NRI GOES TO INDIA campaigning for Shashi Tharoor

Khyati Y. Joshi Describes the Racialization of Religion to U.S. and European Policy-Makers at Global Security Event in Austria

Khyati Y. Joshi, an associate professor in the Sammartino School of Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University, presented her research on the “racialization of religion” at an international gathering of security and human rights officials in Vienna, Austria, earlier this month. Joshi, whose work focuses on the experiences of Indian-American Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, was the only American scholar to make a presentation at the event, which was sponsored by the human rights unit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Joshi was invited to speak at the plenary session on “Racism in the OSCE Region: Old Issues, New Challenges.” The OSCE is the world’s largest regional security organization, with 56 participating nations in Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia and North America, including the United States. The Vienna meeting was sponsored by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). It was scheduled to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21 and to mark the 40th anniversary of the UN’s International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

“This was a unique opportunity to speak to policy-makers from across the northern hemisphere, including not only nations with welldeveloped hate crimes policies that recognize religious discrimination as a problem, but also those nations that are still in the process of developing or improving their hate crimes policies,” Joshi said. “Presenting my research on the ways that racial and religious discrimination can aggravate each other, and explaining the importance of religion to many immigrant communities, was a chance to have an impact across the OSCE region.”

In the United States and other OSCE member countries, growing populations of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are often still not on an equal footing with the majority population. Joshi discussed the range of issues—from violence and discrimination to accessing appropriate services and full participation in society— that immigrant and second-generation minorities face in the region.

In her 2006 book, “New Roots in America’s Sacred Ground” (Rutgers University Press), and in other books she has co-edited or co-authored, Joshi has described the “racialization of religion,” a process that happens when physical features associated with a group—such as skin color—become associated with a particular religion. After the 9/11 attacks, for example, “many Americans have tended to assume that people with brown skin are Muslim,” Joshi said.

“Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and South Asian American Christians and Jews have become backlash targets because their race connotes an assumed religious identity—a racialized identity in the United States.”

Meeting with world Malayalee and Pravasee leaders

Former New Yorker, writer, diplomat, UN under-secretary general Shashi Tharoor, now an aspiring Congress politician in Kerala, is the Congress party candidate from the prestigious Thriruvanahapuram Parliamentary seat in Kerala, India. At the core of his agenda is his own demystification — to break out of his high-profile image and present himself as a Keralite who can hold the common man’s hand and say, in Malayalam, that he is the best bet

Inspired by his charisma, talents and enthusiasm to clean up the Indian politics of its hate and crime, several overseas friends, from among the more than 11.5 million Indians abroad, known as nonresident Indians, or NRIs. helped him canvass the southern state of Kerala.

In the 40 years he has lived in the U.S., Kerala native George Abraham has never returned to India to vote — until this year. Abraham, chief technology officer for the U.N.’s pension fund, has spent the past few weeks setting up “a back office” for Tharoor, a former colleague. He is helping volunteers handle the media, set up social networks on Web sites, and text and email.

“We bring our perspectives from abroad here,” says Abraham. “We have seen some of the tactics from campaigns like Obama’s and how they used the media and the Internet.”

In an exclusive interview with this writer, George Abraham, who is the Chief Technology officer, UN Pension Fund, General Secretary, Indian National Overseas Congress, Jt. National Coordinator, Non-resident Indians for a Secular and Harmonious India (NRISAHI), said, “I have always admired Shashi’s stand on various issues and I felt that Keralites have a chance to think outside of the box and elect a dynamic individual with a global mindset that would set an example for the rest of the country as far as electing a non-professional politician. In one of the conversations in the past, I told him if he ever to run for office, I would be willing to help him. He called me up in the first week of March and asked me to come over to Trivandrum to help with his campaign.”

Campaigning in India, especially in the hot summer days, was not easy, for someone who had left Kerala more than 40 years ago. “The biggest challenge for many of us NRIs who were involved in the campaign was to deal with this ‘outsider tag’. The second and the most formidable challenge was to deal with our own Congress stalwarts who are generally suspicious of anyone else who are encroaching their turf and intervening in the decision making process,” George, who returned to New York after the campaign, recalls.