"Helped by the government, Deoband's clerics won the battle to silence Salman Rushdie — but their armies are in inglorious retreat."
Last month's silencing of Salman Rushdie, preceded and followed by a succession of faith-inspired attacks on free speech. Had it not been for the helping hand of the Indian government, it is improbable the clerics of Deoband would have succeeded in Jaipur. This fate and Deoband's contrasting success in Pakistan help illuminate the prospects of communal politics in India. The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Growing irrelevance of the Indian ayatollah.
Deoband is dying because the social classes and conditions from which it drew its strength have changed. Deoband's clerics aren't the only faith-based political order to be facing this crisis: organised Hinduism has haemorrhaged followers to new-age gurus; Sikhism to a range of eclectic cults. Faiths, as a whole, exercise less of a hold on lives than political struggles for equity.
Even though communalism remains a depressing part of India's political landscape, its lethality is diminishing. In India, faith and the new civilisation of Capitalism are pitted against each other in an epic battle - and god's armies are losing!
Last month's silencing of Salman Rushdie, preceded and followed by a succession of faith-inspired attacks on free speech. Had it not been for the helping hand of the Indian government, it is improbable the clerics of Deoband would have succeeded in Jaipur. This fate and Deoband's contrasting success in Pakistan help illuminate the prospects of communal politics in India. The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Growing irrelevance of the Indian ayatollah.
Deoband is dying because the social classes and conditions from which it drew its strength have changed. Deoband's clerics aren't the only faith-based political order to be facing this crisis: organised Hinduism has haemorrhaged followers to new-age gurus; Sikhism to a range of eclectic cults. Faiths, as a whole, exercise less of a hold on lives than political struggles for equity.
Even though communalism remains a depressing part of India's political landscape, its lethality is diminishing. In India, faith and the new civilisation of Capitalism are pitted against each other in an epic battle - and god's armies are losing!
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