Arundhati Roy on the Indian elections

[ConsAreLiars]

Good analysis of the forces at play and the how and why of Sonia Gandhi's replacement as Prime Minister. (Note the parallels to Venezuela.) When reading this understand that "communalism" in India plays a role like racism in the US or other efforts here and elsewhere to intensify and exploit ethnic or religious divisions for political advantage.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/19/1449239

[rumguy]

1. great article

the fascists were dethroned in Spain and now in India. Next it's America's turn to rid ourselves of this fascist plague.

[ConsAreLiars]

2. She sees to the heart of things

More of her work can be found through this site: http://aroy.miena.com/

[AP]

4. Here's the part that's like Venezuela. The slightest threat to neoliberal-

ism, and the slightest hint of spreading wealth down to everyone in society, and:

ROY:...What has happened is that as soon as the election results were announced, the BJP., the hard-right wing members of the B.J.P. and its goon squads started saying we'll shave our heads. We'll eat green gram and make a revolution in this country against this foreign woman on the one hand, and on the other hand, equally hard core corporate groups were acting -- they were out on the streets. They were yelling like fundamentalists would, and all of these corporate television channels had split screens where on the one hand, you saw what is happening in Sonia Gandhi's house and on the other half, you just had what the stockbrokers are saying. And the whole of the one billion people who had voted had just been forgotten. They had been given their photo opportunity, their journeys on elephant back and camel and whatever it was to the election booth. Now they were just forgotten. The only comments you get are what the industrialists think... and what the centrists think about Sonia Gandhi. It is an absolutely absurd kind of blackmail by fascists on the one hand and corporate fascists on the other.

[AP]

3. Interesting point:

Background first: Indira Gandhi played off racial groups for power which resulted in deaths of lots of Sikhs, so the Congress party doesn't have clean hands, historically speaking.

ROY:...So, somehow the BJP is the horrible specter that has emerged from the legacy of the Congress party. You know, you begin to realize that hypocrisy is not a terrible thing when you see what overt fascism is compared to sort of covert, you know, communal politics which the Congress has never been shy of indulging in.

[ConsAreLiars]

5. Actually

Indira Gandhi and the Congress Party were fairly skilled in minimizing communalism. The partition (as a part of the British withdrawal) into Pakistan and India left some deep scars, and the Congress Party achieved power by presenting itself as a unity party. The Sikh attempt at separatism or relative autonomy for the Punjab was countered by means that included a shootout in the Golden Temple in Amritsar, an act that provided motivation for her assassination. (For more info see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi ) This rift is one reason why the Sikh participation in the new Gov't is so significant. The BJP, the ousted party, by contrast, was the Hindu equivalent of the Christian Right sectarianism that holds so much power in the US today, and relied heavily on bigotry and reinforcing a view of Hindu supremacy.