Taming Pakistan: Modi Effect

[Dayuhan]

The sense of grievance against govt./majority community is cultivated by radicals to shift the blame away from themselves for the Muslim communities' shortcomings.

Of course, but it's difficult to cultivate something that didn't exist in the first place. Government needs to starve the cultivators by not fueling or reinforcing the sense of grievance, and by undercutting that sense of grievance where possible. At the very least, minority populations have to know that violence against them will not be tolerated.

Without de-radicalizing Indian Muslims, increasing economic opportunities for them would be suicidal for India (the U.S. State Department folks have so far failed to grasp that).

The point is to compete for those who have not yet been radicalized. Since nobody has yet come up with an effective way of de-radicalizing those already radicalized, it makes some sense to try to prevent radicalization in the first place. It is not a solution in itself (neither is anything else), it's a component of a solution.

My forthcoming scholarship, I believe will help us identify how to neuter Islamic radicalism. Until then, the answer -- from Obama to Putin and from Modi to Jinping -- is the same: who knows what the right policies are!

The "right policies" will inevitably vary according to where, when, and by whom the policies are applied, but I'll certainly be curious to see what you come up with.

When we deal with radicalism (of any description) we often encounter two opposite narratives. One, typically espoused by radicals and their supporters, is that the fault lies entirely with vicious and incompetent governments who have oppressed their people into a radicalized corner. The other, typically espoused by governments and their supporters, is that government is blameless and the whole problem is caused by evil agitators who have corrupted the people. Both, like most polar opinions, are a load of bollocks: there are always elements of both in play. For a government faced by radicalism, objectively assessing its own behavior and getting its own house in order may not be the only part of a de-radicalization strategy, but it's a very important part, especially since the government gets to deal with something it can actually control.