Not to turn the country over to the BJP

The globalising impulse can be seen as ever-widening circles trending towards greater homogeneity, from locality, to nation states to regional identities like pan European, pan-Asian, Pan-Arab and pan-American, the long-term logical corollary of which is a unified market, a unified culture, a unified language, a unified liberal-democratic state, or what V S Naipaul famously termed a universal civilisation. Rapid strides in information technology are spawning new virtual relationships, cosmopolitan identities and communities that compete and conflict with those forged within the confines of the nation state.

The interesting issue, however, is whether this process of ‘cultural entropy’ would, over the long run, abate the clash of civilisations underscored by a long line of eminent historians from Herodotus to Arnold Toynbee to Samuel Huntington. A brief history of globalisation Economic Times: 25 July, 2008, Alok Sheel (The writer is a civil servant. Views are personal)

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The tragedy that has unfolded in the last 15 days also serves as a warning to all those who think that the greatest challenge facing India is not poverty, or the alleged embrace of the US, but the brand of jehadi Hindutva that the BJP and the Sangh parivar represent. In the name of high principles and morals, the so-called secular formations would sup with the devil to get their squeaks heard...

Not only is the Left’s moral complicity evident in handing over the ever-shrinking liberal space to the BJP, but also in striking coalitional deals with every other political formation that has had more than a cordial relationship with the BJP at one point or the other... Singh, unlike the Left, never once lost sight of the larger political question: not to turn the country over to the BJP. ‘So what if we just had to stay in the picture?’ Jyotirmaya Sharma Hindustan Times: July 25, 2008 (Jyotirmaya Sharma is the author Terrifying Vision: Golwalkar, the RSS and India)

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I made a mistake of standing with them once. I did not resign on the question of Gujarat when my conscience told me to do so, and my conscience has still not forgiven me. I need not make the same mistake again. … Text of Omar Abdullah speech in Parliament on July 22 2008