South Asia Citizens Web

The US matters to the Sangh not just because the VHPA has become part and parcel of the Hindutva project, or due to the political connections the BJP has cultivated for financial reasons. It also matters to Modi personally because of the role of the NRGs (non-resident Gujaratis). Gujaratis probably represent the largest group among the Indian Americans with about 7,00,000 people. Among them, the owners of "Potels" control more than 40 per cent of the hotels and motels of the US. Sandesh, the Gujarati daily, has now an American (weekly) edition that bears testimony to the magnitude of the potential readership. Some of the staunchest supporters of Modi are NRGs.

August 14, 2013: The seminar and report release function organised by the Pakistan India Peoples’ Forum for Peace & Democracy (PIPFPD-India) at India International Centre, on the eve of the independence days of Pakistan and India reminded both countries that a permanent transformation to the India-Pakistan conflict can only come through dialogue processes between the two South Asian democracies and not through military methods and war.

Berkeley, California: Growing up, Guneeta Singh Bhalla heard a terrifying story from her grandmother. In August 1947, as British India was being partitioned into independent India and Pakistan, her grandmother fled Lahore, in what was soon to become Pakistan, for Amritsar, in what was soon to become India. All around her was carnage. Clutching her three young children, she looked out the train window to see bodies strewed along the tracks. The memory haunted her until she died. For years afterward, Bhalla regretted not recording her grandmother’s story, and it spurred her to begin recording other people’s memories of that time. The project, known as the 1947 Partition Archive, has grown far bigger, far quicker than she ever imagined. Since its inception here two years ago, its dozens of volunteers have video-recorded 647 oral histories from more than seven countries and stored them digitally. It describes itself as "a people’s history" of that wrenching time.

Known in the past as the land of sapphires and saffron, Kishtwar today is a metaphor for the larger collapse of the idea of Jammu and Kashmir. Once, the state’s greatest strength was its rich cultural, linguistic, religious and geographical diversity. Today, as most of these identities have morphed into shrill, polarised and communally charged monsters, the real danger to J&K is from within. Unless the nation acts today, the state is sure to implode tomorrow. For, much of what we are witnessing is a consequence of the warped and short-sighted policies of the Centre and the state.

While a bridge collapse will kill a few hundred people, a nuclear disaster will destroy hundreds of thousands of lives and live in genes for generations. Bhopal is there for us to see. And yet, we stay silent, as greedy corporations, governments and individuals put us all at risk for profit. At what cost is our non-involvement?