South Asia Citizens Web

बाबरी मस्जिद विध्वंस के बाद सूरत में हुए दंगों के दौरान सामूहिक बलात्कार को एक अस्त्र के रूप में विधिवत इस्तेमाल किया गया। पर इसमें एक नई बात थी और वह थी इन सामूहिक बलात्कारों के वीडियो टेप बनाना। यह कोई ऐसा मामला नहीं था कि किसी राह चलते ने इन बलात्कारों की फिल्म बना ली हो, बल्कि यह सब बहुत सुनियोजित तरीके से फ्लड लाइट का इस्तेमाल करके किया गया, बावजूद इसके कि उस दौरान आसपास के इलाकों की बिजली कटी हुई थी [1]। प्रफुल्ल बिदवई के अनुसार, 1992 के सूरत दंगों में स्त्रियों के खिलाफ़ हुई भयानक बर्बरता के पीछे मोदी की सोच काम कर रही थी [2]। इन दंगों की बाद की तस्वीरों में मोदी और आडवानी साथ साथ दिखाई पड़ते हैं[3]...।

Crony capitalism will, of course, generate investment and ensure profit for private capital, but it won’t give employment or income to the people. If you can make money by selling coal or speculating in land, why produce electricity, why invest in Research and Development, why even set up factories?

Even if there is no risk of sovereign default, India’s exposure and vulnerability to the moods of the global financial markets as well as the policy changes in the US is hugely greater now than in 1991. Inflation, already in double digits, is likely to get far worse as the Rupee depreciates, and will likely have political repercussions in this election year. High unemployment (of the educated and the illiterate), which has been an abiding concern since the early reform days, is going to persist and get much worse, as the economy slows down further, downsizing becomes the norm, hiring stops, and layoffs rise. All indications are of a spiralling down of economic activity as investment shows no signs of reviving, especially given the stagflationary environment and receding domestic demand, as disposable incomes fall, or fail to rise fast enough.

Do Indian elites have the courage and vision to suspend an unsustainable business-as-usual and build a new India, respectful of nature and the urgent needs of hundreds of millions?

A recently published anthology of visual narratives of Partition