On 9/12/07, David B. Shemano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Sabri Oncu references the Ottoman Empire. My post referenced "democratic" > multi-ethinic states as generally failures and the US as the exception. > Successful multi-ethnic states are almost always empires, monarchies, etc., > for reasons we can discuss if you wish. Modern India is a very interesting > example, miraculous in many ways. However, even Modern India was born in the > midst of the Pakistan/India split, so it is hard to say how successful India > would be as a democracy if the split had not occurred. On a related note, > Raghu references Bosnia, which I think supports my point -- Bosnia was > successully multi-ethnic as long everybody was ruled by an outsider > (Ottomans, Communist Party). Bosnia exploded when democracy became a reality. >
I'll stick to the example I am most familiar with. It is a very tragic mis-reading of the Partition to think that it helped create a successful democracy in India. In fact the exact opposite is true, all of the biggest threats to democracy in India can be traced back to that catastrophe, e.g. the constant tensions with Pakistan, the rise of the ultra-nationalist RSS and affiliates, insurgencies in Kashmir and jihadis all over the country. And this is not even counting the terrible human suffering because of 50 million people forced to mass migrate. And what exactly were they trying to accomplish with Partition again? Democracy in India has succeeded somewhat because it has some deep roots - mainly because of the genuinely participatory character of the freedom movement. And it hasn't worked out so well for Pakistan and Bangladesh even though unlike India they have "homogenous" Islamic populations. In fact this by itself invalidates your thesis. It turns out it was inhomogenous India that has managed to build a democracy, whereas homogenous Pakistan and Bangladesh had far less success. So much for the benefits of "ethnic" homogeneity. -raghu.
