I Support Indicorps, Not Sonal Shah
By Raju Rajagopal
04 February, 2009
Countercurrents.org
As we were traveling in India last month, my wife and I received an urgent call from a friend seeking our opinion on a proposal by Indicorps, the volunteer group founded by Sonal Shah and her brother Anand Shah, to formalize a partnership with his organization. He had similarly sought our views last year when his organization was planning to host Indicorps fellows, but had come across reports linking the Shahs to the Sangh Parivar (“Hindu nationalist groups,” as Sonal refers to them). He was now perturbed by the renewed controversy over Sonal’s background following her appointment to President-elect Obama’s Transition Team.
I hesitate to add yet another perspective to the debate on Sonal, which may be all but academic at this juncture, as the Transition Team has ceased to exist and she has not been appointed to any senior position in the new administration. (An unconfirmed report suggests that she may be appointed to head the White House Social Innovation and Civic Engagement Office.) However, the friend’s call reminded me that people on both sides of the controversy have been guilty of one thing: conflating Sonal Shah with the work of Indicorps her supporters frequently citing its reputation in her defense, and its critics pointing to her connections with Hindu nationalist groups. Therein also lies the ethical dilemma that some of us have faced in judging Indicorps, which its partners and fellows may now be pondering. It is this aspect of the controversy that I would like to speak to.
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We told our friend exactly what we had told him a year ago: We had interacted directly with several Indicorps fellows during Tsunami relief in Tamilnadu and were impressed by their dedication; and we had seen no overt signs of political or sectarian bias in their work. On the other hand, having engaged Anand personally, we continue to have misgivings about his attitude towards Hindu nationalist groups and are unconvinced about the reasons for his silence over their violence against Gujarat’s Muslim minority. Obviously, it was for potential partner organizations to decide whether to place more weight on the fellows or to take a holistic view of the group and its founders.
As it happened, our friend’s organization did host Indicorps fellows last year and they are pleased with their work. But, being a staunch defender of Adivasi rights and secular in their outlook, they must now consider whether to move forward with a deeper partnership with Indicorps, despite what they now know about Sonal’s role in VHP-A (Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America), which she did not voluntarily divulge.
Whatever their decision, Indicorps fellows can learn much from them about how one can serve vulnerable communities without imposing one’s own sectarian and political biases - unlike the blatantly sectarian agenda of Indicorps’ early partner, VHP’s Ekal Vidyalayas. As my wife puts it, exposing our younger generation to the admirable work being done by many secular groups across rural India is one way to ensure that they are not taken in by the narrow Hindu nationalist ideology (“Hindutva,” if you will) or, for that matter, by the conversion motivation of some Christian groups.
My wife and I helped in the creation of America India Foundation’s Service Corps, which predates Indicorps, and sends skilled young Americans to serve in India. We also have great regard for older programs like Ashoka and SMILE, which support fellows and interns within India, many of whom have gone on to establish their own successful organizations. Our family foundation has recently established a modest fellowship program for social entrepreneurs, with the initial focus on the struggling weaving sector of Kutch and on gathering ‘best practices’ from village panchayats to help bring better governance to cities.
Together, such fellowships have the potential to fire the imagination of young adults on the promise of India and help bridge the hype and glory of the urban upper middle class with the harsh realities of underserved communities ‘India vs. Bharat,’ as it has often been described. AIF and Indicorps, as I see it, are both part of this new paradigm, and they will continue to have our support, despite the Sonal Shah controversy.
