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While recent instances of religious intolerance and bigotry may have shocked many, data on Indian attitudes and behaviours - particularly among young people - show that these attitudes are the mainstream, and not the fringe.

For some time now, Indians have held fairly conservative views about how the country should be governed in broad terms. The World Values Survey, a conglomerate of various country-level polling agencies, has surveyed sample populations around the world on their views on various social values for nearly forty years. In the latest round (20102014), the Indian sample demonstrated a lower commitment to democratic principles than most other major countries. India, along with Pakistan and Russia, featured below the global average on the importance accorded to democracy. Indian respondents had an even lower regard than Pakistani respondents for civil rights that protect peoples liberty against oppression as being an essential part of a democracy. Indian respondents expressed greater support for a strong leader and for army rule than most other countries and the global average. The share of Indians who thought that a strong leader was very good for the country was higher than in any other country even Russia (World Values Survey, 2018).

Elections are just a waste of time. We should have a strong leader, a saintly and noble man who we can trust, and then he and the army can run the country in the right direction, Mahesh Shrihari, a thirty-three-year-old accountant based in Bengaluru in southern India, told me. Shriharis grandfather was a Gandhian who had spent time in jail during the struggle for Independence. His father, Ramalingam, had been a lifelong Congress supporter, until he discovered the anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare who captured middle-class Indias

imagination in 2013. Ramalingam then lost all interest in electoral politics. Shrihari, however, is a dedicated supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has only ever voted for him Ill discuss anything with you, he told me, religion, spirituality, science, feminism. I am up for a good debate. But I will not hear a word against Modi from anyone. That is the end of the conversation for me because I know the person is not worth wasting time on.

India ranks poorly on relative commitment to democratic principles on other international opinion polls. In a 2015 Pew Research Center global survey, the importance that the sample of Indians gave to freedom of expression was lower than all the surveyed countries but Indonesia; by 2019, the share of Indians who said that it was very important that people could say what they want without government censorship was the lowest in the world, lower even than Indonesia, and lower than in 2015. India joined Tunisia and Lebanon at the bottom of the list of countries that believed that it was important for the media to be able to report and people to be able to talk on the internet without censorship.

In 2019, India was below the median of countries that believed it was very important for human rights organisations to operate freely in their country without State interference, as compared to European nations, which valued this highly.

NGOs [non government organisations, or charities] are out to defame the country. They take money from foreign countries and from the Church and they instigate poor tribal people against the government, Manu Koda, a twenty-fouryear-old from Raipur in eastern Indias Chhattisgarh, told me. Koda, who now lives in Kolkata, studied in a missionary-run school that functions as a charity in Raipur, and when the country went under the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in March 2020, a local NGO arranged for dry rations for his mother and grandparents back home, he told me. But those were the only good ones, he insisted. His friends in college who were affiliated with the militant Hindu right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and a well-known Hindi nightly news anchor, had convinced him of the evil of NGOs. He was now part of a Facebook group that called itself Fans of [News Anchor]. Koda regularly saw pictures of NGO signboards posted there, with lurid tales of kidnapping and sex abuse in the captions. He did not need more evidence.

The country was also below the median in its commitment to the free operation of Opposition parties. India was at the bottom of thirty-four countries surveyed in the share of respondents who believed that a fair judiciary that treated everyone equally was important. Only four countries had a lower share of respondents who said that it was very important that honest elections were held regularly with a choice of at least two political parties.

Yet, Indians remain believers in their government. In a 2019 Pew survey, a median of 64 per cent across the nations surveyed believed that political elites were out of touch, disagreeing with the statement, Most elected officials care what people like me think. This opinion was particularly widespread in Europe where a median of 69 per cent expressed this view. Seventy-one per cent shared this opinion in the US. In contrast, just 31 per cent in India felt this way. Indians were also particularly likely to agree the State is run for the benefit of everyone. Most Indian respondents believed that voting gave people like them some say about how the government runs things. Indians in 2019 were among the most satisfied in the world with how democracy in their country was working.

But alongside this belief in the State comes a muscular majoritarian notion of what the state should regulate.

A study of four Indian statesGujarat, Haryana, Karnataka and Odishafound that two-thirds of respondents felt that the state should punish those who do not say Bharat Mata ki Jai, a nationalistic slogan that Muslims say militates against their religious beliefs, in public functions, and those who do not stand for the national anthem. As levels of education rose among respondents to the survey, so did support for restrictions on free speech; close to half the respondents with a college education or more supported restrictions on freedom of expression. Three-fourth of respondents expressed what the survey described as a majoritarian form of nationalism. Only about 6 per cent subscribed to a strongly liberal nationalism and a further 17 per cent took a weak liberal nationalist position. The highest proportion of respondents with this majoritarian nationalist position were those with a graduate or postgraduate education. These positions included the belief that the state should punish those who do not respect the cow, considered sacred by some Hindus, or eat beef. About two-thirds of respondents supported the view that the State should punish those who engage in religious conversion.

