Nikki Haley

[G.Subramaniam]

Couldn’t Ms Haley have come right out and SAID in her quote ‘I am a Christian, I follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Bible’ ??? It’s HER website, after all, isn’t it??



But … she didn’t.



So I asked her, on her Facebook Page, why she hadn’t answered it directly; after all, if she felt it was OK to bring it up on her website, it shouldn’t be a big deal to ask her to clarify, should it? If she thinks it’s important enough to discuss her belief in an Almighty God along with her qualifications for the office of Governor of South Carolina, why not be specific?



Nikki Haley, deleted the question from the page, and ‘banned’ me … just like Sarah does with questions she doesn’t like!



She truly is Sarah’s Kindred Spirit !!



UPDATE: Since writing this blogpost, the ‘answer’ on Nikki’s Website has been changed to read:



Question: Is Nikki a Christian?



Truth: In Nikki’s words: “My faith in Christ has a profound impact on my daily life and I look to Him for guidance with every decision I make. God has blessed my family in so many ways and my faith in the Lord gives me great strength on a daily basis. Being a Christian is not about words, but about living for Christ every day.”



Thanks for the heads-up, Mick!



I find this wording interesting. Obviously, Nikki felt the need to add ‘Christ’ in her quoted answer, referring to Christ/Lord 3 times in 3 sentences! Wow… now THAT is a devout Christian! Even though it’s ‘not about words’ she makes sure to get as many christ-words in there as possible.



So, it’s important enough to BE a Christian to be elected that a candidate HAS to profess it as part of an election plaform …… VOILA! She’s a Christian! NO! NO! Not a Sikh! (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld would say.)



Words aside, the main problem here is this: Whether or not she IS a true Christian, is beside the point. What is important is that today, in 2010, it’s important to be a Christian in order to get elected, at least Haley thinks so, otherwise why would she make a point of changing the text of her quote?



Until a candidate has the personal integrity to risk losing an election by sayingMy faith is my business, what matters is that I am the best person for the job! government will be polluted by politicians who feel the need to cater their ‘morality’ to the beliefs of voters who cast their vote based on religion rather than issues.



If a candidate is prepared to change something as BASIC as their religious faith for political gain, it begs the question, which other core beliefs are they prepared to turn their back on??



When someone publicly renounces their upbringing, can we conclude that the ‘upbringing’ that made them who they are is somehow ……… not acceptable?

[G.Subramaniam]

I know that you can read anything on the internet and there are conflicting views about Nikki Haley’s true religious beliefs. But a few things come to mind. I know individuals who have converted from Hinduism to Christianity and their families have disowned them. There is great persecution in India of individuals who convert. We do not see that in Mrs. Haley’s family – she is in business with them.



Also, She has stated in a article a while back that she takes her children to the Methodist Church and to the Temple. If you are sure that Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, you would not want to expose your children to a “false” religion. Regardless of tradition, culture etc. When asked about this she simply stated you can never have enough God. Which God? Puzzling.



Another website touts the fact the if elected she will be the first Sikh governor in the United States.



She does say she believes in God – that she is Methodist and maybe even that she is Christian but when pinned down on what she means by that she is evasive and/or simply refuses to answer the question.



Another website says that she is a spiritual fusion of individualism, hinduism, sikhism and the Methodist Church. True Christianity is not the fusion of anything. Paul tells us in the New Testament that it is Christ alone and that His followers are never to add anything to nor take away from the truth of the Gospels.



Furthermore, if you check her financial statements for her campaign funds a large group come from out of state and are in fact Indian with Hindu connections.

[G.Subramaniam]

Having converted myself from Sikhism to Christianity in my early 20’s, I can attest to the fact that this did not go over well with my family at all. I was disowned and completely cut off from them. One thing I am struggling with while reading these posts is that if Nikki who grew up in a Sikh home is professing to be a Christian, then she really needs to be true to herself. Alot of other religions believe in gods or A god, but you cannot be half Christian and half Sikh if you are truly a sold out believer in Christ. I’m certainly not one to judge where she stands spiritually, but one thing I do know is that Jesus Christ sets Christianity apart from ALL other religions. And your life is radically changed when you come to know Christ for all the things He is. It’s been 12 years now that I’ve professed Christ and relationships with my family just over the recent years are beginning to mend. I really really like this candidate, b/c we may have such similar Punjabi upbringings, she’s a woman (like me), and she seems to have a very good head on her shoulders…it is a struggle though to see someone who’s having a hard time being true to themselves if they are professing to be something they are not. All I ask…just stay true to who you are Nikki.

