Hindi

[rohan.oberoi at CORNELL.EDU]

On Vidyasankar's remarks:

I'm not sure how the language Tilak published in proves his politics
one way or another, so I'll leave Vidyasankar to explain that in a
little more detail before saying anything about that.  Regarding
Indira Gandhi, his comments are cryptic and a little simplistic.  My
point was not that she was a member of the RSS but that she
appropriated and used many of the key political strategies of the
Sangh.  I recall reading a quote from Advani from the early 80s
specifically talking about how the BJP shed its moderate late-70s
Janata Party image and moved to the right partly out of frustration at
being outflanked by her in this way.  I'd be happy to have a more
in-depth discussion about this if any intelligent points can be made,
but I'm not interested in commenting on bizarre non sequiturs like:

>Surely, India has to be the only democratic country on this earth
>where it is a crime for a politician like Indira to acknowledge the
>culture of the majority of its people.

I will say that this is the (disingenuous and obviously false)
cry of wounded majoritarianism against democratic liberalism
everywhere, and does not appear to be in response to anything I said.

On Rajarshi's remarks:

Since Rajarshi doesn't appear to have enough basic background
information to distinguish between the Sikh extremists whom Indira
supported from the moderate Akali politicians whom she did her best to
discredit as anti-national, I don't think there's any point in taking
her remarks any farther.

On Arun Gupta's remarks:

It is probably enough to point out here that Bhindranwale _was_ by
sober criteria "anti-national" (at least from an Indian
statist/nationalist viewpoint) and "separatist", and it would
therefore be futile for anyone, Indira Gandhi included, to try to
paint him as such.  The people she did try to paint as such in Punjab
were the moderate Akali political parties, who were obviously not.

I will note that Arun could probably have figured this out for himself
if he were interested in a constructive discussion and not in
constructing petty polemics.

Regards,
Rohan.