This is all quite true but violence in India of all stripes is nothing new. There have been insurrectionary movements for as long as I can remember. The partition (1947) (I don't remember that but know enough people who do) and its aftermath was the grimmest of all, language-based agitation was routine (the division of Punjab into Haryana and Punjab states), the naxalite annhilation of the class enemy and the ruthless state repression in West Bengal and parts of Bihar in the 1960s and 1970s, and north-east India (there is no end to it). More recently the Nepali agitators have begun their negotiation and this time with the marxist state government once again. The number of Indian states is increasing and more languages are being recognized under the 8th schedule. This is clearly a result of inter-ethnic conflicts, the economic grievances is only part of the story, sometime often a small part. Ethnic identity takes on unbelievable significance. Besides, comparing numbers like 1000 in Pakistan and 4000 in India is quite meaningless, though any form of violence should be rejected. Globalization is adding fuel to this.
The Indian political system is a parallel criminal system. The do gooders are absolutely outnumbered. Only some parts of the bureaucracy are providing some forms of checks. Anthony On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 11:33 PM, ravi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Pankaj Mishra writes in The Guardian, about Fareed Zakaria, the latest > intellectual empty suit of the talking heads circuit, his latest book, and > the vision of India as a neo-liberal capitalist success: > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/07/terrorism.islam > >> In the past five years bomb attacks claimed by Islamist groups have killed >> hundreds across the Indian cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Varanasi, >> Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. An Indian Muslim was even involved in >> the failed assault on Glasgow airport in July last year. Yet George Bush >> reportedly introduced Manmohan Singh to his wife, Laura, as "the prime >> minister of India, a democracy which does not have a single al-Qaida member >> in a population of 150 million Muslims". >> >> To be fair to Bush, he was only repeating a cliche deployed by Indian >> politicians and American pundits such as Thomas Friedman to promote India as >> a squeaky-clean ally of the United States. However, Fareed Zakaria, the >> Indian-born Muslim editor of Newsweek International, ought to know better. >> In his new book, The Post-American World, he describes India as a "powerful >> package" and claims it has been "peaceful, stable, and prosperous" since >> 1997 - a decade in which India and Pakistan came close to nuclear war, tens >> of thousands of Indian farmers took their own lives, Maoist insurgencies >> erupted across large parts of the country, and Hindu nationalists in Gujarat >> murdered more than 2,000 Muslims. >> >> Apparently, no inconvenient truths are allowed to mar what Foreign >> Affairs, the foreign policy journal of America's elite, has declared a >> "roaring capitalist success story". Add Bollywood's singing and dancing >> stars, beauty queens and Booker prize-winning writers to the Tatas, the >> Mittals and the IT tycoons, and the picture of Indian confidence, vigour and >> felicity is complete. >> >> The passive consumer of this image, already puzzled by recurring reports >> of explosions in Indian cities, may be startled to learn from the National >> Counterterrorism Centre (NCTC) in Washington that the death toll from >> terrorist attacks in India between January 2004 and March 2007 was 3,674, >> second only to that in Iraq. (In the same period, 1,000 died as a result of >> such attacks in Pakistan, the "most dangerous place on earth" according to >> the Economist, Newsweek and other vendors of geopolitical insight.) >> >> To put it in plain language - which the NCTC is unlikely to use - India is >> host to some of the fiercest conflicts in the world. Since 1989 more than >> 80,000 have died in insurgencies in Kashmir and the northeastern states. >> >> <...> >> >> The Indian elite's obsession with the "foreign hand" obscures the fact >> that the roots of some of the violence lie in the previous two decades of >> traumatic political and economic change, particularly the rise of Hindu >> nationalism, and the related growth of ruthlessness towards those left >> behind by India's expanding economy. >> >> In 2006 a commission appointed by the government revealed that Muslims in >> India are worse educated and less likely to find employment than low-caste >> Hindus. Muslim isolation and despair is compounded by what B Raman, a >> hawkish security analyst, was moved after the most recent attacks to >> describe as the "inherent unfairness of the Indian criminal justice system". >> >> To take one example, the names of the politicians, businessmen, officials >> and policemen who colluded in the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in 2002 are >> widely known. Some of them were caught on video, in a sting carried out last >> year by the weekly magazine Tehelka, proudly recalling how they murdered and >> raped Muslims. But, as Amnesty International pointed out in a recent report, >> justice continues to evade most victims and survivors of the violence. Tens >> of thousands still languish in refugee camps, too afraid to return to their >> homes. >> >> <...> > > --ravi > > -- > Support something better than yourself ;-) > PeTA => http://peta.org/ > Greenpeace => http://greenpeace.org/ > If you have nothing better to read: http://platosbeard.org/ > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Anthony P. D'Costa Professor of Indian Studies Asia Research Centre Copenhagen Business School Porcelænshaven 24, 3 DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark Email:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Ph: +45 3815 2572 Fax: +45 3815 2500 http://uk.cbs.dk/arc www.cbs.dk/india xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