[G.Subramaniam]

Unlike Hindus, who believe in many gods, Sikhs believe in ONE god. They also believe in baptism, holy Sikh scriptures, and teach against many sins. Everything Haley says on her website is compatible with the Sikh faith – and would not be offensive to her many Sikh and Hindu supporters. Look it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhism



But understand clearly that Sikhism is NOT Christianity. Sikhs do NOT believe in the divinity of Christ (nor is such a belief essential in order to ATTEND a Methodist church – or even to graduate from a Methodist seminary, by the way). But I repeat: Sikhism is NOT Christianity and is, like all other religions, at its essence or core actually opposed to Christianity, and vice versa, on the central issue of the divinity of Christ. Thus there can be no accommodation between the two faiths.



As many former Sikhs have said, a person from a Sikh family who converts from Sikhism to true Christianity will be disowned by the family. Nikki is not only on close terms with her family, but has business relationships with them and occasionally takes her children to the Sikh temple as well. apparently, she and her children move easily between the two cultures. I do not say these things to condemn Haley on religious grounds, only to say that any Christian who believes Haley is one of them is in serious spiritual delusion.



Haley’s website is cleverly obtuse for a reason: she wants to have it both ways: major out-of-state Hindu and Sikh funding for her political campaign, while taking conservative South Carolinians along for the ride as she heads toward the governor’s mansion. And South Carolinians are just stupid enough to fall for it.

[G.Subramaniam]

“In 2004, (seven years after becoming a Christian) she and her family were still attending Sikh Temples as well as their Methodist Church. In 2004, she was running for the State Legislature and she was quoted back then as saying, “I was born and raised with the Sikh faith, my husband and I were married in the Methodist Church, our children have been baptized in the Methodist Church, and currently we attend both.””

[G.Subramaniam]

Nikki, Aka Nimrata

Posted: June 10, 2010 at 3:00 PM By Neela Banerjee



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I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'm as fascinated with Nikki Haley's biography as others are, though for entirely personal reasons. My family is Indian. I came to this country when I was 6, and PTSD turned my first-grade year into a vast black page. I spent my "formative years" in the way-Deep South in a small town outside New Orleans. When I told folks in Louisiana I was Indian, they'd always ask, "What tribe?"



Some South Asians, probably those of a different political stripe than Haley and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, have gone after them as sell-outs for having Anglo names, and after Haley, in particular, for being fair-skinned enough to pass for an ethnic white. Haley's Web site says that Nikki is her middle name. But in the desi community, we all know that we have our "good names" and our "house" names. Very few people are called by their "good name" at home, even if your name is short, like Neela. And no, I ain't about to tell you my house name. Nikki could very well be the house name for "Nimrata," her given name, or, truly, her middle name. She chucked her maiden name when she entered politics because she said it didn't fit onto a yard sign. (She did give her kids Indian names, though.) And Punjabis like Haley are often lighter-skinned than the world's notion of what Indian looks like. That said, recent South Asian candidates in the South have said openly that it helps to mask an "ethnic-sounding" name if you want to get elected.



What I find more fascinating than the politics of her name is the role of Christianity in her life and her campaign—and in Jindal's, too. There are millions of South Asian Christians, since empire doesn't come without the church on its heels. But Haley was raised Sikh and is now Methodist. Jindal was raised Hindu, converted to Christianity in high school, and is now a devout Roman Catholic. Sepia Mutiny has a great June 4 post about how Jindal speaks a great deal about his conversion experience, yet Haley doesnt, mainly because Jindal might see it as a way to diminish his "otherness" in the eyes of voters, while for Haley, who basically comes across as white, talking about her coming to Christ would accentuate her otherness.





But an evangelical Christian blogger noticed that Haley's Web site stressed her Christianity in more powerful language in June than it had in April. Back then, under the FAQs on her Web site, the answer to "Is Nikki a Christian?" was "Nikki is a Christian. In her words: ‘I believe in the power and grace of Almighty God.' " Now, the answer reads like this: “My faith in Christ has a profound impact on my daily life and I look to Him for guidance with every decision I make." There is no mention of her conversion. Her spokesman explained the difference in the language as a routine tweaking of campaign materials.



The revision speaks to the hopes of so many evangelicals, though. They want to save the souls of nonbelievers like Hindus and Sikhs. Through their conversion, their explicit mentions of the power of Christ, Haley and Jindal show the primacy of Christianity over other faiths—the ones, in fact, they were steeped in. By no means am I questioning their right to convert or their sincerity. I get choked up reading the Sermon on the Mount, for Pete's sake. I think, instead, that if Haley felt compelled to revise her campaign materials this way, it says a lot about what's still acceptable to the voters she's courting. She's campaigning in a state where politicians feel it's OK to call her and the president "ragheads." It may be cool to have more South Asians on TV and in the movies, but if we aren't properly sanitized through the rinse cycle of Christianity, I wonder whether one of us could get elected to an important office in the South.

