of severe famine and impoverishment in the
Punjab region of northern India. During the
same time, many Indians came to the United States in pursuit of
higher education and later immigrated
permanently when they secured jobs. Historically, there has also
been a large migration of Indian
professionals to the United States, such as doctors, engineers,
researchers, etc., creating a “brain drain”
in India. Immigrants who became legal residents and citizens
often brought their siblings, parents, and
other family members as well. While the early Indian
immigrants were concentrated only in few larger
American cities (Chicago, San Francisco) and states
(California), Indian families and large Indian
communities exist in every state.

Lee/ Contesting Hindu Material and Visual Cultures
74
and its insistence on secularization, even if it employs Hindu
religious
iconography. The purpose of this article is not to “explain”
Hindu/Hindu American
protests, but rather to investigate the questions it evokes.3
Hindu/Hindu
American activism against the corporatization and fetishization
of their Hindu
deities critiques the logic of capitalism, while simultaneously
giving rise to a
Hindu/Hindu American identity and subjectivity.
Introduction
This essay explores misappropriations of Hindu icons on
popular garments and
items that are mass produced for retail. The foci of this research
are two contemporary
cases, one involving American Eagle Outfitters (AEO), the
other the globally popular
fast-food conglomerate, McDonald’s. An investigation of
material culture, in particular
material religion, requires critical engagement with the
secularization thesis that sees
the disappearance of religion with modernity that ultimately
results in the secularization

of daily life. It also questions the fundamental assumption of
the secularization thesis
apropos modern society, and reveals its shortcomings. The
secularization thesis does
not account for the affinity between capitalistic consumer
culture and religion. In short,
it does not account for the fact that religion can be “for sale.”
This is not a new fact
about religion. It also overlooks the role of people who make
decisions and who are
consumers of religion, implicitly or explicitly when it is for
sale. The two case studies are
anchored by a critical exploration of secularization and
consumption, further grounding
the theoretical framework of this study. The aim is not to
interpret the actions and
motivations of Hindus/Hindu Americans, but rather, to question
and re-think the
discourse on modernity and its relationship to religion. The
examination of Hindu
material religion and both the successful and unsuccessful
attempts to sell it in the
global market place brings into question the shortcomings in the
secularization thesis,
and the ways in which ethnic and religious identities inform the
logic of capitalism.
Hindu and Hindu American protest of corporate
misappropriation of Hindu deities is
simultaneously a critique of the secularization thesis and the
logic of capitalism and is
an expression of Hindu ethnicity and subjectivity.
Secularization Thesis and Material Religion
The discourse on modernity and secularization is often anchored

to the
relationship between the state and religion. For example,
Giorgio Agamben4 and Michel
3 Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam,
Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2003).
4 Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare
Life, translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998).
Nidān/December 2011
75
Foucault5 provide critiques of modernity’s narrative vis-à-vis
sovereignty and biopower,
which, when applied to the condition of religion in modern
societies, brings up
questions concerning the relationship of religion to the state.
Both Agamben and
Foucault view modernity critically, prompting us to reconsider
the alleged “progress”
made with modernization. However, Agamben calls upon us to
not forget state
sovereignty and the violence that it is capable of stimulating,
while Foucault paints a
picture of a new form of discipline in modern life and society
that is oppressive. Both
authors are discontent with modernity, both see biopolitics
emerging—although

different versions of it—becoming increasingly tragic and
manipulative on modern
subjects.6 They reject the Enlightenment discourse of progress,
reason, emancipation,
and argue that in modernity, new forms of power and knowledge
have resulted in new
forms of domination.
Although Agamben and Foucault are dissatisfied with the
conditions of
modernity, they do not discuss what happens after modernity.
For this, we turn to
Georges Bataille in The Accursed Share.7 Characterizing the
modern condition with an
emphasis on Weberian rationality, Bataille’s dissatisfaction
with modernity extends to
the notions of rational production and consumption, compared
to archaic society where
there is a consumptive behavior beyond utility, which he
equates with “sovereignty.”8
Bataille’s notion of sovereignty is not politically defined. He
sees sovereignty as an issue
of consumption, in which the sovereign individual consumes but
does not labor. Bataille
laments modern man’s inability to grasp and understand the
attraction of the sovereign
power of the past, attributing it to our necessity to understand
our acts in rational
terms. He sees the ability to lose oneself in moments of
consumption or enjoyment as
“moments of sovereignty.”9 Moments of sovereignty are
described as being akin to “. . .
5 Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the
Collège de France 1978–1979, translated by

Graham Burchell (New York: Palgrave MacMillian, 2008).
6
For Foucault, biopolitics or biopower is a technology that
appeared in the late 18
th
century for
managing populations, incorporating some aspects of
disciplinary power or non-sovereign power, which
he argued regulates the behaviors of individuals within the
social body. By changing his emphasis from
discipline to biopolitics, Foucault shifts his discourse from one
of training, normalizing, naturalizing the
actions of bodies to focus on managing the births, deaths,
reproductive processes, and illnesses of a
population. Foucault sees biopolitics as a consequence of
governmentality, which is a mode of thinking
toward government that started to emerge in the 18
th
century, first as art of government, and later, as a
full-fledged government.
7 Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share, Volumes II & III,
translated by Robert Hurley (New York: Zone
Books, 1991).
8 Bataille sees the outcome of the Marxist project (Stalinism
and communism) as more disturbing then
bourgeois surplus. With bourgeois surplus, the state takes
surplus from the laborer and makes decisions

on what to do with the surplus, a moment of caprice or whim;
with state socialism, there is a totally
planned rational economy, and the state makes decisions on how
workers will live and what workers can
do, which becomes a total society of necessity.
9 Ibid., 203.
76
deeply rhythmed movements of poetry, of music, of love, of
dance . . . . The miraculous
moment when anticipation dissolves into NOTHING.”10
Bataille and Foucault both find the pre-modern sovereign power
appealing
because there was a collective effort of non-productive build-up
of access to the divine,
which everyone gets to enjoy; however, in modern capitalist
society, no one gets to
enjoy it. Bataille is on to something when he discusses
consumption, because in ancient
China and India there were consumptive laws, laws regulating
ritual offerings, clothing
and dress—which juxtaposes social status with degrees of
consumption and levels of
sacredness. Modernization shatters this hierarchy. More
importantly, Bataille suggests
that the game is not over because modern subjects are able to
discover sovereign
moments within the system. Examining material culture,
especially religious

representation in material pop culture, is only tangentially
related to the state if one
takes for granted the state’s role and support of capitalism.
However, one wonders if
the purchase of flip-flops and bikinis with Hindu icons on them
are examples of the
moment of sovereignty that Bataille is referring to?
Hindu/Hindu American protests of
AEO and McDonald’s are indirect critiques of the state in that
they are acts of
decolonization, because historically the state was the primary
colonial agent. Is this act
of consumer protest a moment of sovereignty as well?
What Things Reveal
Material culture refers to the design, construction, modification,
and use of
physical objects to both create and express meaning within a
culture. In studying the
material culture of Hindu American communities, all things are
significant expressions of
meaning—from the literal contents of religious icons purchased
at the local mall or
ethnic store, from slippers to saris, from a dozen types of rice to
curries, and from
Hindu home shrines to mega temples.
Material culture can serve as a means of resistance to forces of
globalization and
homogeneity. The wearing of traditional clothing or the
incorporation of design
elements into non-traditional items of apparel—such as henna

designs or turbans—
publicly signals a preservation of identity. Material culture can
also constitute or bolster
new hybrid cultural forms, such as when, out of economic
necessity, immigrant Hindu
American communities pool resources to create a mandir
(temple) to house deities that
in India would not be enshrined together. Very different
combinatory impulses are
displayed in the creation of Indian salsa or in Indian American
hip-hop culture, in which
non-traditional musical instruments and modes—as well as
fashion and marketing
strategies—are expressively employed. The problem is not with
the marketing of Hindu
material culture per se, but rather, with the producers of the
products for sale. Are they
Hindu/Hindu American or corporations? The disdain for one,
and support for the other
reveals the logic of capitalism that underlies the formation of
Hindu/Hindu American
10 Ibid.
77
subjectivity and identity. It is logical in modern society for
Hindus/Hindu Americans to
market and sell material Hinduism, but not acceptable for

corporations, especially those
that are not self-identified Hindu. Does this mean that
everything is not available for
sale? If so, what does it say about the secularization thesis and
about the actors who
will not purchase Hindu material culture produced by a
corporation?
Material Hinduism for Sale?
America has been fascinated with Hinduism since the late 1950s
a la the Beatles
and other notable personalities as they traveled to Rishikesh in
pursuit of mystical
experiences and enlightenment.11 Recently, America’s
“enhancement” with Hinduism is
expressed in the 2011 November cover of The Newsweek, which
depicts President
Barack Obama in a dancing Lord Siva pose with the title, “God
of All Things.” In 2008
the former fashion model and reality game show TV hostess,
Heidi Klum, dressed up as
the goddess Kali for Halloween.12 Hindus worldwide criticized
Klum’s costume, while
fans and non-Hindus supported her freedom of self-expression.
There is a series of
controversy involving the use of Hindu icons on mundane
objects, protested by Hindu
Human Rights organizations as well as other Hindu American
organizations. The
worldwide campaign to protest cases of corporate transgressions
in using Hindu deities
include, for example, the challenge of Roberto Cavalli’s bikinis
in England featuring the
likeness of the goddess Lakshmi;13 lunchboxes.com’s use of

images of the goddesses
Durga and Kali and gods Krishna and Ganesha on children’s
lunch boxes; and the image
of goddess Kali on toilet seats. In the U.S, they challenged Lost
Coast Brewery’s
depiction of Ganesha on an India Pale Ale beer bottle;14
Monarch Beverages’ use of a
distorted image of Siva on its energy drink; and
CafePress.com’s sale of thongs bearing
the sacred Om symbol and images of Siva. These cases illustrate
several things about
Hinduism in the West, in particular in America: 1) Westerners
are enchanted with
Hinduism; 2) there is a market for Hinduism in the western
world; 3) the archetypal
secularization thesis on the disappearance of religion with
progress and modernity is,
once again, questioned.
Hindus have expressed their displeasure and dissatisfaction with
the
misappropriation of Hindu icons on toilet seats, thongs, and
bikinis. Corporate and
capitalist misappropriation of Hindu icons represents a form of
cultural colonization and
secularization that is problematic for Hindus and Hindu
Americans. Naresh Kadyan says,
11 Jane Naomi Iwamura, Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions
and American Popular Culture. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 5.
12 “Heidi as Goddess Kali” http://www.potlee.com/divine-
intervention/heidi-as-godess-kali/ (last accessed

