09 July, 2007

A strange cocktail of contradictions

Barkha Dutt’s recent columns in the Hindustan Times have been excellent, and in her latest one she writes:

For too long now, any discussion on the state of India’s largest minority has been entangled in extremities. On the one side is the intolerance and prejudice of the Right, and at the other end is the patronising, politically correct blindness of the Left. There is the indisputable fact that ordinary Muslims in India live on the margins of development and economic wellness. Then, there are the ‘secular’ politicians who play self-appointed benefactors with one eye constantly on elections. There is the unforgettable blemish of the administration-aided riots in Gujarat. And finally, there are the fatwa-happy fanatics — the maulvis and preachers who drag their own people down the hellhole of hatred and are never condemned as strongly as they should be.

It’s time to ask ourselves a blunt question: what exactly is this strange cocktail of contradictions breeding?

There are no easy answers to that question, and Dutt doesn’t pretend otherwise. But it’s important to ask—political correctness be damned.