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Struggling To Prove It Was Freedom Struggle...

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... that freed India in 1947 _______________ Surajit Dasgupta _______________ Today, the attention of this writer was drawn to an article written by Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar on the occasion of India's Independence Day in 2003 (though it appeared in print two days later as that was the closest Sunday, the day when Swami's column appears in The Times of India ). The article insists the British left India, forced more by the indigenous uprising than by its weak economy post-World War II. And the person who brought the article to my notice through Orkut calls the waning of British power as a reason for India's independence an ill-researched theory floated, he guesses, by the Sangh Parivar (why?). The juxtaposition of Swami's Independence Day article with this blog-post, coincidentally penned right after the Republic Day, should help the readers reach their own judgement Another Independence Day has come and gone. Right through history, imperial powers have clung to the

An Islamic Solution...

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... to Islamic extremism in India ______________ Surajit Dasgupta ______________ This article is not to suggest that the only security problem India is facing at the moment owes to the intolerant part or interpretation of Islam. For sure, the Hindutwa movement, increasingly turning violent in several parts of India, is a cause for concern. And so is the Christian evangelical zeal that entails abusing Hindu beliefs, which is being practised largely in southern India, providing ample provocation to those who would have us believe that Hinduism is facing the threat of extinction. But there is no dearth of counsellors teaching lessons of restraint to Hindu extremists. As for Christian extremism, which has stayed away from bombing the country so far, mercifully, it is a subject matter of a separate article. Let us first look for solutions within the religion that has produced most of the terrorists and for the longest period of time. For, sane voices from Muslim moderates are not being able