The world continues to go to hell in a handbasket. The three big threats that may turn the twenty-first century into an abbatoir are (i) the possible emergence of an expansionist, militaristic Wilhelmine China, (ii) a failure of "transition" that results in the emergence of a Weimar Russia, and (iii) Hindu nationalistic communalism leading to the emergence of a Fascist India--a place where encouraging mobs to kill Muslims and burn their houses wins lots of votes. (The threat of an Islamic Reformation leading to lots of wholesale terrorism and the occasional repeat of what Christians did to each other on St. Bartholomew's Day ranks fourth.) Here the Economist writes about the bad Indian news from Gujerat:
Economist.com: THE closer you look, the worse it seems. It is bad enough that a hate-filled campaign playing on communal fears propelled Hindu nationalists to a landslide election victory in the western state of Gujarat, despite a bloody pogrom against the Muslim minority earlier this year. More distressing still is the compelling evidence that the violence was actually a vote-winner for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its chief minister in Gujarat, Narendra Modi. The implications are worrying both for the tenor of India's domestic politics, and for its relations with the outside world, especially its neighbour and fellow nuclear power, Pakistan. The results, announced on December 15th, showed that the BJP, which leads the national coalition government, had increased its share of the 182 seats in the state legislature from 117 to 126, against 51 for Congress, the main opposition...
A smaller-scale disaster is the--predictable and predicted--collapse of food production in Zimbabwe, as Robert Mugabe continues to destroy his country in order to try to save his own hold on power:
Zimbabwe: The government's chaotic and violent seizure of white-owned farms.... The economy is collapsing. The land program, coupled with severe drought, has left half the population in need of emergency food.... Vast stretches of previously productive farmland are no longer in use because about half of the aspiring black commercial farmers have failed to take up their allotted farms since August, when most white farmers were told to leave. The government, which seized the farms without compensation, still lacks title to most of the land. Many prospective black farmers are reluctant to occupy farms without title deeds because it is nearly impossible to get loans without them. Meanwhile, thousands of impoverished, resettled farmers are struggling to survive without seed, fertilizer, irrigation and plowing assistance, basic services that the government has promised. The United Nations says that more than half of the government's tractor fleet — which was meant to plow fields for the poor — is out of service because of shortages of spare parts and fuel. Officials are so short of seed and fertilizer that many small farmers are sitting idle on plots of land they cannot plant. In Manicaland Province, only about 10 percent of resettled farmers have seed and 17 percent have fertilizer. When seeds are available, the government often provides unsuitable varieties...
And the Economist tells how first-world governments continue to drag their feet as they seek to avoid the best solution to the problem of getting powerful drugs to sick people in poor countries:
Posted by DeLong at December 26, 2002 04:40 PM | TrackbackPill Paupers: IT HAS been another week of long arguments at the World Trade Organisation over how to implement last year's Doha agreement on getting cheaper drugs for poor countries. The main dispute has been over how far to extend compulsory licensing, a tool that confers the right to manufacture patented drugs without the patent-holder's consent. Because America is holding out for a narrow ambit for any new provisions on compulsory licensing, restricting them to drugs for such diseases as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, it looks unlikely that a deal will be struck by the original target date.... There are better ways than compulsory licensing of balancing the interests of patients in poor countries with the need to maintain incentives for continued investment and development of new medicines.... The ideal solution would be to stop searching for ingenious ways to get drug companies to bear the costs of selling essential drugs more cheaply to poor countries. Instead, rich-country governments, which have recognised the moral and economic imperative to enable poor countries to afford such drugs, should put up the necessary cash. They will have to be prepared to pay full prices, set high enough to ensure that drug companies have an incentive to develop new medicines, including those for typical poor-country ailments. That would be expensive, certainly: but it would be a better use of overseas-aid budgets than any number of white-elephant infrastructure projects.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2606183.stm
I think that the Economist does itself little credit by focusing on the case of Zimbabwe (a terrible, to be sure) and ignoring countries like Malawi, where the factors exacerbating the drought have less to do with Horrible Black People and more to do with their coreligionists at the IMF.
Posted by: dsquared on December 27, 2002 02:53 AMIn fairness to the IMF, and before someone else points it out, their current story is that they did not make Malawi sell off its reserves; Thomas Dawson (their press officer, and a man who has been on my "always check" list for quite a while) claims that the IMF agreed with Malawi that the reserves would be taken down to emergency levels, and that the Fund knew nothing about the operation to sell off the whole lot. I remain sceptical, particularly as I seem to remember Horst Koehler singing a different tune earlier this year ...
Posted by: dsquared on December 27, 2002 03:08 AMYou have missed (iv) the possible emergence of a USA that believes it has the right to establish a monopoly in force and to set the international legal framework in its own interest.
re:Zimbabwe and previously productive farmland are no longer in use. It was my understanding that white farmland was primarily cultivating tobacco, rather than food, and most of the food consumed was cultivated by black marginal farmers. Is this incorrect? If it *is* correct, how is the reclaiming of farms related to the food shortage? I've read that the Zimbabwean food crisis is also a result of its ESAP.
Posted by: Drapetomaniac on December 27, 2002 07:18 AM
And don't forget that Fascist India shares a border with Ungovernable Pakistan, & both have nuclear arms. Not good.
Posted by: Matt on December 27, 2002 07:21 AM>>It was my understanding that white farmland was primarily cultivating tobacco, rather than food<<
Tobacco, fruit, all sorts of things really. The "white farmland" was, remember, *fifty percent of the fertile land in Zimbabwe*, so it was hardly going to be growing anything other than a reasonable cross-section of Zimbabwean agriculture.
Posted by: dsquared on December 27, 2002 08:12 AMWhy is it that the Economist often writes as though wishing for a new British Empire? If but for Ghandi, the British Raj would be in place and all would be as Devonshire. At least the Economist has a global perspective, but there is so often rather the smugness of colonialism about it even when the focus is important.
Posted by: on December 27, 2002 08:37 AMFascist India? No Way.
The Economist does its readers a massive injustice somehow equating Narendra Modi with, say Le Pen.
Brad compounds it by repeating the 'popular' myth - 'a place where encouraging mobs to kill Muslims and burn their houses wins lots of votes. '
let us put this whole thing in perspective, shall we?
1: A Muslim mob attacked and set fire to a train carrying pilgrims (visitors to the disputed Ayodhya site, but unarmed pilgrims nevertheless) burning 57 people alive, (including women and children) at Godhra
2: Hindus in Gujarat, having tolerated centuries of Muslim / Moghul destruction of Hindu temples, murder of Hindus and the unspeakable carnage of partition primarily wrought by the ego of Jinnah, finally erupt in blind anger and go on a killing spree of frightening violence.
3: Muslims and the world get a glimpse of the savagery Hindus are capable of
4: Two Muslims take over the Akshardam temple in Gujarat with AK47 assault rifles killing Hindu pilgrims. They are finally shot dead by Indian Security forces. The assailants are shown to be Muslims, one with Pakistani connections
5: There is no retaliation this time, thanks to the efforts of the same Narendra Modi.
6: Modi runs on a platform opposing special privileges to Indian Muslims (The Muslim Personal law allows an Indian Muslim to take four wives and divorce them without alimony, in accordance with the Sharia) and is elected in a landslide.
7: The world wrings its hands and worries about a Fascist India.
There is nothing fascist about India, now or ever. Hindus do not seek to extradite Muslims (or ethnically 'cleanse' them). The same 'Fascist' BJP elected a Muslim as the President of India this year (Dr Abdul Kalam). Muslims hold powerful Ministerial positions in the Central BJP government.
By all accounts, Muslims in India are treated better than Republicans treat Blacks in the US.
Let us not throw the F- word around. It is a word with significant meaning, especially in the West and you (and the Economist) do your readers a big disfavor by casually calling the BJP 'fascist'.
I have my problems with corruption among Indian Politicans, but Fascist?
Speaking of 'Fascist', you may be aware that among all the Nations that Jews had ever lived in, Hindu India was (and is) the only country where they were NEVER persecuted for their beliefs?
Posted by: Suresh Krishnamoorthy on December 27, 2002 08:40 AMRemember - there are 47 countries in southern Africa. Zimbabwe is important, but South Africa and Malawi and Botwswana are indeed as important.
Thursday, December 26 - There is a fine NYTimes article on Zimbabwe and land reform....
Posted by: on December 27, 2002 08:43 AMDecember 26, 2002
A Land Reform Plan Falters in Zimbabwe
By RACHEL L. SWARNS - NYTimes
KADOMA, Zimbabwe — The ragged farmers shout and whistle as the oxen trudge through the drizzle, dragging a rusty plow through sodden fields. Most passing motorists splash by without a second glance.
The withered men look like ordinary peasant farmers. But they have no fertilizer, no irrigation, few seeds and little hope that their crops will flourish in this season of erratic rains.
They are the beneficiaries of President Robert Mugabe's agricultural revolution.
Over the past two years, the government has redistributed nearly all of the country's white-owned farmland to about 300,000 poor black families and 50,000 aspiring black commercial farmers. Of the 4,500 white commercial farmers who once powered the economy by producing tobacco and wheat, about 600 are still trying to farm, mostly on smaller holdings.
Mr. Mugabe, who has led this country since white rule ended in 1980, has hailed the sweeping change as the fulfillment of the black struggle for liberation in Zimbabwe. Many Africans praise him for undoing the legacy of British colonialism, which left a tiny white minority — less than 1 percent of the population — with more than half of the country's fertile land....
Posted by: on December 27, 2002 08:47 AMIndia has been and will continue to be "democratic."
Posted by: on December 27, 2002 09:30 AMI'm with Tom Slee. The worst danger is that the US mismanages its place at the top of the pyramid and causes economic depression or world war. China and Russia have grown in spite of the best efforts of our economic policy makers and hawks to screw them up. If the US allows these two countries become rich and healthy competitors then we coudl ahve a peaceful century. If the US tries to keep them down then we're lookign at more war.
PS Mugabe beat the opposition because the opposition MDC wanted to involve the IMF in the redistribution of land and reformulation of economic policies. As long as the opposition appears to be tied to failed IMF policies, Mugabe will keep winning, even though he's awful.
Posted by: Eric M on December 27, 2002 12:01 PM(i) the possible emergence of an expansionist, militaristic Wilhelmine China
This has already happened in 1949, with Mao playing Wilhelm. By now, the expansionist drive is pretty much over; the government violence machine has long since turned inward. Keep in mind that China is not a country, it is a subcontinent as diverse as, say, Europe from Atlantic to the Urals. It does not even have a common spoken language. It is only held together by (somewhat) common written language and (much more importantly) four million conscripts that the Beijing government has at its disposal at any given time. Historically, politically united China is an aberration that, as far as I remember, never existed more than four generations at a time...
One possibility that keeps popping into my mind is something along the lines of Eritrean cessation from Ethiopia. Eritrea, the primary coffee-growing region of the country, had a per-capita GDP three times national average. At some point, the relatively well-off Eritreans decided they didn't want to keep feeding (mostly Tigrean) bureaucracy and army, so Eritrea ceded. The government dispatched its army to Eritrea, only to find out that Eritrean army, while relatively small and inexperienced, is better equipped (remember the per-capita GDP disparity?) and MUCH better motivated. The end result: Ethiopian army incurred heavy casualties and was unable to recapture Eritrea, so the Ethiopian government had to de-facto recognize the cessation. Chinese South, it seems to me, has every chance of becoming the next Eritrea; it is a booming export-oriented economy controlled by ethnically alien government far away...
