Friday, September 1, 2006

Competition of Identities: Ink Scrawl Nugget 14

What Divides us:
[. . .] It's just politics . . . The twentieth-century politics of deprivation has eroded the culture's confidence. Hindu chauvinism has emerged from the competition for resources in a contentious democracy. Politicians of all faiths across India seek to mobilize voters by appealing to narrow identities. By seeking votes in the name of religion, caste, and region, they have urged voters to define themslves on these lines. Indians have been made more conscious than ever before of what divides us.

[. . .]

The rage of the Hindu mobs being stoked by bigots is the rage of those who feel themselves supplanted in this competition of identities, who think that they are taking their country back from usurpers of long ago. They want revenge against history, but they don not realize that history is its own revenge.
—From Shashi Tharoor's Riot: A Novel

2 comments:

said...

Them politico dudes need to have a listen to my parodies of George Harrison's songs
"Awaiting On You All"
&
"Here Comes The Sun" ("Krispy Krishna").

Stay on Groovin' Safari,
TOR

Prince K. said...

Ah, Tharoor. That dude studied in my school when he was in Cal....
Was just browsing for bloggers interested in astronomy...