In this breezily written, historical, sociological, scatological, irreverent walk through the world of what the author calls 'desis' or Indian settlers in the United States (and to a lesser extent of the other parts of the West), Vijay Prashad engages our attention, provokes us to rethink attitudes and concepts and constantly challenges views of the way Indians in the US perceive the land of their adoption (or birth), the cultures it has spawned and their place in those many political and social cultures.

Now, this is not to say that one is at one with his many assertions. Far from it, but despite adverse reactions to numerous points (including his rather righteous position that the Left can do no wrong, especially in its class perceptions of how Black and Brown struggles are intertwined in a battle against a racist, all-controlling White society), this is an engaging book, one that seeks to construct the relations of Indians in the New World, with other races and their own home country.

I especially liked Prashad's skilful demolition of men like Deepak Chopra whose tiresomely shining, grinning visage appears from his awful bestsellers which in essence seek to tell people what's wrong about themselves and what they should do about it. According to Chopra, "Affluence, unboundedness and abundance are our natural state. We just need to restore the memory of what we already know." Excuse me? Am I missing something here? And Prashad deftly points out: "To posit a natural state has been a well-established rhetorical strategy since Aristotle, but to claim that abundance is the state of a primordial nature is to go against every historiographical tradition. What kind of abundance? Was it equitable?"

It is on the core issue of economic and social equality that Prashad, drawing liberally on his hero, the great Black American thinker and writer, WEB Du Bois, expounds through his book, ensuring that we confront the uncomfortable reality that Indian professionals and the middle-class are much happier living during working hours in the corporate, largely white set-up and then retreating into the cocoon of a transplanted 'desi' culture at home, or with 'desi' friends or 'desi' festivals and functions. The people he defines as 'desis' are extremely unsure of relations with Blacks and do not like to be associated with them. He argues that White thinkers such as Ralph Waldon Emerson and Henry Thoreau failed to understand the essence of India, despite their extensive reading of ancient texts, and preferred to consider it as a "mysterious" region and that its wealth and true interest lay in things spiritual not in improving the condition of its people.

Du Bois was different and this difference rings through the book, especially in his letters to MK Gandhi and his own contemplation of how closely Blacks and Indians needed to be associated with each other to confront racism and the refusal of the Whites to acknowledge their rights. "The people of India, like the American Negroes, are demanding today things not in the least revolutionary but things which every civilized white man has so long taken for granted, that he refuses to believe that there are people who are denied these rights," Du Bois proclaimed in a letter to a newspaper in Lahore in 1929.

Beginning with the first Indians to land in North American, the rise of the Gadhar movement, the advent of Left radicalism, racist immigration laws and the attempt by individuals to cater to the exotic image of Indian by launching yoga and spiritual classes in the 1920s and 1930s, Prashad moves along to the present and the social crisis and confusion in which young Indians and professionals find themselves. He believes that it is a choice between the fundamentalism of the Hindu Right, the nasty bad guys, and the heroic soldiers of the Left, out to emancipate the world from all wrong.

Well, the latter ideology/dream is more or less dead although there may be some souls like Parshad who believe in it. No one will hold a candle for the fascism of the extreme right. But one does believe that professionals from India who are settled in the United States have the right to work and earn well. It is in extremely poor taste to berate them as White American's good boys, happy with sucking palliatives and lollipops and not bothering to figure out the complex world outside.

People develop their own lives and worlds, right or wrong. But just because they are comfortable in them does not make them willing collaborators in a system that "uses" them to exploit Blacks. These are issues to be concerned about and confronted -- yet, a majority of us do like to live our own lives, free of confrontation. People shy away from confrontation. That is how most of the world lives or would like to live. Is there something horribly wrong in that?

Prashad and his team will, one is sure, continue their struggles for the "emancipation" of the working class everywhere (God, why can't we have simple English free of jargon from our Leftist friends). They deserve our full support. This is important, whether it is the taxi drivers of New York or 'desis' in New Jersey. But just because others do not share their vision, does not make these groups and individuals either evil or collaborative. I am not talking here about the extreme Right. Those of us interested in these issues need to communicate better and disseminate our views better.

We disagree with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's convoluted view of history. But can anyone who knows India say anything like learning 'slokas', 'bhajans', yoga etc. Is part of a "complex shared history." Do other groups acknowledge this history as shared? It shows a complete lack of knowledge of basics.

They book has several factual errors. One especially is glaring for Prashad has made the VHP ideologue Vijay Singhal the Home Minister of India in the 1998 thirteen-day government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Singhal has never held a ministerial post and in all three BJP Governments, Lal Kishen Advani has been the Home Minister.

Let me close with one point: where does Prashad sees himself in his own ideological/social/political/professional construct and the "renegotiation" of the "racial contract" of which he speaks so profoundly? After all, he is assistant professor in Trinity College in Connecticut. Or can you hold these deeply committed views and continue with your "professional" career which may be perpetuating what you are railing against?