India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy

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  Talks about the generation which built the country we inherited, and also at the same time feel for the generation which got lost in frustration of falling ideals in the dark age of emergency in the country.
  http://vibhushan.wordpress.com/2009/02/15/india-after-gandhi/

   

   

  by Vibhushan Waghmare on Jul 25, 2009 at 08:31PM

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  Great history of independent India. Helps to better understand the history of the major issues that occasionally notoriously gain the world's attention and raise the question what prevents India from breaking apart: Kashmir, Northeast India, communal violence etc. By attributing many of these to the actions, ambitions and aspirations of few individual leaders, the author shows how gullible the Indian electorate is; however, while politics are still able to hijack religion, communalism, regio... (show more)

  Great history of independent India. Helps to better understand the history of the major issues that occasionally notoriously gain the world's attention and raise the question what prevents India from breaking apart: Kashmir, Northeast India, communal violence etc. By attributing many of these to the actions, ambitions and aspirations of few individual leaders, the author shows how gullible the Indian electorate is; however, while politics are still able to hijack religion, communalism, regionalism etc., India has somehow learned to live with its pluralism. The author credits the IAS, the unifying power of English (while at the same time allowing for numerous local languages), the apolitical Indian Army, Hindi cinema and "Modernization" and economic development for constituting the glue that keeps India together. While there are still strong "anti-Indian" movements within the country (on and off in Kashmir, Nagaland and few areas of Kanratka and central India, these are rather insignificant. The growing cohesion aof Indian society s identified by the author has been demonstrated recently by the reactions to the terrorist attacks on Mumbai - while these where aimed to cause instability by widening the rift between Muslims and Hindus, between Pakistan and India, there have been no significant anti-Muslim reactions and riots, as some may have expected or even wished for. This provocation shows, that the fabric of India is not threatened by forces within (maybe it never was...) but only by forces from the outside. (show less)

   

   

  by Facebook User on Dec 13, 2008 at 04:47AM

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