Yep. Main point (for me, at least) being: Gujarat riots: bad? Yes. evil? Yes. do we want them repeated? No. Are they among the most evil events in the past 100 years? No. (No excuse for them, and, indeed, so much the worse for humanity, but please–a little perspective on the rhetoric!!)

1.-Soviet Union (1917-87)-Collectivization executions, etc: 61M 2.-Communist China (1949-87)-Executions of landlords etc: 35M 3.-Nazi Germany (1933-45) 21M 4.-Nationalist China(1928-49)-Purges of communists: 20M 5.-Japan’s military (1936-45)-Nanking massacre, etc: 5.9M 6.-China (1923-49)-Communist guerrilla action: 3.5M 7.-Cambodia (1975-79)-Khmer Rouge kill 1/3 of Cambodians: 2M 8.-Turkey (1909-18)-Slaughter of Turkey’s Armenians: 1.9M 9.-Vietnam (1945-1987)-Communists killed any opposition: 1.7M 10.-Poland (1945-1948)-Ethnic Germans killed: 1.6M

**recently, he upped mao’s china to 73M, congo free state logged in at 10M, and all colonialism in the 20th century at 50M. darfur came in at 400K

“But Muslims who advocate openly for Kashmiri independence as a Muslim nation based on their numerical majority are allowed in polite company.” I have been left stupefied by your ignorance. Please don’t try to raise straw men. Kashmiri muslims have suffered the yoke of the Indian state for a thousand years, and violent militancy is a very recent response of a people who been disoriented with an exclusive democratic process that refuses to accommodate their aspirations. A situation roughly analogous to the above is the recent trouble in Assam, where Bengali muslims having suffered humiliation at the hands of the political system that uses them as nothing more than votebank and have taken recourse to violence. Time after time we are repeating our old mistakes. The needs of some people are special, and we need to acknowledge them to keep the pluralism of India alive.

A thousand years? The GOI has a time machine? The needs of some people are indeed special, I am sure the Bajrang Dal will be happy to know that you accept their aspirations for a pure homeland as equal to the aspirations of their philsophical twins the Kashmiri jihadis

Errr–well, it was wrong and terrible, but where have you been? Darfur? Congo? In the past, say 100 years, we’ve seen (see Le Livre Noir du Communisme : Crimes, Terreur, Répression), the Commies alone kill: 60+ million (m.) in China 20+ m. in the USSR & E’rn Europe c. 2 m. in N. Korea & another 2 m. in Cambodia and close to 2 m. in Africa

I have been left stupefied by your ignorance. Please don’t try to raise straw men. Kashmiri muslims have suffered the yoke of the Indian state for a thousand years, and violent militancy is a very recent response of a people who been disoriented with an exclusive democratic process that refuses to accommodate their aspirations. A situation roughly analogous to the above is the recent trouble in Assam, where Bengali muslims having suffered humiliation at the hands of the political system that uses them as nothing more than votebank and have taken recourse to violence. Time after time we are repeating our old mistakes. The needs of some people are special, and we need to acknowledge them to keep the pluralism of India alive.

Hopefully there will be a campaign to deport Pakistani-Americans who served in Bangladesh in ’71 and had specific orders to focus their efforts on Hindus

Disclaimer: I am a fiscal conservative, political liberal, non and anti-Marxist, non-Muslim (like even Obama had to say- such is the world) and anti-jehadist. At some level, I am a Indian nationalist, but of the enlightened variety. Sorry, but had to put this in, before anybody imputed motives or ideology.

Sure you are.

Interested people: Please post, link or mail at http://www.change.gov (the official president-elect’s page)details of Sonal Shah and Indicorp’s associations with VHP-A with links to well regarded reports and analysis (Amnesty, HRW, mainstream Indian newspapers, DC thinktank reports)of the role of the parent VHP organization in the Gujarat genocide, and how much of it was funded by US NRI money. The Obama campaign was about hope and change and against hate, and it should not be tarnished so early on by appointing (at whatever level)someone with any kind of association with one of worst state approved pogroms of this century. Let us nip this thing in the bud. As Indian Americans who care about the US and India, let us send a message to those who think their links to hate can be hidden by distance, obscurity and/or semantics. Such individuals should not be allowed a place in the American polity. Not in America, not now!