About
Yet Another Self-Important Blog.
Rohit Singh
Email Me
Blogs
Use as directed or at your own risk.
Links
These are a few of my favourite links.
[Wed, 01 Oct 2003]
Religion And State- the Tale of Two Democracies
Where does religion fit into a democracy? Nowhere? Everywhere? Somewhere?
One nation under God? Saraswati Vandana in schools? Mark Tully did a
documentary about the decline of secularism in India. The video isn't available but
a short report is
available.
He basically went around asking if secularism
could survive in India. Many people seemed to think: "not in a religion-blind
way". Hinduism has been, by far, the most influential religion in
India. Some of India's best (tolerance of plurality in viewpoints) and
worst (rigid caste system) traits can be traced back to it. Indeed, even
Indian Islam and Indian Christianity show such traits.
Shia-Sunni divide is less severe in India and there is a certain
caste-like stratification in Indian muslims- "Muslim Thakur" is not an
oxymoron. In such a context, the Nehruvian brand of religion-blind secularism lends itself to being distorted by special interest
groups (from both extremes). Gandhian secularism was a more touchy-feely
lets-all-be-friends kind. However, imposing religious amity by
good-will rather than law is a rather iffy proposition. IMHO, one of the best thing about
Nehruvian secularism are the rigid consitutional safeguards it provides. Wonder what
the best solution of the problem is.
The Americans are also wondering. Read this survey (it was a USA Today story but I forgot the link and had to google for it) The American thinking seems to be full of self-contradictions. For example, the majority says that one religion shouldn't be favored over another. A majority of the people also think its OK for the federal govt to fund socially-minded Christian charities. However, the majority also thinks that its NOT OK for the federal govt to fund similar Muslim charities.
The British have a whole different problem. They are totally fine with 'God Save The Queen'. But the Anglican church seems to be going through a phase of, umm, self-discovery.
Ekla Chalo...
Indian Express'
today's edit
is pretty good- it just reiterates that for all
the global fight against terrorism, everybody has a slightly different
perception of terrorism as global problem. The Russian "terror globe" is the
smallest- it essentially centers around Chechenya. The British terror globe
used to be even smaller- only northern Ireland- but they seem hell-bent on
making it much larger by having all of Mid-East in it. American terror globe
currently covers large parts of Asia. Indian and Israeli
terror globes are different- they are geographically rather small but have a
huge catchment area. And they are extremely lethal.
Anyways, the editorial essentially says that we should (and will need to) go on alone against terrorism in our terror globe. Good point. Thats what everybody else is doing, anyway.
Sucide Bombers- part 2
An
article
from Asia Times, about what makes suicide bombers tick. Similar
points as in an earlier article I
posted earlier.
Been Away
Have been busy with sundry stuff, will try and get back to blogging again. This is for the < 10 people who read this blog :-)