(ii) a failure of "transition" that results in the emergence of a Weimar Russia
To an extent, the story in Russia is similar to the story in China; expansion turned into domestic suppression. Check out Russian government's budget documents; they show a steady pattern of diverting resources from "national defense" to "law enforcement"... The difference is, most of the Russian exports (notably, oil and gas) come from remote regions with very small populations and rely on the government-controlled pipelines... Speaking somewhat cynically, whoever controls "the pipe", controls Russia.
(iii) Hindu nationalistic communalism leading to the emergence of a Fascist India
I'd be MUCH more concerned about the possibility of a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan... The elitist governments of both countries have repeatedly shown their ability and willingness to rob their own countries out of basic necessities in order to pay for the latest round in the regional arms race.
Posted by: Nikolai Chuvakhin on December 27, 2002 12:51 PM"By all accounts, Muslims in India are treated better than Republicans treat Blacks in the US."
What a shameless lie! When was the last time a mob of Republicans massacred 300 blacks?
http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/india_ayodhya/cover.html
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 27, 2002 05:35 PMSuresh writes: "Hindus in Gujarat, having tolerated centuries"
Show me a single Hindu in Gujarat that has tolerated 'centuries' of anything. No Hindu
in Gujarat has any right to bear offense
for anything that happened centuries before.
Using history in this way to excuse sectarian
barbarism is an old trick, and a favorite
of evil men. There is no honor in it; not
when Milosevic does it, not when it happens
in India. It is evil.
It's an effort to make people feel that
they bear an intolerable injustice which
does not, in fact, exist. This is done
for one reason - for political advantage
at the cost of lives of the target group.
Over the centuries, rights and wrongs average out
to a wash. Your ancestors have wronged Muslims
as badly as Muslims have wronged your ancestors.
By the way, I've read about Tibetans being
threatened by fanatic Hindus also. It's not
just Muslims. There is definitely a fascist
ethnic purity movement developing in India.
My fundamental objection to categorizing the events of Gujarat as Fascism:
- The mob reaction to the Godhra incident was reprehensible, no doubt. But it was reaction, not a targeted / continuing action
- It is not systematic. If it was, the mob reactions would have been repeated after the Akshardham incident where over 50 innocent visitors to a temple were gunned down in cold blood.
- There is no systematic move to 'eliminate' Muslims anywhere in India. To equate the BJP with Milosevic is just plain silly
Hyperbole does not serve the Economist well.
India has its problems for sure. Let us not turn it into something it is not.
As for 'tolerating centuries', I suppose Jon H would also oppose affirmative action along the same argument: no Black who is alive today was ever a slave.
We ignore history at our peril.
There is no disputing the fact that over 500 years of Mughal rule in India have caused considerable damage to Hindu Temples and places of worship. It is unfair to blame today's Muslims for what Aurangazeb and Shah Jahan did. But at the same time, it is unfair to ignore the fact that Hindus in India have always been very tolerant of other religions. Even today India is the only non-Islamic nation that allows Muslims to follow the Sharia in many matters, like marriage, property and divorce.
What happened in Gujarat while grotesque, is being blown into something it is not.
As for the treatment of Muslims in India and Blacks in the US: let us not get carried away by one incident. The more precise parallel is: will the US Government, for all its tolerance and secular views, allow the Mormons to practise polygamy?
Mark Bahner: it is just as unfair to equate the mob attack in Gujarat with the 'general treatment' of Muslims in India as it is to take Trent Lott and Storm Thurmond's views on segregation as representative of all Republicans. That was my point.
Muslims in India have more rights to practise their religion the way they want than many religions do in the US.
Will the US allow American Muslims to live by the Sharia? Allow a Muslim Personal Law and reserve specific number of seats in Congress to minorities?
I am very disheartened to see that even in this forum where the level of education is very high, misinformation about India is quite rampant!
Posted by: Suresh Krishnamoorthy on December 28, 2002 08:59 AM"As for 'tolerating centuries', I suppose Jon H would also oppose affirmative action along the same argument: no Black who is alive today was ever a slave. "
Affirmative action isn't about slavery, it's
about discrimination, which still happens,
and was much worse within the lifetime of
living African-Americans.
Nikolai -- I think your fears are probably overstated. The notion of a unified China has been an integral part of southern Han political culture since the first "unification" of the country under the southern-based Qin Dynasty in 221BC. China has more to fear from the simmering Islamic separatist movements in its Western regions.
Is it a threat otherwise? Excepting Taiwan, the country doesn't seem to be pursuing a particularly militaristic line. Foreign policy has been measured and defensive (cf. the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999 or the Hainan Island incident last year). This may be because China lacks significant power-projection capabilities, but that weakness seems unlikely to disappear any time soon. Although the PLA plans to build one by 2010, for example, the only aircraft carrier in the country is a rusted Soviet castaway now serving as a floating theme park in Shenzhen.
I personally think the Chinese threat is wildly overstated by the American media. Most alarmist pieces equate military with economic power in mercantilist fashion, and then make suspect projections by extending the official Chinese GDP growth rates indefinitely while assuming little American/European/Japanese growth (in which case it will still take about 40 years for China to catch up to the US). Forgetting the current debate over whether Chinese growth is or is not significantly overstated, it is more fair to say we know very little about the Chinese economy once we step out of the rapidly-developing coastal hotspots.
Depressing news in India and Zimbabwe though....
Posted by: david on December 28, 2002 10:11 AM"As for 'tolerating centuries', I suppose Jon H would also oppose affirmative action along the same argument: no Black who is alive today was ever a slave. "
Affirmative action isn't about slavery, it's
about discrimination, which still happens,
and was much worse within the lifetime of
living African-Americans.
Reparations are about slavery. And I oppose
reparations, because nobody alive was a slave,
and many people alive don't descend from
slave holders. Among many other reasons,
such as the fact we had a rather nasty and
expensive war in large measure about ending
slavery.
By your logic, Jews should sue Italy, Egypt,
and Iraq for damages done thousands of years
ago. And Egypt might counter-sue for the
plagues inflicted by Moses.
Where does it stop? If specious claims of
personal injury are based on events of
hundreds of years ago, the only possible
solution is to exterminate or expel the
guilty party. Forgiveness is impossible,
because the long-ago events always remain
available for exploitation by evil
opportunists.
It's difficult to see what responsibility the two thousand Muslims killed across Gujarat by the mobs, and the untold numbers of other Muslims displaced from their homes, bore for the train attack.
And then, have you heard that the attack on the train by Muslims was itself retaliation for the boorish and rude behaviour of the Hindu pilgrims towards the Muslim station vendors, culminating in the abduction of one of the vendor's comely daughters by the pilgrims and her transportation into the train?
What does this prove? Well, that people on both sides were behaving poorly, for starters.
The broader point: It's really spectacularly irrelevant to blame current problems on past injustices, or to use the actions of a small segment of a population group to explain away what constitutes more-or-less a pogrom.
"Hindus in Gujarat, having tolerated centuries of Muslim / Moghul destruction of Hindu temples, murder of Hindus and the unspeakable carnage of partition primarily wrought by the ego of Jinnah, finally erupt in blind anger and go on a killing spree of frightening violence."
R-i-ght.
Remind me again: How many Gujarati Muslims have any connection with the Moghuls? How many Gujarati Muslims are responsible for the events at the train apart from those who actually attacked it? Oh, also, how many Muslims were killed by Hindus in partition?
As for comparing the treatment of Blacks by Republicans in the US with that of Muslims by the BJP in India, eh, I don't buy it. For starters, the Republicans haven't even suggested that Blacks are descendants of foreign invaders whose culture is fundamentally alien to American soil, and that they must renounce those elements of black culture which at all conflict with a white-dominated definition of Americanness at risk of otherwise being identified as fifth-columnists.
This doesn't necessarily amount to fascism--for starters, fascism requires some kind of charismatic dictator to monopolize power. Still, all fascist movements do appear to depend upon the definition of an internal 'Other', and the BJP certainly seems to have found one with Indian Muslims.
Posted by: Randy McDonald on December 28, 2002 10:46 AMhttp://members.tripod.com/~wzzz/BIRUNI.html
Appropo of nothing, other than my commentary
upon cujo jello-blodgiacs and their caw-caw
commentary, (not you, Brad) endlessly adlib'ing
their mendacious drivel off of 'news' snippets.
The first law of chaos theory is that NOTHING
derives linearly from what has gone before.
The second law is the observer, in observing,
imposes his/her own distortion to the matrix.
It follows any attempt to rationalize cause & effect and divine our future is despiteous.
Or, in a word, craps.
Posted by: al Zed on December 28, 2002 07:54 PMFor starters, the Republicans haven't even suggested that Blacks are descendants of foreign invaders whose culture is fundamentally alien to American soil, and that they must renounce those elements of black culture which at all conflict with a white-dominated definition of Americanness at risk of otherwise being identified as fifth-columnists.
By the same token, neither has the BJP (not even hard liner Advani) required that Muslims renounce their culture or automatically identified all muslims with violence (or being secret Pakistani sympathisers, the classic Fifth Column argument). Again, as an extreme example, Muslims in India have the right to practice Polygamy today.
Years of terrorist incursions in Kashmir have not translated into violence on Muslims elsewhere in India. True, the Babri Masjid was destroyed in Aydhya, but that did not lead to a general destruction of (or even a call for the destruction of) other masjids in India.
I say this again: There is no systematic effort on the part of the BJP or any other organization (including the 'extremist' VHP) to purge muslims from India or ask them to 'renounce' anything, except perhaps allegiance to foriegn countries (an oath I took when I became a US citizen), specific incidences of violence notwithstanding.
Remind me again: How many Gujarati Muslims have any connection with the Moghuls?
Answer: All, since there were no Muslims in India before the Mughals arrived and by definition, all Indian Muslims are descended from the Mughals.
But why is this even relevant? I am not suggesting that present day Muslims bear responsibility for the actions of Aurangazeb. For the record, I too vehemently oppose reparations for slavery or concentration camps or whatever other historical ilss we can think up.
But I am saying that present day Hindus are quite keenly aware of their history where their complete tolerance of Islam and Christianity even in the face of their intolerance of Hinduism, has led to centuries of domination of India and decline of Hinduism. (as an aside, there is no concept of conversion to or from Hinduism, forcible or otherwise. Can we say the same about the other major Faiths?)
However misguided it may appear, the VHP and BJP are generally about Hindu Pride a notion that seems to scare many others.
From Churchill's famous 'half-naked fakir' comment and Max Mueller's trivialization of most things Hindu, Hinduism has been reduced to a 'caste, cow, curry' stereotype, especially in the West.
As familiar as I am with both cultures (East and West)I am beginning to realize that the fear that the BJP is 'fascist' is coming from a general apprehension about this whole 'Hindu Pride' thing.
I hope we reserve judgement until we see what form it really takes and not simply equate 'Hindu Nation' with 'Hindu Saudi Arabia look-alike' where other religions are not welcome. Knowing India and Indians as I do, I am quite willing to bet against that likelihood.
