“Totalitarian regimes are …paradoxically pluralistic. This permits the masses to identify with or distance from the regime as needed. Howe...
“Totalitarian regimes are …paradoxically pluralistic. This permits the masses to identify with or distance from the regime as needed. However when a totalitarian regime breaks apart, the majority can then shuffle the atrocities off themselves as what ‘they’ committed and by renouncing horror and bad conscience, while it is much easier for them to keep faith with the advantages the regime offered.
Will we listen to a young fellow Indian patiently as he asks us an uncomfortable question with care or will we hound him to death for his audacity? I am assailed by this question as I see that Hindtuva leaders have invented a new villain for Hindus. After demonising student leaders Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, Hindutva leaders are now after another youth campaigner, Sharjeel Usmani. They claim that he insulted Hindus in his speech at the Elgar Parishad event in Pune on January 30.
Before going into the details of the case, it would be correct to say that they are assuming (or hoping) that Hindu sentiments will be hurt by his remarks.
First, a criminal case was registered against Usmani in Maharashtra, which is ruled by the Shiv Sena, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party. After an appeal by Bharatiya Janata Party leaders to their...
