To Goanet - Santosh Helekar wrote: >Please tell me what according to you is the root cause of >communal violence like the one we see in Orissa today.
Your formulation of the question is spurious. There is not a "root cause" and there can be no pat answer to this difficult issue. Certainly no analysis can be encapsulated in a short Internet post - brings to mind HL Mencken: "For every complex problem there is a simple solution...and it is wrong." The proximate cause for violence may be different in every instance but there are certain common threads. It may be likened to an airplane accident. Usually there is no one root cause but a history of prior events and a particular sequence of their occurrence that lead to ultimate failure. Any explanation of communal violence in India, if it is to go beyond the usual platitudes, has to include history and its associated baggage (which means we have to toss out the Marxist whitewashing of the historical crimes against Hindus who constitute the majority in the country), the socio-economic conditions prevailing locally, and yes, opportunistic demagoguery, political and religious. Merely pointing fingers at your favourite bogeymen adds nothing new, explains nothing. Where the Indian state has failed comprehensively is in instituting preventive law & order measures in known hotspots and, importantly, in holding perpetrators of violence accountable. The underlying rage and hatred will not be diminished by this enforcement of law & order, but surely the bloodshed & mayhem will be kept to a minimum. r
