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To: Rational who wrote (1939)	2/5/1998 8:52:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Respond to of 9980

BJP agenda-What I like and what I don't. Sankar: For the sake of brevity I will just list what I like about BJP's agenda and what I don't like based on what i have read in the media. I do not agree with many of your views on the economic policy issues,foreign policy issues etc,but i leave that alone for the moment. What I like. 1) Uniform Civil Code. 2) Kashmir issue. 3) Views on infrastructure. 4) Their emphasis on agriculture. 5) Views on Parliamentary vs Presidential form of government. What I don't like. 1) Mixing of religion and state. 2) Questionable economic agenda. What I am ambiguous about. 1) Jingoism 2) The nuclear issue 3) Their stand on education 4) Their social agenda Not unlike other parties in India and elsewhere, I am afraid a lot of he promises and plans expounded in the manifesto could be just i>political rhetoric as I don't have any clue as to how they are going to implement any of the promises. I am as usual skeptical of all political parties and their motives in India and BJP is no exception. It may very well be BJP who comes to power in India come March 16th (?) for lack of a better alternative.It will be interesting to say the least.

To: Rational who wrote (1939)	2/6/1998 9:39:00 AM
From: Worswick	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 9980

Sankar you're truly appalling grasp of information and history is laughable and dangerous. "The reason for why India has remained poor is mainly because of the standard Indian psyche of austerity and contentment with whatever they have. The western standard of per-capita income to measure prosperity is perhaps meaningless." I am sure that the hundreds of millions of people in India, who live and die because they're content to be poor,and who will finally close their eyes and not suffer anymore because you care so much. If there are thousands like you and hundreds of thousands in India then I'd say the world that we know, a world where cooperative spirit is important, is in deep, deep trouble. The irony here is we educated you. You went to Harvard. You write, "Actually, USA and other Western powers taught jingoism to the rest of the world. After having acquired the nuclear power and wealth (mostly through occupation of foreign lands), these powers want the rest of world to kow tow them and remain perpetually emaciated and dependent on them." Basically, I think you have a very dark heart Sankar. I am reminded in your post of the fate of the great Central Asian city of Balkh. Balkh opposed the armies of the Central Asian nomad Ghinghiz Khan and when Ghenghiz Khan conqueored Balkh he slaughtered the population of Balkh - every man, woman and child. The great Khan built hetacombs of skulls twenty and forty feet high and Balkh has never recovered. Today only the wind inhabits Balkh. I quote you, "Actually, USA and other Western powers taught jingoism to the rest of the world. After having acquired the nuclear power and wealth (mostly through occupation of foreign lands), these powers want the rest of world to kow tow them and remain perpetually emaciated and dependent on them." You are the new barbarian Sankar with his calculator and his jet plane tickets.

To: Rational who wrote (1939)	2/8/1998 3:53:00 PM
From: Worswick	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 9980