Younger people do not have much more progressive beliefs; a 2017 survey on the attitudes of young people found that six out of ten respondents supported banning movies which hurt religious sentiments, even more so among Muslim youth, 70 per cent of Hindu youth were opposed to allowing anyone to eat beef, and one-third of young people opposed inter-caste marriage.

This is not a liberal country, nor do most Indians likely see liberalism as a virtue. Under 17 per cent of respondents in a nationally representative survey described themselves as modernthis included just 16 per cent of the youngest respondents. A majority of all respondents, young or old, rural or urban, uneducated or graduates, described themselves as traditional (as per Lok Foundation/ University of Oxford - CMIE Lok Survey Pulse II).

There was once perhaps an assumption that education and urbanisation would automatically drive change towards more liberal values in India. But it no longer seems as if these transformations are inevitable. The education level or wealth of respondents had little impact on the likelihood of experiencing social bias according to a recent survey. Moreover, there was little difference between the experiences of rural and urban respondents; 28 per cent and 27 per cent of rural and urban respondents, respectively, indicated that they had faced social bias. These findings suggest that urbanisation and improved access to education may not automatically reduce social bias.

Extracted with permission from Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India by Rukmini S., published by Context, an imprint of Westland Publications, December 2021. You can buy the book here.

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Liberals are really Indias fringe: What a new book on data says - The News Minute

James, 24, Rochdale

Occupation Student

Voting record Labour in 2017; Brexit party in the European elections of 2019; Tory in the 2019 general election; Lib Dem in the most recent local elections

Amuse bouche James is adamant that nothing amusing or unusual has ever happened to him

Occupation Statutory childrens social worker

Voting record Voted Ukip once and Labour twice

Amuse bouche Is in the habit of giving gifts with her face printed on them

James I thought she was going to be one of these over-the-top liberals, where every statement is a question.

Charlotte Neither of us was what the other expected. We got on more than we thought we would.

James I had shish kebab, mango chicken and some other thing

Charlotte We basically got small plates of street food, all kinds of picky bits.

James lemon lollipops!

Charlotte James believes in small government, hes very libertarian. That comes out in a lot of different ways. He went to boarding school, a fee-paying school, so I was giving him a bit of stick. He said, No, my family arent wealthy it was a school for blind kids. My mum and dad got the local authority to pay for it. So I said, How can you say you believe in small government, then, because you would never have got that opportunity?

James I would call myself a libertarian, but Im not a full-on anarcho-capitalist. Education is different. Im talking about where the state intrudes into your life CCTV, privacy issues, Covid restrictions. The cost when it comes to people being able to maximise their economic potential and get forward in life was too high.

Charlotte I said to him, Its not just about us its about vulnerable people. And he wasnt having that. Hes a bit younger. With Covid, my life didnt change much. His education stopped, his social life stopped.

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James I had quite a valuable internship cancelled because of Covid lockdowns. Ironically, it was with the WHO. I felt as if the world had become single track, the only focus was on Covid.

Charlotte In lockdown, with my job, I was still in and out of peoples houses, little ones snotting and sneezing; that was scary. Early on, no one had PPE. We were told to avoid face-to-face work if possible but also: Dont wear a mask, because the kids will be scared.

James I understood that completely. Obviously some people were in a far higher-risk situation than others.

James I supported leave and Id vote leave again, but I also think Brexit hasnt been a good thing for Britain. Thats about the way the governments handled it theyve done it so badly, and its caused so many issues for the country, the labour and goods shortages. She didnt have a problem with goods shortages, because shes not a fan of massive consumerism.

Charlotte It was funny that we both voted leave. I thought I was going to meet some big remainer. With the labour shortages, wages will have to rise that was what I hoped to see. I see the EU as a capitalist institution. If somebodys more well-off, I can see the benefit. If youre on the bones of your arse, youre not going to benefit from freedom of movement.

James My ideal world would involve no borders between nations in terms of immigration. I saw the EU border system as discriminatory. There has to be a benefit to being an EU member, and one of those benefits has to be preferential treatment. Its rare I will fall out with someone over politics, because my politics are so weird.

Charlotte We agreed on statues whats the need to take them down? Nobodys saying their behaviour was OK, but these people were of their time. But then were not people with black heritage. If your ancestors had suffered in the slave trade, you might feel differently.

