4 ms·

What post-colonial narrative does BBC spew? If you see BBC regional languages programs, you will see that it platforms RSS-BJP's Hindu Nationalistic rhetoric to

by iamshs 4y ago

What post-colonial narrative does BBC spew? If you see BBC regional languages programs, you will see that it platforms RSS-BJP's Hindu Nationalistic rhetoric to a far greater degree.

rayiner 4y ago
Western notions of what liberal democracy should look like (multi-cultural, multi-religious, etc.) is a colonial imposition on India: https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-culture-wars-of-post-colonial-india/ https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-culture-wars-of-post-colonial...
- tptacek 4y ago
  "Meanwhile, Hindu nationalists have been courting allies against their Leftist antagonists, which sometimes results in strange connections to Western white nationalists", writes the Taki's Magazine contributor. Perhaps in this one instance, the West's notion of what liberal democracy should look like is correct. Not every idea the liberal west has is, but the alternatives to these two ideas are horrible.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    The connection to white nationalism is specious. Everyone in this story is brown. The differences are about beliefs and culture, not skin color. It also projects western circumstances onto places where it doesn’t make sense. Multiculturalism is a cultural adaptation to America being a post-colonial, post-slavery, immigrant nation. In the rest of the west it’s an adaptation to post-colonial immigration patterns. The moral connotations are very much tied up in the fact that those other cultural groups are in western countries because of the stuff western people did that wasn’t so nice. That doesn’t have any force when you’re talking about Hindus in India or the Japanese in Japan. Indeed in India it probably cuts the other way. My surname didn’t make its way 3,000 miles from the Middle East to Bangladesh through a process that was very nice.
    - pvg 4y ago
      In the rest of the west it’s an adaptation to post-colonial immigration patterns. I don't think even a cursory look at the history of Europe in the last few hundred years bears that out - you can probably start at the peace of Westphalia and keep going to the current war in Ukraine. The connection to white nationalism is not specious, it's precisely because it's a form of ethno-nationalism.
    - dctoedt 4y ago
      > My surname didn’t make its way 3,000 miles from the Middle East to Bangladesh through a process that was very nice. Now you've got me curious ....
      - SanjayMehta 4y ago
        Bangladesh used to be East Bengal. Through a series of demographic changes, it became East Pakistan in 1947 and then Bangladesh in 1971.
        dctoedt 4y ago
        Yes, I'm old enough to remember the 1971 war of independence; I was wondering about Rayiner's surname that he mentioned as having migrated from the Middle East. (I could hazard a guess ....)
    - tptacek 4y ago
      Just to be clear: Razib Khan makes the connection to white nationalism, not me. It happens that Razib Khan is himself probably a racial supremacist. But I didn't even have pull any of this in from Khan's background; it was in the article you chose to cite.
- bhupy 4y ago
  It's not so much Western notions of what liberal democracy should look like, but rather the Western notion that liberal democracy is superior/sacrosanct. "Liberal democracy" has a very specific meaning — or at least, it has to, or else there's no common language to describe these things. What India is engaging in is objectively not liberal democracy, it's illiberal democracy[1], but that can be okay. The fact that "illiberal democracy is bad" is the Western notion / post-colonial imposition on an independent India. I personally disagree with most Indians, and tend to prefer liberal democracies, but that's my Western notion (and I say that as an ethnic Indian that went to high school in India, but has settled down in America). [1] Poland, Hungary, and arguably Turkey are also notable examples of increasingly illiberal democracies
  - rayiner 4y ago
    I agree with your framing. Good point.
SanjayMehta 4y ago
What are you talking about? I'm asking why you think the BBC should be exempt from scrutiny like any other organisation.

by iamshs 4y ago

What post-colonial narrative does BBC spew? If you see BBC regional languages programs, you will see that it platforms RSS-BJP's Hindu Nationalistic rhetoric to a far greater degree.

rayiner 4y ago

Western notions of what liberal democracy should look like (multi-cultural, multi-religious, etc.) is a colonial imposition on India: https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-culture-wars-of-post-colonial-india/ https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-culture-wars-of-post-colonial...

tptacek 4y ago
"Meanwhile, Hindu nationalists have been courting allies against their Leftist antagonists, which sometimes results in strange connections to Western white nationalists", writes the Taki's Magazine contributor. Perhaps in this one instance, the West's notion of what liberal democracy should look like is correct. Not every idea the liberal west has is, but the alternatives to these two ideas are horrible.
- rayiner 4y ago
  The connection to white nationalism is specious. Everyone in this story is brown. The differences are about beliefs and culture, not skin color. It also projects western circumstances onto places where it doesn’t make sense. Multiculturalism is a cultural adaptation to America being a post-colonial, post-slavery, immigrant nation. In the rest of the west it’s an adaptation to post-colonial immigration patterns. The moral connotations are very much tied up in the fact that those other cultural groups are in western countries because of the stuff western people did that wasn’t so nice. That doesn’t have any force when you’re talking about Hindus in India or the Japanese in Japan. Indeed in India it probably cuts the other way. My surname didn’t make its way 3,000 miles from the Middle East to Bangladesh through a process that was very nice.
  - pvg 4y ago
    In the rest of the west it’s an adaptation to post-colonial immigration patterns. I don't think even a cursory look at the history of Europe in the last few hundred years bears that out - you can probably start at the peace of Westphalia and keep going to the current war in Ukraine. The connection to white nationalism is not specious, it's precisely because it's a form of ethno-nationalism.
  - dctoedt 4y ago
    > My surname didn’t make its way 3,000 miles from the Middle East to Bangladesh through a process that was very nice. Now you've got me curious ....
    - SanjayMehta 4y ago
      Bangladesh used to be East Bengal. Through a series of demographic changes, it became East Pakistan in 1947 and then Bangladesh in 1971.
      - dctoedt 4y ago
        Yes, I'm old enough to remember the 1971 war of independence; I was wondering about Rayiner's surname that he mentioned as having migrated from the Middle East. (I could hazard a guess ....)
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Just to be clear: Razib Khan makes the connection to white nationalism, not me. It happens that Razib Khan is himself probably a racial supremacist. But I didn't even have pull any of this in from Khan's background; it was in the article you chose to cite.
bhupy 4y ago
It's not so much Western notions of what liberal democracy should look like, but rather the Western notion that liberal democracy is superior/sacrosanct. "Liberal democracy" has a very specific meaning — or at least, it has to, or else there's no common language to describe these things. What India is engaging in is objectively not liberal democracy, it's illiberal democracy[1], but that can be okay. The fact that "illiberal democracy is bad" is the Western notion / post-colonial imposition on an independent India. I personally disagree with most Indians, and tend to prefer liberal democracies, but that's my Western notion (and I say that as an ethnic Indian that went to high school in India, but has settled down in America). [1] Poland, Hungary, and arguably Turkey are also notable examples of increasingly illiberal democracies
- rayiner 4y ago
  I agree with your framing. Good point.

SanjayMehta 4y ago

What are you talking about? I'm asking why you think the BBC should be exempt from scrutiny like any other organisation.