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Sonal, on the other hand, has clearly been showcasing the work of Indicorps to establish her secular credentials and to advance her personal career. As such, there is nothing wrong with that - the Shahs certainly deserve all the credit for creating an organization that has been attracting our next generation to experience a different India than their parents. A close friend from Gujarat, who has interacted with the Shahs, wrote to me recently that they do not seem to share their parents’ Hindutva fervor. That is reassuring, although none of her critics as far as I know has questioned her personal beliefs. I have seen Anand’s passion for his work, so I can understand his desire that people judge his sister “by her words and actions, and not by her associations.”2
But, unfortunately, none of us least of all those who aspire to public office can expect people to judge us only by our ‘good deeds’ and to overlook our questionable associations and acts of omission. It is on this account that I was deeply troubled by Sonal’s self-righteous indignation at legitimate questions about her past. (Anand, to his credit, seems to agree that "the questions being raised are legitimate ones."2)
Don’t get me wrong. I have applauded Sonal’s disavowal of Hindu nationalist groups and her condemnation of the 2002 Gujarat pogroms1 even though they came under duress, over six years late! Her widely-disseminated declarations3.4 will hopefully steer young people away from organizations such as VHP-A, Hindu Students Council (HSC), Ekal Vidyalayas, India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF), etc, or at least force reforms from within, if such a thing is possible. But, sadly, I also saw in her words a blatant attempt to shift the burden of her past to everyone but herself. And that is not a promising start for an honest conversation that she says she would like to begin.
In the first instance, she railed against “baseless and silly reports” attempting to link her to Hindu nationalist groups through “tenuous connections.” And she implied that her only involvement with VHP-A was during earthquake relief. As it turned out, she had indeed been a member of its governing body5 and had participated in its strategy discussions.
She also tried to legitimize VHP-A’s claim of being a “cultural and humanitarian” organization, despite the fact that it has always openly admitted to sharing the ideology of VHP India, whose violent record dates back to the destruction of the historic Babri Masjid in 1992 – long before the Gujarat earthquake! Similar ‘cultural’ facades put up by VHP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in India have long since crumbled. So Anand’s claim that he and Sonal had “viewed the VHP as an innocuous organization”4 is unconvincing.
Rather than own up to these serious omissions, Sonal chose in her second statement to shift the blame entirely to VHP-A for “stand[ing] by silently in the face of its Indian counterpart's complicity in the events of Gujarat in 2002.” Not one word about her own silence, and no explanation for why she continued to associate with groups like IDRF, HSC, and Ekal Vidyalayas. It is no surprise that she is now taking flak even from some of her own supporters.6
I have spent considerable time and energy since the 2002 Gujarat pogroms to help its victims and to support communal harmony initiatives. I have also kept close track of civil society groups working on relief and justice issues (see Gujarat-Encounters-of-a-Different-Kind). And, as far as I know, Sonal did not denounce the horrific violence, nor did the Shahs show any visible concern and support for the victims, despite the gross miscarriage of justice and the blatant intimidation of human rights activists by the government. Yet they have continued to operate from the very epicenter of Hindu nationalist politics, presumably with Mr. Narendra Modi’s patronage!
Given these facts, Sonal’s assertion that she “had always condemned any politics of division, of ethnic or religious hatred, of violence and intimidation as a political tool” strains credulity, at least as far as Gujarat is concerned. In fact, my dialogue with Anand over the years has been precisely to challenge him on this score.7 In the event, it is one thing to make general pronouncements against violence and be part of efforts to teach co-existence, but it is quite another to take a principled stand against violence in one’s own backyard, orchestrated by groups one had previously been associated with, as Gandhi would surely have done.
The Shahs rationalize their stance as political neutrality: Sepia Mutiny8 reports that Anand repeatedly emphasized his desire to work with people of different political stripes, if it can result in positive outcomes for people in need. Sounds wonderful in theory, but in practice it meant that they were perfectly willing to work with Hindu nationalist groups with whom they now say they have nothing in common as long as it advanced the cause of Indicorps. Sonal has been blunter in the past: When questioned at a Yale conference in 2005 about Indicorps’ proximity to VHP and its funding by IDRF (an RSS-front), she reportedly shot back that she would take money from anyone including the KKK!9
In other words, the ends justified the means!