So now, I am probably branded in this forum as a closet Hindu Fundamentalist who is secretly cheering on the mobs that killed pregnant women.
I cannot conceive of a crime greater than visiting death on innocents. In that sense, the mob that burnt the train and those who retaliated were both reprehensible.
I don't worry that India being a 'Hindu Nation' will make it 'Fascist' any more than Israel being a Jewish Nation will make it Fascist.
(or are we going to seriously deny that Israel is a 'Jewish State' or that the US is a 'Christian State')
Posted by: Suresh Krishnamoorthy on December 29, 2002 08:19 AMAnswer: All, since there were no Muslims in India before the Mughals arrived and by definition, all Indian Muslims are descended from the Mughals.
I'm not certain what you mean here. The causative factor that led to general conversions by Hindus to Islam (forced and voluntary) was the Mughals, but unless the scale of the Mughal migrations were vastly greater than I was aware of, the large majority of Indian Muslims would still be mostly descended from more-or-less distant Hindu ancestors.
As for Hindutva, it depends on what definition you use.
Is it this one?
http://www.americanfriends.org/nuclear/hindutva_persp_N35.html
http://www.chennaionline.com/columns/variety/variety66.asp
It's relatively benign, but still, it draws boundaries: Indian Muslims and Christians are identified as creations of foreign imperialism, and have been identified--at least potentially--as agents of foreign imperialisms trying to break up the Indian nation-state. As Clarke writes in the Harvard Theological Review,
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2399/2_95/90990549/print.jhtml,
Savarkar "interpreted [Christians] as not belonging to Hindutva because they do not share in the common civilization. Nonetheless, a careful reading of the aforementioned passage will reveal that in actual fact their loyalty of belonging to the common nation is also questioned. Christians are portrayed as being more loyal to a foreign land than their own Fatherland. Christians thus cannot really be part of the Indian nation in its Hinduized polity since they are misfits in this civilization and their allegiance to the nation is divided. The fact that Christianity was becoming an attractive option for Dalits and Adivasis must have been threatening to the forces of Hindu nationalism. In this coupling, religio-cultural difference was reinforced by ethno-social difference. Variation threatens to become potently dangerous; Dalits and Adivasis must in no way reassert their difference from Hinduism by embracing Christianity. Thus, those who subscribed to the Hindu homogenization project disseminated the view that embracing Christianity was an antinational and anti-cultural act."
The New Statesman may be right in concluding that,
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0FQP/4602_131/91086062/print.jhtml
"A hundred years after Vivekananda's death, the BJP has come closest to realising his project of westernising Hinduism into a nationalist ideology: one that has pretensions to being all-inclusive, yet demonises Muslims and seeks to pre-empt with its rhetoric of egalitarianism the long-overdue political assertion of India's lower-caste groups."
Besides, establishing the religion of the state's majority population as the legally dominant religion never works out well for the minorities. (See pre-Revolutionary France, the United Kingdom before the early 19th century refors, the Tsarist empire until its end.) I'm skeptical that it would work much better in India.
Posted by: Randy McDonald on December 29, 2002 09:39 AMRandy,
as you yourself acknowledge, the two 'definitions' of Hindutva you quote are both quite benign. The New Statesman article (by Pankaj Mishra) is a joke at several levels: it is historically inaccurate and belongs properly in the New Statesman. A detailed rebuttal of that article is beyond the scope of this discussion.
(quote from its website: On 10 June 1988, as the magazine celebrated its 75th anniversary, New Statesman merged with New Society (a magazine covering the field of the social sciences). Steve Platt became Editor of New Statesman and Society in April 1991 and the magazine acquired the title Marxism Today in December 1991. )
Nuff Said!
Posted by: Suresh Krishnamoorthy on December 29, 2002 07:22 PM... and as for relying on FindArticles.com for news searches, has anybody seen the list of their 'sources' recently? Here is a sample:
The Harvard Theological review, The New Statesman, Girl's Life, Whole Earth, Ecumenical Review, National Catholic Reporter...
... nuff said!
Posted by: Suresh Krishnamoorthy on December 29, 2002 07:31 PMInteresting editorial regarding Hindu nationalists in India in the NYTimes today. It seems that
the Hindu Nationalists aren't content with
reality, so are changing history to suit their
preferred self-aggrandizing mythologies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/30/opinion/30FRIE.html
NEW DELHI
While some of us lament the repetition of history, the men who run India are busy rewriting it. Their efforts, regrettably, will only be bolstered by the landslide victory earlier this month of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Western India state of Gujarat.
The B.J.P. has led this country's coalition government since 1999. But India's Hindu nationalists have long had a quarrel with history. They are unhappy with the notion that the most ancient texts of Hinduism are associated with the arrival of the Vedic "Aryan" peoples from the Northwest. They don't like the dates of 1500 to 1000 B.C. ascribed by historians to the advent of the Vedic peoples, the forebears of Hinduism, or the idea that the Indus Valley civilization predates Vedic civilization. And they certainly can't stand the implication that Hinduism, like the other religious traditions of India, evolved through a mingling of cultures and peoples from different lands.
Last month the National Council of Educational Research and Training, the central government body that sets the national curriculum and oversees education for students up to the 12th grade, released the first of its new school textbooks for social sciences and history. Teachers and academics protested loudly. The schoolbooks are notable for their elision of many awkward facts, like the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by a Hindu nationalist in 1948.
The authors of the textbook have promised to make revisions to the chapter about Gandhi. But what is more remarkable is how they have added several novel chapters to Indian history.
Thus we have a new civilization, the "Indus-Saraswati civilization" in place of the well-known Indus Valley civilization, which is generally agreed to have appeared around 4600 B.C. and to have lasted for about 2,000 years. (The all-important addition of "Saraswati," an ancient river central to Hindu myth, is meant to show that Indus Valley civilization was actually part of Vedic civilization.) We have a chapter on "Vedic civilization" — the earliest recognizable "Hindu culture" in India and generally acknowledged not to have appeared before about 1700 B.C. — that appears without a single date.
The council has also promised to test the "S.Q.," or "Spiritual Quotient," of gifted students in addition to their I.Q. Details of this plan are not elaborated upon; the council's National Curriculum Framework for School Education says only that "a suitable mechanism for locating the talented and the gifted will have to be devised."
More recent history, of course, is not covered in school textbooks. So we will have to wait to see how such books might treat this month's elections in Gujarat. They were held in the wake of the brutal pogrom of last February and March, in which more than 1,000 Muslims were murdered and at least 100,000 more lost their homes and property. The chief minister of Gujarat, who is among the leading lights of the B.J.P., justified this atrocity as a "natural reaction" to an act of arson on a train in the Gujarati town of Godhra, in which 59 Hindu pilgrims lost their lives.
The ruling party's subsequent election campaign was conducted against the rather literal backdrop of the Godhra incident: painted billboards of the burning railway carriage. The murdered Muslims were not accorded the same tragic status, although their pleas for justice created a backlash that played neatly into the campaign theme of Hindu Pride. It was, of course, a great success.
The carefully nurtured sense of Hindu grievance has been nursed rather than sated by acts of mob violence: the destruction of the 15th-century mosque in Ayodhya, for instance, or the persecution of Christians in earlier pogroms in Gujarat's Dangs district. The B.J.P., along with its Hindu-supremacist cohorts, the R.S.S. (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and the V.H.P. (Vishwa Hindu Parishad), has a seemingly irresistible will to power. (The R.S.S. and the V.H.P. are not political parties but "social service organizations" that have served as springboards to power for B.J.P. leaders like Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat.)
In vanguard states like Gujarat, thousands of students follow the uncompromisingly chauvinistic R.S.S. textbooks. They will learn that "Aryan culture is the nucleus of Indian culture, and the Aryans were an indigenous race . . . and creators of the Vedas" and that "India itself was the original home of the Aryans." They will learn that Indian Christians and Muslims are "foreigners."
But they still have much to learn. I once visited the bookshop at the R.S.S. headquarters in Nagpur. On sale were books that show humankind originated in the upper reaches of that mythical Indian river, the Saraswati, and pamphlets that explain the mysterious Indus Valley seals, with their indecipherable Harrapan script: they are of Vedic origin.
After I visited the bookshop I stopped to talk to a group of young boys who live together in an R.S.S. hostel. They were a sweet bunch of kids, between 8 and 11 years old. They all wanted to grow up to be either doctors or pilots. Very good, I said. And what did they learn in school? Did they learn about religion? About Hinduism, Christianity?
They were silent for a few seconds — until their teacher nodded. A bespectacled kid spoke up. "Christians burst into houses and make converts of Hindus by bribing them or beating them."
He said it without malice, just a breathless eagerness, as if it were something he had learned in social science class. Perhaps it was.
Kai Friese is a journalist and magazine editor in New Delhi.
Posted by: Jon H on December 29, 2002 08:41 PMJon,
History is often written by victors. Following that argument, most of what passes for 'Indian History' in the West today was written by the British, colonial conquerors who had a vested interest in denying historical accounts that contradicted their own positions.
For a counterpoint to the NYT article, see
This is not to say that either version is automatically correct. It simply presents scholarly, alternative viewpoints for 'history' being the way it is.
Posted by: Suresh Krishnamoorthy on December 30, 2002 05:03 AMnot only were there muslims in india before the mughals, there were muslim *rulers* in delhi before the mughals. i have trouble taking seriously the remarks on history made by someone who does not even seem au courant with the battle of panipat! and of course, there were muslim communities before there were muslim rulers (eg the moppilahs) and there are sizeable muslim communities where there was very little muslim rule (eg bengal).
not to mention that the fact that muslims have sharia-based personal law is not a sign that they are treated justly in india -- and even if it were, the very forces mr.krishnamoorthy is defending are in favor of a common personal law. and not to mention that more hindu men are polygamous than muslim men. or that there are indeed conversions to hinduism going on as we speak, whether one chooses to discover this fact through Hinduism Today or Human Rights Watch.
i could go on, but i haven't the time. i'd say tho that while i haven't read Girl's Life, i'm sure it couldn't be any more unrealiable than mr.krishnamoorthy.
Posted by: Drapetomaniac on December 30, 2002 05:41 AMOk, let us take it one at a time:
By Mughal, I go back to Ghazni, Alluddin Khilji and the like. let us face it: there were no Muslims before Prophet Muhammed and there certainly were Hindus long before that. Bottom line: Muslims in India today fall under only two categories:
- descendants of the original Muslim Invaders, the followers of Prophet Muhammed
- Muslims who converted to Islam from other religions such as Hinduism and other tribal faiths - voluntariliy or otherwise.
So, my statement: All muslims in India (and indeed the world over) today are either descended directly from the followers of Muhammed who invaded India or converted to Islam.
Next the sharia based law: Sure the BJP wants to overturn sharia based law, but how does that equate with fascism? Wouldn't that also mean that the US government is fascist for denying Mormons the right to be polygamous?
As for 'more' Hindus being polygamous today, that is just plain silly. We are talking about the law here. It is illegal for a Hindu to have more than one wife in India today. It is legal for a Muslim to have up to four wives.
Sure, there are conversions going on today. I never claimed otherwise. I simply said there is no provision in Hinduism for conversion.