[G.Subramaniam]

The Indian as "Black White" and as "Nigger"

By Francis C. Assisi Email this page

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There is this essential contradiction in being a South Asian, or a person of Indian origin, in America: on one hand the South Asian is perceived as being black by the majority white population, and on the



other the South Asian is eager to be categorized alongside whites, as Caucasians.

Brown on the outside, "white" on the inside, South Asians are mostly perceived in America as being too white to be

black, and too black to be white. But with the increase in post 9/11 attacks against South Asians, at least some are being forced to come to grips with the myth that equates Indo-Aryan with Caucasian and with being white.



But for a hundred years South Asians have been harassed, intimidated, assaulted, humiliated, abused, and even killed because of what they represent through their color, their religion, their language, and their culture. And it continues to this day.



Take for example an incident from 1929: as a result of the humiliation that he received from U.S. immigration officials, the poet Rabindranath Tagore was forced to cancel his fourth lecture tour. That incident prompted the Nobel laureate to remark that if Jesus Christ himself were to come to America, he would be kicked out of the country - because he was an Asiatic.



Tagore explained his sentiments later by stating, "I arrived at Los Angeles, and I felt something in the air - a cultivated air of suspicion and general incivility towards Asiatics… I felt that I should not stay in a country on sufferance. It was not a question of personal grievance or of ill-treatment from some particular officer. I felt the insult was directed towards all Asiatics, and I made up my mind to leave a country where there was no welcome for ourselves… I have great regard for your people. But I have also my responsibility towards those whom you classify as colored people of whom I am one. I am a representative of Asiatic peoples and I could not remain in a country where Asiatics are not wanted."



Another Nobel laureate, astrophysicist Dr. S.Chandrashekar of the University of Chicago, confessed to biographer Kameshwar Wali that he was subjected to humiliating experiences in America because of the color of his skin. Chandrashekhar was born in India, educated in England, and lived all his professional life in the U.S until his death in 1991.



In the 1930s Chandrashekar taught, conducted research, and collaborated with the United States War Department on the atomic weapons research project. He became the first nonwhite person to be appointed to the faculty of the University of Chicago. According to Wali, the chairman of the physics department summarily opposed the appointment of Chandrashekhar to the faculty "because he was an Indian, and black". The dean, Henry G. Gale, also did not approve of the participation of the brilliant young Indian astronomer in teaching an elementary course in astronomy for precisely that reason. That objection was not lifted until the president of the university intervened.



Direct evidence of prejudice based on "race" or "color" may be scant. It has become bad taste for sure, to express such feelings openly. In the case of South Asians, moreover, there are so many other grounds, religious and cultural, for overt hostility that feelings about "color" or "race" could easily remain safely submerged. But as far as Euro-Americans are concerned, the skin color of the South Asian serves as a "label of primary potency," psychologist Gordon Allport's term for the most highly visible impression of a person or a people.



In some major respects, American color prejudice indiscriminately embraces everything non-"white." According to Harold Isaacs there are also shades of prejudice as various as the shades of color, and they flicker often according to place, person, and circumstance. And it is "black" - wherever it comes from - that sets the racial-color counters clicking the most violently. The South Asian, shading along a wide spectrum from fair to brown to black, arouses these reactions in varying measures.



For example, President Lyndon Johnson was reported to have said while canceling the visits of the heads of state from India and Pakistan in 1965: "After all, what would Jim Eastland (the conservative senator from Mississippi) say if I brought those two niggers over here." (Quoted in Richard Goodwin, "The War Within," The New York Times Magazine, 21 August 1988, P.3. It was reported that the American President decided to cancel the visits of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri of India and President Ayub Khan from Pakistan when the two countries expressed opposition to U.S. policies in Vietnam.)



In his path-breaking study of American images of Indians, MIT's Harold Isaacs reported one respondent who confessed: "skin color causes a certain tension in meetings with Indians." Another said explicitly: "in dealing with Indians you feel you're dealing with colored people, the same way you feel in the presence of Negroes…" A third, speaking of people in his circle of friends, said: "The Indian with his darker skin perhaps consciously or unconsciously suggests the Negro in the United States." A college professor in Texas expressed it openly when he declared: "They're just damn Niggers to me!" When the same professor was asked what he thought the American man-in-the-street might mentally associate with Indians, the reply was instantaneous: "Nigger!"



