Akshaya Elizabeth Jose bemoans the “rise of authoritarian nationalism” but fails to tell us what the alternatives are. Has she looked around the neighborhood Indians live in?
To India’s south, just off its coast is Sri Lanka. How many years ago was it that Sri Lanka savagely destroyed the insurgency led by the Tamil Tigers and killed huge numbers of innocent ethnic Tamils in the process?
To India’s west is Pakistan, a country so corrupt, backwards and dangerous that it competes with Iran as the world’s leading state exporter of terrorism. How many attacks on Indian territory have been launched from Pakistan? How many innocent Hindus have been massacred by Islamic extremists with the support, tacit or otherwise, from the Pakistani government?
Not bordering India, but a hop, skip and a jump away is Afghanistan, a nation even more dysfunctional than Pakistan and on the verge of falling to the Taliban.
On India’s east is Bangladesh. The country spent the past several days consumed by riots; Is this what Bangladesh needed given its chronic food shortages, primitive healthcare infrastructure and corrupt military dominated government?
Also on India’s east is that paradise of ethnic peace, Myanmar. How many Rohingya have been murdered and exiled in the past few years? How many protestors did the Government murder last week?
To India’s north is China; home to the Uighur Genocide, the trampling of Hong Kong and the ethnic cleansing of Tibet. Not to mention the periodic incursions made by the Red Army into Indian territory.
India also borders Bhutan and Nepal; I guess they’re nice.
Against this backdrop, the Cosmopolitan Globalists are shocked, just shocked that Prime Minister Modi isn’t living up to the standards set by the American founding fathers, democratic ancient Athens or the preternaturally talented European leaders who talk a good game about tolerance and pluralism but can’t seem to figure out how to distribute simple inoculations.
Respectfully, the Cosmopolitan Globalists need a dose of reality. Compared to every other leader in South Asia, Modi is the region’s Mahatma Gandhi. His Government is as liberal and pluralistic as is possible under the circumstances.
Kvetching that he’s an autocrat just makes the Cosmopolitan Globalists look silly. Instead of telling us how crestfallen you are that he’s no fan of dissent, celebrate the fact that he’s no Xi Jinping.
Just read Anne Applebaum’s Twilight of Democracy. Draws similar conclusions in Hungry and Poland. Illiberal one party states becoming the norm with elected Govts putting incompetent party faithful on all important positions.
Do the Cosmopolitan Globalists realize the the illiberalism they bemoan in India has been raised to an art-form in the United States by “elite” institutions like Harvard?
As just one example, consider the case of former Harvard Professor, Subramanian Swamy. In July, 2011, Swamy, who had taught at Harvard for more than a decade, penned an article in the Indian Daily News and Analysis suggesting ways to “negate the political goals of Islamic terrorism in India.”
After wails of torment from the usual crowd of bratty students, the university agreed to investigate. Despite the fact that Harvard administrators initially defended Professor Swamy’s right to engage in controversial speech, the faculty, who were even more ignorant than the students (hard as that may be to believe), voted to fire the non-tenured Subramanian Swamy. The Professor was never informed about his dismissal; he learned about it from newspaper accounts.
The case of Subramanian Swamy is eerily similar to the case of Pratap Bhanu Mehta, but the perpetrators were not conservative nationalists as in Mehta’s situation but progressive windbags who aligned against Swamy. Both Mehta and Swamy commented on the religious controversy in Ayodhya, but from different points of view. Like Subramanian Swamy, Mehta’s defender, Arvind Subramanian, worked on economic and financial issues for the Modi Government.
You can learn more about the Subramanian Swamy controversy here,
The nationalists in India may be intolerant of dissent, but when it comes to stamping out dissent at all costs, they’re amateurs compared to the thugs on the faculty at Harvard.
Akshaya Elizabeth Jose bemoans the “rise of authoritarian nationalism” but fails to tell us what the alternatives are. Has she looked around the neighborhood Indians live in?
To India’s south, just off its coast is Sri Lanka. How many years ago was it that Sri Lanka savagely destroyed the insurgency led by the Tamil Tigers and killed huge numbers of innocent ethnic Tamils in the process?
To India’s west is Pakistan, a country so corrupt, backwards and dangerous that it competes with Iran as the world’s leading state exporter of terrorism. How many attacks on Indian territory have been launched from Pakistan? How many innocent Hindus have been massacred by Islamic extremists with the support, tacit or otherwise, from the Pakistani government?
Not bordering India, but a hop, skip and a jump away is Afghanistan, a nation even more dysfunctional than Pakistan and on the verge of falling to the Taliban.
On India’s east is Bangladesh. The country spent the past several days consumed by riots; Is this what Bangladesh needed given its chronic food shortages, primitive healthcare infrastructure and corrupt military dominated government?
Also on India’s east is that paradise of ethnic peace, Myanmar. How many Rohingya have been murdered and exiled in the past few years? How many protestors did the Government murder last week?
To India’s north is China; home to the Uighur Genocide, the trampling of Hong Kong and the ethnic cleansing of Tibet. Not to mention the periodic incursions made by the Red Army into Indian territory.
India also borders Bhutan and Nepal; I guess they’re nice.
Against this backdrop, the Cosmopolitan Globalists are shocked, just shocked that Prime Minister Modi isn’t living up to the standards set by the American founding fathers, democratic ancient Athens or the preternaturally talented European leaders who talk a good game about tolerance and pluralism but can’t seem to figure out how to distribute simple inoculations.
Respectfully, the Cosmopolitan Globalists need a dose of reality. Compared to every other leader in South Asia, Modi is the region’s Mahatma Gandhi. His Government is as liberal and pluralistic as is possible under the circumstances.
Kvetching that he’s an autocrat just makes the Cosmopolitan Globalists look silly. Instead of telling us how crestfallen you are that he’s no fan of dissent, celebrate the fact that he’s no Xi Jinping.
Just read Anne Applebaum’s Twilight of Democracy. Draws similar conclusions in Hungry and Poland. Illiberal one party states becoming the norm with elected Govts putting incompetent party faithful on all important positions.
Do the Cosmopolitan Globalists realize the the illiberalism they bemoan in India has been raised to an art-form in the United States by “elite” institutions like Harvard?
As just one example, consider the case of former Harvard Professor, Subramanian Swamy. In July, 2011, Swamy, who had taught at Harvard for more than a decade, penned an article in the Indian Daily News and Analysis suggesting ways to “negate the political goals of Islamic terrorism in India.”
After wails of torment from the usual crowd of bratty students, the university agreed to investigate. Despite the fact that Harvard administrators initially defended Professor Swamy’s right to engage in controversial speech, the faculty, who were even more ignorant than the students (hard as that may be to believe), voted to fire the non-tenured Subramanian Swamy. The Professor was never informed about his dismissal; he learned about it from newspaper accounts.
The case of Subramanian Swamy is eerily similar to the case of Pratap Bhanu Mehta, but the perpetrators were not conservative nationalists as in Mehta’s situation but progressive windbags who aligned against Swamy. Both Mehta and Swamy commented on the religious controversy in Ayodhya, but from different points of view. Like Subramanian Swamy, Mehta’s defender, Arvind Subramanian, worked on economic and financial issues for the Modi Government.
You can learn more about the Subramanian Swamy controversy here,
https://www.thefire.org/cases/harvard-university-professor-fired-for-newspaper-column/
and here,
http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/01/02/harvard_summer_school_professor_dismissed_by_faculty_after_controversial_column_in_indian_paper_fires_back/
The nationalists in India may be intolerant of dissent, but when it comes to stamping out dissent at all costs, they’re amateurs compared to the thugs on the faculty at Harvard.