And that says a lot about the Sonal’s reticence to denounce Hindu nationalist groups, until she was pushed to the wall by the expediency of a possible senior position in President-Elect Obama’s administration.
As I have told Anand, there can be no ‘neutrality’ between the perpetrators of violence and its innocent victims. And one can’t cozy up to right wing communal groups on the one hand and sneer at the secular left (who have been doing most of the heavy-lifting in Gujarat) on the other hand, and declare oneself a non-partisan! To now believe that they are victims of guilt by association is disingenuous. If anything, the Shahs are guilty of not publicly dissociating themselves from the instigators and perpetrators of the 2002 pogroms when it could have made a difference in the lives of the victims.
Prof. Vijay Prashad calls this “convoluted ethics.”10
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All said and done, neither Indicorps nor Sonal Shah can adequately define the other: Despite its founder’s past and its connections with VHP’s Ekal Vidyalayas and IDRF, Indicorps has defined itself largely by the quality of its fellows and its reputable NGO partners. Sonal Shah, on the other hand, despite her great work with Indicorps, has defined herself by her less-than-forthright attempts to explain her past. I see absolutely no contradiction in supporting the former, while continuing to question the latter about her failure to communicate ethical leadership in response to Hindu nationalist violence.
As for Indicorps’ well-wishers donors, NGO partners, and fellows its reputation on the ground and its continued success are too important to gloss over its founders’ predilections. And I hope that they will all participate in what Sonal calls an “honest conversation about the ways immigrant and diaspora communities can engage constructively in social and humanitarian work.”
Regardless of Sonal’s future prospects in the Obama administration, I for one am ready to be part of that honest conversation. Are the Shahs?
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End Notes:
1. I have endorsed letters to Sonal Shah (Nov 20, 2008) and to President-Elect Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Dec 8, 2008) from a group of Indian-Americans concerned about the influence of Hindu nationalist groups in the US.
2. Under Pressure, Shah Renounces Hindu Group, National Journal (Dec 10, 2008)
3. Statement by Sonal Shah, Transition Board Member for President-Elect Barack Obama (Nov 11, 2008)
4. Controversy Deepens Over Shah’s Ties To Hindu Group, National Journal (Dec 23, 2008)
5. Obama aide part of governing body: VHP-America, NDTV (Nov 13, 2008)
6. VHP-A Media Statement
7. In a series of exchanges with Anand Shah between 2004 and 2008, I shared my misgivings about Indicorps and his silence on the Gujarat pogroms. The dialogue ended with a face-to-face meeting in Pune, during which he eloquently and passionately defended the work of Indicorps and his secular credentials. But his responses to my pointed questions about his connections with Ekal Vidyalayas and IDRF left me with a feeling that he remained sympathetic to these groups. Anand pointed to Indicorps’ work with Manav Sadhna as his response to the Gujarat violence. While that group is undoubtedly doing some good work with diverse communities, its Gandhian founders too seem to have a blind spot when it comes to Hindu nationalist violence: Its website for example, talks a lot about compassion for the victims of the Tsunami and Earthquake, but noticeably makes no mention of the victims of the 2002 pogroms!
8. I am an American: Sonal Shah's New and Improved Statement, Sepia Mutiny blog (Dec 10, 2008)
9. Saffron Dollar: Campaign to Stop Funding Hate, (Mar 3, 2005)
10. It was Prof. Vijay Prashad (Nov 7-9 and Nov 13, 2008) who had first brought Sonal’s VHP links to the mainstream media’s attention and had been proven right; and it was to him that Sonal sought to shift much of the blame for her predicament. She did not respond to his specific allegations; but she did make her disdain for him obvious by pointedly omitting his name (“I was recently maligned by a professor at a college in Connecticut…”) a time-worn way to slight an opponent. Anand was not far behind in betraying his stereotype of academics: “[He was] especially impatient with lefty academic types in the U.S., who tend to talk a lot about poverty over dinner at pricey restaurants in New York City”!8