It took someone like Professor Sucheta Mazumder of Duke University to acknowledge that for most South Asian immigrants the myth of their Caucasian racial origin forms the basis of their identity and political mobilization. And that there are those Indians who really think of themselves as more 'white' than the 'whites,' indeed as descendants from that 'pure Aryan family' of prehistoric time.



According to Mazumder, South Asians invariably see themselves as "Aryan" and, therefore, as "Caucasian" and "white". This perception prevents the immigrants from making common cause with other people of color who were barred from citizenship on grounds of color or race. Thus, instead of challenging racism, the early Indian-American struggle for citizenship rights became an individualized and personalized mission to prove that he was of "pure-blood Aryan stock". Though victimized by white racism, which denied them citizenship, the South Asian response was equally racist, observes Mazumder. Instead of challenging the white man's racism, the Indian immigrant responds with "How dare you assume your air of Aryan superiority over me when I am just as Aryan as you, even more so!" This was the substance of the Indian claim in the courts back in the 1920s and it is still the substance of many an Indian response to American racism, asserts Mazumder.



This mythography of "Aryan origins" has wide currency among today's South Asian immigrants in America, says Mazumder, suggesting that this notion of white (Caucasian or Aryan) origin has led to a confused rejection of the color of their own skin.



This leads to an almost paranoid response to even being thought of as black. For example, Bharati Mukherjee, the noted Indian writer, complains: "I am less shocked, less outraged and shaken to my core, by a purse-snatching in New York City in which I lost all of my dowry gold- everything I'd been given by my mother in marriage- than I was by a simple question asked of me in the summer of 1978 by three high-school boys on the Rosedale subway station platform in Toronto. Their question was, 'Why don't you go back to Africa?'"



Meanwhile, one second-generation South Asian-American recalls: My father has said in anger, more than once, that he is black in his coworkers' and boss's eyes.



THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF COLOR



Color in itself is meaningless. Color is just color. It is a physical, spectroscopic fact. It ought to carry no compelling conclusions regarding a person's beliefs or his position in any social structure. It should be like height or weight. Yet, it attracts the mind; it is the focus of passionate sentiments and beliefs.



Sociologists have noted that oftentimes the issue of color in relation to South Asians in America rises in a setting of great mutual self-conscious sensitivity: South Asians watch for it to come up, Americans are embarrassed that it does. Currently, South Asians may not be a clear-cut case of "black" in US consciousness, but they are definitely "other," which is one reason why Mazumder, as well as other intellectuals, believe that only if South Asians develop a broader consciousness of themselves as people of color will they be able to participate in a genuine struggle for social justice.



This consciousness is still in its formative phase, as we witness some second- and third-generation South Asians who are emerging as advocates for peace and social justice alongside people of color in America.



Francis C. Assisi can be reached at indiaspora@gmail.com

[Guest]

Does the Southerners favor beautiful (a.k.a hot) women? Nikki & Sarah Palin would surely fit that bill. They appear to be hot, strong willed (adamant/stubborn) with dumbed-downed values. They are very shrewd in the sense they see their constituents and have reduced themselves to the same level of dumbness.

[Guest]

GSub: Please include links ji :-)

[Guest]

[quote name='Swamy G' date='16 June 2010 - 11:40 AM' timestamp='1276702340' post='106998']

Does the Southerners favor beautiful (a.k.a hot) women?

[/quote]

Google on Alvin Green the candidate for Democratic party in SC or watch it [url="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-14-2010/alvin-greene-wins-south-carolina-primary"]here[/url]. That's how SC votes.



BTW, why's Nikki Haley thread in India's Strategic Security forum?

[G.Subramaniam]

[quote name='Viren' date='17 June 2010 - 03:45 AM' timestamp='1276726067' post='107012']

Google on Alvin Green the candidate for Democratic party in SC or watch it [url="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-14-2010/alvin-greene-wins-south-carolina-primary"]here[/url]. That's how SC votes.



BTW, why's Nikki Haley thread in India's Strategic Security forum?

[/quote]



I though the Bobby Jindal thread was on this forum and thats why I put it here



G.S

[G.Subramaniam]

[quote name='Swamy G' date='16 June 2010 - 09:20 PM' timestamp='1276702962' post='106999']

GSub: Please include links ji :-)

[/quote]



Google "Nikki Haley Sikh"



and then read the comments on these links

[G.Subramaniam]

Nikki Haley is the victim of the recent sikh fascination with monotheism

Little do they realise that the sikh faith is pantheistic, not monotheistic

Monotheism includes hatred of all those who dont follow their chosen prophet

[agnivayu]

[quote name='G.Subramaniam' date='16 June 2010 - 06:27 PM' timestamp='1276692595' post='106996']

The Indian as "Black White" and as "Nigger"

By Francis C. Assisi Email this page

Print this page

other the South Asian is eager to be categorized alongside whites, as Caucasians.