The so called conversions are either political stunts or democracy done awfully awry: there are seats reserved for Muslims and other minorities in India's government. If you are a Muslim from a 'Muslim' constituency, (or a Hindu from a 'open' constituency') wouldn't you want to do everything in your power to increase the number of 'Muslims' or 'Hindus' in that constituency?
A lot of 'conversions' to Hinduism are simply 're-conversions' of those who have 'changed' their faith, a foolish notion in the first place. The orthodox Hindu firmly believes that you are born into your faith be it Hinduism, Islam or Christianity, Judaism ... whatever. You can no more change that than you can change your skin color.
Unreliable? moi?
Posted by: Suresh Krishnamoorthy on December 30, 2002 06:42 AM... and as I am being accused of bieng ignorant of history: every Indian kid who grew up in the 60s and 70s can recite in painstaking detail the 17 invasions of Ghazni, the battles of panipat, the Khilji Era, Mahmud Ghori, Babar..., the 'glorious' Akbar, the 'romantic' Shah Jehan, the 'brutish' Aurangazeb, the 'brave' Shivaji, the 'cunning' Robert Clive...
We had to memorize all the various dates and battles for our History exams and spew them out on command :-))
Posted by: Suresh on December 30, 2002 07:39 AMSuresh Krishnamoorthy writes, "it is just as unfair to equate the mob attack in Gujarat with the 'general treatment' of Muslims in India as it is to take Trent Lott and Storm Thurmond's views on segregation as representative of all Republicans. That was my point."
If that was ideed your "point," it was completely lost in your specific words! Once again, what you wrote on December 27th, at 8:40 am, was:
"By all accounts, Muslims in India are treated better than Republicans treat Blacks in the US."
That is simply a lie. (Or perhaps, more accurately, an untruth. It wouldn't surprise me, given the world-view that your posts present, that you actually believe that you were making a true statement.)
It could not POSSIBLY be true that, "by ALL accounts" (editorial emphasis added) "Muslims in India are treated better than Republicans treat Blacks in the U.S."
I absolutely *guarantee* you that I could find plenty of Muslims in Gujarat who would not share YOUR account that "Muslims in India are that treated better than Republicans treat Blacks in the U.S."
At minimimum, I could simply go to the families and friends of the 300+ Muslims that were slaughtered, apparently for the mere fact that they ARE Muslims. But I suspect that a plurality, if not an outright majority, of Muslims in Gujarat would not share YOUR account.
I think you had a valid point: that the massacre of 300 Muslims in Gujarat--in response to the massacre of Hindus *by* Muslims in Gujarat--is probably not symptomatic of treatment of Muslims by Hindus in India.
But you completely ruined your point by bringing in your own bias against Republicans in the U.S. (Some of whom are black, by the way. So your biased slur would imply that those black Republicans don't even treat themselves well!)
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 30, 2002 09:31 AMSuresh Krishnamoorthy writes, "Next the sharia based law: Sure the BJP wants to overturn sharia based law, but how does that equate with fascism? Wouldn't that also mean that the US government is fascist for denying Mormons the right to be polygamous?"
You wrote, in another post, that you have become a U.S. citizen. (I'm pleased to read that...welcome to the U.S.)
Your question implies an ignorance of U.S. law: specifically, the Constitution. That's not surprising...as most native-born U.S. citizens are also ignorant of the Constitution.
The Constitution specifies two levels of government: the U.S. (federal) government, and the governments of the states.
The U.S. Constitution (specifically, the 10th amendment) also forbids the federal government from exerting ANY power not specifically enumerated (listed) in the Constitution.
The U.S. Congress has NO power, under the Constitution, to legislate on how many other people a person may marry.
So the answer to your question is most definitely YES...it IS "fascistic"--the notion that a central government may control all aspects of an individual's life--if the U.S. (federal) government legislates on the number of people a person may marry.
But, "by all accounts" (to use your wonderful phrase) it is abundantly clear that the Democratic and Republican parties have fascistic tendencies...so the the U.S. government also shows such tendencies.
Mark (Libertarian)
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 30, 2002 09:50 AM"Allow a Muslim Personal Law and reserve specific number of seats in Congress to minorities?"
I don't know what "Muslim Personal Law" is, but I can address the second part of your question:
NO! Absent a Constitutional amendment, the federal government is absolutely forbidden to "reserve a specific number of seats" for any group of people.
In fact, that's a terrible idea, so I doubt the Constitution would ever be amendmed in that manner.
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 30, 2002 10:00 AMMark,
mea culpa, for the poor choice of words.
What I should have said was: Muslims in India vote for Hindus (and the BJP, I daresay) more often than Blacks in the US vote for Republicans.
It is a matter of perception: In general, Blacks in the US (rightly or wrongly) percieve Republican politicians as inimical to their self-interest. Muslims in India (rightly or wrongly) are supposed to perceive the BJP as inimical to their interests. Blacks vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Do Muslims vote with such overwhelming majority against the BJP? Hard exit Polling data in Indian Elections are hard to come by, but my own experience in India indicates that it is not the case.
Of course, these two situations are not exactly parallel, but I wanted to get a sense of familiarity in this forum to the Muslim situation in India by using a US example.
My primary objection, lost in all this side debate is still the same: the victory of Narendra Modi in Gujarat is NOT an indication that India has turned Fascist (or is about to). I have not yet heard a reasonable rebuttal to that argument.
This article is a much more balanced and realistic assessment of the Modi victory. I am protesting the hand wringing by the Economist and today's NYT. I am trying to explain it to an audience of predominately Americans with (and I am assuming real big here) little first hand experience of India or of Hindu (Oh, how I hate that term!) thought.
Mark: Could you perhaps explain to someone who also does not have the benefit of an American course in civics, why anyone should care about the difference between a Federal restriction and state laws when the effect in practice is just the same? I mean, it is in fact the case that Mormons (and Muslims!) are not allowed to practice polygamy in the USA, isn't it?
Posted by: dsquared on December 30, 2002 10:11 AM... and for those inclined to follow up on this issue of Muslim personal law in India,
Posted by: Suresh Krishnamoorthy on December 30, 2002 10:27 AMI am appalled—though not surprised—by both the ignorance and the bellicosity of Mr. Suresh Krishnamoorthy. Thank You Drapetomaniac, for giving Mr. Krishnamoorthy a history lesson. ‘By all accounts’ he needed it!
Mr. Krishnamoorthy is quite typical of his tribe, though. Hindus (particularly of Mr. Krishnamoorthy’s age) living in America tend to be fanatical supporters of the BJP in general. Having lived in America for many years before relocating to India a few months ago, I find a marked difference in the political attitudes of Hindus. Here, I find a much broader spectrum of political preferences.
I offer some of my own thoughts on why Mr. Krishnamoorthy and his ilk are so rabid.
1. Little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Nothing could explain Mr. Krishnamoorthy behaviour better. He is clearly unclear about very basic facts of Indian history. But as any good pseudo-intellectual, it hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm from entering a debate about Indian history or for making careless generalizations. This attitude is quite typical of Indian-Americans. I have a theory of why these chaps are all pseudo-intellectuals, but its complicated and will take time.
2. Mr. Krishnamoorthy, like so many other Hindus living in America is an upper caste Hindu. It is therefore quite reasonable for them to identify with an upper-caste Hindu party like the BJP and its agenda. Pankaj Mishra describes the process of creation of the Hindu identity better than I could. I thank Randy McDonald for the link. Please read, http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0FQP/4602_131/91086062/print.jhtml
3. Indians living in America have a deep inferiority complex because they come from a much poorer country. I suppose it is reasonable to expect them to feel a little powerless in an alien culture too. And so the BJP’s right wing rhetoric of making India a super-power and all that jazz naturally appeals to their sense of impotence. I could press this point further, but I fear getting too involved with some quasi-Freudian argument.
"mea culpa, for the poor choice of words."
Arise, my son! ;-)
My "religion" (Church of the Cosmic Revelation, "If Any" Sect) recognizes no guilt for poor choice of words.
"What I should have said was: Muslims in India vote for Hindus (and the BJP, I daresay) more often than Blacks in the US vote for Republicans."
Well, now we're getting somewhere! At least that's not a patently false statement! ;-)
I think, however, that you should rephrase again, to limit it exclusively to the BJP. That is:
"Muslims in India vote for the BJP more than Blacks in the U.S. vote for Republicans."
The reason I think you should limit your statement to the BJP is that "Hindu" is not a political party.
I think the statement, "Muslims in India vote for the BJP more than Blacks in the U.S. vote for Republicans" may be true. Or it may be false. Apparently, only a small percentage of Muslims in India vote for the BJP...and only a small percentage of Blacks vote for the Republican Party.
For Muslims voting BJP I see:
http://www.the-week.com/98apr12/cover.htm
"The BJP proudly claims, and the Muslims concede, that the party won a small section of the Muslim vote in virtually every state. In Karnataka, the figure is said to be around 12 per cent."
"The BJP national vice-president Sunder Singh Bhandari claimed that in UP the party got around six per cent of the Muslim vote, and three per cent in Bihar."
Hardly numbers to write home about!
But, of course, a fairly small percentage of blacks vote Republican:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/sailer_why_blacks_hate_dubya.htm
"George W. Bush's strenuous efforts at "minority outreach" were rewarded by the lowest fraction of the black vote since Barry Goldwater. Depending on which exit poll you consult, Dubya carried between 8% and 10% of African-American voters."
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 30, 2002 02:27 PMas you yourself acknowledge, the two 'definitions' of Hindutva you quote are both quite benign.
Relatively benign.
Now, as to your contestation with the articles I picked:
The New Statesman article (by Pankaj Mishra) is a joke at several levels: it is historically inaccurate and belongs properly in the New Statesman. A detailed rebuttal of that article is beyond the scope of this discussion.
(quote from its website: On 10 June 1988, as the magazine celebrated its 75th anniversary, New Statesman merged with New Society (a magazine covering the field of the social sciences). Steve Platt became Editor of New Statesman and Society in April 1991 and the magazine acquired the title Marxism Today in December 1991. )
... and as for relying on FindArticles.com for news searches, has anybody seen the list of their 'sources' recently? Here is a sample:
The Harvard Theological review, The New Statesman, Girl's Life, Whole Earth, Ecumenical Review, National Catholic Reporter...
... nuff said!
re: The New Statesman, I don't take everything from that publication for granted. I don't take everything from any publication for granted. Yes, it's a left-wing publication. The important point to consider, though, is whether or not the portrait the article paints of the Hindutva movement is correct or not.
As for findarticles.com, I'm confused by your objections to any articles taken from that website. findarticles.com is an on-line database that has collected articles from a wide variety of sources, popular and scholarly, left-wing and right-wing. It is a content provider, after all. But classifying all articles that come from that site, scholarly or otherwise, as useless by virtue of the fact that they were retrieved from that website, strikes me as odd. Are you saying that the articles, as the exist in findarticles.com, differ at all from the originals? Or that simply because they were included in findarticles.com to begin with, they're useless?
These criticisms, I regret to conclude, don't do anything to answer the criticisms of the Hindutva movement raised by the articles I linked to.
Posted by: Randy McDonald on December 30, 2002 02:39 PMSuresh Krishnamoorthy writes, "My primary objection, lost in all this side debate is still the same: the victory of Narendra Modi in Gujarat is NOT an indication that India has turned Fascist (or is about to). I have not yet heard a reasonable rebuttal to that argument."
