Dear Dr. Vajpayee,


I join Nityanand's call in favor of keeping political messages as close as possible to reliable reports on facts. I was concerned by your comparing the Emergency of the 1970s in a positive light with the current government of India. If we cannot all agree that democratic rule is better than any alternative, then it seems to me that we lose all foundation for debate. 


Arlo Griffiths

École française d'Extrême-Orient


From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces@list.indology.info> on behalf of Nityanand Misra <nmisra@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 4:08 AM
To: Ananya Vajpeyi
Cc: Indology
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] New article on Sanskrit
 


On 16 September 2016 at 12:50, Ananya Vajpeyi <vajpeyi@csds.in> wrote:

Minorities have never been so vulnerable at any time since Partition and Independence, nor has media discourse been so muted and stifled. (This reportedly happened during the Emergency in the mid-1970s as well -- but at least then, it was a properly declared period of emergency, and people were aware that the rule of law had been suspended in favour of a state of exception). 



Dear Dr. Vajpayee

Is there any statistical evidence (for example, communal violence rate or casualties/number of communal riots per capita) to back the claim that minorities in India have never been so vulnerable since 1947 as they are now? As per the recently released “Crime in India” 2015 report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), number of riots were almost the same in 2015 as in 2014: there have been more agrarian riots, but less communal riots.

There are several reports summarizing the riot statistics, including one in The Hindu here: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/327-rise-in-agrarian-riots-in-2015-ncrb-report-shows/article9051348.ece 

Same for media discourse: are there any data-based statistics available to conclude that media discourse is the most muted or stifled now in India? 

Would it not better be if such a claims are backed by evidence based on data?

Thanks, Nityanand