Christian churches where built on the sites of pagan worship in Europe now and then so the local populace would still go to the same place for worship as they where converted to the new religion. It would not surprise me if Muslims did the same when they invaded countries and brought their religion with them to the local populace.

congress appeasement of minorities for 60 years. Affirmative action for decades. Congress continued with the license-quota-inspector system started by the British. The only time Congress did anything sensible was during P.V. Narasimha Rao’s tenure.

BJP in no way is worse than congress.

As for the destruction of Babri Masjid that was more of a popular expresssion against the continual sidelining of the majority sentiment and berating the religious belief’s of 85% of the nation. In any way I am not saying that was the right thing to do. You have to take into account the outrage and religious persecution. Moreover that was an agitation going on long before BJP came into the picture. That was not a BJP movement. This issue was going on in courts for decades. There is a great book from Sita Ram Goel “Hindu Temples – What Happened To Them” – This can give you a background of the national feelings that are associated with this movement. http://www.amazon.com/Hindu-Temples-Happened-Preliminary-Survey/dp/8185990492

I agree L.K. Advani is not the best leader to represent BJP. There are leaders who are really good. Arun Shourie, Jaswant Singh, Jagmohan, Arun Jaitley for example.

Congress is the reason for India’s tardy progress. Congress is really the secular mafia.

You have cited just one reason for BJP and declared it the worst party. I can give you multiple examples… Nehru’s appeasement of china, Bungling on Kashmir, Emergency, Criminalization of Politics, Corruption…. I can go on and on…

There are widespread affirmative action policies in India, not just for minority religions but for disadvantaged castes in Hinduism. Secular policies are essential in a diverse country like India. Militant Hinduism in a country with the third largest Muslim population in the World (after Indonesia and Pakistan), which is the home of both Sikhism and Buddhism, and where Hindus (about 80% of the population) are themselves divided into many factions, is a recipe for civil war.

The Ayodya mosque issue did not spontaneously erupt after four and a half centuries. There were activists building their careers on whipping up hatred, and L K Advani was at the heart of this.

You may be right about younger leaders in the BJP being better. All the parties in India seem to have leadership issues. Advani and Vajpayee have been leading the BJP and its predecessor organisations for forty years. Move over.

Congress was indeed responsible for India’s tardy growth, but you are talking decades ago. Congress also led the way in market based reforms from Rajiv Gandhi’s government in the 80s onwards. P V Narashima Rao’s government was certainly a leader in this, with Manmohan Singh as finance minister a key figure. Singh’s own government has not been able to push forward reform quite as strongly, as it doesn’t have a majority in Parliament. The best result would be a Congress government that did not depend on leftists for support, but that is extremely unlikely.

I am not sure what you mean when you say I cited just one problem with the BJP. I mentioned the Ayodya mosque issue, the Party’s leader, and its platform objectives such as banning the slaughter of cows and criminalising religious conversion. Its objective of creating a Hindu Republic (albeit unachievable in a diverse country in which the Party would need the support of smaller parties to form a government) is contemptible.

Presumably, if you regard that catalogue as just one problem it is because you regard most of that as desirable. I think creating an Iranian-style dictatorship in India would be awful, even if it was possible. Since the attempt would lead to civil war in unstable, nuclear-armed, region, any attempt to implement the BJP’s platform would be a disaster.

I don’t pretend to understand India’s politics well enough to offer an opinion on them. But I do enjoy reading about the politics of other countries from those who do understand them. Thanks.

India has consistently been a democracy with broad respect for human rights for over sixty years. It is difficult to think of any other countries at similar stages of economic development which have maintained this record. There has been more than one occasion when Botswana has been the only democracy in Africa, for example.

Since the 1980s India has been engaged with reform and globalisation. Growth has averaged about six percent – almost double America’s and more than double Europe’s.

India remains governed by the rule of law. Even the three states of emergency (the most controversial in the 1970s) were declared under the Constitution. The third and most recent state of emergency was largely bogus, but it led to the massive defeat of the governing Congress Party. Even the then PM, Indira Gandhi, lost her seat in Parliament.

Through most of the post independence period, ambitious people were attracted to government. More recently ambitious young people have been moving into business and becoming wealthy entrepreneurs. Perhaps, when this generation takes control, India’s politics will catch up with its business.