South Asians and the BLM movement
The notion of the “American Dream” is a long-standing American favorite. Thanks to the Hart-Celler Act of 1965, skilled immigrants—especially those from countries that prioritized STEM education—were given a chance to live this dream of (working hard) and ultimately landing in the upper-middle class. This civil rights era reform undoubtedly helped make America the cultural melting pot that it is today, but it has also made middle-class immigrants and their families pawn to anti-Black, conservative rhetoric.
My family is a direct beneficiary of the aforementioned Hart-Celler Act, and the belief that ‘anyone can find success in America if they just work hard enough’ remains an all-too-familiar one in my community. What this gross generalization conveniently forgets is the systemic inequities that have made the United States anything but the land of opportunity for Black America, and that as it stands, the model minority myth is just an old wives’ tale fabricated by the political right. South Asian ethnic groups represent the fourth highest number of undocumented immigrants in America and experience the largest income disparity of any American ethnic group. The model minority myth paints a misrepresentation of the South Asian American experience that strokes the egos of successful South Asians, ignores reality, and makes allyship during the Black Lives Matter movement especially difficult.
In light of this realization, I decided it was time to research my own heritage and history, learn about the long-standing anti-Blackness that still exists in South Asian countries, and have a conversation with two of the founders of ASANA Voices, a 501(c)(3) that was born out of frustration with the lack of discussion around heritage and culture in South Asian communities.
Before I even attempt to jump into this complex history, I want to make note of the two commonly used classification systems in India—Varna and caste—and when they came to be. The first was the Varna (‘color’) system established in the Manusmriti, one of the most authoritative books on Hindu law, during the 12th century. The four infamous ‘castes’ attributed to Indian culture and casteism are in actuality Varnas—there’s Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Sudra. An individual is born into one of these classifications, which traditionally suggests their work and religious duties in a collaborative society. Brahmins are priests and teachers, Kshatriyas are warriors and rulers, Vaishyas are traders and merchants, and Shudras are laborers. Anyone that doesn’t belong is known as a Dalit, or an ‘Untouchable.’ Those classified as Dalits were street sweepers and latrine cleaners. Varna is one of the oldest known forms of social stratification tied to religion. Caste, on the other hand, is the occupation associated with family lineage. There are four Hindu Varnas, but there are countless castes in the Indian state.
Moving onto Indian history... The histories relevant to modern-day anti-Blackness span several millennia and were responsible for slave trade. Before Western Europeans dominated the trans-oceanic slave trade, Arab Muslims orchestrated the movement of African workers across the Indian ocean. These migrants were frequently employed by courts of the Mughal empire. By the time the Portuguese colonized the Indian city of Goa in the 16th century, the use of skin color and Varna to categorize people became more prevalent until the use of casteism and colorism for ranking reached its historic peak during British colonial rule of India, when these systems were included as a defining social feature on censuses to make governing the nation a more manageable feat for the British.
Around the same time period, 540,000 Indians migrated to Southern Caribbean nations like Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname to work as indentured slaves on British, French, and Dutch sugarcane plantations. The British had abolished formal slavery in 1833, and none of the newly freed African slaves wanted to work for the low wages that the British were offering. So, the British (and later the French and Dutch) went to India in search of laborers who were already familiar with the labor that sugarcane harvesting demanded. The indentured servitude contracts stated that in exchange for working on the plantations for a five year period, payments and rations would be made to the indentured servant’s family. This appealed to Indian peoples across all Varnas, but especially those of lower Varnas as it was a way to escape the Indian hierarchy that made it impossible for them to advance financially. However, many of these servants experienced difficulties with repatriation after completing their servitude, leading to the growth of now grossly underrepresented Indo-Caribbean communities.
At this point in history, South Asian communities were spread across the Indian subcontinent and sprinkled throughout numerous South Caribbean nations. Those in the subcontinent lived under British colonial rule with increasingly strict enforcement of casteist classification, and those in the Caribbean nations lived under indentured servitude—which is by no means analogous to slavery, but far from free. The white minority in the Caribbean ensured their safety by segregating ethnic communities and stifling ethnic co-mingling, which led to years of riots and political divide.
This history continued into the 20th century. The shipment of indentured servants to South Caribbean nations ceased in 1917, but at this point, the Indian subcontinent was still under British rule. And over 8,000 miles away, Black Americans were living under the era of Jim Crow laws. This is where we start to see how South Asians and Black Americans interacted and supported each other.
Martin Luther King’s use of Gandhian nonviolence during the civil rights movement is the most publicized interaction between these groups, but South Asians and African Americans have stood up for one another for over 100 years. Black America saw Indian independence from British rule as a framework for their movement for social and political equality in America. The works of prolific literaries of the time, such as Langston Hughes of the Harlem Renaissance and Swami Vivekananda of the Indian civil rights movement, frequently make nods to one another in their writings. Vivekananda highlights the asininity of American racism in several of his speeches and writings, “As soon as a man becomes a Mohammedan, the whole of Islam receives him as a brother with open arms, without making any distinction….In [America], I have never yet seen a church where the white man and the [Black man] can kneel side by side to pray.” Hughes wrote several poems about nonviolent protest, many of which referenced Indian trailblazers like Mahatma Gandhi to Jawarharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of newly independent India. And for the South Asians living in America during the civil rights era, it was the Black neighborhoods like Harlem, New Orleans, and Detroit that welcomed them with open arms.
