Yeah I agree. Something needs to jolt people to these kinds of issues

News results for The Hindu – View today’s top stories Hindu priest didn’t recognise Spears – Hindustan Times – 3 hours ago Hundreds puff marijuana in Nepal to mark Hindu festival – INQ7.net – 27 Feb 2006 Two-way channel for The Hindu readers – Hindu – 26 Feb 2006

Thanks for the link. While people often take off Times of India out here, and deservedly so, I would definitely recommend switching to “The Hindu”. Thoughtful analysis in the center pages, excellent editorials, and despite its name, secular. My only complaint is that it is a tad bit too left wing for my taste, but I think that is merely an editorial choice.

I agree, your analogy was not intentional neverthless it was a bit overstretched. Also I think while person laws are there only for christians and muslims, there are different laws as regarding adoption and inheritance for all communities. Main point(s) of contention is that according to Muslim Personal Law, Polygamy and Triple Talaq are allowed. I think it is highly discrimanatory. (Here I remember there used to be some laws even for Hindus which were slightly discrimantory, but fortunately most of them are amended or scrapped).

Lastly India can learn many things from west (Idea of free speech, Free market etc),interaction between different communities is however not one of them. Historically west has not been very good to its “minorities”, and as far as contemperory west goes it till recently did not have any significant “minority” populations.

Regards

But when it comes to lynching America was “influenced” a tiny tiny little bit by India and other countries. I recall a documentary on the civil rights movement (on PRI maybe) a couple of years ago. Most if not all of the documentary was pieced together from archival audio-tape. And there was this snippet in which some politician says (quoting from memory) “Oh god we (America) have to do something we are even getting bashed in papers in India”. Or something to that effect. I want to say the speaker was Pres. Johnson, but it may have been someone else.

Well my jaw dropped I never even knew about this angle to the civil rights movement.

CanÂ’t find the documentary via google but I found this

In 1958, an African-American handyman named Jimmy Wilson was sentenced to die in Alabama for stealing two dollars. Shocking as this sentence was, it was overturned only after intense international attention and the interference of an embarrassed John Foster Dulles. Soon after the United States’ segregated military defeated a racist regime in World War II, American racism was a major concern of U.S. allies, a chief Soviet propaganda theme, and an obstacle to American Cold War goals throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Each lynching harmed foreign relations, and “the Negro problem” became a central issue in every administration from Truman to Johnson.

Like learning to pay better lip service to minority rights perhaps?

But seriously the west has even more to learn from the Indian model. The western model, while it tries very hard to make amends, basically ends up effacing all differences and forces people to conform to what is basically the Protestant model of what is right and proper. You see this happening with feminism and gays, as much as it has in the past with catholics and jews. The Indian model, before it took on this colonial garb, truly allowed minorities to exist in whichever way they wanted. But it just may be too late to revive the languishing indian model even in india let alone anywhere else.

You are probably right. I was just trying to imply that the unlike the institutionalized subjugation of blacks (years after the emancipation proclamation), India and her constitution does not impose the will of a majority on a minority.

I do believe that India can learn a thing or two from contemporary West on treatment of minorities.

This is true. But IMHO, westerners, in past or in present, have never had the opportunity to interact with a significant “minority”.

Also, during the second world war Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps. I would not call that a particularly sophisticated treatment of a minority by an Administration (Roosevelt).

You may know about the contentious issue of Muslim Personal law which accords certain rights to Muslims only I thought the Hindus and Christians also had the option of being governed by their own personal laws. I might be wrong.

There have been no convictions for the Godhara train burning act (as far as I am aware) As far as I know the whole train incident has been swept under the rug as an “accident”.

Unsolved crime is not always a problem especially in the absence of a lack of motive. I am not sure if the Modi led state police in Gujarat had a motive to not persecute the Ghodra perpetrators. One sin they cant be accused of is coddling the Muslims. The problem arises when Congress Parliamentarians commit acts of wanton violence against a minority like Sikhs in Delhi or the Bakery case in Gujarat where the perpetrators were caught/in public eye and still no justice is served. I hope the Congress Parliamentarians are also put on trial like the Bakery case perpetrators.

As for Muslims, it is incidental that they are a minority. They had the same minority status when they held ruthless sway over hindus.

Thats true. Being a minority is not always the test. In South Africa the white minority was pretty ruthless and in Syria the Shitte Alawi minority are pretty ruthless too. I was referring not to the minority versus majority status as in numerosity per se but more in the sense of balance of power.

Moreover, it is well established that all sorts of different creeds flourished side by side in India way before the west dreamt up the concept of secularism. Where was this peaceful co-existence coming from? It certainly was not handed down to Indians by the west since they developed the idea much later

I do believe that India can learn a thing or two from contemporary West on treatment of minorities.

“Our system is such that while dealing with an influential person, the law is applied differently, as compared to the common man, be it at the time of arrest, investigation or trial.” Prolonged trials make witnesses to lose interest or turn hostile. “People get fed up running around in courts and waiting for justice,” he says. “The longer a trial, the greater the chances of witnesses failing to recall the incident. They then get exposed during cross-examination. This is an outcome of procedural delays caused by our system,” says a senior advocate”

“As streamlining the criminal justice system will not fetch votes and on the contrary may prove detrimental for tainted politicians, reforming the system is not a priority with the political class”