--- On Wed, 20/5/09, ss <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: ss <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Wednesday, 20 May, 2009, 9:04 AM
> On Tuesday 19 May 2009 2:40:16 pm
> Bonobashi wrote:
> > * My objection to Modi was nowhere connected to
> Hindutvabadi; it was
> > connected to our usual, may I say facile, ability to
> gloss over breaches of
> > the rule of law,
> >
> > * It is the same objection that I have to an
> historical figure, Husain
> > Shahed Suhrawardy, for exactly the same reasons,
> except that Modi happens
> > to be Hindu, and Suhrawardy was Muslim.
> >
> > * It is the same objection that I have to Tytler,
> Sajjan Kumar and the
> > unlamented swine H. K. L. Bhagat.
> >
> > * It is the same objection that I have to the
> Muslim crowds that
> > demonstrated to numbers in Calcutta, seeking the
> expulsion of the hapless
> > Taslima Nasreen. Being a hopeless and pedestrian
> writer doesn't warrant
> > such brutal measures, nor such a flagrant breach of
> the rule of law.
> >
> > So which part of Hindutva, or which Hindutvabadi was I
> guilty of hauling up
> > before my kangaroo court?
>
> IG I cannot but agree with your view of the names you have
> posted above.
>
> But please take another look at the names you have posted.
> Your list of people
> who have benefited from the " facile ability to gloss over
> breaches of the
> rule of law," does not extend to names earlier than the
> 20th century.
>
> Now what if you were to extend that list back by say 5000
> years.
>
> On the face of it this may sound like a ridiculous
> exercise. After all,
> credible records of the actions tyrants and genocidal
> maniacs though all
> those centuries do not exist. But records do exist of a few
> of them. And many
> of them still benefit from the "facile ability to gloss
> over breaches of
> the rule of law" and retain reputations they do not deserve
> centuries after
> their death
>
> I put it to you that "pseudosecularism" is the ability to
> recognise tyranny
> and genocide after a cutoff date (such as circa 1900) and
> the facile ability
> to gloss over the tyranny of a long list of tyrants before
> that date.
>
> Would you be guilty of that perhaps?
>
> shiv
No, I would not.
But based on what I have produced as evidence on my stand on the subject, you
have a perfect right to arraign me on that count. The question is, and I leave
it to you, having 'framed charges', so to speak, would you then allow me the
right to plead? If you do, then I intend to indicate very clearly what my
examples were (hint: they were examples), and my stand on the cut-off line.
Your call. I will abide by your decision.
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