SPECIAL ISSUE

July 28, 2001: Do we need another Mahatma?

Dear Readers,
In one of the social gathering last week, I was confronted by a party host who had a very genuine question about our July 7 front page report - “Hindu-bashing at its peak”-regarding Tony Brown, who, in his WLS 980 AM talk-show, was critical of Hindus, Hinduism, caste and Casterism.
The party host was worried about the future of Indians in this country. He even reminded me of the exodus of Indians from Idi Amin’s Uganda, dot buster’s harassment to New Jersey Indians and lately the racial riots against Asians in the UK.
Incidentally, one of our so-called community netas was also there during the conversation. The host sought my views about what course the Hindus have to take to stop this kind of malice. I told the host that why not he pose the question to the neta himself?
As the question was put to him, our proud neta, without even thinking for a minute blurted: “it’s the beauty of freedom of speech. Anybody can say anything to anyone. There’s nothing that anyone can do about it. We fight for issues.”
Bravo! For our neta(s), Hindu-bashing is a non issue. For our netas parade is all important and a crucial issue. They always engage in the debate to the extent of coming to blows on the issues like who will be the president and who will be the president-elect. This is their year-long agenda. They derive pleasure and take pride in sitting on the podium in front the audience and giving bhashan in their broken “inglis.” To be in limelight, they even choose to stage “dharnas” in front of restaurants or “gherao” officials, including the ambassador and the consul general on busy sidewalks of downtown to demonstrate their strength and demand their equal rights.
Our report on “Hindu-bashing” was picked up be major news papers and news agencies in the country. It also stirred the conscience of our sensitive innumerable readers who spontaneously reacted and flooded our office with phone calls, e-mails letters, and lodged protests with the WLS radio station, but our netas consider the subject as a non issue. None of our netas even uttered a word about it. So much to their sensitivity or shall we call it insensitivity?
They are only concerned about their self-aggrandizement. They need only positions and recognition without responsibility. Neither they inspire anyone, nor do they draw inspiration from others.
Their insensitivity reflects in their apathetic attitude like “as long as I don’t have any problem, why should I worry about others.” As long as our leaders and we adopt this sort of insensitivity, anyone can belittle our pride and dignity, and walk away with it. Even President of the United States dares to name his cat after India.
Dear leaders wake up and shed this insensitivity. We are 1.8 million Indians in this country. If we are united, we can do wonders to our community, our adopted country and our motherland. Let’s not be foolish Indians in America (FIA). To get united, we don’t need another Mahatma Gandhi to take birth.

Sincerely,

Prashant Shah
Editor & Publisher