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Fri, Apr 25th 2008, 17:20

ilyas m mohsin, ppp, Platinum Contributor (250)

A rather one-sided presentation which can only promote controversial perceptions. One wishes that in the interest of objectivity, the writer had approached all the parties instead of only the Indian-analysis-lobby.
While there is no denying the fact that India has developed a democracy but the same is dogged by many negative factors which get repressed by the eductaed middle class, a cheap-labour country and a market of the size of, almost, EU,
The Indian federation appears to be run under the strangle-hold of the Delh- culture which is mainly dominated by the high-caste Hindus. After Mohandas Gandhii, the spirit of accomodation etc appears to have suffered a setback. Hence delhi' handling is rather imposing. Tha autonomy promised, generally, is denied to the outlying provinces. Reportedly, West Bengal is unique in this respect because the Socialists have held sway there and have persistently defied the centre in the interest of their provincial rights. Many people believe such a frmaework is promoting threats in the South and the east where the low-caste Hindus are also putting a democratic fightback for power which would also raise their social status in a Hindu society.
Other threats like in kashmir is self-made. after committing to holding a Rferendum under the auspices of the UN, Jawaharlal Nehru went back on his word and his successors have only raised the ante including 2 wars. Kashmir is like a colony occupied by 6 lac Indian forces where no Rule of law exists and where elections are rigged with impunity. The local people helped by their sympathisers are waging a war against India which can be conveniently designated as 'terrorism' now a la US.
With China, it is a diffreent ball game. One hopes good sense will dawn on all the people in this sensitive area.

Sat, Apr 26th 2008, 17:57

amarjyoti acharya

A book by Ashutosh Varshney - a US based academic on the life of Hindus and Muslims in India adequately captures the problem of a 'fragile' state's fragilily. He says - in the context of the Sikh separatism - "Indira Gandhi used religion for politics as Bhindranwale used politics for religion"! ++The near-absence of coherence and a bodypolitic rendered fragile by its own composition++

Sun, Apr 27th 2008, 18:31

amarjyoti acharya

One often hears a lot about regime changes and the confusion of some regime changes with ‘democratization’. Thus one hears about the apparent ‘waning’ of the ‘democratization wave’. Was there ever a wave? Would the waning of this ‘democratization’ wave be an euphemism for the waning power to enforce ‘regime changes’?
Away from international scrutiny, how many of them actually do measure up to the demands of democracies? One does not speak of South Asian states that follow their own regime of oppression - clothed as ethno-political terrorism and carried out away from the prying eyes, where indirect means of violence and coercion are used to obtain compliance.
Of course – that democracy is precisely against such values escapes everyone’s notice except the dredge of the transatlantic states making a Second World War corrective statement. The irony of the above statement could not have been much more tragic and damning – carried out by those who seek to profit elsewhere by such views. One does not have to be pro-Jewish or anti-Jewish in South Asia. While one may denounce the Holocaust of the Second World War, one may and should equally denounce any such violence anywhere.
The failure to do so is what precisely goes against the grain of modernity as well as democracy. Having puppet regimes in place is not equal to democratization. It never was and never has been. The world is not as blind as it may seem and neither is it as impotent as many think it to have become. Many in the United States often fail to comprehend why should there be more people becoming anti-United States. Understandably so, in both the senses.
Democracy and democratization process should lead to greater peace. One needs to distinguish between peace wrought by democracy and its institutions and negative peace wrought in by other factors that do not accrue out of democracy or regime changes perceived to be democratic. When you are too poor to wage a war; to weak from hunger to lift a hand: would that be peace? Except for low-caste-catholic/insurgent intellect in India, no one else would seem to think of it in that way.
Would regular ‘elections’ make a state democratic or would the quality of it make a state democratic or despotic. Despotism – even if as short-lived as elections may dictate – does not make a state democratic. India as a state stands out within the South Asian region as an example of such ‘electoral’ despotism that encourages indirect and direct ethno-political terrorism by its elites out to carve their constituencies should India go the Soviet way.
The threats to democracies come from such quarters and such mal-formed excuses. Democracy is not in wane. Mal-formed and ill-informed scholarships may be. Perhaps one should desist from celebrating the victory of democracy before one can vouch for a state and its populace free from direct & indirect violence and whose elites act in the hope that the United States-Israel would look at anti-Aryanism as being democratic. What is it about and over India?
Its blatant and rather crude politics of ressentiment that celebrates in the subversion of its democratic institutions. The oft-mistaken import of quite a few in India is the underground caste-war and that somehow sees its equation with the Jewish holocaust and often using innocent or ill-informed or one fears - those who are rather well-informed over such designs - overseas as part of its so-called affirmative actions. Should the Aryans take a similar hardline approach to correct the situation and take recourse to similar indirect & direct violence, then much of such forces may find themselves wandering in the woods of primordial soup -where they do actually belong.
The confusion and the subversion of democracy - in the guise of 'affirmative actions' that have unfortunate medieval sub-texts of religious warfare is what ails India from within as its structural cancer. The rule of the mafiosi and an ill-formed and its institutionalization of crime can be either the culture of India (?) or the cultivation of India as a new Afghanistan and the frontier provinces of Pakistan.
The Indian state is akin to one of Somalia's hunger children running Microsoft Corporation. In its celebration and diffidence that its self-realization - in as morbid a fashion as is possible - of being one of Somalia's hunger-child and yet running Microsoft Corporation is what ails India. Between democracy and democratization of its populace - the contrast is stark.
It was less before. And that is what is the worrying part. One of the popular names of India - within certain tracts of its populace - is Hindustan. Some say that it is a Q.E.D. The rest of the country - of course - is barely visible.