In World’s Largest Democracy, Tolerance Is a Weak Pillar

[Coventina]

Source: New York Times

NEW DELHI — With national elections only months away, India is reeling from a rash of spiteful religious and ethnic clashes, prompting many in this country to ask why their vibrant, pluralistic democracy tends to encourage, rather than avert, the cruelty of neighbor against neighbor.

Tensions are growing in several corners of the country. The latest dispute was set off in Mumbai last week, when an upstart nativist party claiming to represent Marathas, the dominant ethnic group in the state, pounced on Indians who had come from elsewhere to apply for jobs at Indian Railways.

The party, which calls itself Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (roughly, the Army for the Reconstruction of Maharashtra) and has in recent months attacked northern migrants to Mumbai, wants those jobs to be set aside for local residents. On Oct. 21, the police arrested the party leader, Raj Thackeray, on a charge of inciting riots, after which his supporters went on a rampage across the city and its suburbs. Much of Mumbai was shut down.

A day later, a local court released Mr. Thackeray on bail, setting off a rampage in the northern state of Bihar, the source of the migrants attacked by Mr. Thackeray’s disciples. Protesters blocked trains, wrecked railroad stations and stranded passengers there and in several other parts of northern India.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/world/asia/29india.html?em