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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kumar who wrote (94439)	4/18/2003 4:37:04 AM
From: kumar	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Steven, lets try to get to the bottom line. Show me a US President that is either non-Christian, or non-White or non-male, since 1776. Once you give me an example, we could discuss democracy (or lack thereof) in India, which has had 3 Muslim Presidents, 1 female Prime Minister, all since 1947.

To: kumar who wrote (94439)	4/18/2003 10:37:43 AM
From: arun gera	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Kumar, a more apt comparison would be the Prime Minister position in India and the President of USA. On that score, the Indian Prime Ministers tend to be from Northern India, particularly from Uttar Pradesh. Only since 1990 have we seen South Indian Prime Ministers such as Deve Gowda and Narasimha Rao. The diversity in the Prime Minister position is actually very limited. Indira Gandhi got her position in a somewhat dynastic succession, but retained her position on her own accord. On the other hand, the President's spot is an Affirmative Action program. Besides the 3 Muslim Presidents, India has had a Sikh President - Zail Singh. And if you want to go by Caste - Jagjivan Ram, a vote-catcher of the lower castes. -Arun >"India has had 2 muslim Presidents - the current President, and a previous one - Dr Zakir Hussain, since 1947. India also has had a female Prime Minister since 1947. Show me a Black President, or a female President in the US since 1776." Arun Gera corrected me to state there have been 3 Indian Muslim Presidents since 1947. >

To: kumar who wrote (94439)	4/20/2003 4:00:21 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The Indian Government does NOT, as far as I know, espouse a religiously-biased concept. Not openly. The BJP does regard itself as a Hindu Nationalist party, though the Vajpayee government is considered the “soft face” of Hindu Nationalism. The hard face is not very far from the surface, though. Vajpayee’s Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani, who is in charge of the police and much of the internal security apparatus, is an ardent Hindu nationalist. He was leading a fundamentalist organization called the World Hindu Council in 1992, and has been blamed for inciting mobs that killed Muslims and demolished the Ayodhya mosque, the action that started the current round of confrontation. The Vajpayee government per se does not espouse the Hindu supremacist doctrine, but many of its members do, and the government has been markedly reluctant to punish those responsible for the mass violence in Gujarat and incidents elsewhere. Many BJP leaders outside the national government, particularly in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, are open Hindu fundamentalists without any hint of the soft face. Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, is a Hindu supremacist famous for wildly racist remarks; his campaign speeches described Muslims collectively as terrorists and Pakistani agents. Modi is believed to have directly incited the Gujarat violence. Gujarat is the only State government completely controlled by the BJP, which gives Modi substantial influence. The influence of the RSS with the Vajpayee government is also cause for concern; they try to hide it, but it seems pretty much agreed that the RSS and its leader K.C. Sudarshan (remember him, the "everyone living in India is a Hindu” guy?) enjoy considerable access. A BBC report says “the BJP itself is considered a political off-shoot of the RSS”. Some might thing it an exaggeration to describe the RSS as a fascist organization, but it walks like a duck and it sure as hell talks like a duck, and I’m not willing to dismiss the possibility that it might just be one. Governments get elected in a "1 person 1 vote" system in India. If the people dont like the current govt, they will elect a different one. Narendra Modi was elected by that “l person 1 vote system”, and his party holds a 2/3 majority in the Gujarat legislative body. One person, one vote is not all that makes a democracy. Since democracy began, it’s been recognized that majority rule raises the possibility that a majority could legally oppress a minority and deprive it of its rights. A legal system able to protect the rights of minorities is every bit as much a cornerstone of democracy as one person-one vote elections. India’s central government contains prominent Hindu supremacists and appears to tolerate anti-Muslim violence; a State government of the same party openly tolerates such violence, and its leaders are believed to incite it. That opens a legitimate question: how effective is the second cornerstone of democracy, the protection of minority rights. India has had 2 muslim Presidents - the current President, and a previous one - Dr Zakir Hussain, since 1947. India also has had a female Prime Minister since 1947. Show me a Black President, or a female President in the US since 1776 In 1860, the US had been a democracy for nearly 100 years. They’d had Southern Presidents and Northern ones. They still had a civil war. I’m not trying to draw a direct analogy; none exists. Even an established democracy, though, can encounter a crisis point that threatens to break the grounding of common assumption that democracy requires. It would be a major exaggeration to say that India has reached such a crisis point. The elements of such a crisis are all in place, though, and one of the big ones is the cloak of denial that sits over many of the people that need to dig in and fight against it.