May 30, 2011)
13 Vinita Dawra Nangia “Was Goddess Lakshmi on bikini a
deliberate ploy?” The Times of India (May 17,
2011); and Hindu Human Rights
http://www.hinduhumanrights.org/campaign.html (last accessed
May
30, 2011)
14 Sonia Chopra, “Stop insulting South Asia—Indian American
sues firm over Lord Ganesha’s picture on
beer bottle” India Daily (May 19, 2005).
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/2783.asp (last accessed
May
30, 2011)
78
“You don’t have to be religious to feel disgusted at seeing a
picture of Goddess Lakshmi
on a bikini bottom. It is simply disrespectful and cheap.”15
Kadyan’s comments reveal
an anxiety about the fetishization of Hinduism, as well as the
attempt to decolonize
Hinduism, especially since secularization in India occurred
through colonization.
Therefore, in the post-colonial historical context, an Indian
American law student who
filed a lawsuit against Lost Coast Brewery for “hurting the
sentiments of Hindus
worldwide” reveals aspects of Hindu American agency and
attempts to decolonize their
religious traditions and subjectivities.16

This article explores the clash between Hindus/Hindu
Americans and corporate
America. In particular it will focus on two case studies
involving AEO and McDonald’s,
apropos the Hindu American community. This examination
reveals how activism informs
the interplay between Hindu icons, ethnic and religious
identities, and Hindu American
subjectivity. It also argues that exploration of material culture,
in things that are not
overtly religious (i.e., French fries) provides data to critically
engage and analyze the
secularization thesis that religion and other folk traditions will
disappear with
modernization and historical progress. Moreover, it illustrates
that patterns of modern
consumerism do not follow the linear logic of rational
capitalism, but instead is informed
by issues of ethnicity and identity.
The academic study of Hinduism in America has received
considerable attention,
especially as documented in the narrative and institutional
history of Hinduism in
America.17 However, anyone interested in the topic at hand
faces formidable difficulties
in terms of the paucity of available published works
investigating Hindu American (and
Asian American) material and visual culture.18
American Eagle Outfitters

In April 2003 the popular teen and young adult clothing
company, American
Eagle Outfitters (AEO), introduced flip-flops with the image of
Ganesha in its summer
15 Naresh Kadyan, “Respect be given to the Hindu’s God and
Goddess” Care2petitionsite
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/respect-be-given-to-the-
hindus-god-and-goddess/ (last accessed May
30, 2011)
16 Chopra, “Stop insulting South Asia—Indian American sues
firm over Lord Ganesha’s picture on beer
bottle”
17 For example: Wendell Thomas, Hinduism Invades America
(Kessinger Publising 2003); Sunrit Mullick,
The First Hindu Mission to America: The Pioneering Visits of
Protap Chunder Mozoomdar (New Delhi:
Northern Book Centre, 2010); Gerald James Larson, “Hinduism
in India and in America” World Religions
in America: An Introduction, Jacob Neusner, ed. (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2009); and
Elizabeth Reed, Hinduism in Europe and America (Forgotten
Books, 2010).
18 Related to material culture is Jaideep Singh’s “The
Racialization of Minoritized Religious Identity:
Constructing Sacred Sites at the Intersection of White and
Christian Supremacy” Revealing the Sacred in
Asian & Pacific America, edited by Jane Naomi Iwamura and
Paul Spickard. New York: Routledge, 2003,
pp. 87–106.

79
line.19 Ganesha is the elephant-headed god who is the son of
Siva and Parvarti; he is
one of the more widely venerated Hindu deities because he is
believed to be able to
remove any obstacle. Immediately after releasing the Ganesha
flip-flops, two Indian
American community organizations, IndiaCause and American
Hindus against
Defamation (AHAD), launched a campaign to recall and remove
all the flip-flops from
the 929 retail AEO stores and its online catalog.20
AHAD complained that, since Ganesha is a popular Hindu god,
his likeness on
flip-flops is a transgression against his sacredness because the
feet are considered
populated. A Hindu blogger who signed the petition writes:
I was taught growing up not to put your feet on or towards God,
but now his
image is on the sole of somebody’s shoes! I don’t think Jesus
print[ed on] toilet
paper would go over well in the Christian community so why do
they feel this is
acceptable?21
A Hare Krishna devotee added that Hare Krishnas protested

AEO as well, fearing that
the next round of flip-flops will have Krishna’s likeness on
it.22 Shortly after the
successful petition and a protest in front of several retail stores,
on April 29, 2003, Vice
President and General Counsel for AEO, Neil Bulman, issued a
public apology stating:
Pursuant to your request, this letter follows up on the email to
you yesterday
from our customer service department, which confirmed that
American Eagle
Outfitters will remove from its stores the flip-flop shoe that
include [sic] a
likeness of Lord Ganesh (Ganesha).
Our goal at American Eagle Outfitters is to make AE-brand
merchandise
that is fashionable and affordable for our customers in an
inclusive and equitable
environment. We value diversity and respect the ideal of
freedom of expression
of all religious and cultural beliefs.
On behalf of American Eagle Outfitters, please accept this letter
as our
formal apology for our use of the image resembling Lord
Ganesh on this product.
Again, this letter confirms that we will remove these flip flop
shoes from our
stores in order to maintain the good will and our customer
relations with the
Hindu community.

19 American Eagle Outfitters targets 15–25 year old girls and
guys. It ships to 76 countries worldwide and
maintains 929 stores in the U.S. and Canada. American Eagle
Outfitters
http://www.ae.com/web/index.jsp (last accessed May 30, 2011).
20 IndiaCause Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/India-
Cause/110923362272524#!/pages/India-
Cause/110923362272524?sk=info (last accessed May 30, 2011).
IndiaCause is one of the leading Indian
websites for News, Resources, Information, Analysis, and
Activism.
21 IndiaDivine.org
http://www.indiadivine.org/audarya/spiritual-discussions/32490-
shoes-hindu-god-
images.html (last accessed May 30, 2011).
22 IndiaDivine.org (last accessed May 30, 2011).
80
We appreciate your interest in the AE brand and hope that you
will continue to
be satisfied customers of American Eagle Outfitters.23
AHAD notes that this campaign is the fastest-growing protest
petition in its history. It
gathered more than 4,200 online signatures in 36 hours and 250
signed-signatures on
paper.24
Other cases and protests have not been as successful. The

lunchbox.com
protest, led by Hindu Human Rights, did not receive an apology
or a removal of its
products from its online store. Instead, when Hindu Human
Rights met with D.J.
Jayasekara, managing director and designer of lunchbox.com,
Jayasekara claimed,
“there is a market for these designs,” adding that he would “. . .
continue to supply that
market regardless of the offence . . . . [it] causes to Hindus
worldwide.”25 The lunch
boxes are marketed as “bringing beauty and mystery to your
mid-day meal with the
alluring, but deadly, Kali lunchboxes.”26 Hindu and Hindu
American complaints against
these lunchboxes were based squarely on religious ideology and
ethnic-cultural
nationalism: 1) the lunch boxes render Hinduism a commodity
when Hindus see it as
deeply religious and personal; 2) the lunch boxes prorogate and
promote religious
transgression as Hindus and their gods are vegetarians, but non-
Hindus may
unknowingly place meat products in the lunchboxes; 3) they
feel that this type of
mundane and secular appropriation of images of sacred Hindu
deities reinforces
stereotypes and Orientalizes Hindus and Hindu Americans. On
the other hand, there are
others who do not view these lunch boxes as deliberate attempts
to defame or attack
Hinduism per se. Instead, they understand it in strictly
capitalistic terms as
lunchbox.com’s attempt to engage consumers with the “exotic”
and the “other.”27 “Such
marketing tricks aim at shocking and then holding the probable

consumer’s attention. It
is a way of jolting the consumer by providing him the
forbidden.”28
This controversy illustrates the importance of Hindu icons
among self-identified
Hindus and Hindu Americans. The visual and material religious
culture is expressively
connected to the formation of their identities—religious and
ethnic—which they
perceived as being misappropriated with Ganesha’s image on
flip-flops. The
understanding and verbalization that it is a religious
transgression since it encourages
23 “AHAD Claims Partial Victory in American Eagle Outfitters
Flip Flop/Lord Ganesh Depiction Issue” Hindu
Vishwa: Voice of Hindus in North America 30:2 (April-June
2003).
24 “AHAD Claims Partial Victory in American Eagle Outfitters
Flip Flop/Lord Ganesh Depiction Issue” 15.
25 India Divine.org
http://www.indiadivine.org/audarya/hinduism-forum/178773-
defamation-against-
hindus-around-globe.html (last accessed May 30, 2011): 15–16.
26 Religion News Blog “Indian Deities, Western Products:
Ignorance or Crass Marketing?”
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/9007/indian-deities-western-
products-ignorance-or-crass-marketing
(last accessed May 30, 2011).
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.