The civil rights era in America ultimately brought reform: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, and the Twenty Fourth Amendment that legally (but NOT culturally) ended Jim Crow. Immigration in America began to boom, and the aforementioned Hart-Celler Act of 1965 brought perceivably skilled immigrants to America.
Fast forward to present day South Asian-American culture in light of police brutality, mass incarceration, and the Black Lives Matter movement. South Asian culture is founded on respect, especially for one’s elders. In turn, this means that if your elders choose to stay quiet, so do you. Even before the death of George Floyd this past May, the South Asian community has stayed infuriatingly quiet in the presence of social atrocities: Kashmiri rights and their special status were revoked less than a year ago, this past February Hindu mobs massacred Muslims, and Bangladeshi factory workers continue to be underpaid by multinational corporations. These are just a few examples of tragedies taking place in our heritage countries that we have failed to stand up for, so unfortunately it does not come as much surprise to me that our community’s immediate reaction to American socio-political issues is apathy. Ignorance will not eradicate American systemic racism, and refusing to acknowledge the gravity of its unbroken presence has allowed it to live on for 400 years.
So how do we move forward? How do we embrace our fellow Black Americans in the same way they embraced us during the Indian civil rights era? In hopes of finding an answer, I sat down with Prince Bhojwani and Yash Bajaj, two of the four founders of ASANA Voices. Prince works with an alternative investment firm and Yash works in public policy.
Condensed q&a!
AM: Asians fall into an interesting third party in American race relations, and I’ve spent time speaking to prejudice, but not nearly as much thinking about how my ethnicity has protected me. What prejudices and privileges have you experienced?
PB: South Asians are more likely to be taken seriously personally and professionally, but after 9/11 people’s perceptions of Islam and Muslim people led to my family receiving death threats. As for privileges, my parents both moved from Pakistan to South Central LA around the time of the Rodney King riots. I noticed anti-police sentiment from my parents and learned at a young age to hide in the car if my parents got pulled over. And though I am wary of police, I have the privilege of immunity from the institutional racism present in law enforcement.
YB: I was raised in a primarily white suburb so my experience was comparable to white privilege, but I faced microaggressions—comments about my beard and random selections at airports. That said, there were a lot of benefits that came from the model minority myth and education privilege. Parents of my white friends never assume anything negative about me, and as soon as people find out I went to Duke their perspective seems to change.
AM: How does the South Asian community perpetuate anti-Black sentiments in America? The most commonly known contributors are casteism and colorism, but can you think of other implicit biases?
PB: The most well-known biases are casteism and colorism, but we see Islamophobia as well. In the past, I wouldn’t tell people I was Pakistani, but rather that I was Indian because there are so many rankings and classifications within the South Asian region.
YB: A lot of South Asians decide where to settle down based on the local schooling system and neighborhood. This further divides what is seen as a ‘valuable’ community and what isn’t. The model minority myth comes into play here as well. It’s ingrained by white people, and especially easy for our parents’ generation to believe. Older generations hear statements about crime-ridden Black neighborhoods but don’t hear about systemic reasons behind this, making it that much harder to see beyond an us vs. them perspective. Additionally, South Asians tend to code-switch, associating with whiteness when it benefits us, but using their minority status to be afforded certain benefits.
AM: The South Asian community generally sees silence as the safest response to racial tension and the BLM movement. How do we emphasize to our family/elders the value in speaking up? Is this necessary? If not, why not? If yes, why?
PB: The South Asian community gets an F minus for their general response to systemic racism. I think the model minority myth is so ingrained that everyone prefers staying quiet and focuses on accruing personal wealth. And when it comes to starting social platforms and awareness, the general consensus is that they must be stopped, not started. So I think we need to focus on the person we’re speaking to. Why would they have such strong opinions on staying quiet? Have they faced consequences from speaking up in the past? Have they seen others succeed by staying quiet? I think it’s important to ask about stories and also share information, no matter what making room for open discourse is very necessary.
YB: When we were starting ASANA, we faced pushback for releasing statements about BLM, especially from more conservative Indians that prefer distancing themselves from their race. Unfortunately South Asians respect being a traditionalist over being a maverick, and on top of that there are South Asian values of respect. You aren’t supposed to talk back to your elders, particularly extended family. Perception is highly valued, which adds another difficult dimension to South Asian culture, and any level of disagreement reflects badly on the entire family. I think this culture needs to be looked at when it comes to having these hard discussions.
AM: Is there anything else you would like to add?
PB: ASANA Voices pushes for introspection and finding ways to bring everyone to the table. We must address uncomfortable questions and listen to each other.
YB: This isn’t us vs. them. Let’s work together toward social and systemic reform.
I am optimistic that the South Asian American community will continue to grow and work against traditional complicity. Indian-American Washington, D.C. resident Rahul Dubey opened his doors to over 70 protesters fleeing curfew-related arrests, and Ruhel Islam, Bangladeshi owner of the Minneapolis Gandhi Mahal restaurant used his kitchen to prepare food for protesters and his storefront as a space for medics to create a makeshift field hospital. Platforms like ASANA Voices are holding town halls to make room for the conversations that we have so frequently ignored. Our community has started acknowledging where we’ve fallen short, and albeit long overdue, progress is apparent.
George Floyd’s tragic death and the pandemic have shed light on what’s not working in America, and we should use this realization to inspire change. But as South Asian Americans, let’s stand for Black lives always, not only when it aligns with white rage. Speaking up, bettering ourselves, and educating one another is not choice, but necessity.
By Anita Mukherjee
Indie rock enthusiast and home chef who will always make time to watch a stand-up special.
Photography & Design by Kyala Irons