James Were anti-racist. There should be more explanation of context, but we shouldnt rush to take them down.

James Shes one of the closest people to my political views Ive found in a long time. We talked for so long, we went to the pub down the road.

Charlotte Were a bit nerdy were interested in stuff other people arent.

James and Charlotte ate at Bombay Brew, Rochdale

Want to meet someone from across the divide? Click here to find out more

Originally posted here:
Dining across the divide: I thought she was going to be an over-the-top liberal - The Guardian

JNS.org Pro-Israel liberals took particular pleasure last month in mocking the latest evidence that Jews on the far left know no limits in their hatred for Israel.

The object of their derision was Jewish Currents, a far-left publication that issued a formal apology to its readers for accepting an advertisement from the Dorot Fellowship for a 10-month-long fellowship program for American Jews in Israel. But as much as its hard not to laugh at the contortions those on the far-left go through to maintain their standing as good Jews in the eyes of their antisemitic ideological allies, mainstream Jewish groups that are still trying to promote a two-state solution with the Palestinians may be the ones who have lost touch with reality.

The fellowship was explicitly pitched as open to both Zionists and non-Zionists, and requires participants to return to the US upon completion of their stay rather than remaining in Israel. Many of its past graduates have gone on to careers in progressive groups that are bitterly critical of the Jewish state, like J Street and the New Israel Fund, and are vocal Israel-bashers. But the mere fact that this program took place in Israel was enough to generate a backlash against the magazine. Within a day, its editor issued a public apology, claiming that it was not in line with our values and had somehow not been vetted properly. That seemed to imply that the values of Jewish Currents consist of support for boycotts of Israel.

Jewish Currents was founded in 1946 as an organ of Communist Party USA. It tottered along for decades as an organ of red diaper babies still trying to justify the Stalinism of their deluded parents, even as it retreated a bit from their ideological extremism. Eventually even that limited audience died out, and the publication merged for a few years with the socialists of the group formerly known as the Workmens Circle, before collapsing altogether. But it was revived in 2018 by a new generation of radicals and scored something of a coup in 2020 when author Peter Beinart, the former tribune of liberal Zionism-turned dedicated anti-Zionist, left The Forward and joined its ranks.

This publication ought to be one of the preferred outlets of members of anti-Zionist and antisemitic groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine. But the audience of Jewish Currents remains small, perhaps because in its target demographic, the appetite may be limited for any title that includes the word Jewish.

Still, some of the mockery of Jewish Currents from liberal Zionists who still believe in Israels right to exist struck me as a bit hollow.

There are still many more American Jews who define themselves as liberal Zionists than those who identify with the anti-Zionist radicals at Jewish Currents. But the shift in the Democratic Party base in favor of anti-Israel figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) as well as her openly antisemitic Squad colleagues like Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and away from the aging moderates who still claim to be allies of the Jewish state, cant be ignored. People who read Jewish Currents and it is telling that AOC follows it on Twitter are illustrative of a tiny minority of American Jewry. But anti-Zionism is becoming less of an outlier position if not altogether respectable among Jewish elites in fields like journalism, something that is reflected constantly in the pages of publications like The New York Times.

Jews who think, like so many antisemites, that one Jewish state on the planet is one too many are setting themselves up for disappointment. The nearly 7 million Jews who live in Israel arent about to acquiesce to their extinction of their state. But the notion that a two-state solution involving the creation of what would actually be a second independent Palestinian state, along with the one in all but name currently ruled by Hamas in Gaza, is no more realistic than Beinarts fantasies about the end of Zionism.

The reason is that the ambitions of the Palestinians are more in tune with the values of Jewish Currents than they are with those who claim to be both pro-peace and pro-Israel. That was confirmed for the umpteenth time by a recent item published in Haaretz.

The article by anti-Zionist journalist Amira Hass was a reaction to the recent visit of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to the home of Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz. The meeting, at which Gantz made some concessions on financial support and other matters to Abbas without getting anything in return, was denounced by right-wing members of Israels governing coalition.

Gantzs critics were correct that appeasing Abbas while the PA still funds terrorism is wrong. But the move could be defended as being little different from past decisions by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing governments to allow funding to flow to Abbas and even, albeit indirectly via Qatar, to Hamas. The justification is that while Abbas and his Hamas rivals will never make peace with Israel, it is in the interest of the Jewish state to keep the Fatah government of the West Bank afloat and even to ensure the same for Hamas rule in Gaza if it will help motivate these bad actors to maintain relative quiet.

