Understanding Indian Insurgencies

[Ray]

posted by Ray,




Ray, I agree with most of what you wrote, and as I wrote earlier it is a miracle that India had progressed as far as it has (and should continue to progress) based on the challenges you listed. You can also add as a challenge your neighbors, but perhaps that would be impolite.

A couple of points I disagree with is your comment on the EU. They are having a lively political debate, but they are not up in an arms. Any debate and protest done legally is not an insurgency, but normal and healthy politics.

Where the EU goes in the future is anyone's guess, and some have suggested this the beginning of a return to the old Europe which had a long history of war between their states. I don't think so, but then again who really knows.

Up in arms maybe overdoing it like the media!

I was only going by the chaos going on and each nation blaming the other.

Iain Duncan Smith has called for a referendum on any change in the Treaty.

There is talk about eurozone crisis resulting in its breakup.

True, it is not an insurgency, but it nonetheless is chaos generating that can lead to instability and who knows what lies ahead in the long term scenario.

Thoughts such as The bigger truth is that years of neoliberalism and deregulation have left us with a weak economy. We are stronger than Mediterranean states, which used the euro as an excuse to relax and splurge. But we are a lot weaker than Germany, which invested properly in training and technology, whose banking system stuck with manufacturing, and whose people continued to save for rainy days rather than borrow and gamble. If Germany is calling the shots it's because Germany has earned the right to lecture the rest. does not give confidence that all will be well in the future.

Bangladesh has made a lot of headway, but I think HUJI-B and JMB can still be considered insurgents. As you know ethnic divisions are not the only reason for insurgencies, although ethnic groups remain one of the easier groups to mobilize based on identity.

Ethnic diversity in large countries, apart from economic disadvantages, does play a major role in giving rise to insurgencies. That has been the experience in Asia and Africa.

As for the media being misleading, that has always been true, but at the same time simply dismissing reports as inaccurate, especially when they're serious allegations isn't helpful. The Human Rights Violations study was not put together by BBC.

I don't think I have suggested that reports should be dismissed. They have to be taken cognisance of and the wheat must be sifted from the chaff by the authorities.

As far as the Human Rights body, they have their own agenda and desperate to be relevant as Pollyannas.

The Times accuses HRW of filling its staff with former radical political activists including Joe Stork and Sarah Leah Whitson, writing, "theoretically an organization like HRW would not select as its researchers people who are so evidently on one side.

HRW has been accused of bias in gathering evidence because it is said to be "credulous of civilian witnesses in places like Gaza and Afghanistan" but "sceptical of anyone in a uniform."
HRW

Claims have been made regarding alleged HRW bias with regards to Haiti, Venezuela and Honduras. Robert Naiman, policy director of Just Foreign Policy, has claimed that HRW is "often heavily influenced" by United States government policy.

I am sure we will not hear of the repression of the Shias in Bahrain from the HRW!
Link