The Swastika controversy is another issue that has been a huge part of my discussions, fact finding missions and such for the last couple of weeks. The controversy in my mind started with an image of a swastika in a brochure about hate crimes on campus and how to react to them. Unfortunately, the image of swastika they published was the straight faced Indian Swastika and not the tilted swastika of hitler showing 2 intelocked 'S'. It was a photo of the sign painted on a African American House sign so judgimg by the reference it was definately meant as a hate symbol. My first reaction was to laugh at it 'The haters didn't even know which swastika showed hate'. But what about the creaters of the brochure? Did they think twice before choosing this image as an example of hate crime?
The brochure was a 10 point ‘to do’ list. The first point was 'Rise Up'. A sentence in that section caught my attention "I didn't mean to hurt doesn't remove the hurt" "Rise up. The world won't change if people don't change it."
So I decided to rethink my approach/reaction to the way the word 'Swastika' is used in U.S. As an Indian, swastika to me is a symbol of wellbeing. The word (originating from sanskrit Swasti) literally means that. Swastika is part of an Indian's everyday life. When repeatedly swastika is mentioned as a hate symbol, how do Indian students react to it? I react by doing nothing or feeling nothing. The underlying thought process is 'they are not aware of my swastika. They aren't talking about the Indian swastika so I need not be offended.' I talked to a few Indian students and they had a similar reaction. 'we know better, just let it go.'
But is it right/fair to let go. Is it not offensive to hear repeated mentions of a symbol as a hate symbol when it is one of the most used auspicious symbols of a culture? Is it not unfair that an Indian cannot use his/her most auspicious symbol due to fear of being branded as fascist unnecesarily?
Some interesting stories came up when I was talking with the Indian students. The stories were about lack of information about the Indian (real??) swastika by westerners and the problems crreated by it. The stories were exchanged mostly as hilarious insidents. One of it goes like this: "An Indian student was coming to US to study. His father thought that it would be easier for him to find his bags if he had some kind of identifying sticker on it. The easiest available was the rangoli sticker used on the doorways which is very popular in Maharashtra. A rangoli sticker invaribly has a swastika in the center of the design. As I said before, swastika is a omnipresent symbol in India. He was arrested on one of the airports in Europe during the layover." I shared this story with couple other Indian students. The discussion invariably focused on 'how people who haven't travelled outside India do not have a sense of such things'. Why is the burden of knowing and understanding on the shoulders of an Indian? Is it because we believe in 'let go'?
What have we achieved by not reacting? Did we unknowingly support the abuse of the word/concept of 'Swastika' by not reacting? Will it make a difference if we educate people around us? Will it make a differnce if we protest against the use of the word 'Swastika' as a hate symbol and insist that the Nazi hate symbol be properly identified as 'Hitler's Swastika' or 'Hakenkreuz (hook-cross))'?
I am still debating in my mind about these questions. In the meanwhile I have also started talking about the issue with various american freinds offline and online. Resolving these questions for myself is going to take a long time. As they arn't really about swastika but about changing philosophy of life in a new environment.
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