India turned off mobile internet for 63M citizens amid protests in Ahmedabad
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I'm pretty sure India would have had a violent movement too if WW2 hadn't happened and Indians had better access to firearms and stuff. Violence was less of an option because the British government deliberately ensured that the locals were suppressed. Whereas in the U.S. the British were exploitative of the colonies, but they did not suppress the people (until the movement started); after all, those were their own people.
We did, in fact, have a violent movement, in 1857, just that it didn't work out too well.
I don't think that "Indians are less violent" is really an argument to be made here.
That's quite anecdotal at best. My experience has not been the same, I've seen ample violent elements in both places. Indians are generally subtler in our social cues, and that might make Americans "louder" (which feels like aggression), but certainly not more violent.
It also might matter which area of either country you've lived in. Boston(-ish) and Mumbai here.
An acceptable argument for India being more nonviolent would be the entire NAM movement among other initiatives, but there are still many, many other reasons why India's nonviolent independence movement worked -- Indians being nonviolent, if true, would be a small contributor to it, not the main reason. Besides, like I said, we had a violent independence movement and failed. Technically, two, if you count the INA, which actually managed to liberate many areas.
People need to understand that issues are NOT black and white, and that "the thin end of the wedge" often needs to be broached in order to benefit wider society.
Also, this is not justice & anti-freedom.
The truth that the NSA is massively spying was hidden for a very long time (or rather: Hardly anybody really believed those who told the truth).
Plugging everyone into the matrix will also save lives.
A large number of such messages that I have come across are photoshopped images, mix it with the ease of sending bulk messages and you get an explosive mixture.
One way to tackle such situation will be, IMO, to make bulk messaging an expensive (computationally) operation, something of the nature of HashCash.
And in regards to your argument — the longer you keep the immune system from exposure to a threat — the longer you allow the threat to evolve and become even more dangerous. Let the people learn what is hoax and fake. Yes, they are perfectly able to do that.
This is not a flashpoint event, huge number of people were mobilized from the neighboring states for the main rally that took place before the violence broke. (the number of people gathered there were more than 100K, and this will a very conservative estimate)
In such a politically charged environment, the spamming ease becomes a real threat to the law and order, and above all, to human lives.
I would very much like the system to evolve, but not at the expense of innocent lives.
Add to that a semi-educated police force and you end up with 3 people dead and a whole bunch of public infrastructure burning.
If you are in government, you don't really have the option to call the protesters in to have a nuanced debate.
The same always. Definitely a freedom-of-speech issue, but nothing new.
This had become a regular occurrence and the government only acted due to increasing number of such cases.
Justice is the solution. Punish the criminals and people will stop doing it.
Or the many examples of crime increasing as sentence length increases?
Or the studies that have shown people sent to prison for a crime have higher reoffending rates than people given community sentences?
Study after study, and real life example after example shows that punishment is a very ineffective way of changing behaviour.
Additionally, government should not be in the business of controlling and determining the veracity of the messages people are sending among themselves.
That's because riots and such protests are rare in the US; and Ferguson brought new issues to light, not the same old issues.
That's not the case in India. The concept of a "bandh" (close the city and shops, if your shop doesn't comply, you might get beaten up by party thugs) is a common one used by political parties for various reasons. If someone told me that there was a bandh in Mumbai tomorrow, I'd not be surprised, not even really annoyed. One gets used to this stuff.
Riots are a few steps above this, but aren't too uncommon either. Many of them have legit motivations. India is a country of many, many communities and many, many views and it's common for some community to feel aggrieved by something; often rightly so.
This one, I don't think it has a legit motivation either, but I'm not so sure. The reservation system is a rather broken one -- not that I'm saying it should be removed (affirmative action can be quite effective) -- but that it could be improved quite a bit, checking against income and with more safety nets for students/etc who are boosted by this but don't do well. This case seems to be one of people from a non-suppressed community clamoring for reservation, motivated by other non-suppressed communities who got reservation due to a political move (ICBW here).
