The South Asia Politics, News, and Analysis Thread

Depends on where in India...

May Rajapaksa fail horribly and end up in jail where he belongs.

I didn't realize how badly the beef ban hurt people. Wouldn't something like that be unconstitutional in India? I mean it is supposed to be a secular country, and their is no reason to ban beef save for appeasing followers of Hinduism.

Here's the thing:

The RSS and a huge part of the BJP hierarchy have successfully managed to convince people that eating beef is something done only by Muslims and Christians; moreover, that Muslims and Christians enjoy torturing and eating cows for the specific purpose of demeaning the Hindu faith. Both are false, of course (eating beef is a Brahmin taboo, not a Hindu one - there are a number of lower-caste Hindus, called Dalits, who eat beef traditionally, and beef is generally eaten because it is reasonably cheap, or people find it tasty, not to piss Hindus off) but that hasn't stopped them from spreading it, nor from people believing it. Any kind of argument against them tends to draw an emotional reaction, because it is derived from these very emotional assumptions. Which is why when you bring up logical counterarguments, like what is to happen to older or disabled cattle, or why on earth isn't modernisation of agriculture all over the country a bigger priority, you are assumed to be either a non-Hindu or a traitor to the faith.

Eating meet in general is a Brahmin taboo. Eating beef is a wider spread (but not universal among Hindus, myself included) taboo.

@Jack: "Unconstitutional" actions still have to be declared so by the courts. And Mumbai in particular seems to have fallen under the control of BJP radicals lately.

Mumbai has always had an issue with it, though usually in the form of the Shiv Sena, which had a Marathi nationalist mindset in addition to a fundamentalist one. Since the death Bal Thackeray, they've been swept aside by the BJP, which in context is seen as an improvement, because it removes the whole "Marathis Only" schtick that was really starting to cause problems in Mumbai since, being a major metropolis....it has more non-Marathis than Marathis.

True. However, a lot of such organisations tend to overlook the multitudes of chicken, mutton and fish being consumed by Hindus and non-Hindus alike, because... well, it's not likely to be too popular among Hindus who relish the above meats but have a certain distaste for beef because it is the flesh of cows. Personally, I am a Brahmin, but I'm in a particular subclass of Brahmins who are 'allowed', so to speak, to eat meat every day of the week except Mondays and Thursdays. (A rule that I have broken too many times to count till date )

In news, the opposition is calling for Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje's resignation after it was revealed that her son had had business deals with Lalit Modi, founder of the IPL and currently seeking asylum in the UK after being accused of severe financial mishandling and storing money into illegal bank accounts of himself, his associates and his political beneficiaries. The reason he's in the UK? His travel documents were signed off by the British immigration authority on the word of the British MP Keith Vaz, with a recommendation from Sushma Swaraj (who admitted that she did so on humanitarian grounds, in order that he could sign the consent papers for his wife's surgery for cancer, which would've been great if, you know, this weren't a man wanted for financial misappropriation), causing the opposition to call for her head as well.

The irony is that, after almost ten years of mocking Manmohan Singh for remaining silent in the face of his party and his cabinet being caught up in corruption scandals, Modi's response to this has been... well...

Now, Swaraj is generally a Cool Old Lady who tends to use her clout as External Affairs minister to help a lot of people with travel documents and stuff when circumstances are dire (including helping immigrant workers in the Middle East return to India if their passports have been confiscated by their employers, as tends to happen), so this seems perfectly in character for her to do in a large-hearted but slightly less observant way - personally, I think a resignation doesn't need to be called for her, but a reprimand certainly needs to be issued. Raje, however, needs to go - you cannot conceivably call yourself against corruption and then have your son make business deals with people who are now on the run for financial impropriety.

Also under fire is HRD Minister Smriti Irani, who has been accused of lying on an affidavit regarding her education. Irani is already the subject of mockery in this regard, her 'Yale degree' actually turning out to be a 7-day course from the university, and now that three of her affidavits mention three different educational qualifications, the opposition want her to answer and clarify the discrepancies (and resign, of course, but that's what the opposition generally want). This is especially pertinent after Delhi law minister Jitendra Tomar of the AAP was arrested after his law degree was proven as a fake, allowing the AAP to accuse the BJP of double standards when it came to educational forgery. It doesn't help, of course, that Irani's main claim to fame is as the star of a long-running soap opera, and that she is considered to be an unqualified lackey only given such a high post in order to solidify the control of the RSS machinery on education and the arts. This issue came to the fore after HRD appointed Gajendra Chauhan as the head of the Film and Television Institute of India, the premier such institute in the country, and FTII students protested against this because Chauhan is not only a massive ideologue, but also extremely unqualified for the job - imagine, I dunno, Stephen Baldwin holding a post previously held by Scorsese, Fellini, Coppola and Tarantino.

