Kritic – argue with my posts all you want, that’s fine. But don’t characterize my writing (a) without reading it (b) based on what I haven’t written on. What I write about is fairly ad-hoc, and has more to do with what issues are timely one days when my social life is at an ebb and I’m not stuck in the office until late at night. It’s hard enough to blog about the topics we do cover, without people carping about what we left out. It’s really not intentional.

I’m just writing on a small part of the puzzle. I’ve been too busy to even finish some of my personal posts that I had promised, so when I noticed something on a small, concrete topic like secularism, I thought it was worth writing up. I’m not boiling the entire Nepal conflict down to secularism, just remarking on the secularism aspect of it.

I made comments about Maoism in response to a question about why Mao wasn’t reviled by all peasants, i.e. why would a group find an advantage in identifying themselves as Maoist. I was explaining that unlike Hitler, who had intended to wipe out the Jews, Mao’s mass murders through famine were different. Take a look at the “Black Book of Communism” – it’s the harshest indictment of communist crimes written by any scholars. If you read the section on the Great Leap forward, even they say that while Mao was fully responsible for the millions who died, it was not his intent to kill them from the beginning. A distinction without a difference, perhaps, but one that explains why Mao’s name is not as universally reviled as Hitlers is.

Why don’t I write more about the Maoists on this blog? Because blogs are not well suited to deep analysis, and because that would take more time than I have right now. I do my bit, the best I can, on the topics that are current, when I have the time to write. Don’t infer from my non-actions, either you or Kritic.

When it comes to the left/right portrayal of Islam, the left leans right and the right leans left.

The right – normally socially conservative on gender issues, tends to exploit the “inferior” position of women in “islamic cultures”, while maintaining an almost “inferior” stance on women at home.

The left – normally very active in gender equality issues on the ground at home, will gloss over those issues when “sensitively” analysing the position of women in Islam.

Still, I see alot of left leaning criticism of the position of women in Islam coming from the left also.

I guess it all depends on what/who you read.

Fact remains, I believe, that the left is reluctant to apply the tools of scrutiny and criticism when writing/covering topics, Islamic.

Btw, Salil, thanks for the heads up. I will look both ways before crossing the road.

Now you are just insulting my inhtelligence by setting up a strawman. Neither you nor I are against secularism. Nor am I pro-monarchy – you should’ve known by now that I am as staunch as republican as they come.

However, what ticked me off was your characterization about “windbaggery from people resistant to change” in the main post and then a pathetic leftist apology about “Mao precipitated famine and refused to fix it, but there is much less evidence that he was using it to try to crush “kulaks” or any other such.Sorry for the long winded response. There are subtle differences between mass murdering meglomaniacs that matter in this context.” in your comment #15. There is no excuse at all for any contextual “understanding” of Mao’s acts or the death cult of an ideology that He inspired. Maoism today is the single-most powerful threat facing India today. Prachanda – the leader of Nepali Maoists – has proclaimed in an Ossama-esque fashion that he intends to create a Red Corridor from Nepal down to Andhra and launch a united war front against India and Nepal. A simple googling will give you the source of this quote.

If nothing else, I see strong Selection and Framing bias at play here – of all the shiite that’s going down in Nepal is this all you could find? How can you essentializae the whole mess as just the emergence of secularism? And is it right to frame it as “a good thing” because what you consider secularism and what I consider a Talebanesque anti-Hindu extremist takeover of Nepal in the ongoing power struggle?

Just as I’d expect of a lefty with red balls, you are completely ignoring the murderous ideologoy that is about to replace the traditional HIndu culture of Nepal.

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If those who support secular states are leftists, and Bush wants a secular Iraq, then does that make the President a leftist?

Kritic argues that I’m a leftist for not arguing for secularism hard enough, you argue that I’m a leftist for arguing for secularism at all. There’s just no pleasing some people is there. My apologies for not having saffron balls, but my testicles are neither red nor green either.