Author: Nirshan Perera in Seattle
Publication: Rediff on Net, US
Edition
Date: November 21, 2000
I'm standing on the doorstep of
what some think is a vast right-wing Christian conspiracy against Hinduism.
It's not much to look at.
The doorbell is broken. The
beige paint is peeling. The brick walkway's crumbly and swathed with
moss.
Nevertheless, according to India's
top politicos, this small Seattle bungalow is a bullet aimed straight at
the heart of Hindu dharma.
Perhaps that's why its owner won't
answer my repeated knocks. Its possible she's peeking out of her
tightly shuttered abode, cackling maniacally as she cranks out more blasphemous
toilet seats. Or maybe she's just nervous and frightened, and doesn't
know what to make of the mighty din her two-bit Internet business has caused.
This weekend, Lamar Van Dyke's homegrown
designer toilet seat company became the talk of India. The story
snowballed into an international phenomenon over the course of a few days:
From
Thursday-when American Hindus Against
Defamation first discovered Sittin' Pretty sold Ganesha and Kali products-to
Saturday, when the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and
the Shiv Sena, all lashed out at the fledgling firm's effrontery.
(If you can call an e-commerce outfit run from a home, employing just two
people, a firm.)
In no small part, the furor was
fueled by Van Dyke's adamant silence. Although the Web site (www.sittinprettydesign.com)
is down, the well-known tattoo artist and lesbian activist has kept mum
in the face of a holy frenzy.
On Sunday though, the Hindu community
at home and abroad, began to settle into a more reflective calm.
Perhaps the sudden outcry of right wingers beating the tabla of Hindu nationalism
forced them to put things in perspective. In some minds, at least,
the ghosts of The Satanic Verses furor tread dangerously near.
Before I left for Seattle, I phoned
Sunil Aghi in Los Angeles to see what he was thinking. "Looking at
the big picture, I don't think she [Van Dyke] really meant to hurt Hindus,"
the founder of the Indo-Americans Political Foundation said.
"She's a small-time entrepreneur
who thought this was a niche for her to make a buck or two, not considering
it may hurt someone else's feelings. And she may not know how to
respond now," he conjectured. "It's the first time she's been in
this situation."
Aghi suggested a quiet business
handshake might be the best way to make the whole unsightly mess go away.
"My thought would be that this could resolved without making it an international
issue," he said.
"I believe she understands now that
she is hurting people and this may not be an appropriate niche. The
best remedy would be to approach her, if she is approachable at some point,
and offer to buy her out. I don't think she's made millions of these
toilet seats, just one or two hundred.
"And these guys who are making all
this noise should part with the money. They can shell it out for
a platform to talk, and then they can destroy the toilet seats or do whatever
they want."
Aghi even suggested that dwelling
on the "controversy" could hurt the Indian-American community in the long
run.
"I certainly think this has been
blown out of proportion," he said. "If we go after small things like
this in a big way, when something big happens people will say, 'Hey, these
guys are always making noise over nothing.'"
When I called Vijay Prashad, an
academic who lives in Connecticut, he concurred with Aghi, but his words
had a much sharper edge. "Basically, nobody's right here," he told
me. "Both groups are absurd. These companies have no moral
compulsion to be careful about what they're doing.
"On the other hand, real Hindu feelings
are being destroyed by companies like Enron, but these so-called defenders
of the Hindus spend most of their time going after tiny little firms who
are anyway insensitive. Meanwhile big multinational corporations
are being embraced who are actually hurting the feelings of Hindus if the
feelings of Hindus include a full stomach."
The author of The Karma of Brown
Folk, a sociological study of South Asians in America, said much larger
issues loom on the horizon for AHAD to adopt.
"This anti-defamation league is
making a career of going after these little, pathetic companies," Prashad
said. "When are they going to take up an issue that's of some value
to the bulk of the people of India and Indian-Americans? If the anti-defamation
league wants to have any credibility, why don't they take a position against
rising drug prices in India? Take a position against TRIPS? Intellectual
property rights will damage us far more than a picture of a calendar god
on a toilet."
"These cats spend their time surfing
the Web, looking for this stuff, when frankly there are bigger things to
do," he continued. "Come on, man, is this what anti-defamation has
become?"
Prashad also called the reaction
from India a superficial ruse to get quick and easy political currency.
"Parties like the BJP and the Shiv
Sena are in a conundrum," he argued. "They have sold out to multinational
corporations and to U.S. imperialism-sold out completely. So,
because they cannot take on, say the U.S. military presence in Asia,
take on the fact that U.S. multinationals want to penetrate the Indian
marketplace, they must use some symbolic way to appear nationalist.
This attack on a tiny company in Seattle will get them front page news."
Indians I talked to in the eye of
the so-called storm also downgraded it to an insignificant gust of wind.
Dr. Dev Manhas, the chairman
of the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center in Seattle, went to great lengths
to emphasize to me that Sittin' Pretty's toilet seats was a topic of discussion
at the temple board meeting this weekend only in a cursory way.
"We did talk about it among other
things. We're going to write a letter or something like that," he
said vaguely. Manhas didn't seem think the issue deserved much attention
and was dismissive of the fuss to point of rudeness. "Listen, all
of us are busy people," he observed. "While we will lodge a protest
in letter shape ...," he trailed off.
Another temple board member, who
wished to remain anonymous, told me the issue had inflamed such little
passion that they weren't even sure when they would compose and send the
protest letter. "Soon," he offered.
"There's no reason to make a national
issue out of it," he elaborated. "Definitely the company is not doing
right, but there's no reason to take it to that level."
While Rathnam Sangha, the temple
treasurer, made it even clearer that Seattle Hindus won't be staging protests
reminiscent of the WTO riots anytime soon.
"There are a lot of fools in the
world. If we go and give attention to every fool, then we can't live
in the world," he said, laughing. "Why should I get excited about
some idiots doing this?"
Nitin Patel, a clerk in a 7-11 convenience
story nearby my motel, echoed this thought.
"Hey, no one's making me buy it
so why should I get all upset?" he said, ringing up my bag of chips.
"People poke fun at religion
all the time in this country. Why should we Hindus be above the fray?
It's no big deal, man," he concluded as he banged the register shut and
handed me my change.
