Weekly News Roundup – Aug 7, 2020
Demolition Men Do Not Build Nations, They Destroy Them – By Siddharth Varadarajan
August 5 – the date chosen consciously by baleful men to humiliate the people of India whose independence on August 15 they never fought for – will go down in history as a day that celebrates the triumph of vandalism and destruction over renewal and regeneration, crime and illegality over law and justice, fiction and fabrication over reality and truth. On the appointed day, when India slept, the people of Kashmir awoke to curfew and unfreedom. On the appointed day, a group of criminals – who should be in prison for having planned and orchestrated the demolition of a 450-year-old mosque – basked in the freedom they have to build a temple at the same spot. Their temple, and not Rama’s and certainly not India’s. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi supervising the obsequies, the wreckage of what remains of the Indian constitution has been interred in the foundations of the temple that his organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, is building with the full backing of the ‘secular’ Indian state.…Read more
Modi’s brutal treatment of Kashmir exposes his tactics – and their flaws – By Arundhati Roy
…It would be easy to look at the 365 days between last August and now – the final “integration” of Kashmir into India, the passing of the CAA and NRC, and the inauguration of the Ram Mandir – as the defining period in which India under Modi has formally declared itself a Hindu nation, the dawning of a new era.… Think a little. Why did Modi decide to inaugurate the Ram Mandir now? After all it’s not the festivals of Dussehra or Diwali, and the date has no particular relevance in the Ramayana or the Hindu calendar. And there’s a partial lockdown in most parts of India – many of the priests and policemen preparing and securing the site have already tested positive for Covid. So why now? Is it to rub salt into Kashmir’s wounds, or is it to put balm on India’s?…Could it be that this August anniversary is not actually what it’s being cracked up to be? Could it be instead the little limpet of shame clamped to the soaring cliff of glory?…Read more
At New York’s Times Square, Both Celebrations of and Protests Against Ram Mandir
South Asian diaspora groups converged in New York’s Times Square on Wednesday …. While ambitious plans by the American India Public Affairs Committee, said to be a pro-Bharatiya Janata Party group, to project an image of the proposed temple on the prestigious Nasdaq screen in Times Square did not materialise,…Those protesting the Ram Temple at Times Square included a whole range of groups, including civil rights activists, Kashmiris protesting the year-long lockdown and Sikh groups.… A truck with images of the Babri Masjid on the sides went around Times Square. Protestors meanwhile held up banners with slogans like “Stand Against Hate” and “Join the Struggle Against Fascism”.…Read more
Communal Harmony
Muslim woman takes care of Hindu Covid-19 positive mother’s newborn twins
Hope from the field – Amicable Hindu Muslim Collaboration
News
At New York’s Times Square, Both Celebrations of and Protests Against Ram Mandir
Hindu Bigots Now Wish to Take up Kashi, Mathura Mosques
India arrests dozens of journalists in clampdown on critics of Covid-19 response
‘Caravan’ Expose Reveals How Delhi Police Actively Incited Hindu Rioters
Assam: Anti-CAA stir returns after 5-month hiatus
Man Accused Of Carrying Beef Attacked With Hammer In Gurgaon, Cops Watch
‘Conditions in Kashmir Not Normal’: US Foreign Affairs Committee Raises Concern With India
Persecution of Christians continues to rise in India
After Cisco, HCL’s US unit faces lawsuit for sacking employee based on caste
Opinion
Demolition Men Do Not Build Nations, They Destroy Them – By Siddharth Varadarajan
Modi’s brutal treatment of Kashmir exposes his tactics – and their flaws – By Arundhati Roy
Handmaidens of Hindutva – By Manisha Sethi
Storming Libraries, ‘Achhe Din’ and the New Education Policy – By N Sukumar and Shailaja Menon
Book Review
What Do America’s Racial Problems Have in Common With India and Nazi Germany?