Brown on the outside, "white" on the inside, South Asians are mostly perceived in America as being too white to be

black, and too black to be white. But with the increase in post 9/11 attacks against South Asians, at least some are being forced to come to grips with the myth that equates Indo-Aryan with Caucasian and with being white.

[/quote]



Bunch of nonsense from this author. I take it as a great insult to be categorized with Whites or Caucasians. A few coconuts and early macaulyite Indian immigrants acted White, but that was in the first wave of immigration when they had to act meek and submissive. Why would I want to be accepted by them, when my race has a longer history of civilization, when White Western languages are derived from my brown ancestors language, Sanskrit.

At the same time, we are distinct from other so called "colored" races. We stand on our own as a tribe and work with others as needed.

[agnivayu]

[quote name='G.Subramaniam' date='17 June 2010 - 08:46 AM' timestamp='1276744124' post='107016']

Nikki Haley is the victim of the recent sikh fascination with monotheism

Little do they realise that the sikh faith is pantheistic, not monotheistic

Monotheism includes hatred of all those who dont follow their chosen prophet

[/quote]



Sikh's made their bet with the Mono's, thinking that Hinduism was on the decline. With the rebalancing of the strategic equation, the fair weather friends might rethink their position. However, I don't believe in reaching out too much to other so called "Dharmic" religions. The arrogance and contempt with which they hold Hindus means we shouldn't be crawling for their support. Also remember, these other "Dharmic" religions (Sikhs, Buddhists) are numerically insignificant, so it's a waste of time and energy to try and win their support. In the U.S., they will be of little use. It's almost better to work with liberal Christian, Jews or New Age groups than those clowns.

[G.Subramaniam]

Ragheads' and Republicans: Is Sikhism a sickness?



I don’t know what Haley is thinking when she gets down to pray, but it looks like she has felt pressured in recent years to stand up for her Christian faith over her Sikh heritage. According to an extensive review of her past statements on religion by CBN’s David Brody, when Haley was running for the state legislature in 2004 she described herself as attending both Methodist and Sikh services. Her website now emphasizes her “faith in Christ.”



Why would she do that? Because apparently Haley isn’t the only voter in South Carolina who thinks (as Knotts put it), “We need a good Christian to be our governor.”



Some day, Indian Americans will not feel like they need to convert from Hinduism to Christianity (as did Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal) or from Sikhism to Christianity (like Haley) if they want to run for high office. Some day, they will not feel any need to change their names–Jindal's given first name is Piyush; Haley's is Nimrata–in order to get elected.



Unfortunately, that day has not yet come.

[G.Subramaniam]

The pressure to conform (euphemism of the word is assimilation) is very strong in the USA. Be like us, is what America tells newcomers. If not you will not get far....Be like us, and we will accept you. Thus, the attack on anyone non christian.....In America everyone is equal..well, unless you are not like us. Attack on Nikki Haley's Sikh religion is this example...

[G.Subramaniam]

Bill: In the case of Haley, the writer did provide evidence. As of 2004, she was still making her association to Sikhism known. In 2010, she doesn't mention it, but she does mention her belief in Christ. But if you're suggesting that non-Christians don't feel tremendous pressure to "convert" to make themselves viable political candidates, you're wrong.



Yes I'm sure the rednecks in South Carolina would vote for a Hindu or a Sihk. There is no reason whatsoever to suspect that they changed their "faith" for any politcal motivations.

[G.Subramaniam]

Lets see, other than 13 jews, every other member of the US senate belong to some christian sect. Atheists/non-religious, which make up 15% of the general populace, have 0 senators. Sikhs, which make up a fairly small percentage, have also no members in the senate.



In the house of representatives, four are "unspecified", no sikhs, two buddhists, and a muslim. Somehow, I feel religious diversity is a bit, erm, missing in the US government. It's not just the sikhs, it seems to be that if you're not christian you've got a very difficult time being elected. Atheists, as it so happens, are just about entirely unelectable, even less so than sikhs, as studies have shown atheists are apparently the least trusted minority in the US.



Yay for religious tolerance?

[G.Subramaniam]

Exactly. Jindal has gone out of his way to Anglocise himself. The bible belt states are surely not going to elect a furriner, or someone who don't believe in jayzoos.