extremely lucid article from rajiv. this is on the money.
i haven't gone through the video below, but i heard from others that the issues raised are very pointed and appropriate.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rajiv Malhotra
Please read my article, "We the Nation(s) of India," that has appeared
in Tehelka magazine in India this past weekend. URL:
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main41.asp?filename=Ne170109we_the.asp
It raises issues like the following:
-- India's fragmentation of identities
-- Fragments turning into politically unweildy and opportunistic vote
banking
-- These fragments becoming appropriated by foreign nexuses.
Pan-Islam, Global Christian Evangelism, and Maoist, representing the
three global civilizational forces respectively, are each carving out
a piece of the elephant.
-- Indian elites unwilling to deal with this issue and hiding behind
various fig leafs: denial of the problem; political correctness in
understanding the problem; only admitting those problems which they
feel are easily solvable. I refer to this as the Bollywood ending in
which "everyone lives happily ever afterwards."
-- The role of academic scholars like Romila Thapar and Martha
Nussbaum in exacerbating India's divisiveness, by promoting
"victimhood" of one Indian group against another.
-- Why Indian minority leaders are no Obama: they advance personal
careers not on integrated nation building but on divisive identity
manipulations.
-- Is this a superpower?
On a somewhat related topic, some of you might not have seen the
video of my earlier talk organized by the Asian-Indian Chamber in New
Jersey, just 10 days before the Mumbai attacks. I raised issues which
were troubling to some folks at the time, but it seems that recent
events make such public discussions imperative. Here's the url for the
2-hour panel including Q&A:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6014951024288646836&hl=en
Regards,
Rajiv Malhotra
From: Rajiv Malhotra
Please read my article, "We the Nation(s) of India," that has appeared
in Tehelka magazine in India this past weekend. URL:
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main41.asp?filename=Ne170109we_the.asp
It raises issues like the following:
-- India's fragmentation of identities
-- Fragments turning into politically unweildy and opportunistic vote
banking
-- These fragments becoming appropriated by foreign nexuses.
Pan-Islam, Global Christian Evangelism, and Maoist, representing the
three global civilizational forces respectively, are each carving out
a piece of the elephant.
-- Indian elites unwilling to deal with this issue and hiding behind
various fig leafs: denial of the problem; political correctness in
understanding the problem; only admitting those problems which they
feel are easily solvable. I refer to this as the Bollywood ending in
which "everyone lives happily ever afterwards."
-- The role of academic scholars like Romila Thapar and Martha
Nussbaum in exacerbating India's divisiveness, by promoting
"victimhood" of one Indian group against another.
-- Why Indian minority leaders are no Obama: they advance personal
careers not on integrated nation building but on divisive identity
manipulations.
-- Is this a superpower?
On a somewhat related topic, some of you might not have seen the
video of my earlier talk organized by the Asian-Indian Chamber in New
Jersey, just 10 days before the Mumbai attacks. I raised issues which
were troubling to some folks at the time, but it seems that recent
events make such public discussions imperative. Here's the url for the
2-hour panel including Q&A:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6014951024288646836&hl=en
Regards,
Rajiv Malhotra
7 comments:
Yes, divide-and-rule is the politics of the day.
The word superpower was itself a bootlicking phrase coined by foreign interests (ie. Europeans) looking to stroke American egos into fighting wars for them.
"Please fight our wars for us, you great heroic American superpower he-men"
About the video : All I can say is humble namaskar to Rajeev malhotra. I can't think to hold out for so long, therefore my respect.
The presentation in the first part of the video is classic.
About the article : Fine, but here one is against a wall. But there is a ton of good will, fine argument and refreshing presentation.
I read about that incident in video where he sent five american looking people to iit kgp was heart breaking and so hillarious...both simultaneously.
Thanks to another Rajeev, here in this blog one doesn't have to be a white man to remain acceptable.
I think super power or not. We all have a duty to do.
That it is uplift the poor, increase per capita income across the board.
The experience of past 5 years have shown, that government is not going to do anything concrete.
There are lots of organizations which are doing good in many parts of the country, lets support one or more of them according to our taste, desire etc.
