my rediff piece on the berkeley leftists plotting to do damage to india

terrible headline, i know. but i have no control over the copy editor who decides on headlines. i had originally titled it 'chronicles of a conflict foretold', with apologies to gabriel garcia marquez

http://www.rediff.com/news/column/rajeev-srinivasan-the-time-will-come-when-america-can-dictate-to-india/20140303.htm

The time will come when America can dictate to India, and expect to be obeyed

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March 03, 2014 16:26 IST

'A plausible American tactic,' Rajeev Srinivasan suspects, 'would be to try and prevent the BJP and Modi from coming to power by splitting the anti-Congress vote using the AAP, and in case that fails, to follow up with a Plan B to make India ungovernable, to create mass conflict through their agents.'

If you scan the news these days the world seems to be a tinderbox, waiting for just a small spark to set off a conflagaration. The much-commented-on, eerie, similarities with 1914 that people have noticed concentrated on the rise of China as a revanchist power bent on changing the status quo, much as a rising Germany was a century ago. But there are other risks in a globalised world. I wonder what the catalytic action might be that actually sets off a cataclysm, just as the assassination of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary set off World War I.

In addition to the quasi-revolution in the Ukraine, here are several other countries embroiled in, or at risk of civil war, or caught up in covert or overt violence:

Syria, where an actual civil war is going on with horrific human rights violations on either side.

Thailand, where the government and the opposition seem to have fought each other to a stalemate.

Venezuela, on the verge of a civil war over discredited Chavismo and corruption.

South Sudan, the newly created country already heading towards State failure.

Afghanistan, the perennial problem child, on the precipice of partition.

Egypt, with simmering dissent and a polarised populace.

And I am only covering a subset of the world's problems. Interestingly, with the singular exception of the Ukraine, none of these problem States is in the West's heartlands; they are at best peripheral to the concerns of the rich world. This is not to say that there has been no violence in the heart of the West: The brutality in Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, etc. took place not so long ago.

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sent from samsung galaxy note, so please excuse brevity