This column pathologizing Bobby Jindal is a couple months old, but a good read......

[marmar]

SHIV AROOR @shivaroor


My name is Bobby Jindle.
J-I-N-D-L-E.

That right there is the full story. Just those five words. Perfect because it says everything. Listen to the first ten seconds of governor Jindal's presidential campaign announcement speech last week.

Done? Noticed the hard "D" sound to rhyme with "Kindle"? The studied pause for that crowd to soak in the sound of that name. Nice. With Mrs "Jindle" behind him, beaming in all that out-of-focus glory. Ahhh.

I love Bobby Jindal. No, seriously. In the days since he's taken the plunge into the US Presidential race, he's managed to tell us at least as much about ourselves as he has, unapologetically, about himself.

The only two things we Indians love more than an apna ladka making it in the big white world, are (a) apna ladka trying to do too much and landing on his backside, and (b) apna ladka embracing his new identity so completely that he denies his roots. In Jindal's case, it's not so much denial of roots as active hostility towards them. I'm not Indian-American, he would thunder without fail for years any chance he could. Over time, he has actually had to dilute that down to "there are no Indian-Americans or African Americans or Irish-Americans, only Americans". No doubt because someone tapped governor sa'ab on the shoulder and reminded him of the big bucks American desis could be pumping into his campaign. Dollars they wouldn't send his way if he was seen as someone trying to rip his brown skin off at every turn.

And that really is the thing. So complete is Bobby Jindal's denial of his roots, he refuses even to pronounce his own name correctly. So all-engulfing is his belief that his must be nothing short of a white Christian family to truly embrace the American dream, that he all but swipes at his Indian lineage. (Seriously, who pats on so much face powder for a game of Monopoly with the wife and kids?) ...............(more)

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/bobby-jindal-indian-americangovernor-louisiana-white-house-us-republical-indian-american/story/1/4663.html

[libodem]

1. .

[Blasphemer]

2. Great read... thanks for posting

"Let's not kid ourselves: His choices of identity have everything to do with his politics." I think this relationship between identity and politics should be more fully explored, and it applies not only to electoral politics.

[LiberalElite]

3. Indian pronounciation of "Jindal"

http://www.pronouncenames.com/pronounce/jindal