The Paradoxes of India's Politics ^Sale

Politics in India is full of paradoxes, and caste, community, education, all civil society matters are subject to intense politics, which is very often so quixotic that it is not funny. India is the only country in the world that has practiced toleration for thousands of years and, at the same time, runs a successful democracy today. This makes toleration a sine qua non of democracy; a proposition which applies to all real practitioners of this free system of government. Pakistan, an Islamic country, is home today to 203 million Muslims, India, a ‘secular’ state is home to 201 million Muslims! There are no wakfs in Turkey; Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Tunisian. In India, wakfs thrive though on independence, zamindaris and jagirdaris were abolished as were the princely States. India’s political life, thus, is full of contradictions, though it is 75 years old. When will clarity come, is a question the author asks.