81
the pollution (i.e., feet) of a pure entity (i.e., Ganesha) is
telling. Hindus and Hindu
Americans understand the act of selling and wearing these flip-
flops as a form of
colonization of Hinduism and, by extension, their subjectivity
and identity by non-
Hindus, by capitalism, and by the western world. The Hindu and
Hindu American
protest against AEO and its victory is an example of acts of
decolonization among
Hindus both in India and within the diaspora. Moreover, it says
something about the
logic of capitalism and its attempt to market and sell religion in
modern society. A logic
that did not take into account the power of ethnic and religious
identity, which,
employed critically and forcibly, can put capitalism in its place.
McDonald’s French Fries
In May 2003 McDonald’s settled a law suit with several Hindu
and other
vegetarian religious and non-religious organizations for
misrepresenting their French
fries as “vegetarian.” This case began in 1990 with Harish
Bharti, a vegetarian Hindu
American and Seattle-based lawyer, who had the habit of

identifying the ingredients in
his putatively vegetarian food. During this period, fast food
franchises such as
McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King advertised that they
were switching from the
use of beef tallow to vegetable oil to fry their foods. Since the
new French fries did not
taste like the fries cooked in beef tallow, McDonald’s added
beef flavoring in processing
French fries to maintain its popular flavor profile. McDonald’s
followed U.S. government
food guidelines that allowed labeling the new fries as
possessing “natural flavor”—which
is truthful. However, because of the hype over the switch to
vegetable oil for frying,
vegetarians assumed that the new and improved fries were
“vegetarian.” Hence, the
accusation of false advertising by McDonald’s from its
vegetarian customers.
Bharti sued McDonald’s in 2001, and that grew into a law suit
involving a number
of lawyers and vegetarian organizations. Ultimately, Hindus,
Sikhs, Jews, Muslims,
vegetarians, and vegans joined the law suit—the Jews because
the beef flavoring was
not kosher and the Muslims because it was not halal. In 2002
McDonald’s settled the
suit by agreeing to a 10 million dollar settlement and a formal
public apology. The
apology read, in part,
McDonald’s sincerely apologizes to Hindus, vegetarians and
others for failing

to provide the kind of information they needed to make
informed dietary
decisions at our U.S. restaurants. We acknowledge that, upon
our switch to
vegetable oil in the early 1990s for the purpose of reducing
cholesterol,
mistakes were made in communicating to the public and
customers about
the ingredients in our French fries and hash browns. Those
mistakes
82
included instances in which French fries and hash browns sold
at U.S.
restaurants were improperly identified as “vegetarian.”29
Part of the settlement required that the full apology be printed
in Veggie Life, India
Tribune, and Hinduism Today. Hindu groups that received a
settlement from this
lawsuit include: Hindu Students Council ($500,000); Hinduism
Today Endowment
($250,000); Council of Hindu Temples of North America
($200,000); Sri Siva Vishnu
(SSV) Temple ($50,000); and International/American Gita
Society ($50,000).30
Some may question the fuss made over McDonald’s French
fries having a little

coating of beef flavoring. Is the fuss rational? Consider that
cows are sacred animals in
India, and that Krishna, a beloved and popular Hindu god, is at
the center of religious
texts that expresses admiration for the cows. In these tales,
Krishna is represented as a
cow herder. From these tales, Krishna is represented as a
gopala, which translates to
the Lord of Cows.31 Krishna is also identified with govinda,
who is “the one who brings
satisfaction to the cows.”32 Shereen Bella notes that “even the
popular McDonald’s
chain in India carries no beef.”33 Does cultural
acknowledgement and awareness explain
the protest against McDonald’s beef-flavored French fries?
Some may argue that the case against McDonald’s is more
critical because of the
real and immediate religious transgressions that unaware Hindus
and Hindu Americans
may inadvertently commit should they consume the French fires
that are not
vegetarian. Even after the lawsuit was settled, McDonald’s
continued to coat French
fries with beef flavoring. However, the lawsuit reveals
something about Hindu and
Hindu American subjectivity and agency. It may also be
interpreted by some as an act
29 “McDonald’s Fries: Not Done Yet: $10 Million Settlement-
including $250,000 for Hinduism Today—
appealed” Hinduism Today
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?
itemid=3811
(last accessed May 30, 30110)

30 Hinduism Today (last accessed May 30, 30110).
Other claimants include Guru Harkrishan Institute of Sikh
Studies ($50,000); Islamic Food and Nutrition
Council of America ($450,000); Muslim Consumer Group for
Food Products ($100,000); Jewish
Community Centers Association ($200,000) ; Star-K/Torah.Org
($300,000); Orthodox Union ($150,000);
The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life (Hillel) ($300,000);
CLAL ($50,000); Vegetarian Resource Group
($1,400,000); North American Vegetarian Society ($1,000,000);
ADAF Vegetarian Nutrition Dietetic
Practice Group ($600,000); Preventive Medicine Research
Institute ($550,000); American Vegan Society
($500,000); Loma Linda University ($300,000); Vegetarian
Vision, Inc. ($250,000); Supporting Excellence
in Education ($900,000); Tufts University ($850,000); Produce
for Better Health Foundation ($500,000);
Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”)
($500,000);
An appeal was dismissed in June 2005, and the final
disbursement made during the first week of July,
2005.
31 Shereen Bella, “Indian Americans: Nature and Animals”
Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and
Folklife, edited by Jonathan H. X. Lee and Kathleen M. Nadeau.
Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO Press, 2011,
pp. 500–501.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.

83
of decolonization, which may be interpreted as, invoking
Bataille, a moment of
sovereignty in modern life.
Why Things Matter
The Hindu activists discontent with AEO is rooted in the belief
that placing one’s
foot upon the image of a deity is considered extremely
disrespectful in the same way
their discontent with McDonalds is based upon the belief that
the corporation is being
insensitive to Hindu religious and cultural sensitivities. The
activists are also informed by
issues concerning religious piety and the respect for Hinduism
which drives the
protesters’ expressions of ethnic identity and cultural
nationalism. Objects with Hindu
religious icons matter—or should matter—to us because it is not
only about Hinduism
per se, or religious transgressions or religious piety. Instead,
these things matter
because it makes known the power of ethnic identity and
cultural nationalism in our
modern world. For Hindus and Hindu Americans, as well as for
Sikh Americans, Muslim
Americans, Christian and Jewish Americans, religious identity
and ethnic identity are
fused together. The Enlightenment project of progress and
movement toward
secularization did not account for the growth and centrality of

ethnic and religious
identity and identity politics. Does this mean that secularization
is impossible? Identity is
tied to subjectivity: Subjectivity is fundamentally about life and
survival. The images of
Ganesha on flip-flops or Sri Lakshmi on bikinis and toilet seats
are not religious
transgressions, but rather, attacks on Hindu and Hindu
American identity and
subjectivity. Just as the attack on 9/11 is not a religious act, but
rather on attack on
American identity and subjectivity, that is, the life style that we
represent—capitalism.
The assassination of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011 is not
religious, nor is it an act of
revenge, but an act of displaying American identity and
subjectivity. These things, in
and of themselves, do not symbolize the importance of ethnic
and, by extension,
religious identity and subjectivity; rather, it is what we do with
or to the things that is
revealing.
Conclusion
The goal of this article is to question current discourses
concerning the
relationship between modernity and religion. I draw upon the
critiques of modernization
by Agamben, Foucault, and Bataille who all argue that
modernity has created power
structures which use coercion and domination to take away
individual autonomy in all
areas of life including the marketplace. This critique of
modernity, can be challenged by
Hindu/Hindu American responses to the (mis)appropriation by

corporate America of
Hindu deities for the marketing of footwear and corporate
marketing of fast-food
products which claim to be ‘vegetarian’ when in fact they are
flavored with beef. The
success of Hindu/Hindu American organizations in receiving
written apologies and
financial settlements from corporate America underlines three
points: The first point is
that the success of Hindu activists in challenging corporate
America’s insensitivity to
their religious values is indicative of a moment in which
individuals can indeed exercise
84
their own authority over the choices they make in the
marketplace. The second point is
that choices made in the marketplace by both consumers and
producers are not shaped
purely by the dictates of capitalism but also by religious and
cultural issues, especially
by ethnic and religious identities. The third, and final point, is
that the success of Hindu
activists prove that religion is still an influential force in
society and that the
secularization thesis, which holds that religion will cease to
exist in the face of progress
and modernity, has failed to be proven correct.