Well, let's start with the word, "Fascist." Where did it come from, and what does it mean?
Where it came from (as far as I know) is Benito Mussolini. He coined it in reference to "fasces"...a bundle of rods that are weak individually, but strong when bound to an axe:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fascism
At it's heart, fascism is the total denial of rights of individuals, in preference to power of the government. By that interpretation, I'd say that India is ALREADY partly "fascist"...as is EVERY country in the world today.
Going to the definition in dictionary.com:
"A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism."
...Well, India DOES have a government marked by "centralization of authority"...though certainly not as much as Iraq, for instance.
India certainly has stringent ECONOMIC controls. Not as stringent as Cuba or North Korea, for example. But I'd say the "social controls" in India aren't particularly stringent compared to other countries.
"Belligerent nationalism"...well, India hasn't invaded Nepal, Bhutan, or Bangladesh. (I'm just naming neighbors that India probably has the military might to successfully invade.) Overall, I'd say that India is pretty far from "belligerent nationalism" on THOSE accounts.
"Racism." Well, that gets a bit tough. By your own words, the Hindu fundamentalist religious view is that one is born into Hinduism. Hinduism is clearly a religion, not a race. But there's still a problem with being "born into" Hinduism, if one advocates differential treatment based on religion.
SUMMARY: I agree with you that India hasn't "turned Fascist" or "is about too." That's especially true if one uses the term in the sense that Mussolini used it: "Everything within the State, nothing outside of the State, nothing against the State."
http://www.sabaudia.net/sabaud_ingl/fascism.shtml
Saddam Hussein could properly be called a "fascist." I don't see how anyone could say the same about the BJP.
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 30, 2002 03:06 PM"Mark: Could you perhaps explain to someone who also does not have the benefit of an American course in civics, why anyone should care about the difference between a Federal restriction and state laws when the effect in practice is just the same?"
I'm happy to, as it makes all the difference in the world! It is, precisely, the difference between a fascist dictatorship, and a constitutional republic.
One important reason is that, when the federal government assumes powers that aren't given to it by the Constitution, there essentially ceases to be any limits on federal government power. We (in the United States) become a nation ruled by men (or persons ;-)) rather than by Laws.
Another important reason why we in the U.S. should care about whether there is a federal law against something, or 50 state laws against that same thing, is that there's a better chance for one or more of the 50 states to change its laws in favor of freedom, than it is for the federal government to change its laws in favor of freedom.
A good example is the use of marijuana for medical purposes: both Democratic (e.g. Clinton administration) and Republican (e.g. G.W. Bush administration) federal fascists have been determined to enforce completely the unconstitutional federal laws against use of marijuana for medical purposes. In contrast, Alaska, Arizona, California, California, Maine, Nevada, and Oregon have all passed *state* laws allowing marijuana use for medical purposes.
The reason why some state governments now allow use of marijuana for medical purposes, while federal law forbids use of marijuana for medical purposes, is that it's far harder for state/local governments to enforce fascistic laws that aren't supported by their people, than it is for the federal government to do so. In fact, many state laws allowing use of marijuana for medical purposes were passed by state referenda--direct votes by the people of the state. There is no mechanism for referenda--direct votes by the people--at the federal level.
The Founding Fathers (the men who wrote the Constitution) recognized that there would be more freedom if the federal government was very limited. (Unfortunately, one significant power they gave to the federal government was the power to force the return of runaway slaves.)
"I mean, it is in fact the case that Mormons (and Muslims!) are not allowed to practice polygamy in the USA, isn't it?"
1) It is a fact that every one of the 50 states currently has laws against polygamy. (In fact, Utah outlawed polygamy specifically in order to be allowed to be admitted to the Union, in 1896.)
http://www.absalom.com/mormon/polygamy/faq.htm
http://www.polygamyinfo.com/past_media%20plyg%2058%20ap.htm
2) It appears there is also a *federal* law against polygamy within states, the Edmunds-Tucker Act, passed in 1887. I don't see how such a law can possibly be Constitutional:
http://www.xmission.com/~plporter/lds/chron.htm
Once again, the reason why the *federal* law against polygamy is much worse than 50 *state* laws against polygamy, is that it's generally easier for one of the states to change its laws, than for the federal government to do so, since there are fewer voters in each of the 50 states.
Every law is a RESTRICTION on behavior. (There are no laws that "permit" behavior. Any laws that *appear* to "permit" behavior are actually repeals of existing laws prohibitting such behavior.) Since every law is a RESTRICTION on behavior, if the goal is a maximum amount of freedom (i.e., a minimum number of restrictions on behavior) it makes sense to have the legal unit that passes laws to be as small as possible.
In the Constitution, the Founding Fathers gave us such a government...i.e., a very limited *federal* government, but not many limitations on state governments. Unfortunately, the U.S. federal government no longer follows the Constitution, in any meaningful sense. That renders all of us living in the United States significantly less free.
It should be the goal of every U.S. citizen to reduce federal government power to the limits allowed by the Constitution.
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 30, 2002 03:10 PMSome points I'll discuss:
Muslims in India today fall under only two categories:
- descendants of the original Muslim Invaders, the followers of Prophet Muhammed
- Muslims who converted to Islam from other religions such as Hinduism and other tribal faiths - voluntariliy or otherwise.
Hmm. What about people who come from both groups? I mean, two groups of people bound together by the same religion who are a minority are going to mix, particularly without any barriers to separate them.
So, my statement: All muslims in India (and indeed the world over) today are either descended directly from the followers of Muhammed who invaded India or converted to Islam.
Actually, far more accurate would be to say that "all muslims in India (and indeed the world over) are today descended directly from the follows of Muhammed and from those who converted to Islam."
Too, probably a lot of Hindus are also descended from Indian Muslims, or even from non-Indian Muslims. Certainly a lot of Hindus are descended from groups at the geographic/social margins of Indian society--the tribals, for instance.
As for 'more' Hindus being polygamous today, that is just plain silly. We are talking about the law here. It is illegal for a Hindu to have more than one wife in India today. It is legal for a Muslim to have up to four wives.
Ah, but you're assuming that people will obey the law. Anthropologists notice that in every society, there's a gap between ideal behaviour (the codes dictating how people should behave) and actual behaviour (the way people actually behave). People are notoriously reluctant to obey laws that violate their views of how the world should be organized. Some Mormons in western North America, for instance, remain polygamous although polygamy's illegal. Given how the modern Indian state is basically descended from the colonial Raj and that the state's control is still fairly limited, why would all Hindus obey the law against polygamy?
Sure, there are conversions going on today. I never claimed otherwise. I simply said there is no provision in Hinduism for conversion.
[...]
A lot of 'conversions' to Hinduism are simply 're-conversions' of those who have 'changed' their faith, a foolish notion in the first place. The orthodox Hindu firmly believes that you are born into your faith be it Hinduism, Islam or Christianity, Judaism ... whatever. You can no more change that than you can change your skin color.
Two points:
* "Hinduism" isn't synonymous with "orthodox Hinduism." What about, say, Arya Samaj?
From http://swamiagnivesh.virtualave.net/true1.htm
"It is significant that from its very inception the horizons of the Arya Samaj included the entire world. The ten principles are so broad-based and universal that they could easily become the basis of a world religion. The sixth principle says that, "The chief object of the Arya Samaj is to do good to the entire world, and to bring about physical, spiritual, and social progress of entire humanity." The ninth and tenth principles contain the ingredients both of socialism and democracy. They insist that the individual good can only be achieved through the good and welfare of all. Similarly, every individual has been reminded that while he is free in his personal affairs, he is bound to act according to the general will of the society in all other matters. Neither in these principles nor in any of his books is there any reference to the emancipation of Hindus only. In fact the word seems to have been deliberately avoided. Everywhere, the word "Arya" has been used and that too not in the popular sense of any race or colur, but in its original Sanskrit sense of a good, honest and a brave human being irrespective of caste, creed or nationality."
* People do convert, switching between one religion and another. Practically every religion that I know of makes some provision for converts to be integrated into the fold, though the qualifications might be stringent, and Hinduism and Islam are no exceptions.
The so called conversions are either political stunts or democracy done awfully awry: there are seats reserved for Muslims and other minorities in India's government. If you are a Muslim from a 'Muslim' constituency, (or a Hindu from a 'open' constituency') wouldn't you want to do everything in your power to increase the number of 'Muslims' or 'Hindus' in that constituency?
True. That still excludes the possibility that some Hindus or Muslims might sincerely want to convert, for material or for spiritual reasons. That also excludes conversions to other religions--the conversions of some tribals and people in lower castes to Christianity, for example, or the conversions of many Dalits under Ambedkar's leadership to Buddhism.
Posted by: Randy McDonald on December 30, 2002 03:13 PM"It follows any attempt to rationalize cause & effect and divine our future is...craps."
No, a fundamental aspect of science is that using it allows one to "divine the future."
For example, "If I release an apple, it will fall towards the ground, with an acceleration of approximately 9.81 meters per second per second."
So if there is indeed anything such as "political science" it should enable one to predict the political future. That is why my prediction of the political future for the entire world is for governments to generally become smaller, to the point that their only purpose is to protect people from physical harm or fraud. In a word, the future of all governments is to become more and more "libertarian." (That's the definition of "libertarian"...that the only legitimate purpose of government is to protect from physical harm or fraud.)
There will obviously be mini-trends away from libertarianism within all countries. And some countries may have major trends away from libertarianism for periods of time involving up to several years. But the long term trend is for diminishment of government as a factor in people's lives...to the point where governments will only be used to protect from physical harm and fraud.
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 30, 2002 03:21 PMSuresh writes, "...(or are we going to seriously deny that Israel is a 'Jewish State' or that the US is a 'Christian State')..."
I won't seriously deny that Israel is a Jewish State. I will most emphatically deny that the United States of America is a Christian State.
As declared by the First Congress, and signed into law by John Adams (second President of the U.S., and one of only a handful of signers of both the Declaration of Independence and Constitution):
"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion . . ."
http://www.mindspring.com/~wjager/christian-intolerance.html
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 30, 2002 03:35 PMMark Bahner writes:
""Belligerent nationalism"...well, India hasn't invaded Nepal, Bhutan, or Bangladesh. (I'm just naming neighbors that India probably has the military might to successfully invade.) Overall, I'd say that India is pretty far from "belligerent nationalism" on THOSE accounts. "
I don't think 'belligerent nationalism' requires
that they attack other nations. For one thing,
that really only applies after fascists gain
national power.
Nationalism can also take the form of an
desire or effort to purify a nation to fit
the fascist's notion of who are the 'true'
members of the nation.
Does the BJP and its fellow-traveller
non-political social groups have a notion
of national Hindu purity? Yes.
Do they use threats and violence against
non-Hindus? Yes. Muslims, Christians,
Tibetan Buddhists. Probably others as well.
Merriam-Webster defines belligerence as
"an aggressive or truculent attitude, atmosphere, or disposition". I'd certainly think this
describes the attitude of Hindu nationalists
towards non-Hindus.
Is India as a whole fascist? Not yet, I don't
think. Could the government tilt that way? Yes.
There clearly are politicians who, if not
fascist themselves, have a violent fascist
constituency they are happy to use for
political gain, with little thought to
loss of life or wellbeing.
