Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Israel in India

From comrade Marcy: 'I think it's a mistake to blame this transformation of Indian people's sense of what's happening in West Asia on Hindutva. From where I stand, it's far more insidious than that. Whether Congress or BJP, India would have been sending political officials to Israel sooner or later. And so India is making history next week by sending its President, Pranab Mukherjee, to Israel. This visit comes at a time of intensified violence from Gaza to Jerusalem. It comes at a time when Israel is escalating its killing and detention of children and of firing on young Palestinian protestors whose only weapons are stones. 
Palestinian voices seem to be relatively absent in India today except when being described in AP reports about "violence" or "terrorism". It makes me think of Martin Luther King Jr.'s aphorism that "violence in the language of the unheard". And yet even with the escalation of violence in Palestine, why is it so hard for us to listen to Palestinians in the India of today?"