STUDENT _______________________________________
HCD 1025
FINAL PROJECT
Prof. Martin Hyatt
Completion of this project demonstrates that you have the
ability to do a high-level college research paper full of strong
critical, sociological, cultural and/or historical
implications. This project demonstrates that you are a college-
level writer capable of skills that are essential before you move
forward in both your educational and professional lives.
TOPICS
Using the research you have already done, drawing on the
information you have compiled and the writing you have
produced in the first two essays, please complete a final
research paper based on one of the following topics:
1. How did these two people (the writer and the
artist/musician) influence society?
2. What is the unique connection that these two people (the
writer and the artist/musician) share?
OR 3. Present your own research question/thesis! These must
be approved first.
Please use the following outline to complete the paper.
I. Introduction. Introduce your question. (1
paragraph)
II. Briefly discuss both people. (1 paragraph)
III. Discuss the visual artist/musician in more detail. (4
paragraphs)
IV. Discuss the writer in more detail. (4 paragraphs)
V. Explore the answer to your question. Remember, the
question is: “How did these two people (the writer and the
artist) influence society?” OR “What is the unique connection
that these two people (the writer and the artist) share?” Also,

remember, do not use “I”. Draw conclusions based on your
research. (2 pages)
VI. Conclusion. (1 paragraph)
The paper MUST:
1. 5-7 pages typed, double-spaced
2. Contain at least six in-text, MLA citations
3. Contain at least six sources in a Works Cited Page.
4. THIS PAPER MUST BE MLA FORMATTED. Please note
that failure to incorporate all these elements of a standard
research paper will affect your grade.
_____________________________________________________
__________________
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American Behavioral Scientist
http://abs.sagepub.com/content/50/1/118
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/0002764206289657
2006 50: 118American Behavioral Scientist
Vibha Bhalla
The New Indians : Reconstructing Indian Identity in the United
States
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118
Author’s Note: I would like to acknowledge Simboonath Singh,
Rob Buffington, and Caroline Brettell
for their help with this article.
American Behavioral Scientist
Volume 50 Number 1
September 2006 118-136
© 2006 Sage Publications
10.1177/0002764206289657
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hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
The New Indians
Reconstructing Indian Identity in the
United States
Vibha Bhalla
Bowling Green State University
This article looks at the processes of identity formation among
Indian immigrants in
the United States in the decade of the 1970s. Using letters to the
editor of the expatri-

ate Indian newspaper India Abroad, the article draws attention
to two themes of iden-
tity formation. The first theme focuses on Indian immigrants’
attempts at forming a
pan-Indian identity in the United States that was markedly
different from India; this
identity excluded ethnic, religious, or caste affiliations.
Although this attempt failed,
Indian immigrants were successful in formulating a religious
pan-Indian identity. The
second theme draws attention to discourse among the Indian
community regarding
becoming a racial/ethnic minority in the United States.
Keywords: Asian Indian; ethnic identity; race/racialization;
minority status
In December 1978, a reader’s letter titled “Where Have All the
Indians Gone?”appeared in India Abroad, the first newspaper of
the expatriate Indian immigrant
community in the United States (Biswas, 1978, p. 2). Written by
an Indian immi-
grant to the United States, the letter paints an abysmal picture
of India in the decade
of the 1970s. India’s ethnic and religious identities, Biswas
(1978) noted, were
undermining its political unity; Biswas wrote of “a strange
divisive atmosphere all
over the country—something sharply corrosive, destroying
national unity, if there is
any. In different parts of India, a strange conflict of identity
seems to exist” (p. 2).1
Given the tensions between ethnic and national identities in
independent India,
Biswas raised two questions: “What actually makes us ‘Indians’

and do we really
have a definite national and cultural identity which can be
called Indian?” (p. 2).
These questions, Biswas surmised, were of immense magnitude
for not only Indians
in India but also the Indian immigrant community in the United
States, because she
noticed the continuation of regional and ethnic affinities among
Indian immigrants
in the United States. As evidence, her letter points to the
proliferation of ethnic asso-
ciations among Indian immigrants. Biswas further highlighted
the importance of
these questions in relation to the dissemination of Indian
identity among the second
Bhalla / The New Indians 119
generation of Indians growing up in the United States: “The
Indian children in
America will soon face issues such as: Who are they? What
‘kind’ of Indian are
they?” (p. 2). Indian immigrants in the United States needed to
delineate their iden-
tity to reproduce it to their children.
Biswas’s (1978) introspective commentary resulted in a series
of letters from the
readers of India Abroad who were unanimous in their
condemnation of India’s eth-
nic divisions and who revealed a desire to construct an Indian

identity in the United
States distinct from that of Indians in their homeland. This new
identity was to be
national in scope and bereft of divisive ethnic and religious
tensions that had plagued
India since its independence. Immigrants’ attempts at
reconfiguring Indian identity
suggest an understanding, first, that identity is fluid and, hence,
can be constructed
anew and second, that migration allows Indians to reinvent
themselves in the United
States. Furthermore, these letters are indicators that Indian
immigrants considered
themselves as agents of change and as such, were engaging the
Indian immigrant
community on the issue through the pages of the Indian
immigrant press.2 The let-
ters’ authors particularly believed that the socioeconomic
characteristics of the
Indian immigrant community, especially its highly educated
nature, allowed them a
deeper understanding of India’s problems. As enlightened
Indians, they wished to
create an Indian community outside India without any of its
fissiparous tendencies.
The attempts by Indian immigrants to carve out a new identity
are not unique;
identity, as we know, is socially constructed. Joane Nagel
(1994) has argued that
ethnic/group identity formation is a dialectical process and
reflects the collective
actions of a group’s members and its organizations. Identity and
culture, Nagel
argued, are the “building blocks of ethnicity” because they
provide the boundaries

of an ethnic group, as well as assign them a meaning.
Consequently, language, reli-
gion, culture, ancestry, and regionalism all influence the
emergence of identity.
Furthermore, Nagel argued that ethnic identity is “politically
constructed”; formal
ethnic labels or official ethnic categories in the host society
play a pivotal role in
shaping ethnic boundaries. Consequently, at any given time, a
member of an ethnic
group can have multiple identities in a process Nagel termed
“layering.”
This article examines the processes of identity formation within
the immigrant
Indian community in the United States during the early phase of
settlement (i.e.,
from 1972 to 1982).3 Using a sampling of letters to the editor of
an immigrant news-
paper, India Abroad, I draw attention to the active participation
of Indian immigrants
in the invention of a new Indian identity in the United States.
These letters to the edi-
tor are central to understanding how a new immigrant group
produced its identity.
They permit us to explore the salient factors that motivated the
construction of iden-
tity and the way these factors worked. Understanding the
meanings that early immi-
grants assigned to their identity is important because these
meanings eventually
shape the transformation of Indians from immigrants to a self-
identified ethnic group
in the United States. Furthermore, I argue that this early period,
especially the
decade of the 1970s—approximately 10 to 15 years after the

commencement of
Indian migration—represents the formative phase in the
settlement of the Indian
community as Indian immigrants demonstrated signs of moving
from sojourners to
settlers. Although the letters to the editor during this period
depict numerous themes
related to issues of identity, this article emphasizes two
themes.4 The first theme
focuses on immigrants’ attempts to establish a pan-Indian
identity in the United
States. The second emphasizes Indian immigrants’ attempts to
situate themselves
within the prevalent racial/ethnic categories in the United States
and portrays their
struggle in grappling with the question concerning whether they
were Caucasians,
“Others,” or Asian Americans. The pan-Indian identity had two
components. It
began with immigrants’ attempts to assign their identity a
political meaning and con-
struct an Indian community without regional, religious, and
caste identities. Letters
showcase, however, that by the end of the 1970s, this attempt
had failed because
many immigrants argued for a need for the continuation of
ethnic identities in view
of the fact that they provided cultural meaning to their
identities. Nevertheless, by
the end of this decade, another form of pan-Indian identity took

shape that was reli-
gious in nature. The parameters of this new Indian identity
emerged from a need to
disseminate Indian culture to the second generation, as well as a
desire to create dis-
tinct cultural boundaries from the mainstream American culture.
The new Indian cul-
tural identity increasingly took religious overtones and became
intertwined with
Hindu identity. Hinduism, the religion of the majority of the
immigrants, permitted
immigrants a shared identity. Moreover, I argue that Indian
immigrants’ attempts at
situating themselves within the prevalent racial/ethnic
categories demonstrate their
racialization in the United States and emphasize their
transformation from predom-
inantly educated and high caste/class Indians to a minority in
the United States.
Collectively, these themes identify the emergence of layering
among Indian immi-
grants; at any given time, Indians were simultaneously
becoming members of an
ethnic group, a national group, a religious group, and a
racial/ethnic group.
Large-scale Indian migration to the United States began with
the passage of the
Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 (Reimers, 1985).5
The act primarily
aimed to unify immigrant families. In the absence of a
substantial Indian population
in the pre-1965 era, Indians used the labor certification clause
of this act to migrate
to the United States. The consequent migration selectivity
resulted in the settlement

of a highly educated and professional Indian community
(Khadria, 1999). Many of
the early immigrants were students who were already in the
United States for the
purpose of obtaining a higher education.6 Despite their recent
migration, their edu-
cational and professional characteristics catapulted Indian
immigrants into an immi-
grant group with high median and mean incomes (Helweg &
Helweg, 1990;
Khandelwal, 2002; Leonard, 1997; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996;
Rangaswamy, 2000).
Indian immigrants became highly conscious of this positioning
and constantly
referred to it in their letters as they attempted to bring about
changes within the
Indian community in the United States. As highly educated
professionals, they were
seeking to form a new ideal, modern India in the United States.
120 American Behavioral Scientist
India Abroad was the first newspaper of the Indian immigrant
community in the
United States. It commenced publication from New York City in
1970, 5 years after
the passage of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965.
It began as a monthly
newspaper, became a fortnightly in 1972, and then became a