Yet it also stirred the hopes of some Jewish liberals that the meeting was a harbinger of future peace talks that would, with the proper amount of pressure coming from the Biden administration, mean that their two-state hopes are not dead.

But as Hass reported from Ramallah, when Abbas invited Palestinian intellectuals, writers and journalists to his headquarters to discuss this, those who thought he would give some outline of a political horizon for action were disappointed. Abbas did repeat his usual threats that the corrupt PA would collapse without more financial help, and that without even more Israeli concessions he would take drastic measures to revive the Palestinian cause. Abbas has been saying the same things throughout the 17 years of the four-year term to which he was elected as PA president, and his current threats are no more credible now than in the past.

But his main subject was something else. As Hass reported, To everyones surprise he expatiated at length about the origins of Ashkenazi Jews (Khazars who converted to Judaism, he says), and about the differences between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, Jews from Arab and Islamic countries.

Even after being given a gift of concessions at no cost to himself, Abbas main obsession remains promulgating long-since-debunked conspiracy theories such as the one about the Khazars in order to delegitimize Jewish rights to their homeland. Nor should it be surprising to learn that a man whose doctoral dissertation supported Holocaust denial should be thinking along these lines.

With such a person who is, after all, the supposed moderate as opposed to the radicals of Hamas peace is impossible. And since the nature of Palestinian political culture makes it hard to imagine a less hateful thinker replacing him, that vindicates the position of the majority of Israelis who believe that the status quo must be maintained indefinitely since there is no other choice compatible with their countrys survival.

The distance between those Americans who deny the legitimacy of a Jewish state, and a Palestinian leader who promotes antisemitic conspiracy theories, isnt so great. But though their position is much more respectable than one grounded in hate, it is those Jews who cling to a belief in two states as a path to peace who are truly disconnected from Palestinian reality.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNSJewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.

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Anti-Zionist Jews Are More in Tune With the Palestinians Than Jewish Liberals - Algemeiner

The Ontario Liberals are calling on the Doug Ford government to bring in the military to help long-term care homes and hospitals struggling amid a surge of COVID-19 cases.

The partys leader made the statement at a virtual news conference on Wednesday morning, saying that Quebec reached out for military assistance to help with its vaccine roll out and received it.

We believe that its so important to pick up the phone and call the prime minister, to reach out to the federal government to seek support and help from Canadas military to come into Ontario to help deal with the challenges that we have in both nursing homes and hospitals, Steven Del Duca said.

I dont want (Premier) Doug Ford to wait another week or two or five. I dont want to be scrambling at the last second. I want that conversation to occur today.

The Canadian Armed Forces were first deployed in Ontario in April 2020 to help seven long-term care homes grappling with severe COVID-19 outbreaks. The military has been utilized sporadically since then, helping at hospitals and nursing homes struggling amid outbreaks or severe staffing shortages.

More recently, in April 2021, three medical teams comprised of nursing officers, medical technicians and other Canadian Forces members were sent to Ontario hospitals to assist in intensive care.

Del Duca also asked that the premier recall the legislature and repeal Bill 124, which limits regular salary increases for nurses to one per cent for each 12-month period.

The bill was introduced by the Ford government in 2019 to ensure that increases in public sector compensation reflect the fiscal situation of the province.

We know how critically important that is because we are facing incredible burnout, incredible number of nurses in particular who are leaving the profession because they know in their heart the premier doesnt respect the work that they do, Del Duca said.

The Liberals are also calling for a speedier credential process for internationally trained nurses, to allow staff to be seconded at alternative hospital sites on an emergency basis, and for the government to invite other registered health professionals to participate in vaccinations in order to free up doctors and nurses.

Today we are urging Doug Ford to do the right thing. Take these five concrete suggestions, move on them urgently and position our health-care system so that it can continue to be resilient.

A spokesperson for the Minister of Health told CTV news Toronto in a statement they took swift action "to blunt transmission and prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed."

"If the Del Duca Liberals werent asleep at the wheel they would know that two weeks ago our government issued a call to arms to allow more individuals to safely administer the COVID-19 vaccine, including but not limited to registered and retired health professionals, paramedics, dentists, and firefighters," Alexandra Hilkene said.

"We will continue to work with our health care and hospital partners to ensure they have the support they need and will not hesitate to take further action as needed."

The government did not say whether the premier was considering asking for military assistance.

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Ontario Liberals call on Doug Ford to bring in military to help assist long-term care and hospitals - CTV News Toronto

Dont Look Up dramatically exposes the cynicism of the ruling class, who prioritise their own profits above saving the planet. But despite exposing the dead end of capitalism, the film ignores the potential for the working class to transform society.

