BOSTON_MAHESH: I’m glad that we’re in agreement here. Just like you, I, too, noticed that the more nationalistic/regiospecific qualities are found MORE in the offsprings than in the parents. Also, I also have noticed just like you that these Khalistani youths are misguided, and gangster types. I don’t know if you visited that website that I had a hyperlink for, but there is this one webpage, and it equates “Sikh Studies” with Operation Blue Star. That’s like having a Jewish istudies organization called Hillel having an emblem of a Nazi concentration camp. we all know that Jewish history is a LOT more than the Holocaust. NOTE: I”m NOT marginalizing the Nazi atrocities.

I have noticed that some of these young khalisanti idiots here in Vancouver are Canadian born and there parents more often then not moderate sikh’s

On the other hand alot of the older hardcore Khalisanti idiots there Canadian born sons have ended up being some of the top Indo-Canadian gangesters in the Vancouver area.

What I meant was that many 2nd generational immigrants tend to be more “nationalistic” than their parents. For example, Muslim immigrants who never wore the head covering has daughthers, who on their own compulsion, wear burqas/chadors/etc.

make the argument. i’m curious, because i’m really skeptical. one could make the argument that 2nd generation muslims in the UK are more conservative (though i disagree, what is really true is that 2nd generation muslims in the UK are very conservative socially in the context of the society in which they grow up, while their parents were the median, if even more conservative, in a very conservative society). 2nd generation american muslims aren’t more conservative than their immigrant parents, though they are more ‘international.’ the survey data show them to be moderately socially conservative and fiscally liberal, like blacks. but substantial numbers (around 1/2) believe muslim women should be allowed to marry non-muslims, and the like.

Great points. I noticed that here in the USA, many ethnic groups, clump up into their own linguistic groups quite ardently. One could even argue that there is even more cliques/tribalism/casteism in the USA than there is in India. In much the same way that 2nd generation Muslims are more conservative than their parents in certain countries like UK and USA, I also find that many 2nd generation Desi-Americans are more…fanatic than their parents.

There is far more Khalistanists in the USA than in India. I know this for a fact, because I talked/interacted with some misguided young SIkhs at a Gurudwara in Milford, Massachusetts. Moreover, this coming weekend, there’s actually a forum to remember ’84 and Operation Bluestar victims. The speakers at this event at Harvard are transparently Khalistani separatists. One day, I’m sure that when they have a little more clout, they would probably work antagonistically against India.

Indian Americans have the financial resources to match AIPAC. But the big question is whether or not USINPAC will represent the values of most Indian Americans. Indian Americans are the wealthiest, best educated, fastest-growing ethnic group in the US, and the community’s (communities’) role in politics will become more complex and varied in the coming years.

But the most powerful political tools are always going to be the individual vote and participating in the process not just by donating money but by running for office — organizing, knocking on doors, and planting yard signs.

Just as we must never attribute to malice what is due to stupidity, we musn’t credit wisdom for what is due to selfishness. Isn’t it George Kennan who said

”We have about 50 percent of the world’s wealth but only 6.3 percent of its population. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity.”

Of course Kennan isn’t the first political theorist to have said so. Chanakya the first ever realist founds his theories on selfishness and the three (four if you may) purusharthas as Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural does too in a different way (Aram, Porul and Inbam).

The article as theory although it raises important questions is almost entirely silent about the three or four very large ethnically determined groups that have had little or no say or rarely ever sought any say in their country’s foreign policy on ethnic terms. The Chinese, Japanese, African-Americans, and the people of Indian subcontinental origin.

So where did my lovely (ahem) state of Maine fall in all this? A strange anomaly?