The Spanish flu wiped out 6% of India’s entire population
—The Economist in ‘Covid19 could devastate poor countries‘
Tag: India
There are no critics.
“There are an awful lot of Hindus, I’d guess 40%, who basically dislike Muslims and have no problem at all with this government’s approach,” says an American political scientist of Indian origin, who prefers anonymity (a subclause of the CAA allows the government to strip émigrés of their Overseas Citizen of India status).
—From The Economist, in ‘Narendra Modi’s sectarianism is eroding India’s secular democracy’
Every move is designed to cow opponents and critics into silence—within and without.
Historical memorials are not enough to stop anti-Semitism in Europe
“Only when the generation that survived the war is no longer with us,” said Angela Merkel last year, “will we discover if we have learned from history.”
—The Economist, in ‘Historical memorials are not enough to stop anti-Semitism in Europe’
Continue reading Historical memorials are not enough to stop anti-Semitism in Europe
India – nationalism, colonialism, history and the future
Narendra Modi, the prime minister, controls the story of Indian nationalism these days, and has little use for the history of the anti-colonial struggle (which his own heroes, the first Hindu nationalists, largely sat out).
The Congress party, now in opposition, would traditionally stoke the embers of the anti-British campaigns, which it led. But it is trying hard to appeal to new voters, desperate for jobs and otherwise far from the memory of the freedom struggle.
— The Economist, in ‘The politics of apologising for Amritsar’
What Britain needs…
Vermont is very political—people say what they think. They disagree without being disagreeable and have discussions without fighting.
— Alyssa Mastromonaco, in ‘Who thought this was a good idea’
Identity > Facts
When narratives put forth in fake-news messages upheld values such as “Hindu power and superiority” and “preservation and revival,” then “validation of identity trumps verification of facts,” the study claimed.
—Quartz, in ‘In India, BJP supporters are more likely than others to share fake news’
On Censorship
To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.
— Claude Adrien Helvétius
Tyler Cowen on India and its fragmentations
It’s not just Hindu nationalism on the rise, rather India seems to be evolving intellectually in a multiplicity of directions, few of them familiar to most Americans.
In India, history ain’t over, and further ideological fragmentation seems to be the safest prediction. Note that ideas are very often a leading indicator for where a nation ends up.
—Tyler Cowen, in ‘Expect America and Europe to Matter Less in 2019’
Plight of us lovely huggers amongst the aloof…
We love Thanksgiving. We cook everything. But we’re still learning many things about the American culture. Back home everyone likes to hug and kiss on the cheek. It communicates that you care about someone. But here it is different. My friend tried to give me a Thanksgiving handshake at the gym today. But I went in for a Thanksgiving hug. And he only gave me a Thanksgiving half-hug. A few months ago I was called into Human Resources, and they said: ‘Mr. Mauricio, no more hugging at the office. It is making people uncomfortable.’
— Mr. Mauricio, in ‘Humans of New York’
P.S.: I’m a big time hugger. The British around me are definitely not. I’m available for hugs.
Laws, institutions, and republics
Pompey the Great would snap at magistrates who challenged him: “Cease quoting laws to those of us with swords.”
Eventually all pretense of civility was dropped and Rome was engulfed by a series of destructive civil wars that destroyed the republic once and for all.
— The Washington Post, in Perspective | This is how republics end
Use my marker 