NYT Heats Up Indians

After the New York Times decided to throw some fire & brimstone at Modi again in a piece on Teesta Setalvad, it's provoked a large reaction from Indian readers in their comments section:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/20/world/asia/teesta-setalvad-modi-india.html?_r=0


But Hell must have frozen over - because NYT actually selected a couple of comments of mine as their "NYT Picks"

"Caste" is an english word with connotations of stratification. Like the old saying goes, "there is much which has been lost in translation." The reality is that Indians are composed of distinct ethnic identities which Westerners and firebrand leftists have sought to inextricably link to stratification -- a class warfare narrative which all too conveniently serves the political interest of divide-and-conquer. There will likely be distinct ethnicities among human beings for a long time to come, and this is certainly the case even in the developed West. Will all such ethnicities always magically be at statistical parity with each other at any given moment in regards to income, education, and other vital social indicators? No, that's simply impossible. They say that the "victors get to write the history books." Those countries which are already economically dominant get to claim Indian ethnicities are toxic. As India industrializes to free up the human potential of its people, then these myths of Indian-ethnicity-as-stratification will simply fade away just as they have done so in the already-industrialized developed world. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is himself from a so-called "low caste" is very dedicated to the goal of achieving that industrialization, which would free so many Indians from the misery and desperation of class warfare with all its attendant distortions. He knows how to break the cycle - that's why some will spare no effort to call him a monster.

Here's the other one from me

The Congress Party in India represents a Deep State, having used its many decades in power to penetrate and permeate the entire govt as deeply as possible. When Congress Party leaders rioted to massacre over ten thousand Sikhs on the streets in 1984, then where were any of these Teesta Setalvads? When Sikhs recently approached the Delhi govt ruled by Congress leader Sheila Dikshit to ask for permission to build a memorial to the 1984 riot victims, she immediately rejected their request. India's Congress Party is a counterpart to Pakistan's ISI, as each embodies a Deep State ready to capsize the country it sits astride, rather than let go of the power it craves so intensely. The attitude of this kind of Deep State, is "apres moi, le deluge."
Indians will not allow their country to be held hostage by the Congress Party and its Deep State. We will not be reduced to mere family heirlooms of an imposed and self-proclaimed monarchy (aka. the Nehru-Gandhi family). We don't want Rahul as our next BabyDoc. The inescapable reality is that Teesta Setalvad has very close ties to the Congress Party, and that party has done everything it can to eulogize her and build up her image. She is not the sweet innocent saint that she is being made out to be. Indians want economic empowerment - that same middle class which is the real root of American democracy - while the Congress Party fear that empowerment, since it would allow the Indian people to escape that party's gamesmanship.

I'm not sure what to make of it - maybe their regular comment-censorer was too swamped by all of our responses and had to bring in extra hands. Maybe something in my writing piqued their interest - maybe, just maybe they're realizing just how many Indians support Modi over the Congress & Left. Maybe they'll just delete my comments later on.