Thing is, fixing the overall reservation system is a really, really hard problem in practice. There's a lot of politics involved -- anything perceived to weaken it will severely affect your image, and besides, most of these laws need a majority of folks from the relevant minority group to approve them, and due to the way folks vote here, politicians from a minority group depend on that minority group for votes, and if they were portrayed as weakening the reservation system, their political career would be doomed. So the reservation system is something that can only monotonically get worse. Most folks have resigned themselves to this fact.
On the other hand, in Ferguson, the issue is something which the minority group was very aware of, but not the majority group. Many people are now realizing that African Americans look at the police very differently due to the way the police treats them. There's a lot of new information in the system, and there are many proposed solutions, most of which do not qualify as political suicide. It's not the case here, everyone already knows about the issues here, and most if not all solutions are political suicide.
Schools do that, and it heavily favors whites. (alumni/donor preference)
Maybe not exactly what you were suggesting
Of course, it's not as easy as simply filtering by income by setting a threshhold. In some cases you may want a income-agnostic reservation, too, to prevent caste-based discrimination (not so common in cities, but it still exists), in cases where there are strong human elements in the selection process (i.e. it's not just based on the results of a test, but where there are people in the pipeline who may discriminate). This is something that may need to be handled in a nuanced way.
(Not that I'm saying that reservation is the only solution, just saying that if we want to stay within the confines of this system, it can be improved a lot)
[1] FWIW, in India, everyone is technically a minority, though of course not all minorities have been downtrodden. In this specific case a possibly-non-downtrodden (as far as public opinion goes, this group is in general quite well off) minority is requesting special treatment, which is receiving opposition.
Even the story in reference here isn't an uncommon sight. In Jammu & Kashmir (A state which has a disputed status, yet is claimed to be an "integral part" of India by the ruling political party) it is very common for the government to shut down mobile internet and all mobile facilities on 14th and 15t h August (Which are the countries independence day)
Heck they had even banned text messaging here until 2013. Some "freedom of speech", eh?
The story of Kashmir is full of broken promises by the Indian government and people. So before we call it an integral part of India, lets at least own our mistakes. Lets remove AFSPA in Kashmir. Lets hold the bloody referendum. Lets at least grant them more autonomy.
But thats not gonna happen. Any government which grants more autonomy to Kashmir will be voted out and hence they will not do it.
You correctly call into question the agreement signed by the Maharaja of Kashmir, but I could just as easily ask about every other territory that's a part of the Union of India. Why should the writ of New Delhi run to places where the people are ethnically, linguistically and culturally different, such as Tamil Nadu? After all, at no point did Tamils accede to the Union and they have suffered discrimination before - such as when Delhi tried to impose Hindi on a Tamil-speaking population in 1965. Do Tamils deserve special privileges then? No, that's absurd.
To clarify, I think Article 370 that grants Kashmir special status should be scrapped, because they don't deserve special treatment. Apart from that, I think a referendum should be held there. I don't think it will bury the issue (look at Scotland), but it will mollify most people who live there for some time.
Here is the thing, dude — 70% of all people from outside Kashmir don't know what is going on there. They immediately resolve to cursing Pakistan or Kashmiris, portraying their troops and their dirty politics as a favor they're doing to us. You know why that referendum was never held? Because the answer is clear — Go away, or at the very least stop shooting our people.
Sadly most of India will never understand, because they aren't listening. Impose AFSPA in Delhi and Mumbai and tell me how that goes.
Don't try to wildly justify everything your people do just to show your kinship to them. It makes you a fanatic, not a patriot. Most of my friends are from India. I love them, and have deep admiration for them. India is a great nation, but sadly it has been very unfair to Kashmir. And successfully made it appear as though they are trying to help, being portrayed as martyrs to their own people.
