Selma! In response to your mail, a short note...
>While agreeing with you in the main that protests and strikes have their rightful place in a democracy, excessive strikes and protests in >themselves are not the symptoms of a functioning and mature democracy but rather a failed one. but ofcourse! that is the point! all the signs point toward the fact that the Indian democracy is facing a period of deep crisis! All over the place the right-wingers seem to be taking control (be it Hindu right-wing or otherwise), and the law is either unable to keep them in check or favours them! The bandh that emerges from a politics of legitimacy is a sign of this failure of the state. The bandh that emerges via the cadre and the goons, is also a sign of the failure of the state. Welcome to the long end of the First Indian Republic and may it spare us intense misery. J ------------------------------------------------------- Read my thoughts at www.dervishnotes.blogspot.com