weekly in 1973. The
primary purpose of the newspaper was to provide the growing
Indian immigrant
community in the United States with news of India. However, as
the Indian settle-
ment became permanent, the paper’s contents began to change
to incorporate issues
pertinent to the Indian community in the United States. Readers
began voicing their
problems of settlement through letters to the editor or in the
readers’ “commentary”
column, which allowed Indians to write on any issue relevant to
Indian immigrants.
It is in these pages that issues of Indian identity emerged in the
decade of the 1970s
as readers suggested ways to create Indian identity. At certain
times, readers’ letters
transform India Abroad’s letters to the editor page into a forum
where readers voiced
their thoughts and debated pertinent issues; and it was in these
pages that Indians
periodically debated the meaning of Indianness.7
Forging an Indian Identity
Biswas’s (1978) commentary on India’s ethnic diversity and its
divisive tenden-
cies in India and the United States does not represent the first
time a reader of
India Abroad raised this issue. As early as 1973, a reader wrote
about the emergence
of ethnic groupings among the small Indian population in the
United States and
the resulting lack of interactions among them. This lack of
communication,
Chandrashekhar (1973) stated, affected the workings of Indian

organizations: “North
Indians are of the opinion that the South Indians do not take
active interest in the
activities. South Indians think that the Associations are
dominated by the North
Indians” (p. 2). In addressing this letter to the Indian
community, Chandrashekhar
attempted to find solutions to this problem in order to establish
a strong national
organization of Indian immigrants.
In a similar vein, a letter by Ramdass (1975) bemoans Indian
immigrants’ inabil-
ity to overcome their ethnic affiliations in the United States:
“Someone recently told
me that India is not a nation of many states, but a state of many
nations. . . . It is
agonizing to note that even after twenty-seven years of
independence and self-rule
we are still not thinking of ourselves as a whole” (p. 3). The
author’s criticism once
again stemmed from a desire to form a strong pan-Indian
organization in the United
States, an effort he felt was being undermined by ethnic Indian
organizations.
Chiding his immigrant counterparts, Ramdass implored the
community to rethink
their actions:
If we the so-called educated people, who have migrated to an
advanced and civilized
nation, continue to harbor the wish to identify ourselves in such
narrow and discrimi-
nate levels, I see little hope for us and those we left behind. (p.
3)

Ramdass’s letter represents the first linking of the creation of a
panethnic identity to
the educated nature of Indian immigrants and hypothesizes the
feasibility of edu-
cated Indians overcoming their ethnic affiliations in the United
States. The letter also
situates Ramdass as a first-generation Indian who grew up in
independent India; as
such, he was demonstrating his affiliation with the new Indian
national identity
over “caste, religious, and ethno-linguistic identities.” Another
reader demonstrated
similar sentiments:
It would be ideal if we form one association of all Indians
abroad instead of forming a
hundred different associations counting the states. By doing so
we cannot achieve
much, but if all Indians gathered under one banner there could
be more power, under-
standing, unity and prosperity. (Fernandes, 1975, p. 3)
Other such letters continued to be published in India Abroad
throughout the
decade of the 1970s. This discussion among Indian immigrants
regarding their iden-
tity formation primarily focuses on the first generation of
immigrants and responds to
conditions of their homeland. The discourse is primarily

political in nature and lim-
ited to the creation of a pan-Indian organization of immigrants
with the aim of estab-
lishing an ideal Indian community in the United States, a
community without caste,
religious, and ethnic tendencies. It demonstrates a belief that
India’s ethnic groups
were inherently divisive and consequently, that the existence of
ethnic organizations
undermined any effort to create a unified Indian identity. This
discourse, however, is
rooted in India and reflects Indian immigrants’ attempts at
resolving problems ger-
mane to India. The exclusively political nature of this discourse
fails to reconcile the
cultural aspects of ethnic identities with a national identity.
Ethnic and religious iden-
tities shaped Indians’ daily lives and their belief system,
including their language,
food, and even their preferences in music and dance.
Consequently, by the late 1970s,
readers’ letters began justifying their membership in ethnic
organizations. Readers
suggested the need for a multitier organizational structure,
which would allow Indians
to be members of their ethnic association as well as a national
Indian association.
Ethnic associations, one reader argued, were not undermining
the national organiza-
tion but instead, merely fulfilling the cultural and religious
needs of the Indian immi-
grants: “I wish to say that very often people join such
organizations, not with any
chauvinistic or separatist intentions, but only to share with
others of a similar incli-
nations or background, events of interest only to them”

(Shankar, 1977, p. 10).
Biswas (1978) moved this debate forward and situated it within
the context of its
dissemination among the second-generation Indians. If Indians
were going to con-
struct a pan-Indian identity, it was essential to define such an
identity’s characteris-
tics and the ways to encompass India’s diverse ethnic traditions.
Along with Biswas,
other Indian immigrants were pondering on the definition of
Indian cultural identity.
The discourse began with parents’ complaints that their children
were growing up
ignorant of Indian culture and about their inability to impart
Indian culture to their
children in a sustained way. Pointing to this need, Bhalla (1977)
wrote,
Most children here are growing up speaking only English, with
the same ill-informed
attitude about India as most Americans have. Unless we want
our next generation to
commit cultural hara-kiri by not having any pride in our
heritage and love for India and
the right Indian values, we had better start a school. (p. 16)
To counter this problem, Bhalla suggested opening an Indian

boarding school for the
children of Indian immigrants, either in the United States or in
India. Although this
letter focuses on the need to impart the language and the value
system of India, a
majority of the readers rarely discussed the language issue and
instead, strongly sup-
ported the desire to pass on Indian heritage and values to their
children and demon-
strated their preference for the Sunday school format. Readers
expressed a general
desire to impart “instruction in Indian culture, language, history
and so on” (Kumar,
1977), as well as the knowledge of “Indian philosophy”
(Shukla, 1977).
The need to propagate Indian culture to the second generation
was prompted largely
by a desire to establish cultural boundaries of Indianness that
separate it from the dom-
inant American culture. Readers’ strong dislike of U.S.
sociocultural trends, and their
desire to prevent their children from becoming American,
strongly shaped the contours
of Indian values and culture. Pointing to this, Bhalla (1977)
wrote, “The melting pot
concept has come to be generally discredited these days. And I,
for one, would rather
not have my children ‘melt’ completely” (p. 16). Not only were
Indian values defined
in sharp contrast to American values but also letters reveal
Indian immigrants’ reasons
for not melting: American society was described as a depraved
society “going astray,”
whereas Indian values were depicted as the right “moral values”
(Sachdev, 1977).

Negative stereotypes of the dominant cultural trends, and
parents’ fears of the teen
culture, especially the practice of dating, resulted in a new
focus on the conduct of the
youngsters. American youngsters especially were portrayed as
sex- and drug-crazed
individuals who did not care for their families. Commenting on
this, one reader wrote,
Would it be possible for any Indian, even those who themselves
fully Americanized, to let
their sons and daughters engage in pre-marital sex at the age of
15 years under the guise
of dating? This is bound to happen unless our children are
tutored in the moral obligations
of the Indian culture which prohibits pre-marital dating.
(Sachdev, 1977, p. 14)
Moreover, in their ethnocentric worldview, Indians viewed
American families as
devoid of family values considered sacrosanct by Indians.
Children, in the hierar-
chical Indian family structure, particularly the sons, carry
special responsibilities of
taking care of their parents in old age. The fear of old age
without children furthered
a desire to stay away from American family traditions where
children were seen as
absent from their parents’ lives. Expressing this fear, a reader
wrote,
Would it be possible for us to live without the love and care of
our children when we
grow old, when we will be like millions of other aged
Americans, neither alive nor dead

but just marking days, hours and minutes? The very thought of
this is frightening.
(Sachdev, 1977, p. 14)
Although the majority of the letters support the creation of an
Indian school or a
Sunday school run by Indian temples to impart Indian culture
and values, there were
voices of dissent. A few readers objected to the creation of a
separate and distinct
Indian identity in the United States and argued that education
based solely on Indian
values and culture amounted to creating separate islands in the
United States, stating
that it also implied a strong desire not to assimilate into the
mainstream American
society. Commenting on this, Vasudev (1977) wrote,
Considering that many of us are here for good, is American
education all that bad?
What is so sacrosanct about Indian values and subjects? Is the
author suggesting that
Indians should bring up their children in watertight
compartment, away from the main-
stream of American life? (p. 10)
Objecting to the creation of a rigid definition of Indian culture,
Vasudev’s letter
points to the dynamism of Indian culture and draws attention to

the historical con-
struction of Indian culture; Indian culture, she emphasized, had
constant interactions
with different cultures, especially during the Middle Ages, with
regular invasions
and interactions from Central and West Asia. Vasudev wrote,
“Indians represent
unity in diversity. Many rivers have merged in the ocean that is
India, but Indians still
retain their basic characteristics. Are the heirs to such a
magnificent richness now
haunted by a melting pot called America?” (p. 10). Moreover,
Vasudev questioned
other readers regarding the nature of Indian values: “What are
the ‘Indian’ subjects
and ‘values’ Bhalla wants our children to learn?” (p. 10).
However, a large majority
of readers heavily criticized Vasudev’s viewpoints.
The language of the letters increasingly indicate that the process
of reinvention of
Indian culture points to the propagation of a traditional Hindu
Vedic culture that was
static and had not changed with time. Indian culture as it was
being constructed was
increasingly becoming religious in nature. Indian identity was
being juxtaposed in
many ways with Hindu identity and began adopting behavioral
traits as part of
Indian culture.
Although the letters never openly specify it, the behavioral
aspects of Indian cul-
tural values carried gendered meaning, especially for women.
Monisha Das Gupta
(1997) and Prema Kurien (1999) have argued that the first

