{"id":307,"date":"2008-11-29T22:17:09","date_gmt":"2008-11-29T22:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/terrorist-attack-on-mumbai-and.html"},"modified":"2008-11-29T22:17:09","modified_gmt":"2008-11-29T22:17:09","slug":"terrorist-attack-on-mumbai-and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/terrorist-attack-on-mumbai-and.html","title":{"rendered":"Terrorist Attack on Mumbai and the Effect on Indian Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Terrorist attacks on Mumbai have provoked Meenakshi Ravi to write this on Huffingtonpost:<\/a><\/p>\n

Four years ago, the Hindu-dominated, right wing Bharatiya Janata Party<\/a> (BJP) was dismissed from government by an Indian electorate that saw through its glossy ‘India Shining’<\/a> campaign propaganda. The BJP’s loss was the compound effect of many of its failings, but the most glaring offense was its alleged involvement in the violent Hindu-Muslim clashes that erupted in the western state of Gujarat. For over four months, the state burned and people were killed on the grounds of their religious faith. In official records you would find that 1,044 people died as a result of the communal violence. Read the reports compiled by NGOs and human rights groups and you’d find that the figure was closer to 2,000.<\/p>\n

The Mumbai attacks heighten the threat to the Indian secular state which is already battling internal threats to minority groups<\/a>. It is easy to sell situations like this to the man on the street as an attack that threatens his community. The terror in Mumbai has struck during a year in which six Indian states are going to the polls. These are crucial elections for both main parties in India since the one that makes a stronger showing is likely to be on firm footing to make gains in the General Elections scheduled for May 2009. The BJP will probably leverage this climate of fear and uncertainty to make electoral gains. For the ruling Indian National Congress<\/a>, the communal card will come in handy as a tool to paper over serious lapses in intelligence and national security during its watch. <\/p>\n

The BJP has managed to maintain a strong anti-terror image with its constituency by riding on religious rhetoric and convincing its supporters that the party will protect their interests and ensure their safety. This, despite its lamentable record of not just the horrors of Gujarat in 2002, but other incidents that go further back, such as the mishandling of the 1999 Kandahar hijacking<\/a> incident, and most infamously, the BJP-led demolition of the Babri Mosque<\/a> in 1992. <\/p>\n

The Congress never had a hope of making light work of these state elections. A nervous economy and terror-struck populace was going to need serious convincing if some states were to be retained\/won. The Mumbai terror attacks have made the Congress’ work many times more difficult as it has struck fear in the hearts of the people and has reminded them of the indefensible performance by the party and the government it leads in the task of protecting Indians from terrorism. <\/p>\n

More on Indian politics…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Terrorist attacks on Mumbai have provoked Meenakshi Ravi to write this on Huffingtonpost: Four years ago, the Hindu-dominated, right wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was dismissed from government by an Indian electorate that saw through its glossy ‘India Shining’ campaign propaganda. The BJP’s loss was the compound effect of many of its failings, but the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-muslims","category-religion-in-the-public-square","category-terrorism"],"yoast_head":"\nTerrorist Attack on Mumbai and the Effect on Indian Politics - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/terrorist-attack-on-mumbai-and.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Terrorist Attack on Mumbai and the Effect on Indian Politics - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Terrorist attacks on Mumbai have provoked Meenakshi Ravi to write this on Huffingtonpost: Four years ago, the Hindu-dominated, right wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was dismissed from government by an Indian electorate that saw through its glossy ‘India Shining’ campaign propaganda. 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Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}