Sunday, April 17, 2011
Let's Crush A Baby!
An Indian 'baba', or healer, literally stands on the bodies of little babies claiming that this heals health problems. India also has the highest rate of forced marriages of underage girls, and systematic discrimination against citizens based on caste; women from the lowest caste are routinely raped. Male members of the lower caste are often victims of physical abuse, including death in many cases. These things happen only in India, the world's largest democracy. The mainstream Indian media and the hordes of American and British journalists based in India don't see these glaring little scandals because of an official policy carefully crafted to project India as the next superpower that is being groomed to serve western interests in Asia. But occasionally stories like these do come out, thanks to conscientious Indian citizens working for the rights of those ignored by the Indian government.
I am posting this video not because it makes for good anti-India bashing and because I am from Pakistan and that’s how things go. Not at all. We in Pakistan have many embarrassing problems unique to us. But none that go as far as crushing babies or burying female newborns alive, which is another issue with the highest global incident rate in India.
The reason I am posting this video here is very political. Instead of buying expensive weapons to fight China and maintain 700,000 soldiers in the tiny patch of Kashmir to crush a people’s demand for freedom, the Indian government should share its immense wealth with its poor and end poverty and illiteracy that breeds the horrendous practices of ‘baby crushing’ and female infanticide. Multimillion-dollar adverts on CNN and glossy Indian movies can't hide this reality, but a good sense can.
And imagine how reduced Indian expenditure on weapons and more on ending poverty will affect stability in Asia: Pakistan won't have to keep up with India's arms race, China will be at ease, and everyone will go back to focusing on things that matter.
India doesn't need a stockpile of weapons because no one is going to invade India. But this man in this video certainly needs a good government to teach him a lesson.
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