I worry about the BJP. Jyoti, let me answer your intelligent post by pointing out that Weimar Germany was, also, a democracy like India. In fact in the 1933 election and unheard of 88.8 % of the population of Germany voted and Hitler received only 43.9% of the vote. Not a majority by any stretch of the imagination. The rest is history. What happened next in Germany is the institutions of government were torn out by their roots and replaced by a government of ideologues. In his post of February 5, 1998 a Professor of Economics of Indian origin named Sankar Archarya wrote the following on a Silicon Investor message board, "I see nothing wrong with the jingoism or nationalistic views of BJP; this is consistent with the demand of most Indians who support them". Sankar I shall address this to you because you deeply scare me with your ideas of ultra right wing Indian nationalism. You are the new man. The man of the BJP. The man of no understanding of history and no roots. I would suggest, however, that the match for you and your BJP, the party of half baked of Hinduvata, is just across the border from India. A short walk. Waiting out there in the darkest night of the soul are the people of Pakistan who are every bit as crazy as the Indian BJP people and yourself. This is going to be my very last post on the subject of the BJP and your dinky ideas. I am not going to spend my life deprecating the BJP or you. It would be a full time job taking you back to school and getting you to learn what you don't know about history and the political dynamics of your own country. Things tend to run to extremes in your country. In the interests, however, of telling people in this country what the BJP is in India let me continue a bit. First, what the BJP is best known for is vandalizing (destroying) the oldest Muslim mosque in India. You can say many things about this act of religious/cultural vandalism but the one thing I hope you agree upon is.. that this has not led to happy feelings amongst a hundred million plus community in India (the Muslims). I have heard Pakistanis say the same thing that the BJP party says on it's web site. If I may quote the BJP, "Having ignored its history, it (India) has now come face to face with a repressed conscience." What does this mean? It means that might is right. That finally, we can take what is ours. I remember the beginnings of World War II. The Sudatenland, Austria, eastern Silesia/Poland. In the 1936-39 period Germany was coming to terms with her "repressed conscience" and taking back what was hers. Now, since both of the governments - Pakistan and India - have fought two wars(?) three wars(?) with each other already imagine for a moment the Hindu nationalists and the Muslim nationalists fighting it out with 70 kiloton Atomic bombs. Nuke for nuke. Remember the Punjab. 1947? No. Actually, I think that is wrong historical analogy..instead of the communal violence in the Punjab in 1947 that killed so many tens of thousands of people with the BJP agenda you simply write off every city over one million in North India and Pakistan. As an economist you must say it is an elegant solution to over population: murder 200 to 400 million people. And unknown to most people who survive this hell fire is that in effect what you will have left is a nuclear wasteland. Think about this.the high level of the water table in the cis Sutlej area. For the last hundred years water projects have effectively drained the Indus and the seven rives of the Punjab into the Punjab. The water table in some places is just two feet below the surface. After a nuclear exchange it will, of course, be "poisoned" with a nuclear half life of U-238 @ 500,000 years; unless, of course, some Hinduvata scientist of BJP has a magic powder that he can sprinkle on the ground to make wheat grow again. So. When I hear someone who is half-educated like you are saying - like many, many NRI's do - that the BJP is going to make India stand tall I want to tell you that I have heard the Pakistani's saying the same identical thing. The truth is, however, Pakistan will stand tall too. They will trade you blow for blow. I remember in Lahore the following conversation about the next war between India and Pakistan. "This time...this time believe us Mr. Worswick...please.. we are going to kill all of them. Then, there won't be an Indian problem anymore." As Peter said on this thread. Both sides are right. Well, I guess just not in the way he thought it out. To quote a bit more of the BJP manifesto, "Hindus are at last free. They control their destiny now and there is no power that can control them except their own tolerant ethos. . Having ignored its history, it has now come face to face with a repressed conscience. The destruction of the structure at Ayodhya (a Muslim Mosque built on an ancient Hindu site) was the release of the history that Indians. had not fully come to terms with. Thousands of years of anger and shame, so diligently bottled up by these same interests, was released when the first piece of the so-called Babri Masjid was torn down." (From the BJP website) The Manifesto continues: "Truth won when Hindus, realizing that Truth could not be won through political or legal means, took the law into their own hands. Hindus have been divided politically, and the laws have not acknowledged the quiet Hindu yearning for Hindu unity which has until recently taken a back seat to economic development and Muslim appeasement." Sankar the reason I go on about this is because what ever happened to the Buddhist ideal born in India of "lovingkindness". Of communities living together. What ever happened to the ideals of Ghandi and non-violence? All I have ever heard the BJP proclaim is divisiveness, and narrow sectarian nationalism that is absolutely a clone of the early Nazi rhetoric of the mid-1920's. The BJP are home grown Hindu fascists. On this thread Mohan another Indian poster has written, "I consider a lot of their (the BJP's) proposed agenda is a ploy to get votes by raising one's fear, insecurities and 'nationalism'." There is a price for this particular brand of escalating nationalism. It is a terrible godawful price. At worst it is a nuclear halocaust. At best what Mohan posted some time ago will be true, "Just what we need another Indian Balkans." So Sankar sleep well. You simply haven't the vaguest idea dippy ideas are going to lead. Probably, in thirty years you'll be collecting your IRA and your $75 K salary from your teacher's pension plan. You'll be living in the suburbs of Chicago when everyone you've known in India has been fried in the nuclear fires. Hey, given your BJP looser outlook then you can sigh, "Bas. I have forgotten their names. It was their karma." Close up: Vacant smile. Fade out.