Indians Work on Initiative to Combat Post-9/11 Discriminatory Backlash

On the eve of the fourth anniversary of 9/11, a young Indian-American scholar decided to travel across the US.

Her mission: to examine how the lives of religious and ethnic minorities in the US -- who faced hate crimes following the World Trade Center terrorist attacks -- have changed since that day.

Valarie Kaur is spearheading a research project titled Discrimination and National Security Initiative, an official affiliate of the Pluralism Project at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA, a preeminent research centre on the state of religious communities in the United States.

Four years later she is retracing her steps and interviewing the same individuals she met in 2001, including the family of Balbir Singh Sodhi, the Sikh gas station owner from Mesa, Arizona who was murdered on September 15, 2001 in one of the first incidents of racial backlash after the fall of the Twin Towers.

"The human consequences of a backlash are not reduced to statistics or numbers, but are still real and should be presented to the general public and policymakers for their consideration," says Dawinder 'Dave' Sidhu, a civil rights attorney with the federal government and co-founder and co-director of the DNSI project along with Kaur.

"These human consequences of a backlash include a Sikh boy deciding to cut his hair in the hope that he will be more accepted by his peers, a Muslim couple avoiding air travel, or even families moving back to their countries of origin," explains Sidhu.

Kaur told rediff India Abroad, "Many Americans know that hate crimes took place after 9/11, but we as a nation have yet to understand the far-reaching impact of such violence or how it continues to divide us. DNSI's database and reports will work to aid scholars, practitioners and citizens wishing to respond to the problem."

A third generation Indian American, Kaur has studied international relations and religious studies from Stanford University, California, USA. She is currently studying ethics at the Harvard Divinity School, Massachusetts, on a Beinecke scholarship and the prestigious Harvard Presidential scholarship.

Sidhu, a George Washington University Law School (Washington, DC) graduate, works with the US Department of Education's office for civil rights, where he assists in the development and examination of the constitutionality of official agency policy.

Valarie and Sidhu simultaneously conceived the idea for this project. "Both of us observed first-hand the impact of the post-9/11 backlash and understood that a substantive, long-term response in the form of a dedicated research entity was required," remembers Sidhu. Although they were on separate coasts of America at the time their vision for this initiative was identical. At a chance meeting they were able to share their thoughts and collaborate effectively on the realisation of this project.

As part of the project, DNSI has interviewed a number of Sikhs, Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians, in the Washington, DC area. The respondents were queried about issues of identity, such as whether they consider themselves truly American or whether they have contemplated altering their physical appearance to avoid mistreatment.

With the guidance of Dr Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion and Indian studies at Harvard University and director of the Pluralism Project, DNSI will focus sustained attention on issues of discrimination against minority communities. Work on the report consciously began on December 18, 2004, the 60th anniversary of the issuing of a landmark Supreme Court judgement Korematsu vs United States that validated the forced exclusion of Americans of Japanese ancestry. DSNI's report is expected next summer.

"We have two goals -- first to chronicle