There are definitely organizations spreading
hate about non-Hindus, and nursing specious
feelings of injury over centuries-old events.
(Thus creating legions of Hindu whiners.)
I was going to suggest that Narendra Modi is
India's version of Austria's Jorg Haider,
only it's much worse than Haider.
Hopefully, the most rabid Hindu nationalism
will remain a regional phenomenon, and not
spread enough to gain real momentum. I'm
not terribly sanguine about that.
I won't seriously deny that Israel is a Jewish State.
Though it's rather important to note that in the Israeli case, the religion corresponds perfectly to ethnicity: The Jewish religion is the central feature of Jewish ethnonational identity, even for secular Jews who define their mores in contrast to Judaism.
Posted by: Randy McDonald on December 30, 2002 04:57 PMJon H writes, "I don't think 'belligerent nationalism' requires that they attack other nations. For one thing, that really only applies after fascists gain national power."
Well, I don't see how it can be "belligerent" unless it involves attacking someone...in a manner that's not "necessary and proper" for the "common defence." "Belligerent" requires aggressive (i.e., non-defensive) use of military force, in my mind.
As far as "gaining power"...my understanding is that the BJP (the potential fascists) are actually in power in India.
"Nationalism can also take the form of an
desire or effort to purify a nation to fit
the fascist's notion of who are the 'true'
members of the nation."
OK. Have any members of the BJP proclaimed that someone born in India is not a "true" Indian?
"Does the BJP and its fellow-traveller non-political social groups have a notion of national Hindu purity? Yes."
OK. But "Hindu" isn't a nation. India is a nation. So again, have any Hindu members of the BJP said that someone born in India is not a "true" Indian? (Without a doubt, many born in India are not "true Hindus"...whatever that means.)
"Do they use threats and violence against
non-Hindus? Yes. Muslims, Christians,
Tibetan Buddhists. Probably others as well."
States use threats and violence all the time. (The U.S. government threatens to throw me in prison if I won't fund the National Endowment for the Arts. And I guarantee you they would, if I didn't.) The question is whether that violence is directed towards people who are not guilty of crimes. And there's a further question of whether it's an inordinate amount of violence against those not involved in crimes. (Because both federal and state police in the U.S. have been known to shoot innocent people.)
"Merriam-Webster defines belligerence as
'an aggressive or truculent attitude, atmosphere, or disposition'."
Well, Merriam-Webster isn't very useful in figuring out whether something is fascism, then. A government's "attitude" irrelevant, in my opinion, when discussing fascism. For the government to qualify as "belligerent" for fascism purposes, I think there has to be *action.* (Otherwise, one could say that the Nazis were justified in invading Poland, because the Polish government had such a belligerent attitude."
"Is India as a whole fascist? Not yet, I don't
think."
I agree with Suresh that it's unlikely that the Indian government as a whole will ever qualify as being "fascist."
"Could the government tilt that way? Yes."
And, like I wrote, all governments tilt, in some degrees, towards fascism. But I think India's tilt in that direction will always be less than most. (Less than Pakistan's, to make a point.)
"There are definitely organizations spreading
hate about non-Hindus, and nursing specious
feelings of injury over centuries-old events.
(Thus creating legions of Hindu whiners.)"
Yes, that's historically been a real positive point of the United States. Unfortunately, the business of slavery reparations tends in the wrong direction. Historically, people in the United States have tended to look at the present and future, rather than dwelling on the past. I think that's much better, since no one can change the past. I can't think of anything more useless (or even destructive) than debating who did what to whom, 100+ years ago. People long dead did horrible things. And had horrible things done to them. The only really valuable lesson to be learned would be how to avoid such things in the present and future.
"I was going to suggest that Narendra Modi is
India's version of Austria's Jorg Haider,
only it's much worse than Haider."
I don't really know either well enough to comment. What I've read of Haider I haven't liked. But I think the press "did a number" on Pim Fortyn...falsely making him seem far more fascistic than he really was. So I'm sceptical about press reports.
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 30, 2002 05:19 PMRandy McDonald, at 4:57 pm, wrote, "Though it's rather important to note that in the Israeli case, the religion corresponds perfectly to ethnicity: The Jewish religion is the central feature of Jewish ethnonational identity, even for secular Jews who define their mores in contrast to Judaism."
The problem is where there are individuals within the Jewish State of Israel who are not Jewish.
Speaking as a non-Christian (at least, I seriously doubt the divinity of Jesus, and I laugh out loud at some of the things in the Bible) it isn't much of a problem being a non-Christian in the U.S., since the U.S. is NOT a Christian nation. At least according to her laws. (Which are unfortunately not always followed.)
I don't know whether it's equally not a problem to be a non-Jew in Israel. My suspicion is that it's not. That's why I'm so thankful for the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, who made sure that, at the federal level, religion and state were separated.
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 30, 2002 05:27 PMMr. Krishnamoorthy, like so many other Hindus living in America is an upper caste Hindu.
so is drapetomaniac, if you want to go that route. i would not care for superstructural explanations of why i hold the views i hold, i rather fancy i choose them, and i think it would be better if we limited ourselves to discussing the truth or falseness of people's views rather than speculating on their motivations in holding them.
Hmm. What about people who come from both groups? I mean, two groups of people bound together by the same religion who are a minority are going to mix, particularly without any barriers to separate them.... Too, probably a lot of Hindus are also descended from Indian Muslims, or even from non-Indian Muslims.
this is straying rather far from the subject, but i would say that a little research would undo these speculations.
Mark wrote:
>>One important reason is that, when the federal government assumes powers that aren't given to it by the Constitution, there essentially ceases to be any limits on federal government power. We (in the United States) become a nation ruled by men (or persons ;-)) rather than by Laws. <<
For which much thanks ... but doesn't this have the uncomfortable consequence that the United Kingdom, among other places, is by this standard a fascist dictatorship? I think you may be elevating a particular feature of the US Constitution into a general truth here.
Posted by: dsquared on December 30, 2002 11:33 PMHmm. What about people who come from both groups? I mean, two groups of people bound together by the same religion who are a minority are going to mix, particularly without any barriers to separate them.... Too, probably a lot of Hindus are also descended from Indian Muslims, or even from non-Indian Muslims.
this is straying rather far from the subject, but i would say that a little research would undo these speculations.
Of a significant number of Hindus being descended from Muslims? Yeah, that doesn't seem quite so likely in retrospect, given orthodox Hinduism's problems with converts and the expense of the cermeonies for lapsed Hindus to regain their community membership in Hindu society.
Dsquared writes, "For which much thanks ... but doesn't this have the uncomfortable consequence that the United Kingdom, among other places, is by this standard a fascist dictatorship? I think you may be elevating a particular feature of the US Constitution into a general truth here."
I don't know much about the UK's system of laws, other than that I've read there's no written Constitution. That was from "The State We're In," by Will Hutton. The subtitle of that book, by the way is, "Why Britain is in Crisis, and How to Overcome It." Mr. Hutton places a great deal of emphasis on how Britain's lack of a Constitution causes significant problems. (Unfortunately, I don't think Mr. Hutton's suggested solutions will help.)
http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=QjGKdg93dzsJLz5vAZIvE.1Tp80_0943976566_2:153:220
I can think of several reasons why Britain could be so different from the United States, such that lack of a constitution in Britain would be less of a problem:
1) Britain is a much smaller country. And London is the: a) capital, b) most populated city, and c) city with the biggest economic impact. In contrast, the United States is huge, our capital is an otherwise completely unimportant city, with virtually no economic impact, except that it's the capital.
2) Britain is far less diverse, in terms of immigrants from a wide variety of countries. The U.S. is a nation of immigrants. Great Britain isn't. It's far less necessary to have written laws, when societies share common social histories and customs.
But please don't get me wrong. I wasn't saying that a written Constitution is necessary to avoid a fascist dictatorship, or to have the Rule of Law, rather than Rule by Persons. In fact, since the U.S. federal government does NOT follow the Constitution (and hasn't for at least the last 70 years), it doesn't help one bit that we in the U.S. have one.
So far, the U.S. is not close to a fascist dictatorship. But we in the U.S. ARE now ruled by Persons, not laws. That's highly unfortunate.
I also think that having a bad Constitution could be worse than not having one at all. I've read that many of the Constitutions of South America are terrible, in that they authorize governments to do a lot of social engineering. I've also heard that constitution of India is a bit of a mess.
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 31, 2002 09:26 AMI haven't addressed the main thrust of this opinion piece, having been involved in discussing problems/strengths of India.
Overall, it surprises me that folks like Brad DeLong write pieces like this. Dr. DeLong appears to have a firm grasp, and clear prospective, of economic history.
The fact is, economically, socially, and politically, there is every reason to expect the the 21st century will be even better than the 20th century. And the 20th century was clearly one of the best, if not *the* best, centuries in human history.
The 20th century saw absolutely unprecedented gains in human wealth and health.
In 1902, it is reasonable to claim that there wasn't a single "modern democracy" in the world (i.e., universal sufferage, freedom of the press and religion).
In 2002, a majority of the countries of the world can be classified as "modern democracies." Essentially all of Europe and North America, India (world's largest democracy, with 1+ billion people), parts of Central and South America, and significant parts of Asia.
The next major question for the the world, regarding democracy, is Mainland China. I don't think I'm being too optimistic to predict that, within less than 20 years, Mainland China will be a modern democracy.
I've read that more people around the world died of starvation in the 19th century, than in the 20th century. That's absolutely remarkable, giving the greater population of the 20th century (and the Chinese and Russian communist-induced famines). I expect that the number of people who starve in the 21st century will be far, far less than in the 20th.
In short, if the world is currently going to "hell in a handbasket" it is merely because the world has been in hell for its entire history.
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 31, 2002 09:46 AMMark: it seems to me that Canada is a better refutation than the UK of, well, at least one of your points.
You said: "One important reason [that residual powers going to the state instead of the federal government help make the US a constitutional republic instead of a fascist dictatorship] is that, when the federal government assumes powers that aren't given to it by the Constitution, there essentially ceases to be any limits on federal government power."
Canada began as a nation in 1867, when the American Civil War was still quiveringly fresh in everyone's memory. The BNA Act, our first "constitution", assigned all residual powers not explicitly given to the provinces to the Federal government, in the hopes of avoiding the then-resoundingly bad example of "states rights." [It didn't work all that well.]
But you know, in spite of that, I don't think we're exactly a fascist dictatorship.
Mark Bahner:
1. Belligerence isn't limited to states. Citizens
can be belligerent towards other citizens. Hindu
nationalists are belligerent towards non-Hindus
in India, much like White southerners were
belligerent towards blacks in the US. The
white riots at Ole Miss when a black student
enrolled are belligerence by any standard.
2. My impression of the beliefs of the Hindu
nationalists is that they equate Hindu and Indian.
See my post above with the NYTimes op/ed about
the Hindu nationalists altering history books:
|quote|
The B.J.P. has led this country's coalition government since 1999. But India's Hindu nationalists have long had a quarrel with history. They are unhappy with the notion that the most ancient texts of Hinduism are associated with the arrival of the Vedic "Aryan" peoples from the Northwest. They don't like the dates of 1500 to 1000 B.C. ascribed by historians to the advent of the Vedic peoples, the forebears of Hinduism, or the idea that the Indus Valley civilization predates Vedic civilization. And they certainly can't stand the implication that Hinduism, like the other religious traditions of India, evolved through a mingling of cultures and peoples from different lands
|end quote|
It seems that the Hindu nationalists would
like to erase or obscure evidence of Hinduism
coming from outside of India and having
mingled with other traditions. They want to
support their myth of Hinduism being pure
and intimately tied to India. Any indication
that it originated in Central Asia is anathema.
