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02/07/2006:

"Deepak Chopra: Democracy and the Untouchables"

...As the world's leading democracy, it's ironic that we have been so afraid of it elsewhere, supporting reactionary royal families and dictatorships in country after country, although capriciously our support of a Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Duvalier, Aristide, Assad, Musharaf, etc. can suddenly sour. We should welcome democracy for the same reason that India learned to accept the rise of the untouchables to power.

Historically, it was unthinkable that the most despised and dispossessed people in the country should share in its rule. But no horrors have come to pass, and India's democracy has been strengthened. The factions rising to power in South America and the Middle East are similarly dispossessed and despised. Much as we dislike the religious Shiites who are about to rule Iraq, weren't they the same rebels who tried to rise against Saddam in 1991 and were massacred by the thousands when the U.S failed to help them?
commondreams.org

Gee I think all the democracy and power-sharing in India would be news to the Dalit people.