Research. That will fill in the knowledge gaps you have with regard to kashmir. Then think about it on the grounds of humanity. You will be one step closer to realizing that the situation is actually much different from what you hear about in the news or what your politicians tell you.
Love and respect from Kashmir.
Flowerpots are hurled at Indian Army by fringe elements which results in casualties of evil Indian Army persons. A new trend has been seen in the peace loving Kashmiris led by ISI agents in disguise, who chose not to participate in the elections and instead have been seen showing the most peaceful organisation ISIS's flag to the media and the evil army.
Ok enough with the sarcasm, a minister of the elected government (who belongs to Kashmir) recently appeared on a television program to complaint about the media. She said the media only shows the 4k separatists (ISIS lovers) in the news and not the 4000k people who voted and want tourism from the rest of the country. I am more likely to believe her than the propaganda spewed by a random commenter.
Understanding does not come by hiding ugly thruths. In India its a common belief (among Hindus) that Hindus have never done anyone any wrong and were mind their own business peacefully an then all shit happened to them. False historical constructs are dangerous. Study of clear and open history backed by grassroots records is super important. If you, your dad is in Pakistan now, here's greetings from near his older home.
Its importance varies by region though. Some parts haven't been touched by communal violence ever since partition (apart from Babri related ones) whereas others are repeat offenders.
And no, Nehru did not contributed the most, the whole of India was united by Sardar Patel with the exception of J&K which Nehru insisted on taking up. If you call that contribution ...
"You cannot change the truth, but the truth can change you"
That is not correct, I stay in Jammu & Kashmir and have been able to use mobile services on 14th and 15th without any issues. It might be true from some region (not that i know off) but it is certainly not true for the entire state.
Instead of cutting off information it should be directed and rumors dispelled through disseminating the truth.
India turned off SMS facility for ~4 years from 2009 to 2014 in the state of J&K.
Also to stop mobs to communicate in mass with each other.
On wired network probably only fb & whatsapp are banned.
Edit: Yes[0]
[0] http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/indian-army-deployed-r...
That would require declaring an Emergency AFAIK.
If someone drops his pants, or more accurately does something much worse (multi-homicide level worse) and claims "I did because BTNM said so", no one will seriously question his/her judgement or responsibility of listening to BTNM but will fall over themselves in their eagerness to blame BTNM exclusively and put a blanket ban on anything that is deemed unpopular by the people who have influence: think of the women and children that may be harmed.
I am sick and tired of waiting for us to behave like adults and treat people like adults with the full set of responsibilities that comes with it. But no, we want to be treated like kids incapable of taking responsibility of our own actions and elect such people to high places.
I expect this to be downvoted if there is a large Indian audience hanging out here. This is definitely a minority view here, going by multiple conversations I have had on this topic.
I'm an American expat living in India and it's still quite alien to me after a few years. The government really can tell you to stop saying something because it offends someone else. They can do that because the alternative is that hundreds or even thousands of people die.
My opinion on that decision isn't terribly important because I'm not Indian; it's not my decision to make. It's a very deliberate compromise that the Indian people have found over the decades.
This guys had gone highly out of control. Banning their communication was one of the way to control them. Atleast I feel so. I am from affected area.
If you want I can send you some photos I took from my mob while going home shivering.
No doubt that should have been last option. But yes they did it at last. People started pelting stones on Army. So even Army couldnt control mob via flag march or any such thing.
Or real ones, for that matter (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashimpura_massacre)
I hope order and safety are restored quickly, and in a judicious and democratic way. All the best from here in the US.
"Forwarded messages" on whatsapp is an extremely common practice and a lot of times, false videos/news start trending which were originally sourced specifically to incite people.
There have been instances where I have had to explain my relatives to not worry about the forwarded message they got showing some disturbing images (because in reality, they were taken from the net from some war in a distant part of the world).
I am a huge proponent of Free speech but in those very tense moments in parts of the country, disrupting / stopping these false rumors from spreading can result in saving lives.