Non-Hindus seem to be considered intruders,
or heretics if they've converted or descended
from converts from Hinduism to something else.
There's some of this in what Suresh has said.
3. The violence and threats and belligerence
against non-Hindus are primarily not by state
agencies, but are often condoned by state
agencies by their inaction and unwillingness
to protect the minorities, prosecute the
Hindu nationalists or investigate crimes.
It's not a case of the state acting against
criminals. It's thugs seeking to intimidate
innocent people.
4. I think you put too much emphasis on state
participation in fascism. The brownshirts
in Germany were not a government agency.
Likewise, other fascist movements have had
similar organizations of thugs for enforcement
and intimidation, which predated fascist
participation in government. Groups like
the brownshirts are a tool for *attaining*
government power.
Since this is an economics blog, and with a discussion of India, I think it's very interesting to look at India's constitution.
When India became independent in 1947, it's original Constitution declared it to be a "SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC."
http://alfa.nic.in/const/preamble.html
Apparently, in 1976, Amendment 42 to the Indian Constitution changed that to, "SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC." (That is, it removed "socialist"...and also, unfortunately, "secular.")
http://alfa.nic.in/const/r1.htm
I'll bet if you calculated the annual per-capita GDP growth rate in India from 1947 to 1976, and then from 1976 to 2002, you would find that the annual per-capita GDP growth rate from 1976 to 2002 was at least double that from 1947 to 1976. I contend that the single word, "socialist" in the preamble to the India Constitution cost the people of India over $1 trillion, from 1947 to 1976. Probably a record for the most costly word in history! ;-)
P.S. To check my assertion (that GDP per capita doubled after the Indian Constitution was amended to remove the word "socialist"), I went to this website:
http://indiabudget.nic.in/es2001-02/chapt2002/tab12.pdf
From that table, the per capita net national product growth (at current prices) from 1947 to 1974 was 5.3% per year, and the growth from 1979 to 1997 was 12.5% per year. Wow! Expensive word!
P.P.S. Don't bother talking about "correlation doesn't equal causation"...numbers don't lie! ;-)
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 31, 2002 02:44 PMCanadian Reader writes, "The BNA Act, our first "constitution", assigned all residual powers not explicitly given to the provinces to the Federal government, in the hopes of avoiding the then-resoundingly bad example of 'states rights.'"
The primary problem regarding slavery was that the Founding Fathers protected in as part of the original Constitution. (The Achilles heel, so to speak.)
Specifically, Article IV, Section 2 said:
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
The concept that many powers (properly, not "rights"...since only individuals have "rights") are left to the States, while only a few powers are given to the federal government, is not a bad concept at all. In fact, it's very, very good.
Looking at the Constitution Act of 1867, I can't really find anything that corresponds to what you're suggesting. (No offense intended, but the whole Act doesn't seem very clearly written. ;-))
I DO see this:
"3) Nothing in subsection (2) derogates from the authority of Parliament to enact laws in relation to the matters referred to in that subsection and, where such a law of Parliament and a law of a province conflict, the law of Parliament prevails to the extent of the conflict."
Is that what you're referring to? If it is, I don't understand what "that subsection" means. Does it mean the subsection related to the powers of the Parliament, or the subsection related to the powers of the provinces?
In any case, it appears that this document has fairly clear delineations between what matters the Parliament may address, and what matters are for the Provinces. There are more matters given to the federal government than in the U.S. constitution, but the powers of Parliament don't seem to be unlimited.
"But you know, in spite of that, I don't think we're exactly a fascist dictatorship."
No, certainly not more than most countries. ;-)
Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 31, 2002 03:41 PMSo, how well did I make my case?
My four main 'prosecutors' and their 'prosecutions':
Mark: 'Republican - Black' example was a shameless lie. Stop
Jon H: Don't pass the buck by blaming historical ills
Randy McDonald: From what I can see, Hindutva looks pretty 'extremist' if not downright Fascist - re: New Statesman
Drapetomaniac: Get a better sense of history dude...
Vivek Oberoi: let me pile on and add some Freudian touches about impotence (the swinging d*** argument)
I seem to have convinced mark that my original point was valid (after explaining the 'republican' comment).
Jon H: he has not responded to my explanation of the impact of History (especially Somnath temple), but does seem to buy the NYT argiment that Hindutvadis are 'rewriting history'. I wonder what he thinks of the counterpoints I linked to (infinityfoundation).
Ancient history is always subject to revision, precisely because the data is so scant. Even relatively modern history often reflects the bias of the historian. For example, if the history of the US were written by, say, the Cherokee Indians, would it sound radically different? You bet.
I personally find the arguments against the 'Aryan Invasion' theory intriguing enough that I am not able to dismiss it out of hand. I do wish that the NCERT in India would treat History with a little more respect than change it willy-nilly, but I cannot share the contempt in the NYT article.
Randy McDonald: My objection to findarticles is that its reading list seems to emphasise Christian Theological thinking a little too much. I mean, I fully expect the Harvard Theological review to be negative about Hindutva, especially when so much of Orthodox Christianity revolves around a Messianic zeal to convert as many non-believers.
Drape: I am not sure you meant to be quite as dismissive of my knowledge of Indian History. It is hardly a crime to consider Ghazni a 'Mughal'. In my original post, I clearly referred to Muslim / Mughal.
Vivek; Thanks for adding to the discussion by piling on and branding me a 'rabid' defender. I myself felt that I had kept my responses quite civilized without resorting to name calling. Thanks for elevating our little discussion here a few notches (and bringing in the freudian references to sexual dysfunction).
Perhaps you can look up the meaning of your first name.
So, where are we? Have I made the case that Modi's victory does NOT mean that India is turning Fascist as the Economist would have us believe?
Posted by: Suresh krishnamoorthy on December 31, 2002 05:03 PMMy objection to findarticles is that its reading list seems to emphasise Christian Theological thinking a little too much. I mean, I fully expect the Harvard Theological review to be negative about Hindutva, especially when so much of Orthodox Christianity revolves around a Messianic zeal to convert as many non-believers.
But we're not talking about using findarticles.com itself as a source, but about refereed articles from journals which are included in findarticles.com. Too, if you think that the Harvard Theological Review is particularly orthodox or evangelical, eh. Modern theology in Christian countriesm nowadays isn't particularly inspired by religion, or by religious orthodoxy--at least in the mainline churches. Evangelical churches tend to be much more traditional in that regard.
If you're biased against non-Indian sources, here's a few Indian sources that a google search turned up. How about this excerpt from a debate in the Indian national parliament?
http://rajyasabha.nic.in/rsdebate/synopsis/195/11032002.htm
"SHRI N.K. PREMCHANDRAN: The Godhra killings as well as the subsequent killings could never be justified in words or in action. It is shameful to the whole nation, and the image of our country, in the international scenario, has been tarnished. It is very shameful. So, these incidents have to be condemned in strong words, and it has to be dealt with a firm hand. Our main point is what was the role of the State Government to contain and control the violence in the State of Gujarat. But, almost all are saying that a particular community had been targeted; there was a total collapse of the State machinery. Children and women were running for their rescue; they were crying for help, but nobody was there to help them. In front of the Police Station, so many incidents took place. But the Police was silent.
What is the meaning of inaction on the part of the police? My point is that the State was virtually handed over to the VHP and the Bajrang Dal. Is it not a fact that the Home Minister or the Gujarat Chief Minister had failed in discharging their Constitutional, moral and legal duty? The Chief Minister should have the knowledge that some reaction would be there of Godhra incident.. Had the Chief Minister taken abundant precaution? They have not discharged their duty. Therefore, the Chief Minister has no moral right to continue in the office. Godhra is usually a place of communal violence. When 59 people were killed there, large-scale violence could have been anticipated. What precaution did the Government take in this regard?
We were very much surprised to note that through out his speech in the House, the hon. Law Minister was making a comparison of the events that took place in 1984 and now in 2002. Can we draw such comparison? Can one crime be justified by another crime? The hon. Law Minister have given an advice to us saying that we should learn a lesson from him. I strongly feel that It is not the Opposition, but the BJP, the government, which has to learn a lesson from Law Minister. The BJP’s political agenda, its Hindutva doctrine which is the basic cause for all these happenings."
Granted that was a political statement, here's some news reports.
http://server1.msn.co.in/MSNSpecials/newyear03/worst.asp
"Evidently, it was rumour, more than news, which carried the scent of the devastation that came after the Godhra carnage. The uneasy calm gave way to mindless violence across the state that gave birth to one of world's greatest apostles of non-violence, Mahtama Gandhi. As the state government led by Narendra Modi almost mutely watched, more than a thousand, most of them Muslims were done to death - in a chain violence that lasted for months, a situation the Election Commission of India thought was not conducive for polls in the state. For a section of the state politicians, it was a shock and they resorted to leveling unsavoury charges on the poll panel and its chief, J M Lyngdoh. It was left to the Supreme Court to uphold the stance by EC, which later decided on holding polls, delayed by violence, on December 12."
Or these articles from rediff.com?
http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/nov/07arvind.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/apr/23varsha.htm
and especially
http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/feb/17mussal.htm
and
http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/dec/10nayar.htm
Would you like some more scholarly Indian sources in addition to what's published and available at findarticles.com?
Posted by: Randy McDonald on January 1, 2003 12:33 PMMy objection to findarticles is that its reading list seems to emphasise Christian Theological thinking a little too much. I mean, I fully expect the Harvard Theological review to be negative about Hindutva, especially when so much of Orthodox Christianity revolves around a Messianic zeal to convert as many non-believers.
But we're not talking about using findarticles.com itself as a source, but about refereed articles from journals which are included in findarticles.com. Too, if you think that the Harvard Theological Review is particularly orthodox or evangelical, eh. Modern theology in Christian countriesm nowadays isn't particularly inspired by religion, or by religious orthodoxy--at least in the mainline churches. Evangelical churches tend to be much more traditional in that regard.
If you're biased against non-Indian sources, here's a few Indian sources that a google search turned up. How about this excerpt from a debate in the Indian national parliament?
http://rajyasabha.nic.in/rsdebate/synopsis/195/11032002.htm
"SHRI N.K. PREMCHANDRAN: The Godhra killings as well as the subsequent killings could never be justified in words or in action. It is shameful to the whole nation, and the image of our country, in the international scenario, has been tarnished. It is very shameful. So, these incidents have to be condemned in strong words, and it has to be dealt with a firm hand. Our main point is what was the role of the State Government to contain and control the violence in the State of Gujarat. But, almost all are saying that a particular community had been targeted; there was a total collapse of the State machinery. Children and women were running for their rescue; they were crying for help, but nobody was there to help them. In front of the Police Station, so many incidents took place. But the Police was silent.
