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Showing posts with the label riots

Power and Prejudice

India is governed by a political party which draws its sustenance from the Us-Them divisiveness.  From the infamous Gujarat riots onwards, India witnessed about 7000 incidents of communal violence engendered by the Us-Them thinking. The Us-Them thinking is as old as known human history.  Every people always loved to make some distinctions between themselves and the perceived others .  Look at our movies and you will see how people belonging to other cultures or speaking other languages are made to look like either fools or villains.  Such division achieves many purposes at the same time.  One, it enhances our own sense of identity.  Our group identity becomes stronger when the rival group is portrayed as weak, illiterate, villainous, etc.  Two, it tilts the struggle for the limited resources in our favour.  We turn the tables so that the resources will fall to our side.  Three, it prepares the members of the community to fight against perceived threats from the others.