Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:08:12 +0530 From: Marshall Mendonza <[email protected]>
However, it must be conceded that Vijay Prashad too makes valid points to back up his arguments. He too has lived long in the USA, is a Professor and has interacted extensively with the Indian community. It would be fair to conclude that there is a section of the Indian community which is drawn to the VHP and its activities. Mario responds: Fair enough, just like there are some Catholics in India who are obsessed with Hindutvas to the exclusion of everything else, even Catholic nuns when they are abused and terrorized by Catholic priests. However, you need to be careful of being in the questionable intellectual company of Vijay Prashad, who is an avowed Marxist, even though he is as obsessed with Hindutvas as you are, to the point where he was willing to compromise himself to slander Sonal Shah with no objective evidence at all against her. [Memo to self: What is a Christian activist like Marshall doing in the company of a Marxist activist? Can they be birds of a feather? Nah!] What Prashad did by slandering Shah was as absurd and dishonest as if we were to call a Catholic activist - like you - a Hindutva activist - like the Ram Sene guys - because he or she had ignored or made light of the abominable abuse of Catholic nuns in Kerala. [Memo to self: Do a search to see if Marshall has condemned the abuse of Catholic nuns in Kerela. Hindutva extremists are pretty nasty, but are Catholic priests who abuse Catholic nuns any better?] Prashad's agenda is to benefit personally from the generosity and tolerance of this country and American academia while trying to weaken and destroy it from within like a termite in the foundations of a building, all while pretending to be a champion for the working class. The problem, as it is with Marxism wherever it has been tried, is that anyone who looks at the evidence like an objective academic is supposed to do, would know that workers do not benefit from Marxism, only a small cabal of elites do, which is why this illogical, human-spirit-sapping philosophy is now on the thrash heap of history where it belongs. Fortunately, this country is far stronger than any damage such intellectual termites can do.
