bush backlash

The backlash from Bush's comments on the food habits of Indians is still reverberating, particularly in southern Tamil Nadu. Lawyers here are very active and quite fond of burning effigies. A famous Madurai lawyer that I just interviewed a month back burned an effigy of Bush yesterday in Madurai, and there were also Bush effigies burned in other southern cities, including Tirunelveli. According to The Hindu:

"TIRUNELVELI: The police on Tuesday arrested seven Democratic Youth Federation of India functionaries for allegedly burning the effigy of US President George Bush for his reported comments against the food habits of the Indians. The protestors burnt it near Gandhi Statue even as the police tried to snatch it."

Unfortunately photos are not available at this time but I am working on this. I don't think it's entirely accurate to say that Bush was commenting "against" Indians eating food. He was merely pointing out, using a very poor choice of words, that there are more middle class Indians than the entire population of America, and more middle class Indians means that more food is going to be consumed in India. It's a fact. But to blame the Indians (and Chinese) for soaring food prices is of course ridiculous. His comments, however, are being interpreted as "Americans don't want Indians to eat."

Details are sketchy at present, but I was rather alarmed to hear that here in Madurai "some foreigners were put under house arrest" in nearby Puthur, in response to the Bush comments. Putur is about a 10-15 minute bus ride from my house. I am not aware of any "foreigners" in Putur but my guess is that they could be part of some NGO and more likely Europeans than Americans. But here "American" usually means any person who is white, so it is unfortunately very likely that non-Americans are being put under house arrest for Bush's comments. I cannot imagine that they are very happy about this.

Hopefully no gangs are going to show up at my house. Somehow I doubt my neighbors are very concerned about the machinations of Bush and Co., or at least I hope they aren't. Only time will tell. Hopefully with the burning of the Bush effigies, tensions that had flamed up have now died down. Besides, the Madurai public has been distracted with a number of disturbances of late, and tensions between various groups are simmering almost as much as the summer heat. Lately a select few rowdies among the Madurai youth, with nothing better to do during summer break, have taken to desecrating the statues of various caste leaders, besides the one already desecrated two weeks ago, and then exacting revenge upon vehicles, public and private. Buses had to be taken off the roads again yesterday.

It is interesting to note that when the cut-out of Ambedkar here in my neighborhood was torn to shreds a few weeks back, just before Ambedkar's birthday, no one in Madurai uttered a peep. The cut-out was replaced (without any fanfare whatsoever) with a much smaller and less substantial poster of Ambedkar which was recently torn to shreds by miscreants yet again. Why is it when the Dalit leader's image is desecrated the public is silent? It is either because cooler heads prevail in my neighborhood, or those individuals who are offended are too intimidated to speak out. I think it is perhaps a mixture of both.

I wonder if the folks holding the Putur "Americans" under house arrest
would be willing to consider ankle-monitoring devices
to afford them a little more freedom.