[Reader-list] India:A miracle?

[Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri]

Dear R. Chaudhuri, 

It is nice to see you back on the waves. As you see, the list has been
having a long siesta. I am happy that Mr Friedman thinks that Bharat is a
great place, but somehow, his article gives me the sense that he is part of
the liberal US brigade who have been saying that Islam has no self-critique
... 'If Islam is ever to undergo a reformation, as Christianity and
Judaism did, it¹s only going to happen in a Muslim democracy.'

Regards,
Jyoti

on 8/18/02 5:04 PM, Dr. Reyhan Chaudhuri at reyhanchaudhuri at eth.net wrote:

> 
> This article had something interesting to perpend.. However some may have
> problems with the title..Many would personally hesitate to use such
> glam-glossed words like ŒMiracle¹. Miracles are supposed to be magic wands
> that with a swish make all the past detritus disappear. This would not seem
> so in multiple terms to many..
> I should also mention that this piece by Mr Friedman was probably written
> pre-James Lyndoh¹s visit to Gujarat. Or else I am sure he would have
> included that as another democratic phenomenon, i.e : the presence of a free
> working demo /constitutional Election Commission not answerable to the
> government..
> Yrs. Sincerely,
> R,Chaudhuri.
> 
> INDIA: A MIRACLE WITH A MESSAGE :
> BY Thomas L.Friedman / The NewYork Times.
> Bangalore: The more time you spend in India the more you realize that this
> teeming, multiethnic, mutlireligious, multilingual country is one of the
> world¹s Great wonders-a miracle with a message. And the message is that
> democracy matters.
> This truth hits you from every corner. Consider Bangalore , where the
> traffic is now congested by all the young Indain techies, many from the
> lower- middle classes, who have gotten jobs, apartments-and motor
> scooters-by providing the brain power for the world¹s biggest corporations.
> While the software designs of these Indian techies may be rocket science,
> what made Bangalore what it is today is something very simple:50 years of
> Indian democracy and secular education, and 15 years of economic
> liberalization, produced all this positive energy.
> Just across the border in Pakistan-where people have the same basic blood,
> brains and civilisational heritage as here-50 years of failed democracy,
> military coups and imposed religiosity have produced 30,000
> madrasas -Islamic schools , which have replace a collapsed public school
> system and churn out the Quran and hostility toward non-Muslims.
> No, India is not paradise .Just last February the Hindu nationalist BJP
> government in the state of  Gujarat stirred up a pogrom by Hindus against
> Muslims that left 600 Muslims, and dozens of Hindus ,dead.
> It was a shameful incident and in a country with 150million Muslims-India
> has the largest Muslim minority in the world-it was explosive. And do you
> know what happened?
> Nothing happened.
> The rioting didn¹t spread anywhere. One reason is the long history of Indian
> Muslims and Hindus living together in villages and towns, sharing communal
> institutions and mixing their cultures and faiths. But the larger reason is
> democracy. The free Indian Press quickly exposed how the local Hindu
> government had encouraged the riots for electoral purposes, and the national
> BJP had to distance itself from Gujarat because it rules with a coalition,
> many of whose members rely on Muslim votes to get re-elected. Democracy in
> India forces anyone who wants to succeed nationally to appeal across ethnic
> lines.
> Even when Gujarat was burning practically the whole of India was at
> peace-that is the normal pattern here,² said Syed Shahabuddin, editor of
> Muslim India, a monthly magazine, and a former Indian diplomat. ³ India is a
> democracy and more than that, India is a secular democracy, at least in
> principle, and it does maintain a certain level of aspiration and hope for
> Msuslims. If there were no democracy in India, there would be no anarchy,
> because so many different people are aspiring for their share of the cake.²
> It is precisely because of the ³constitutional framework here,² added
> Mr.Shahabuddin, that Indian Muslims don¹t have to resort to terrorism as a
> minority:² You can always ask for economic and political justice here.²
> It is for all these reasons that the US is wrong not to press for
> democritisation in the Arab and Muslim Worlds. Is it an accident that India
> has the largest Muslim minority in the world, with plenty of economic
> grievances, yet not a single Indian Muslim was found in Al Qaeda? Is it an
> accident that the two times India and Pakistan fought full-scale wars, 1965
> and 1971, were when Pakistan had military rulers? Is it an accident that
> when Pakistan had free elections, the Islamists have never won more than 6%
> of the vote ?
> Is it an accident that the richest man in India is an Indian Muslim
> software entrepreneur, while the richest man in Pakistan ,I will guess, is
> from one of the 50 feudal families who have dominated  that country since it
> ¹s Independence ? Is it an accident that the only place in the Muslim world
> where women felt empowered enough to demand equal prayer rights in mosque
> was in the Indian city of Hyderabad? No, all of these were products of
> democracy. If Islam is ever to undergo a reformation, as Christianity and
> Judaism did, it¹s only going to happen in a Muslim democracy.
> People, say Islam is angry religion. I disagree. It¹s just that a lot of
> Muslims are angry, because they live under repressive regimes, with no rule
> of law, where women are not empowered and youth have no voice in their
> future. What is a religion but a mirror on your life?
> 
> 
> 
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