- Tuesday, May 07, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
The bulldozer has emerged as a new political symbol in India but recently, the presence of the machine at an India Day Parade in a couple of towns in New Jersey, US, has sparked a controversy resulting in the Indian Business Association (IBA) issuing an apology for bringing it to the event after defending it initially.
The IBA, which says in its Facebook page that it serves the Indo-American community in New Jersey, came under massive criticism over the act and said in its apology that the sight of the bulldozer was a “divisive image” which “did not reflect” its mission.
Due to massive criticism, the Indian Business Association has finally apologized to the mayors of Edison & Woodbridge for including a bulldozer during India’s Independence Day parade in New Jersey, US. This apology is just a farce-these guys' stores need to be boycotted. pic.twitter.com/puoQll0ugO
— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) August 31, 2022
The body wrote the apology addressed to the mayors of the two neighbouring towns in which the parade took place on August 14, the eve of the 75th anniversary of India’s Independence. Chandrakant Patel, chair of the IBA, said that he was writing to “offer his sincere apologies for certain aspects of our 2022 Indian Independence Day Parade that reflected poorly on our organisation and offended the Indian American minority groups, especially Muslims, from the local area, and across the state and country”.
One resident blames the Council for giving the Indian Business Association (IBA) a permit for the rally. “I raised this with you last year.”
— Azad Essa (@azadessa) August 24, 2022
To make matters worse, the bulldozer was decorated with posters of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and the chief minister of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, whose administration has made the use of bulldozers for political goals a much-discussed topic in India. It has been alleged that India in the times of Modi and Adityanath is using bulldozer power to demolish homes of the minority Muslims and intimidate them.
The practice has been widely criticised at various international platforms, including the United Nations.
“Unfortunately, there was a bulldozer among the floats in the parade which is a divisive image that did not reflect our mission,” the letter addressed to Edison mayor Samip Joshi and Woodbridge mayor John McCormac, said.
“The parade should be and has always been about a celebration of our Indian heritage and inclusion and diversity among our many different cultures and religions,” the letter read.
“Our parade should never be about politics and should never include these blatant divisive symbols.”
Joshi had sought an apology from the IBA saying over the incident, “I understand a bulldozer is a symbol of division and is absolutely unacceptable. There is no place for that in Edison Township. I would like to see an apology from the Indian Business Association.”
Indian Muslims were reportedly after video footage emerged showing the bulldozer at the rally.
Salaedin Maksut, executive director, New Jersey chapter of the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR-NJ), praised McCormac “for taking our community’s concerns seriously and calling on the IBA to issue this public apology”, Middle East Eye reported.
“The bulldozer is a symbol of intimidation and support of the oppression of minorities in India. Such hateful symbols have no place on our streets,” he said in a statement.
“We recognize IBA’S apology acknowledges their own wrongdoing, which is a necessary step towards making future parades representative of the Indian diaspora which includes Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits and Tribals.”
Veteran Indian American Muslim activist Sana Qutubuddin called the apology “promising” but added that “only time will tell what impact it will have on the organisation’s future actions.”
He told Middle East Eye that it is well established that Indian Americans were providing funds to Hindu nationalism in India, including those from Edison.
“It’s clear those links have deep ties to the area’s Little India, where ladoos (sweets) are given out every time there’s a major instance of anti-minority violence in India,” she added.
South Asian historian Audrey Truschke from New Jersey described the letter of apology as “a moment that matters”, the Middle East Eye report said.
“A Sangh-connected group has been compelled to apologize for a hateful anti-Muslim display. That’s big. We are only at the beginning of educating folks about Hindutva hate in New Jersey. Let’s get to work.”
The IBA had refused to issue an apology earlier saying “it had not done anything wrong.”