One I am doing is to leverage the good things learnt out of my stay in the US, to coach the groups in India to raise above the petty differences and look for the common good, appreciate the difference but still strive for the goals. I am glad to say, that the groups are responding well.
On this auspicious day, I would request each one to take up a social cause that is near and dear to your heart.
Lets strive to realise the vision 2020, not superpowerdom.
Interesting article - but Rajiv Malhotra talk only of abstract concepts and absolves himself of the solution. How can you respect multiple cultures and yet construct a unified identity? The question is one of wedding good intentions to political power - especially power obtained in the hit-and-miss of a voting 'democracy' such as India
We should work on consolidating a Hindu vote bank - that is the answer. A Hindu vote bank is manifestly good. It threatens no one, it captures power by entirely democratic means and it will make the political equations in India clear. Mohammedans, Christist's and sundry other 'grievance groups' will realise that they will have to play fair or be wiped out.
This is Advani and BJP's central failure; instead of sticking with the Mandir agitation and using it as a prop for Hindu vote consolidation; these morons ended up playing the 'secular's' games - they just wanted to be admitted to the club of secularism
Nepali Maoists interfered in the administration of the Lord Pashupatinath Temple. The Nepal’s apex court instructed the Maoists led government to allow the Worship rituals as usual with the Indian priests. However Nepal government had rejected the Court instructions and went on merrily for three days.
http://www.telegraphnepal.com/news_det.php?news_id=4694
Come January 6, 2009.
Nepal Prime Minister Prachanda received two separate calls from India at different intervals of time the same evening.
The first one that shook him from within was a call from Mumbai. This call was made none less than by the self-styled Mumbai Hindu Pundit, Bal Thackeray, who apparently told the Nepal PM to immediately reverse the orders and engage the terminated priests from India or remain prepared for some thing that is unthinkable.
Mr. Thackeray is taken as an aggressive and fundamentalist Hindu who has many a times shook Mumbai under one pretext or the other.
However, the Nepal Prime Minister could not tell the Indian Pundit not to interfere in Nepal’s exclusive matters.
An internally trembling Nepal Prime Minister almost fainted when he received a similar call from New Delhi.
It was a threat loaded call from Lal Krishna Advani-the top-notch of the Bharatiya Janata Party, India who presumably point blank told Prime Minister Dahal to reverse the decision to replace the Indian priests and abide by the Nepal Court’s decision or face “grave consequences”.
A virtually shaken PM Dahal obliged and the next day the latter made a general speech at the Constituent Assembly that status quo will be thus maintained.
The writer then asks,
* Had the coercive Indian leadership been so sentimentally attached to Nepal’s long standing tradition and culture, including religion, then why the same leadership did not speak a single word when Nepal was declared a Secular State on May 28, 2008?
* Why the Indian leadership then did not push their agenda that they wanted Nepal to continue as a Hindu nation?
* Similarly, had the Hindu stalwarts of India so sensitive then why did not they forwarded their reservation while the only Hindu King of Nepal was summarily told to vacate the Palace on June 11, 2008?
My own question is, why does the “Hindu leadership” take offence when the Maoists interfere in temples in Nepal, but look away when their cousins, the commies and other pseudo-secularists interfere in the temple administration in India?
Ghatotkacha :
First of all I appreciate people speaking in favour of Pashupati temple tradition,asides lords grace, many Indians go there, it is a hindu religious issue. I am surprised so many questions from everybody instead of saying thanks.
Ofcourse advani has to answer what he was doing during the nepal episode. I am not interested in the answer .
Indians should have opposed Dahl when the king was ousted. Indians should oppose Dahl . Only thing is that they themselves are competing to be globalized in terms of maoism, west or something else.Advani had no clue what is happening - hundreds of distrincts went maoist when he was in govt or in opposition.
Ghost Writer : I think the central failure of BJP was underestimating the enemy and understanding oneself. Advani pretended to be intelligent when he was not so.
I am not sure why one of the best read person of BJP - Arun Shouries was sidelined, why atleast some of his arguments were not picked by the party to counter attack. They were in the books available in the market. What additional reserach they did other than finding Jinnah as sickular ?
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