What is the meaning of inaction on the part of the police? My point is that the State was virtually handed over to the VHP and the Bajrang Dal. Is it not a fact that the Home Minister or the Gujarat Chief Minister had failed in discharging their Constitutional, moral and legal duty? The Chief Minister should have the knowledge that some reaction would be there of Godhra incident.. Had the Chief Minister taken abundant precaution? They have not discharged their duty. Therefore, the Chief Minister has no moral right to continue in the office. Godhra is usually a place of communal violence. When 59 people were killed there, large-scale violence could have been anticipated. What precaution did the Government take in this regard?
We were very much surprised to note that through out his speech in the House, the hon. Law Minister was making a comparison of the events that took place in 1984 and now in 2002. Can we draw such comparison? Can one crime be justified by another crime? The hon. Law Minister have given an advice to us saying that we should learn a lesson from him. I strongly feel that It is not the Opposition, but the BJP, the government, which has to learn a lesson from Law Minister. The BJP’s political agenda, its Hindutva doctrine which is the basic cause for all these happenings."
Granted that was a political statement, here's some news reports.
http://server1.msn.co.in/MSNSpecials/newyear03/worst.asp
"Evidently, it was rumour, more than news, which carried the scent of the devastation that came after the Godhra carnage. The uneasy calm gave way to mindless violence across the state that gave birth to one of world's greatest apostles of non-violence, Mahtama Gandhi. As the state government led by Narendra Modi almost mutely watched, more than a thousand, most of them Muslims were done to death - in a chain violence that lasted for months, a situation the Election Commission of India thought was not conducive for polls in the state. For a section of the state politicians, it was a shock and they resorted to leveling unsavoury charges on the poll panel and its chief, J M Lyngdoh. It was left to the Supreme Court to uphold the stance by EC, which later decided on holding polls, delayed by violence, on December 12."
Or these articles from rediff.com?
http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/nov/07arvind.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/apr/23varsha.htm
and especially
http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/feb/17mussal.htm
and
http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/dec/10nayar.htm
Would you like some more scholarly Indian sources in addition to what's published and available at findarticles.com?
Posted by: Randy McDonald on January 1, 2003 12:36 PMRandy,
Sorry, but my point is not getting through:
Fact: Economist reports that Modi victory in Gujarat is an indication that BJP and by extension India is turning Fascist
Fact: Brad compounds it by agreeing with the Economist opinion and bemoans that India is a place where 'encouraging others to kill Muslims is getting you votes'
I disagree with Brad's conclusion. What you are showing (by means of various links about Hindutva) is that there is certainly debate in India and elsewhere about the goals and means of the VHP, Bajrang Dal and BJP.
Even without the links ('especially' from professors at Jamilia Milia Islamia), I am aware of the writing of Rajeev, Arvind Lavakare, Varsha Bhosle, Amberish Diwanji, Dilip D'Souza, Praful Bidwai, Shenoy and everybody else on Rediff. I am much more familiar with the Jamia Milia Islamia, AMU, JNU and the various Wakf boards than you give me credit for.
So please don't patronize me with links to rediff articles. I have read them all. For every link you can provide, I can provide one with a counter point. What does that prove except that there is a debate with different opinions?
My argument is not that the RSS and BJP and VHP and Bajrang Dal are non-controversial. Obviously Christians (Sathianathan, Harvard Theological), Marxists (Praful Bidwai), Dalits and Dalit advocates, Secularists (Arvind Lavakare), Opposition Politicians, Muslims and their religious leaders (Syed Shahabuddin), Varsha Bhosle (she is both for and against...), Amberish Diwanji (again, both for and against), Dilip D'Souza (Socialist / Secularist) all have strong opinions about Hindutva and the BJP.
But they have not gone as far to call the BJP Fascist (in general; Dr Zahoor Khan heads the department of Political Science at JMI) and they all have agendas (Marxist, Christian, Muslim, Saffron...). What I see is a debate on the direction that India should take: declare itself a Hindu nation with an 'official religion' and sanction for other religions (sort of an idealized 'Ram Rajya') or stay within the confines of the Nehruvian 'Secularism' with 'special privileges and protections'.
That is simply a healthy debate in a vibrant democracy. A debate that is the natural outcome of the presence of an totalitarian neighbor (Pakistan, despite Musharraf's presence) with Islamic Fundamentalist ambitions.
The outcome of such a debate is by no means certain. I am myself not sure if I want India to declare itself a 'Hindu Nation' (not that my opinion matters, I suppose).
But the debate is ill-served by tossing around words like Fascist, Rabid, 'his ilk'. This debate is poisoned when any defence of the BJP from a 'Fascist' accusation is automatically seen as an argument in favor of 'Hindu Fundamentalism' whatever the agenda-of-the-day definition happens to be.
I am not annoyed by the debate or by opposition to the concept of India as a 'Hindu Nation'. I am annoyed by the automatic equation of the 'Hindutva' viewpoint with a form of 'Hindu Extremism' by bringing in Jorg Haider and tossing around the 'fascist' accusation.
If you want to form an informed opinion on what a Hindu India might mean to the world, fine. Read up on both sides of the argument: Read Ramesh Rao and Rajeev Srinivasan and Rajiv Malhotra and Subash Kak as well as Praful Bidwai and Varsha Bhosle and Zahoor Khan and Syed Shahabuddin. Talk to practising Hindus and Muslims who have lived in India and come to your own conclusion as any good scientist should.
Just don't take the Economist's word for it
Posted by: Suresh on January 1, 2003 02:41 PM"That is simply a healthy debate in a vibrant democracy."
The killing of 1,000 people, aided and
abetted by local and regional governments,
is not a "healthy debate in a vibrant
democracy".
One can set aside all the various opinions,
from all the various sides, and you are
still confronted with those facts. The
opinions just serve as attempts to
excuse or rationalize that behavior, or
to call it what it is.
Jon,
The killing of the 1000 people is no more or no less a representative of the state of Indian Democracy than the LA Riots after the Rodney King verdict were representative of the US democracy or the Crown Heights riots were a commentary on NY state, or for that matter, the race riots of the 50s and 60s here (Mississippi and Alabama), often 'aided and abetted' by 'local and state governments' were indicative of the 'Fascist nature' of those governments.
The topic of Hindu India raises at least as much passion in India as segregation raised in the US 50 years ago. Such passion will spill over into violence that is deplorable, whether it is in Mississippi in the murder of civil rights workers abetted by local police and mayors or the revenge killing of innocent Muslims in India.
Mississippi was not declared Fascist. Why the double standard? Is it because, deep down, you still subscibe to the 'civilised West - land of snake-charmers East' worldview? Or because your history books have taught you that Hinduism is a religion of mystics and 'Godmen' and 'Kali worshippers'? Are you looking at what happened in Gujarat and thinking about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Only you can look into yourself and honestly answer these questions for yourself...
The issue of Hindu India is definitely a debate, even though it spills over into violent confrontation on occasion. The idea should be to keep the debate healthy while reducing and eventually eliminating the violence. Extremist slogans do not advance that goal.
I am done with this debate here.
Posted by: Suresh on January 2, 2003 04:23 AMSuresh Krishnamoorty writes, "What I see is a debate on the direction that India should take: declare itself a Hindu nation with an 'official religion' and sanction for other religions (sort of an idealized 'Ram Rajya') or stay within the confines of the Nehruvian 'Secularism' with 'special privileges and protections'."
If those are the only 2 alternatives currently being debated, then I'd say either outcome will be wrong.
History is a useful teacher. One thing that I think U.S. history has taught--or should have taught--is that it's a mistake to link church and state. A huge part of the success of the United States is that those who founded the federal government set it up to be "in no way founded on the Christian religion."
It would be a serious mistake to make India a "Hindu nation"...bacause it, quite simply, can never be one. Not with 1+ billion people.
But it's also wrong to have either "special privileges" OR "special protections." History has also taught that, so far as humanly possible, laws should provide neither special privileges nor special protections.
The best form of government is one that has only the *minimum* set of laws necessary to protect everyone equally, such that no one is hurt. For example, rather than have a special exemption for Muslims, from the law against plural marriages, the law should simply be eliminated for everyone. Rather than having laws against plural marriages for Hindus, Christians, Jews, etc., pressure against such marriages should come from the respective "churches."
As I wrote before, I'm not a Christian. But I definitely respect the things Christ said. Among the most important, from a government standpoint, was his advice to "Render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar's, and render unto God that which is God's."
Suresh Krishnamoorthy writes, "The killing of the 1000 people is no more or no less a representative of the state of Indian Democracy than...the race riots of the 50s and 60s here (Mississippi and Alabama), often 'aided and abetted' by 'local and state governments' were indicative of the 'Fascist nature' of those governments."
"Local and state governments" "aiding and abetting" race riots *was* representative of the "fascist nature" of the Mississippi and Alabama governments of those times.
"The topic of Hindu India raises at least as much passion in India as segregation raised in the US 50 years ago."
Well, if there is an analogy between the two, I hope it is resolved in the same way segregation was resolved, then. Segregation (government separation of the races) is NOT legal in the United States.
"Mississippi was not declared Fascist. Why the double standard?"
I just did declare the Mississippi and Alabama governments of the 1950s and 1960s to have a "fascistic nature." (They really couldn't be truly fascistic, in that fascism implies an absolute power in a *federal* government.)
"Such passion will spill over into violence that is deplorable, whether it is in Mississippi in the murder of civil rights workers abetted by local police and mayors or the revenge killing of innocent Muslims in India."
The killing of "innocent Muslims" can't possibly be "revenge killing." It is murder. Period.
The killing of the 1000 people is no more or no less a representative of the state of Indian Democracy than the LA Riots after the Rodney King verdict were representative of the US democracy or the Crown Heights riots were a commentary on NY state,
Considering that neither riot was a response to the election of state governments but were rather a result of "horizontal" conflicts not involving white majorities--between Asians on the one side and blacks and Hispanics on the other in Los Angeles, and between blacks and Jews in New York City--I'm not sure how it could be viewed as parallel.
or for that matter, the race riots of the 50s and 60s here (Mississippi and Alabama), often 'aided and abetted' by 'local and state governments' were indicative of the 'Fascist nature' of those governments.
You've got a much stronger argument with Mississippi and Alabama in the 1950's and 1960's, but with few exceptions--George Wallace comes to mind--the charismatic leadership that's a requirement for fascism was lacking.
The topic of Hindu India raises at least as much passion in India as segregation raised in the US 50 years ago. Such passion will spill over into violence that is deplorable, whether it is in Mississippi in the murder of civil rights workers abetted by local police and mayors or the revenge killing of innocent Muslims in India.
We agree on that, then. Cool.
Mississippi was not declared Fascist. Why the double standard?
Double standard?
I never said anything about Mississippi, simply because the conversation never went in that direction and it didn't seem very obvious. (Gujarat now and Mississippi a generation and a half ago are separated, among other things, by a very large time gap.)
Is it because, deep down, you still subscibe to the 'civilised West - land of snake-charmers East' worldview? Or because your history books have taught you that Hinduism is a religion of mystics and 'Godmen' and 'Kali worshippers'?
Not hardly.
Are you looking at what happened in Gujarat and thinking about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Only you can look into yourself and honestly answer these questions for yourself...
No. I'm critical of the Hindutva movement because religious-nationalist movements driven by long-standing historical grievances manufactured by earlier theorists and directed against a minority population that's already fairly isolated never work out well.
Later,
Randy