An Australian Point of View

Though some parts in the article by an Australian writer Christopher Kremmer in today’s Sydney Morning Herald on the recent Mumbai Train blasts could be argued upon.

Overall I feel it’s worth reading. Here are two portions from the article that really did strike a chord with me.

Despite the history of communal violence in India, the overwhelming majority of Hindus and Muslims are inclined to live together in peace. This is hugely frustrating to jihadis like Osama bin Laden, who can’t understand India’s composite culture and regard cohabitation as traitorous. The principal aim of killing innocent commuters - the majority of whom, because of India’s demography, will be Hindus - is to provoke a backlash. If the Muslim minority, numbering about 150 million people, bears the brunt, the cycle of martyrdom, mistrust and violence gains momentum.

In the longer term, the designs of the extremists, whether Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian, are likely to be frustrated.

In Mumbai, better known as Bombay, a city whose population almost matches that of Australia and which gave us the Bollywood cinema of dreams, the Indian dream will triumph over futile hatreds. Commuters will get back on their trains; they have little choice.

But it will be weeks, perhaps even months, before we know the full extent of the damage wrought by the bombers, the modern purveyors of an old idea that people of different faiths cannot, and must not, be allowed to live together in peace. [Link]

• Culture, Government, India, Mumbai, New Age Thinking, News, World Crisis
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