Re: a victory of sorts in india...

[Anthony D'Costa <dcosta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am afraid I have to diagree on the emergency issue.  It was Mrs. Gandhi
who was solely responsible for the emergency.  But that was in 1975 and
lasted until 1977, until she was thrown out, but then she came back in
1979!  When she realized her populist "garibi hatao" (eliminate poverty)
slogan was exhausted and she recognized that he staunch supporters within
the Congress party were distancing themselves from her, she essentially
grabbed the party power all to herself.  This is the beginning of the
decline of the Cong party (i.e. weakening internal party democracy).  The
BJP is certainly the worse party of the two at some levels.

But I would agree that there are fascist tendencies partly as a middle
class revulsion to the increasing uppityness of lower classes and castes
in the wider political system.  In fact this is India's strength, is to
able to throw out people that don't give the masses something in return.
It also shows how the language of democracy has been creolized
(vernacularized) in the Indian context and that peasants, dalits, the
poor, etc. are politically savvy.  It also demonstrates the mistaken
view that Hindus are homogenous and can be politically mobilized under
that banner.

Alas, in this country the public has been lulled into complacency by a
strange form of fascist democracy.

Cheers, anthony
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Anthony P. D'Costa, Associate Professor
Comparative International Development
University of Washington                        Campus Box 358436
1900 Commerce Street
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA

Phone: (253) 692-4462
Fax :  (253) 692-5718
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On Thu, 13 May 2004, Craven, Jim wrote:

> I could but I just finished teaching my India class and now heading into
> my development class.  I'll try.  cheers, anthony
>
> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> xxxxxxx
> Anthony P. D'Costa, Associate Professor
> Comparative International Development
> University of Washington                        Campus Box 358436
> 1900 Commerce Street
> Tacoma, WA 98402, USA
>
> Phone: (253) 692-4462
> Fax :  (253) 692-5718
> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> xxxxxxx
>
>
> On Thu, 13 May 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > Isn't there someone here who can tell us how the BJP is really the
> > lesser of two evils?
> >
> > Doug
>
>
> With Congress-I and BJP you don't have any "lesser of evils" you  have
> only the "evil of lessers." Both parties have some prounced fascist
> tendencies as evidenced by Emergency Measures under Congress-I and
> covert operations of the fascist cults RSS/Shiv Sena and Arya Sammajayem
> under the umbrella of BJP.
>
> Jim C
>