Backers point to Sonal’s career record

NEW YORK" Vijay Prashad, who holds the George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and is professor at Trinity College in Connecticut, was the first to criticise US president-elect Barack Obama’s Indian-American advisor Sonal Shah in his essay in the Left-leaning Counterpunch.

He detailed how Shah’s parents held senior positions in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Overseas Friends of the BJP and the Ekal Vidyalayas and that their daughter was not far behind.

“I would say I am setting up the logic of guilt-by-participation — separate from guilt-by-association. I am not saying she is tarred by some feather that somebody else was holding. I am saying she was holding the feather,” Prashad told DNA.

“She did not grow up in an apolitical household. At the age of 33, not at the age of 15 or 16, when the earthquake took place in Kutch in 2001, Sonal herself became the national coordinator of the VHP of America (VHPA),” adds Prashad.

He claims that in 2004, Shah was a speaker at an Ekal Vidyalaya event in Florida and a Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh event. “In 2004, her brother received an award on her behalf from the government of Gujarat. It was given to him by Vajpayee in the presence of [Narendra] Modi. At no point did she or her siblings make any statement criticising the 2002 Gujarat riots. Two years after the Gujarat riots, accepting a prize is a demonstration to me of moral turpitude.”

Shah’s supporters like Reuben Abraham, a professor at the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad, who heads its prestigious Emerging Markets Solutions Initiative, say Prashad is waging a trumped-up smear campaign.

“The suggestion that Sonal was the national coordinator of the VHPA is an outright lie. Due to her position in the community, the VHPA asked her to fundraise for the Gujarat earthquake. She was appointed coordinator of the earthquake relief fund effort. At no point was she a coordinator of the VHPA. It is extremely disingenuous to suggest that she has ties with them. After that she has had nothing to do with the VHPA. Her fault right now is that she helped in a humanitarian effort,” said Abraham.

VHPA spokesman Shyam Tiwari clarified; “Sonal is not associated with the VHPA in any capacity whatsoever.”With allegations swirling, Shah finally slammed the “baseless and silly reports.”

“My personal politics have nothing in common with the views espoused by the VHP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or any such organisation. I’ve never been involved in Indian politics, and never intend to do so. I’ve always condemned any politics of division, of ethnic or religious hatred… Some factually inaccurate internet rumours have attempted to link me to Hindu nationalist groups through a variety of tenuous connections: Relief work I’m proud to have helped coordinate following the Gujarati earthquake of 2001, or cultural and religious affiliations of some of my family members, or apolitical humanitarian work I’ve been privileged to do as a founder of the NGO Indicorps.”

Indicorps is a little like Peace Corps, in that it arranges for Indian Americans to work with development projects in India. Prashad says he is “uneasy” about Indicorps, but desis who have gone out to India as volunteers emphasise they were “not indoctrinated or anything of the sort.”

“I saw Indicorps volunteers in action during the tsunami. That is when I first started working with Sonal as I was involved in a web-based relief effort. Sonal is one of the sharpest people I have met. Her track record is a verifiable fact, including in Bosnia, Kosovo and Indonesia. Her work in setting up the central banking system in Bosnia and Kosovo quite possibly helped prevent hyper-inflation, a well known occurrence in post-conflict regions. For me what is annoying is that for the last 12 years she has actually worked in preventing communities from falling apart; yet she is being accused of being someone who wants to tear communities apart,” said Abraham.

Manjeet Kripalani, award-winning journalist and former press fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, says the allegations can’t stick; “Sonal is not a trivial person. She is an advisor on the Obama team now, and for good reason. She has the abilities and the human qualities that the new administration is looking for. To those who seek to malign people like Sonal, I say — go find another target, you’re wasting your time.”

An Indian diplomat, who didn’t want to be named, said the Obama team has vetted Shah; “Obama ran the smartest election campaign in history. You have to give his team more credit — they have done background checks.”

Shah’s inclusion in Team Obama is not a fluke as the economist has regularly landed big jobs and has a reputation of being a problem-solver. She worked for six years in the Treasury where she dealt with one regional crisis after another. In 1996, after the war in Bosnia, she served as a Treasury Attaché in Sarajevo where she restored the local banking system. She also worked in Indonesia during the Asian financial crisis.

“Sonal can be a tremendous voice for India in the administration. She has been doing work in India. It is enormously helpful to have someone who is that thoughtful about India on the Obama team,” said Abraham. “I know Sonal — I have never heard a word that might remotely suggest she is communal.”

Prashad acknowledges his essays have angered people; “I have been getting 200 emails a day. Some are from people who are victims of violence in Gujarat and the others are from people saying stuff like they want to cut off my 10 fingers because I am insulting Hindus and are jealous of an Indian who is a success.”

He says he is not a jealous man. “I have been following this for years. I wrote a book about it eight years ago called The Karma of Brown Folk, and one section of it is on Yankee Hindutva where people basically try to use multiculturalism in the US to push the VHP agenda.”