[PEN-L:30071] Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: r.biel@ucl.ac.uk

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

ravi wrote:
>
> Doug Henwood wrote:
> >
> > Shiva's biggest fans are among Western NGOs. She has almost no followers
> > in India.
> >
>
> can you back up this statement? perhaps starting with a more quanititative
> description of what you mean by "almost no". what counts as "almost no"?
> is it 0? < 10? < 100? < 1% of the indian population? say it is < 1% of
> the indian population. could you provide some sources for such a number?
> could you also provide a hint on what number would constitute significant
> followers in india?

It seems to me that westerners arguing either way as to whether X
represents or does not represent India rather resembles Trotsky trying
to run the Spanish Civil War from Mexico.

The Indian people are going to work it out for themselves -- it seems to
me what marxists in the west have to do is work at building an
anti-imperialist movement here. Taking sides on Shiva hardly seems to
contribute very usefully to that task. It may even be negative. I wonder
if "Support Shiva" makes a good slogan for mobilizing yankees against
the Iraq invasion.

Carrol