[Reader-list] India on a list of countries which have failed to protect its religious minorities adequately

[Jeebesh]

dear Rakesh,

the point you raise are significant.

the conceptual fusion of state with the people keeps lot of thinking  
going. the assumption is that the social fabric is the state. and  
state is all of the society. well even orwell did not gesture to this  
kind of fusion!

so much of the posting here assumes this fusion. on the other hand  
anyone can see that states are becoming more powerful and coercive.  
instead of asking why would this be happening, we are told that it the  
nature of the people that demands this. and if you can give an ethnic  
or an religious turn to the people, then the argument is suppose to  
totally buffer itself from any further investigation.

if we could unpack this assumed fusion, maybe we can return some  
dignity back to the generative social tissues that we all see around us.

warmly
jeebesh


On 15-Aug-09, at 8:05 PM, Rakesh Iyer wrote:

>
> Therefore, to assume that people of those nations don't want freedom  
> or
> dont' require it, is to suffer from collective amnesia, or be out of  
> touch
> with reality. (Even if they don't want it, they deserve it, if  
> nothing else,
> then just for rejecting the choice to have choices). Just because  
> the elites
> form policies and the clergy supports it doesn't mean that the  
> policy has
> the support of all the people whom the elites rule over. Believing  
> so would
> mean that Babur's and Aurangzeb's policies of war and destruction of  
> temples
> (and even discrimination) had whole-hearted support from both  
> Muslims and
> Hindus living in the territories of the Mughal Empire. And that, all  
> would
> accept, is a foolish thing to believe.