So imagine an area which is already tense and then the local youth get forwarded messages with an Image (pulled from the internet) of a burnt body and then some poorly edited text at the bottom saying "This is what xyz community did to our brothers. We have to stand up to this!". That's when things go terribly wrong. Please note that this is just an example and that is definitely not what happened here in Gujarat this time, but it has occured a few times in the recent past (Muzaffarnagar riots) and so the government takes no chances.
But yes, I agree there has to be a better solution than just an outright disruption in services.
Very sad to see the same situation happen again!
Background information:
What is happening is not a religious issue or in any way related to the communal riots 15 years ago.
From Wikipedia:
In India, the Other Backward Castes (OBC) status invokes affirmative action which provides reserved quotas in education and government jobs. In Gujarat, 27% of seats are reserved for OBC (Other Backward Castes), 7.5% for Scheduled Castes and 15% for Scheduled Tribes for a total of 49.5% of all seats. The Supreme Court has capped the maximum reservation at 50% in their 1992 judgement.
What decides if you are OBC, SC, or ST? Your surname, and the community your family belongs to. Note that membership to one of these segments used to strongly correlate once with lower economic status (and therefore opportunities), but in recent years this correlation is significantly weaker.
The agitation is a result of the unsustainable caste politics quoted above. 49.5% of people getting in through a quota is absurd. Now I think that elevating downtrodden sections of society (through economic incentives, or even a reasonable quota) is a good thing. but when half of all seats in universities and stable government jobs are tied to a quota, the playing field for the "general category" is significantly shrunk, and people are going to get frustrated.
The community that is protesting are the Patels. They are huge in Gujarat; they're all over the strong middle class spectrum, and parts of the upper class. What I mean to say is that they are not even remotely an oppressed downtrodden segment of society. They happen to be an entrepreneurial and dynamic class; if you're in the UK or the US, you probably are aware of Patels because they constitute a huge percentage of Indian immigrants/expats. My point being: Patels asking for reservation is ridiculous. I guess only in India can a community demand to be labelled as "backward".
But when the playing field is so small, is it a surprise that everyone now wants their own space carved out?
I hope this protest will die, because animosity between such a large segment of society and others can become a source of problems in the future. But I also hope that it will force the government to rethink the crazy huge reservation system.
People in Ahmedabad are feeling scared and angry right now. Just outside my parents' home, protestors/vandals lit three buses and a bus terminal on fire yesterday. Then there's the police, here's a video of the them going on a power trip: https://twitter.com/ndtv/status/636808983131525120
PS: Not all Patels are asking for reservations, there are a number of dissenting factions as well.
The forward castes are 30% of the population and can still get 50.5 % of the seats, and actually even more in practice. So, the numbers are not absurd, but quotas are reviewed every ten years, and not permanent. And the quotas don't apply to the rich backward caste members. See creamy layer.
1. It applies only to OBC (not even SC/ST)
2. You need to declare your family's total gross income to be entered into the creamy layer. If you declare such an income, you need to pay taxes. And we know how rampant tax fraud is everywhere... The incentives are all wrongly aligned.
It seems you might want to provide more detail or justification behind your words, or people may consider you an astroturfer.
I can understand why the Indian government shuts down a service like mobile internet, they have had a great number of casualties due to these communal riots. But it seems far from the right thing to do.
But the root of the problem is so much a social problem, and the current government (as well as the past governments) have done way too little to introduce more social equality. The backward class programs have not fixed the problem of the caste society, and the country still benefits largely of the enormous cast differences. Modi and his BJP have used the caste system, both for their businesses (Gujarat mainly is a booming business state) and political benefit (it is way easier to get your election going through the system of castes).
Modi and his group had a strange role during the Muslim-Hindu riots of Ghodra, and his stance towards Muslims is highly doubtful [1].
I wonder what more will come up on this story in the following days.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_violence_in_India#Gu... [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/19/opinion/being-muslim-under...