01-16-2009, 12:32 AM
Not sure where else to put this, Rajiv Malhotra's latest article...
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->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?fi...70109we_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=60...288646836&hl=en
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->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?fi...70109we_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=60...288646836&hl=en
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->