As observers of the contemporary world, we construct our own theories and reach tentative conclusions. This blog is a record of my observations and provisional conclusions, viewed through the prism of my biases. Some of these biases are cultural, others academic. My training is broadly in economics and I tend to see the world in terms of what makes economic sense and what doesn’t. I am also an Indian and culturally I am a Hindu/Buddhist.
I am not a card-carrying member of some organization which promotes free-market capitalism even though I am very deeply suspicious of any forms of socialism, and speak quite freely about the evils that communism has been responsible for. I am persuaded that markets work best in most cases and promote human welfare. I think that as an ideology, socialism is an unmitigated disaster. It is my provisional conclusion that much of what ails modern India is due to its socialistic policies. Unless and until that realization dawns on the Indian collective, I am afraid that India’s fortunes are likely to continue to be what they have been—miserable.
My conclusion about the evils of socialism and communism is based both on my theoretical understanding of the subject and on the empirical evidence that socialism leads to material and cultural poverty. I speak quite freely of my conviction and don’t feel threatened for doing so. I don’t get cautioned by well-meaning people saying that I should be careful about airing my views on communism. I mostly live in India and the US, both places where you have some degree of freedom of expression.
However, there is a subject that I touch upon from time to time and it worries many people. They write to tell me that I should not present my views on it because they are afraid that I may come to harm. It is the matter of another set of ideologies called monotheism. I think monotheism is an unmitigated disaster, and more specifically the most recent incarnation of the monotheist ideology called Islam is the most dangerous of the lot.
My position on the monotheistic ideologies arises from both theoretical and empirical grounds. Theologically monotheistic faiths are simplistic, bigoted, myopic, ignorant and at best childish. They are rigid, dogmatic, and intolerant of dissenting opinions. They are anti-humanistic and regressive. They have deep moral flaws and can be lend support to all manner of vicious actions – and they do. They have over the centuries motivated rape, murder, pillage and destruction on a global scale. This is a matter of record, not conjecture. I did not cook up the evidence. The history books are exhibit A. And for exhibit B, check out your daily newspaper. Not a day goes by when you don’t read about another bunch of innocents killed by people motivated by the ideology of monotheism.
The outcome of the conflict between the Greeks and the barbarians is the predictable destruction of the Greeks. That is the way the world works. Peaceful civilizations are by their very nature prey to violent movements. A thousand years of continuous rapacity by the Islamic invaders of India has had its toll. Very large segments of a formerly peaceful population has been converted to a violent ideology. The land itself was violently divided. The division was necessitated by the need to preserve the peace. It was just too bad for those non-Muslims who found themselves in predominantly Muslim areas. They continued to suffer and their numbers consistently saw a downward trend. Note the population trends of non-Muslim peoples in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Indian state of Kashmir. The non-Muslims have been hounded and reduced in just a matter of decades.
Huntington calls it a clash of civilizations. Perhaps he is being too generous. It is not a clash of civilizations. To my mind, there is nothing civilized about the Islamic ideology. It is, as I never tire of reminding everyone, not a civilized way of apprehending the world we live in. It is barbaric, regressive, bigoted, nasty, brutish, and ignorant. Why, some may ask, do I have to put in it such stark unyielding terms? Because I believe that we have a duty to speak out against oppression and barbarism. We cannot be free riders in this game. We are obliged to say it the way we see it. It would be great if I did not have to speak up but if sufficient people hope that others will say what they themselves are afraid to speak of, then we have a conspiracy of silence.
And silence is the greatest weapon that the Islamic ideology has. It has silenced enough people. Over the centuries of oppression, it has succeeded in silencing its critics by simply killing anyone who dares oppose it. A thousand years and they have successfully destroyed not just material objects, they have even destroyed the will in many people to resist. These non-Muslims who have been silenced into compliance are called dhimmis. The dhimmitude of Indians is disturbing, to put is most delicately.
[To be continued.]
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