generation of Indian
immigrants selectively reproduced Indian culture and recreated
new gendered hier-
archies. Das Gupta and Kurien both argued that the new identity
reproduction, based
on glorifying Vedic Hindu culture, had a profound effect on the
lives of Indian
women. It assigned new roles of cultural reproduction to the
first generation of
Indian women and constrained the lives of Indian women,
especially in relation to
their mobility and their sexuality.
Moreover, these letters reveal the beginning of
institutionalization of the instruc-
tion of cultural practices from individual families to the larger
community and its
institutions. This shift was based primarily in the inability of
families to counter the
all-pervasive effects of the dominant American culture on their
children through
schools and the popular media. Community institutions,
especially temples, readers
believed, could counter the pulls of the dominant culture. In
addition, letters reveal
the emergence of a new trend of dual-income Indian families in
the United States,
which further limited families’ ability to pass on Indian cultural
values. Noticing
this, Bhalla’s (1977) letter states that “there is certainly a

responsibility on parents to
inculcate such values and teach their kids their mother tongue,
but all too many
of us first-generation immigrants have both parents working to
make a fair living”
(p. 16). The presence of a large number of highly educated,
professional women in
the Indian immigrant population partly accounted for this new
phenomenon; in addi-
tion, the new economic realities forced women to seek
employment. Consequently,
Indian ethnic and religious associations emerged as the new
centers imparting Indian
culture. The construction of temples across the United States in
the decade of the
1970s reflected this new need. They were seen as not only
fulfilling the religious
needs of the community but also becoming the cultural centers,
a fact noticed in
other debates in India Abroad on the construction of Indian
temples. Pointing to this,
Grover (1978) wrote, “A temple is not merely a place of
worship but also a social
and cultural center, a symbol of our rich heritage” (p. 14). The
literature on Indian
immigrants in the United States concurs with this viewpoint
(Brettell, 2005; Helweg
& Helweg, 1990; Khandelwal, 2002; Kurien, 1999; Lessinger,
1995; Rangaswamy,
2000; Rayaprol, 1997).
These two discourses in the decade of the 1970s chart the
construction of Indian
identity and reflect an enormous difference in the meaning and
understanding of the
word Indian. The decade began with the creation of a pan-

Indian national identity
that represented the new, the modern, and the cosmopolitan
Indians who were will-
ing to overlook their ethnic identities and form a new unifying
national identity. The
decade ended with a pan-Indian identity that looked to
recreating traditional India
and emphasized the Hindu identity to establish boundaries from
the mainstream
American culture. The first was rooted in India, whereas the
second was rooted in
the current needs of Indian families in the United States. The
first discourse con-
stantly emphasized the educated and the progressive character
of the Indian immi-
grant population in the United States, whereas the second rarely
used it. By the end
of the decade, the letters to the editor reveal the existence of a
process of layering;
Indians were beginning to express their ethnic, religious, and
national identities.
Forging a Racial/Ethnic Identity
In the decade of the 1970s, along with constructing the meaning
and boundaries
of what it meant to be Indian, Indian immigrants were trying to
situate themselves
in relation to American racial/ethnic groups. Nagel (1994) has
argued that external
forces in the host society, especially the policies of the state,
play a vital role in the
creation of group identities. In the United States, since the
passage of the Civil

Rights Act of 1964, the U.S. population has been classified in
racial/ethnic groups.
The Federal Interagency Commission, an ad hoc committee on
racial and ethnic def-
initions, classified Americans under five categories: (a) Black,
not of Hispanic ori-
gin; (b) Hispanic; (c) Asian or Pacific Islander; (d) American
Indian or Alaskan
Native; and (e) Caucasian/White. As new immigrants, Indians
needed to be placed
in one of the above categories. In 1974, the commission
classified Indian immigrants
as Caucasians. Along with the people of the Indian
subcontinent, the category
included people who traced their ancestry to Europe, North
Africa, and the Middle
East (Sahgal, 1976a). This classification, however, was not
crystal clear because the
Bureau of the Census classified Indian immigrants as Others.
Moreover, according
to the 1923 Supreme Court case Thind v. United States, Indians
are not White (for
abridged versions of the decision, see Gjerde, 1998, pp. 288-
290; Nakanishi & Lai,
2003, pp. 41-45). In this landmark case, the Supreme Court
denied an Indian immi-
grant, Bhagat Singh Thind, the right to become a U.S. citizen
because he was not
“White.” In denying the motion, the Court categorically stated
that despite anthro-

pologically being classified as Caucasian, popular perception
did not consider
Indians as White. This case, as Ian Haney-Lopez (1998) has
argued, moved the dis-
course on race away from the then prevalent principle of using
science as a founda-
tion for construction of racial categories and reverted to using
popular perceptions in
declaring racial categories. Racial classifications in the early
part of the 20th century
were highly significant because benefits of citizenship depended
on race, and the
Thind verdict denied Indians the right to naturalize.
The nuances of race and ethnicity in the decade of the 1970s,
however, were
markedly different because race did not matter in immigrants’
acquisition of citi-
zenship or any rights whatsoever. However, since the passage of
the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, membership in a minority group brought benefits and
resource allocation
through the state. As Caucasians/Whites, Indian immigrants
could not take advan-
tage of the affirmative action programs directed to minorities.
The process of becoming an ethnic minority began in 1974 soon
after the classi-
fication of Indian immigrants as Caucasians. An Indian
organization, the Association
of Indians in America (AIA), began organizing Indian
immigrants against this move
and by 1976, formally petitioned the Federal Interagency
Commission for reclassi-
fication of Indian immigrants from the Caucasian category to
the Asian/Pacific

Islander category. The AIA also sought a separate enumeration
in the 1980 census of
Indian immigrants as “Asian Indians” (Sahgal, 1976b).
To support the reclassification of Indians from a majority to a
minority group, the
AIA put forth multiple arguments. Dr. Dutta (1976), AIA’s
president, argued that
although Indians were classified as Caucasians, not all Indians
appeared to be White;
hence, they faced or could face discrimination at work.
Consequently, minority status
was needed to attain Indian immigrants’ struggle for “equal
opportunity.” Moreover,
the AIA contended that geographically, India was located in
Asia; therefore, it
was natural for Indian immigrants to become Asian Americans,
especially because
immigrants from other Asian nations were categorized as Asian
Americans.
Furthermore, being classified as Caucasians had resulted in
their exclusion from
many government-sponsored events for Asians; the immediate
evidence of this was
the exclusion of Indian physicians from a conference on the
health needs of Asian

Americans.
In September 1976, people from the Indian subcontinent were
reclassified from
the majority White/Caucasian category to the minority
Asian/Pacific Islander cate-
gory. Indian immigrants were now eligible for preferential
treatment in employment
and housing and also became eligible to file suit for
discrimination under the 1964
Civil Rights Act (Sahgal, 1976b). Subsequently, in 1982,
another Indian organiza-
tion, the National Association of Americans of Asian Indian
Descent, successfully
petitioned the Small Business Association to declare Indian
immigrants a minority
for the purposes of awarding government contracts. As a result
of being classified a
minority, Indian immigrants could accrue the benefits of
becoming a minority. It is
interesting to note that Dutta (1976) did not refer to the
economic benefits of becom-
ing a minority. Yet in 1982, Dr. Jan Pillai, president of the
National Association of
Americans of Asian Indian Descent, highlighted this economic
aspect; being classi-
fied as a minority by the Small Business Act would allow Indian
companies and
businesspeople to garner US$200 million dollars in contracts
through loans and
management and technical assistance (Hudson & Lewis, 1982).
The AIA’s attempts at seeking a minority status for Indian
immigrants sharply
divided the Indian community and probably resulted in the
maximum number of let-

ters on any single theme in the India Abroad. Readers were
extremely passionate in
voicing their opinions and tried to influence others to accept
their viewpoints. The
debate not only pitted Indian immigrants against each other but
also created a schism
between two of the largest Indian organizations, the AIA and
the India League of
America, against each other because the India League of
America opposed this
change in racial classification. The AIA and the India League of
America had a sig-
nificant membership base on the East Coast (New York, New
Jersey region) and in
the Midwest (Chicago), respectively. Deliberations on this issue
appeared twice—in
1976 to 1977, when the petition for minority status was
submitted and accepted, and
then again in 1982, when the Small Businesses Association
classified Indians as a
minority for the purpose of availing government contracts.
The debate on becoming Asian Americans specifically
highlighted the issue of
workplace discrimination and brought to relief the issue of race.
Those who sup-
ported this move emphasized that despite their educational and
professional charac-
teristics, Indians faced constant discrimination in the
workplace; discrimination,
they argued, was based on their being different. “I feel that
most Indians in this coun-
try do not get a fair share, and have to pay a price for being
different,” stated Bhalla
(1982, p. 16), without specifying the nature of this difference.
Other readers, how-

ever, attributed a racial twist to this difference and complained
that Indians were
being discriminated against because of being “dark-
complexioned immigrants”
(Chatterjee, 1982, p. 16; Sharma, 1976, p. 16) Race-based
discrimination, readers
noted, also affected their upward mobility: “The so-called
‘corporate ladder’ recog-
nizes genius in a certain group without college degrees, and yet
somehow its vision is
colored when it comes to rewarding highly qualified individuals
who are supposedly
Caucasian” (Agrawal, 1976, p. 10) Readers suggested that
despite being categorized
as White, their treatment at work was a result of being
perceived as non-White.
Others who supported the minority classification argued that
discrimination was
subtle and hard to prove; in addition, the high economic costs of
hiring lawyers and
the intricacies of the court processes further dissuaded many
from seeking justice.
Furthermore, readers argued that as new immigrants, Indians
suffered from an
“immigrant disadvantage” and an “immigrant state of mind” and
did not know ways
to address these problems and, thus, endured in silence