Adam McKays satirical film Dont Look Up (available on Netflix) is one of the most divisive films of the year just gone.

The premise of the film is very simple. We follow astronomer and PhD student Kate (Jennifer Lawrance) and her supervisor, Prof Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), who have discovered an enormous comet heading straight towards Earth. They try to warn the world that there is a 99.7% chance that the planet will be destroyed.

Clearly, the comet is a metaphor for climate change. The 99.7% probability is a reference to the percentage of scientists who agree that climate change is happening and that human activity is responsible for it.

ALERT! This review contains significant plot spoilers.

Initially, when the astronomers attempt to alert the President of the existential threat, she reacts by calculating the effect of a possible decision on the upcoming mid-term elections. She ignores the threat when she concludes that telling people of the comet may not be advantageous to her mid-term electoral campaign.

Frustrated, the astronomers speak directly to the media. But they find that their news gets barely a mention, as it is squeezed between segments. They are told by the TV hosts that they need to keep it light, airy and fun. Theyre questioned over whether the comet is actually real, whether this is not all a lie, and whether the planet is actually in danger.

Only when the president drops in the polls does she decide to take action.

Kate tells her: I didn't vote for you. But this is obviously much bigger than my misgivings. So I will be 100% behind this effort. No matter how offensive I may find you.

In other words, she states that this is not a political question; that they should put aside their differences, and all come together.

BASH CEO, Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance), is an obvious composite of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos. He proposes mining the mineral resources on the comet, worth trillions of dollars. When his plan is leaked, the establishment launches a cynical campaign, explaining that mining the comet will create more jobs.

When the comet becomes visible in the night sky, the astronomers launch a Look Up campaign to convince the president to destroy it. The campaign is based on how liberals approach activism, i.e. raising awareness, asking the government politely to do something, with no involvement of workers or the masses.

In response, the President organises a Dont Look Up campaign, the supporters of which are clearly a sneering caricature of Trump supporters.

Meanwhile, Insherwells plan to mine rare minerals from the comet and shatter it into several harmless pieces fails. However, he, the president and a few hundred of the super-rich have a back-up plan to escape Earth on a spaceship and settle on another far-distant planet, leaving the ordinary people to die.

Dont Look Up is about how the capitalists despite having the resources and technology to solve the crisis prioritise their profits over saving the lives of the other 7.9bn people on the planet. To this effect, the film is good at exposing the cynical calculations of the establishment.

But where the film fails is its lack of any solution to this crisis facing humanity. This is ultimately since the film has been made from a liberal, not a socialist, point of view.

Of course, this is not the only film about a comet threatening our planet see Deep Impact and Armageddon, for example. However, it is extremely telling how confident these films are regarding saving humanity, in comparison to Dont Look Up.

Today, such illusions have been vaporised by the ruling class woeful response to the climate crisis and pandemic. It is true that if such issues are left to the capitalist class to solve, the result is that millions of ordinary people die.

Although the liberals are correct to not trust the conservative wing of the ruling class in solving these crises, they are incapable of seeing that the solution lies with the working class. In Dont Look Up, the working class is cynically portrayed as sheepish and stupid, simply as people who riot and loot.

For example, the film mocks how some people might be attracted to the idea that mining the comet will create jobs. This is typical of how the liberal establishment fail to understand how Trump gained popularity within a section of the working class with his promises of revitalising the US economy.; especially when you consider that the alternative was the establishment figure head Clinton.

If the entire planet is at stake, with eight billion lives about to be lost, just for a potential opportunity to make the rich even richer, then a very reasonable suggestion would be to take matters into our own hands.

This film has been released in a period where millions worldwide have taken to the streets over the climate, Black Lives Matter, and against austerity. But the potential for the working class to take power into its own hands to solve the crisis is completely ignored throughout.

At the end of the film the protagonists realise that all is lost; they are doomed. Kate says: Im thankful that weve tried. But had they actually tried?

Asking the establishment politely to give up their profits through a toothless campaign was bound to get them nowhere. And as their campaign predictably failed, they resigned themselves to their fate, went back to their families, and sought comfort in religion.

The film is profoundly pessimistic and fatalistic: a reflection of the outlook of liberals who see only doom and gloom as capitalism further deteriorates. Whether on the climate question, the pandemic, or even sexism and racism, they have nothing to say. They are oblivious to the fact that as capitalism declines, a new society is struggling to be born.

We need to shape our own fate and take ownership over our future. Whilst the liberals sit and weep, we fight for a socialist society based on the needs of the working class.

Original post:
Review: Don't Look Up: Don't leave it to the liberals to save us - Socialist Appeal