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Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Pankaj Mishra: The new face of India

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this is interesting.
are we entering into a new age, one of relatively autocratic rule based on modernization as its justification? a version of populism, as in argentina, but without any democratic protections to speak of? (think ethiopia, rwanda)
i heard calls repeatedly, including on this list, for leadership, as if the leader will solve our problems.
faith in a strong leader, like reagan.

for those with leftist and populist, anti-authoritarian views, like myself, the fruits of reaganism are seen today in a state that has come to tolerate torture and indefinite detention, along with income inequalities that beggar the imagination, along with the lumpenproletariat.
ken

On 5/16/14 10:13 AM, 'Ikhide' via USA Africa Dialogue Series wrote:
"That long attempt by India's ruling class to give the country the "garb of modernity" has produced, in its sixth decade, effects entirely unanticipated by Nehru or anyone else: intense politicisation and fierce contests for power together with violence, fragmentation and chaos, and a concomitant longing for authoritarian control. Modi's image as an exponent of discipline and order is built on both the successes and failures of the ancien regime. He offers top-down modernisation, but without modernity: bullet trains without the culture of criticism, managerial efficiency without the guarantee of equal rights. And this streamlined design for a new India immediately entices those well-off Indians who have long regarded democracy as a nuisance, recoiled from the destitute masses, and idolised technocratic, if despotic, "doers" like the first prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew."

"The long artistic drought results partly from the confusion and bewilderment of an older, entrenched elite, the main producers, until recently, of mainstream culture. With their prerogative to rule and interpret India pilfered by the "unwashed" and the "gullible", the anglophones have been struggling to grasp the eruption of mass politics in India, its new centrifugal thrust, and the nature of the challenge posed by many apparently illiberal individuals and movements."

They are talking about India. *cycles away slowly*

 
 
- Ikhide
 
Stalk my blog at www.xokigbo.com
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--   kenneth w. harrow   faculty excellence advocate  professor of english  michigan state university  department of english  619 red cedar road  room C-614 wells hall  east lansing, mi 48824  ph. 517 803 8839  harrow@msu.edu

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