(Ramanathan, 1976, p. 10).
An isolated letter views minority status as a tool to preserve
Indian identity and values
(Ramanathan, 1976, p. 10).
Responding to those who opposed this change in classification,
readers argued
that minority status was not a derogatory term and Indians
should not be ashamed of
it. Becoming a minority simply recognized the existence of
discrimination, and even
White women, noted a reader, were considered a minority.
Others compared Indian
immigrant experiences to those of the Japanese, the Koreans,
and the Chinese immi-
grants. These immigrant groups, one reader stated, had
socioeconomic characteris-
tics similar to that of the Indian immigrants, but they were
considered a minority and
did not oppose their racial classification (Chaudhari, 1982, p.
16). In a similar man-
ner, another reader argued,
Being denied employment or promotion or being laid off work
on discriminatory
grounds raises the issue of survival and self-respect for a large
majority of Indian immi-
grants. The question of striving for higher goals will not arise
for those who become
victims of discrimination. (Dalal, 1977, p. 10)
In another letter, Chatterjee (1982) stated, “Many of us believe
that we deserve a lot
more and have to struggle to make ourselves a well known
business community”
(p. 16), without qualifying the nature of this struggle.

It is interesting that letters identify the existence of a belief
among many Indians
that there was a relationship between becoming a minority and
securing their future
in tough economic times. In times of economic downturn,
readers believed that
minority status provided an insurance against firing. The
economic recession of the
1970s resulted in loss of jobs for many Indian immigrants,
especially in New York
City and the New Jersey area (Madan, 1977, p. 12; Saran, 1977,
p. 12). In this regard,
one reader wrote, “In many instances Indian engineers are the
first to be laid off
in a recession” (Agrawal, 1976, p. 10). Although the AIA did
not categorically state
this, a supporter of the AIA observed that this increase in
unemployment among
Indian immigrants was a factor in the organization’s intent to
seek minority petition;
in doing so, the AIA was looking after the interests of these
subaltern Indians
(Prabhu, 1976, p. 10; Saran, 1977, p. 12). Furthermore, readers
pointed to the
benefits of gaining minority status in the United States,
especially in relation to jobs,
housing, securing loans, and federal assistance. Others
supported minority status
because it accorded Indian immigrants protection under Title

VII of the 1964 Civil
Rights Act (Agrawal, 1976, p. 10). As a minority, they could
not only depend on the
American Civil Liberties Union to protect their minority rights
but also obtain ben-
efits related to government contracts, small business
enterprises, and education for
their children and themselves (Gavini, 1982, p. 16; Hyder,
1977, p. 12).
Those against attaining minority status emphasized that
becoming a minority was
against the principle of meritocracy. Indian immigrants, given
their education and
professional qualifications, they argued, were highly
meritorious and as such, wrote
one reader, should “make a point to be judged on merit alone,
wherever they are”
(Sahgal, 1976a). Further highlighting the educational and
professional nature of
Indian immigrants, Dr. Chandrakant Jha (1977), president of the
ILA, cited a survey
finding that the majority of Indians in the United States had two
or more educational
degrees and that their annual income was above the average
income of Americans.
Survey respondents believed that by becoming a minority,
Indians would lose their
self-respect and their will to strive for higher goals and their
achievement would
become tainted. “It would break our hearts if someone painted
all our hard earned
achievements with a hue of tokenism” (Bhargava, 1976b, p. 10).
Bhargava (1976a)
also observed, “With the crutches of temporary ‘benefits’
obtained through minority

status, we might lose our will to strive for higher goals” (p. 10).
Others emphasized
that attaining minority status would not bring promotion: “It is
utterly foolish for
anyone to imagine that one will get promoted for belonging to a
minority” (Mohan,
1977, p. 10). Many professed to be embarrassed and humiliated
by this classification
because they not only considered Indian immigrants to be well
placed but also
believed that Indian immigrants were the privileged people of
India who had enjoyed
the benefits of their high caste and class but now wanted
minority benefits
(Annamalai, 1982, p. 16). Another angry reader wrote, “I do not
want to humiliate
myself from becoming a minority. I have written to my Senator
and Congressman
asking them not to consider me for minority citizen status”
(Tyagi, 1982, p. 16).
Letters suggest that minority status was acceptable for Native
Americans and
African Americans because of the consequences of the colonial
conquest and slavery.
Referring to this, a reader wrote, “Minority status is okay for
people whose ances-
tors were here before the settlers came, or whose ancestors were
abducted from other
continents. We came here of our own free will and let us
remember that” (Koppikar,
1977, p. 10). In a similar vein, Tyagi (1982) stated, “My people
did not make
America great. So why should I ask for privileges given to the
minority citizens?”
(p. 16). Becoming a minority also implied taking much-needed

resources away from
groups who needed them the most. Mohan (1977) wrote,
And we must consider, too, the feelings of the Blacks and the
Hispanic-Americans who
have been oppresssed for decades and who must feel aggrieved
if our benefits are at their
expense. Even if it is not actually so, their perception that it is
so is a factor to reckon
with. (p. 12)
Mohan provided the example of the Chinese and the Japanese,
whom he argued were
ghettoized for decades. Consequently, these groups’ needs to be
a minority were
genuine; nonghettoized Indians could not claim the same
discriminatory treatment
(Mohan, 1977, p. 10).
Moreover, readers disputed the notion that Indian immigrants
were discriminated
against: “Can turning down for employment be a sign of
discrimination?” asked
Bhargava (1976b, p. 10). To support their argument, they
mentioned the names of
Indian notables who had succeeded in the United States,
particularly the Nobel lau-
reate Dr. Hargobind Khurana, conductor Zubin Mehta, and

Congressman Saund
from California, who was part of the early wave of immigrants
from India (in the
early part of the 20th century) and became the first
congressmember of Indian ori-
gin. In fact, being an Indian, argued one reader, brought
preferential treatment from
some companies that preferred to hire only South Asians.
Although agreeing that
discriminatory practices existed, some readers argued that these
were negligible and
could be overcome by Indians “native strengths,” although these
native strengths
were not described (Bhargava, 1976b, p. 10). Another reader
suggested Indians
change jobs if they thought they were being discriminated
against: “If you don’t get
what you think you deserve, you can try to get the best possible
deal at another
place” (Koppikar, 1977, p. 10). They also argued that the U.S.
Constitution con-
tained provisions to deal with discrimination; therefore, Indians
need not become a
minority to address their problems. Indians, both residents and
citizens, wrote
another person, were legally protected from discrimination in
employment under the
Civil Rights Acts of 1964, Title VII, as was any other American
citizen or resident
noncitizen (Newcomb, 1976, p. 10). Another reader
recommended the Indian com-
munity form an Indian Legal Aid Society to contest class action
suits to resolve their
problems, rather than resolve the issue by attaining minority
status (Mohan, 1977).
Essentially, affirmative action was viewed as a sign of

weakness for groups that
could not take care of themselves.
This group of readers attributed such problems to “the struggles
of immigration,
which could be overcome over time” (Bhargava, 1976b, p. 10).
They also argued that
the struggles of Indian immigrants were not unique; historically,
other immigrant
groups also had undergone similar experiences and succeeded in
the United States,
some despite overt discrimination. The experiences of the
Jewish immigrant com-
munity were particularly highlighted. As a group, the Jewish
people were the most
persecuted worldwide, but their hard work and perseverance had
prevailed, resulting
in their success in the United States, wrote Bhargava (1976b, p.
10).
Blaming the AIA leadership for its shortsightedness, readers
pointed to the unin-
tended consequences of becoming a minority. Primary among
these was the fear
that minority status would antagonize Americans and result in a
loss of social
relationships and friendships. Jaipaul (1977) wrote, “It is
astonishingly short-sighted

to trade a few jobs and promotions—should they materialize at
all—for the relatively
smooth integration of Indians into an adoptive culture”(p. 10).
It is interesting that
the word American denoted Anglo Americans and excluded any
references to other
racial/ethnic groups. Rather than form separate groups, these
Indians wanted to
assimilate into the American culture. “I came here to join the
majority,” wrote Tyagi
(1982, p. 16). Another expressed his deep disappointment in the
fact that Indians were
melting not into the mainstream American culture but into the
Asian melting pot.
In addition, readers feared that becoming a minority would
invite a backlash from
the majority. Elaborating this point, one reader wrote,
As yet Indians were dispersed and not settled in one area, and
consequently there was
no negative stereotype attached to them. Minority status and the
accompanying affir-
mative action benefits would call attention to the Indians and
would cause resentment,
especially in the depressed economic climate of the 1970s.
(Mohan, 1977, p. 10)
Aside from public resentment, the move to become a minority
could have additional
repercussions in the form of immigration restriction and even
affect Indo-U.S. rela-
tions, wrote Shah (1977, p. 10). As an example, he blamed then-
new restrictions on
the entry of foreign physicians on the existence of a public
backlash.

