There is one thing that is common to the rightists and left liberals in the west, an immense superiority complex. The rightists hate us, the evangelicals among them want to save our souls, the left-liberals go a step further, they want to save our environment, our women, our poor, our oppressed and now our democracy.
The western view is simple, there are two shades of brown: the “good” brown victim and the “evil” brown oppressor. The “good” brown victim is waiting for the western knight to deliver him from the “evil” brown oppressor, this implies, of course that the west has a moral obligation to keep on intervening in our affairs to set us right. Moreover the evil of “evil” brown man is rooted in Indian culture and traditions and we must change our culture under the direction of the “good” western man.
They have created a new entrepreneurial class, the parasitic class of “professional victims” who beg the westerners to intervene and set things right in India, their masters fling thirty pieces of silver and some awards at them from time to time so that the complaints keep on coming. The west likes these parasites, they massage their fragile egos and bolster their self image as saviors of the brown world.
Sandeep has written about one such savior from the west, Martha Nussbaum. She has chosen her “good” brown victim (the poor hapless Muslims of India) and “evil” brown oppressor (the Hindu male) and made a case for the western knights to set things right in India.
Ms. Nussbaum writes:
What has been happening in India is a serious threat to the future of democracy in the world. The fact that it has yet to make it onto the radar screen of most Americans is evidence of the way in which terrorism and the war on Iraq have distracted us from events and issues of fundamental significance. If we really want to understand the impact of religious nationalism on democratic values, India currently provides a deeply troubling example, and one without which any understanding of the more general phenomenon is dangerously incomplete.
That is, instead of turning Eye-raq into an unlivable hellhole, the Americans should have instead attempted to make India an unlivable hellhole.
The Indians have redeemed themselves in her eyes, for now, by voting out the BJP:
In May 2004, the voters of India went to the polls in large numbers. Contrary to all predictions, they gave the Hindu right a resounding defeat. Many right-wing political groups and the social organizations allied with them remain extremely powerful, however. The rule of law and democracy has shown impressive strength and resilience, but the future is unclear.
Leaving apart the erroneous interpretation of the election results above,(that the difference between the BJP and the Congress was of a few seats and the vote share between the two parties differs by a few percentage points), the above is clearly a call for the western left-liberals to keep a hawk eye on India, in case we Indians choose to vote wrongly.
Since the time Ms. Nussbaum wrote the above section of her book, Indians have voted out the Congress and voted in the BJP in Punjab and Uttarakhand and also in the municipal elections of Delhi and UP, the future indeed is uncertain, Indian society cannot be engineered by remote control, and thank God for that.
Note: They always put back what I erase