EDIT:

Of course, the BJP and the Sena are still best chums, at least on the surface, but Uddhav Thackeray is not his father and Raj does little more than the occasional beating up of immigrants and splitting the hardline Marathi vote. The BJP right now is the dominant partner in the Maharashtra government, but it is telling that even after the Modi euphoria it couldn't manage even a simple majority when the Sena campaigned against it. Bombay is a rather strange beast, to be honest.

Also, @Jack: someone will have to appeal the ban in the Supreme Court, allowing the RSS information warfare machinery to launch attack after attack on that person's morality and 'sickularism'. It'll be bad enough if the person is a Muslim or a Christian, but if it's a Hindu... it'll be payday for the RSS, claiming proof that such 'Hindus' are traitors to the faith, that Hindus in India have been persecuted for so long that we've grown used to it,you can guess

edited 27th Jun '15 12:08:31 AM by arcanephoenix

Someone should start a counter-Hindutva movement claiming that vegetarianism is an Islamo-Christian plot to make Hindus protein-deficient and that homophobia is a foreign Abrahamic imposition. It would be amusing.

—-

Report: Zaid Hamid sentenced to eight years, 1000 lashes by Saudi government for criticizing the regime.

Aww. So no more batshit tweets about the RAW-CIA axis that's trying to collapse Pakistan? But seriously, attacking journalists is wrong and all, but What An Idiot.

Heard about this some days back. Just desserts.

Though knowing our luck, it'll just make him a Da'esh supporter or something.

Hamid is an incorrigible muppet, but I'd rather not cheer for the arrest of a journalist for critiquing the Saudi monarchy.

It is quite funny though.

Does India's national anthem glorify British rule? It's just me, but the whole claim sounds like a BJP nutcase talking out of his ass.

Yeah, as you say, it's nonsense.

Though as far as national anthems are concerned, Saare Jahan Se Accha has always sounded better to me. But of course, because it was written by Muhammad Iqbal (who is considered by Pakistanis as second only to Jinnah in terms of importance to the foundation of Pakistan) and a Muslim besides, the same BJP dude would probably whine about that too.

I imagine this guy is from the same audience that has a giant picture of Subhas Bose-kun in their room and watches Desh Bhakt Nathuram Goatse Godse on repeat.

edited 9th Jul '15 9:21:38 AM by Achaemenid

Indeed.

Though Bose love is broader.

I know, but he seems to a particularly adored figure for Hindutva-types, presumably because he was not!Nehru.

Truth.

In case you didn't know, this wasn't something he cooked up, it's been a long-standing debate (I remembered it as a decades-old question, but according to the other Wiki article, it started right with its first rendition in 1911!).

And I remember researching this claim a few years ago, and concluding it's neither an easily dismissed claim nor an easily proven one. From the background context and from reading between the line of Tagore's quote in the above Wiki piece, the most likely possibility seems to be that Tagore intended it originally as a sneaky Double Entendre, with a secret Take That! to the British raj while also seeming to comply with their request. Then later, probably, the situation had changed enough that this deceit was no longer thought necessary and the intended subtext became the main interpretation, and Tagore's quote is a Retcon of the events.

Having said that, I think the whole thing is moot anyway: what the public think of as the meaning is more important than how the song actually came about, at least cases like this. "Jana gana mana" can be interpreted as entirely about Bharat-mata without mental contortions, and makes for a good national anthem as it is - capturing India's diversity while also doing the stirring-up-emotions thing national anthems are supposed to do. So, digging up old graves and asking for silly changes at this point is, IMO, both unnecessary and unhelpful.

edited 10th Jul '15 11:58:45 AM by HariSeldon

Another South Indian on here, finally.

lol◊

Here's the tweet.

Here is a followup of him trying to defend it.

edited 11th Jul '15 5:44:07 PM by Achaemenid

Just to be clear:

1) Did someone genuinely try to offer that as a genuine document?

2) Did someone actually believe it?

Modi to visit Pakistan

Seems only BJP prime ministers ever bother.

Of course, it'll be much ado about nothing unless the military is onboard for whatever he and Sharif are gonna discuss.

Dueling articles time:

False Equivalency in the "Indo-Pakistan" Dispute by C. Christine Fair in War on the Rocks.

-versus-

Why is Pakistan Such a Mess? Blame India by Nisid Hajari in Foreign Policy.

On the latter article, there is only so long one can use Partition as an excuse for the way Pakistan is. Frankly, the Pakistan of 1947 ceased to exist in 1971. This Pakistan that we know and love today is almost a completely new concoction.

Not that I buy his reasoning of the events of Partition.

On the former, I have generally come to trust Professor Fair's treatment of the situation, though she also comes off strong enough that some suspect (and perhaps not without reason) she might be on the dole of another party. I doubt it, I think thats just how she is, but her mannerisms don't help the discussion.

That's debatable. Pakistan's political posture did not change, nor did its military strategy of tension or its army-dominated politics. Pakistan's Western frontiers were unchanged.