Showing an awareness of the treatment of Indians in the
diaspora, readers argued
that minority status and the creation of a separate identity
would isolate Indian immi-
grants from mainstream American society and in the foreseeable
future, could also
lead to their expulsion from the United States, as had happened
historically to Indian
immigrants in Burma, Malaysia, Eastern Africa, and Central
Africa. Reminding
Indian immigrants of this possibility, Sandhu (1979) wrote,
“Indians need to adjust
otherwise we will be ordered out too. . . . [We] need to identify
with the majority
community and secure for ourselves and our children a safe,
secure life of dignity
and self respect” (p. 18).
Michael Omi and Howard Winant (1994) have pointed to the
processes of racial
formation among immigrants. These letters emphasize the
racialization of Indian
immigrants and document their struggle to retain a
White/Caucasian identity or
become a minority. Although the term White/Caucasian was
never overtly used, the
language of the letters reveals a clear race consciousness among
Indian immigrants.
By stating that they were being discriminated against for not
being White, Indian
immigrants were essentially arguing that Whiteness mattered.
Dutta (1976), AIA’s
president, resorted to arguments that were similar to the 1923
Thind verdict (i.e.,
Indians may be categorized as Caucasians, but the common

American did not per-
ceive them as White). Readers argued that in addition to not
benefiting from
Whiteness, they were facing problems at work and losing jobs.
Moreover, by claim-
ing that they were not moving up the employment hierarchy,
they essentially were
pointing to the existence of a “glass ceiling” without ever
mentioning the term. Even
those who opposed the move for classification as a minority
also focused on Whiteness.
Their fears of an American backlash, losing the respect and the
friendship of the
Americans, pointed to an understanding of power and hierarchy
wielded by Anglo
Americans; terms such as American and dominant group were
construed as signifying
White Americans. Their discourse on assimilation into the
American mainstream,
and their efforts at retaining the White status, were endeavors to
align themselves
with the White population.
Conclusion
This article draws attention to the processes of identity
formation among the
Indian immigrants in the United States. Using a sampling of the

letters written by
ordinary Indian immigrants to the expatriate Indian newspaper
India Abroad, the
article draws attention to Indian immigrants’ active
participation in reinventing
themselves. The letters reveal that immigrants ardently debated
with each other
about the meaning of what it meant to be an Indian in the
United States, as well as
the ways to situate themselves in relation to the American racial
ethnic hierarchy. In
the process, these letters disclose not only the processes of a
new immigrant group’s
identity formation but also its multiple dimensions and
contested nature.
The discourse of identity formation reveals new immigrants’
struggles with the
issue of identity in the early phase of their settlement. Letters
disclose immigrants’
contextualization of this issue at multiple levels: in relation to
their homeland and its
religious and ethnic diversity, in relation to the dominant
society, and in relation to
the political categories/labels prevalent in the host nation. The
decade of the 1970s
began with Indian immigrants’ desire to form a pan-Indian
identity that spanned its
national and political borders. Rooted in awareness among the
immigrants of the
divisive tendencies of India’s ethnic plurality, immigrants
emerged as idealists who
wished to establish what may be termed a utopian, pan-Indian
community out-
side the borders of India. However, their conceptualization
solely in relation to the

political/organizational realm, and their inability to reconcile
the cultural character-
istics of the ethnic aspects of identity to political meaning,
resulted in their lack of
success, as did the fact that this issue was contextualized in
relation to India. By the end
of the decade, the literature concerning Indian immigrants
shows that ethnic organi-
zations were proliferating and the process of layering—having
multiple identities—
was beginning. Although these works provide ample details on
various Indian
organizations, they rarely point to the competing nature of
identity formation and the
tensions inherent in it (Brettell, 2005; Fisher, 1980; Helweg &
Helweg, 1990;
Khandelwal, 2002; Lessinger, 1995; Rangaswamy, 2000;
Rayaprol, 1997).
Although the efforts to establish a pan-Indian identity bereft of
ethnic identities
did not succeed, letters reveal success in relation to ascribing
cultural meaning to the
boundaries of Indianness. The dominant Indian religion,
Hinduism, emerged as a
common denominator for the majority of the Indian immigrant

population and
allowed the creation of a new pan-Indian identity. On one hand,
it bridged the eth-
nic divide for the majority of the immigrants; on the other hand,
it excluded Indian
religious minorities. The emergence and proliferation of Indian
temples across the
United States in the decade of the 1970s was a reflection of the
religious needs of
the Indian population, as well as of the need to form cultural
centers to counter the
influence of the dominant cultural traditions. This creation of
boundaries was rooted
as much in a need to impart Indian cultural heritage to the
second generation as in
the Indian immigrants’ desire to distinguish themselves from
the dominant culture
perceived as depraved and decadent. Although these new
parameters of Indian iden-
tity were excluding Indian religious minorities, evidence from
letters to India
Abroad and the literature on Indian immigrants points to a
parallel development of
religious institutions among other religious groups and the
emergence of mosques,
gurdwaras, and Christian churches among the Indian community
(Brettell, 2005;
Khandelwal, 2002; Rangaswamy, 2000). The process of layering
allowed other
minorities to continue their religious affiliations while
remaining Indian.
It is through the discussions among the Indian immigrants on
becoming a racial
minority that the letters add most to our knowledge of Indian
immigrant experiences,

particularly because the literature on Indian immigrants
addresses this issue only
briefly and does not delve into the contested nature of this
debate (Khandelwal 2002;
Rangaswamy, 2000). These deliberations point to not only the
racialization of Indian
immigrants but also the existence of a discourse among the
Indian immigrant com-
munity on the larger issue of assimilation versus maintaining
separate group iden-
tity. In addition, these letters identify the emergence of
economic inequities among
the immigrants and of an Indian underclass, especially in cities
such as New York.
The letters also reveal differential effects of economic recession
on urban economies
and consequently, on the Indian immigrants settled across
different regions of the
United States; Indian immigrants in Chicago, it seems, were not
as badly affected by
this recession as were the immigrants living in New York City.
By drawing attention
to these themes, rarely addressed in the literature on Indian
immigrants, these letters
point to the need for more research in these areas.
Notes
1. According to Madhulika Khandelwal’s (2002) book
Becoming American, Being Indian, Hindus form
the majority of the population of India. Of India’s population,
82% is Hindu, 11% is Muslim, and Christians
and Sikhs form about 2% each. India has 18 official languages,
and this linguistic diversity is also the basis
of its ethnic diversity. This ethnic diversity defines independent
India’s political divisions because a large

majority of the Indian states follow the historical origins of
ethnic groups. For example, Punjabis originate
from the state of Punjab, Gujarati from Gujarat, Bengalis from
Bengal, and so on. There is no reliable data
on the ethnic/religious affiliations of the Indian immigrant
population in the United States.
2. The immigrant press has emerged as an important source
among historians in documenting the lives
of immigrants. Two monographs that immediately come to mind
are Dirk Hoerder and Christine Harzig’s
(1987) compendium on immigrant labor press titled The
Immigrant Labor Press in North America, 1840s-1970s
and Isaac Metzger’s (1971) A Bintel Brief, the latter of which
in particular emphasizes the importance of
immigrant letters as a rich source in documenting immigrant
social history.
3. The period 1972 to 1982 was selected for two reasons. First,
in the early years of India Abroad’s
publication, few people wrote letters to the editor and in fact,
there were some editions without even a
single letter to the editor. In 1972, the newspaper encouraged its
readers to write letters and offered to pay
US$5 for a published letter and US$10 for a detailed
commentary on any issue pertaining to the Indian
immigrant population. In the late part of 1972, the letter to the
editor page became a regular feature of the

newspaper. The ending date of 1982 was chosen for two
reasons. First, it allows analysis for a decade, a
substantial period of time. Moreover, 1982 was the year the
Small Business Association granted Indian-
owned businesses minority status, resulting in a spate of letters
to the editor. After 1982, the issue of
minority status was rarely brought up in the letter to the editor
pages of India Abroad.
4. During the decade of the 1970s, numerous themes regarding
identity were debated in the letter to
the editor pages. Some of these concerned whether women
should transform their dressing habits and start
wearing American styles of clothing, whether Indian immigrants
should Americanize their names, and
whether an “American lifestyle” should be adopted.
5. The first wave of Indian immigrants to the United States
came in the early parts of the 20th cen-
tury; these immigrants settled primarily on the West Coast. This
wave of immigration ended with the
Immigration Act of 1917, which forbade the migration of people
from Asia (Hing, 1993).
6. Respective issues of the Annual Report of the Immigration
and Naturalization Services (U.S.
Department of Justice, 1966, 1970, 1975) indicate that in 1966,
67% of those who adjusted their status to
a permanent resident from India were students and their
dependents. In 1970, this figure reached an
astounding 77% but declined in 1975 when only 55% of the
students and their dependents adjusted their
status to that of permanent resident. According to Binod
Khadria (1999), between 1975 and 1979, 64%
of students adjusted their status to become permanent residents.

International Journal for the Study of Hinduism Volume 23.docx

International Journal for the Study of Hinduism Volume 23.docx

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International Journal for the Study of Hinduism Volume 23.docx