The rise of "Hindu Nation"  

Posted by The Merry Men

Marian Fitzwalter sends this in.

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Neil Gray on the rise of "Hindu Nation" :

The abject poverty and extreme wealth divisions created by the ‘brutal simplicities’ of neo-liberal economic regimes require legitimising forms of national ideology to mediate and obfuscate their wrath. In the context of deepening neoliberalism, cultural nationalism has come to the fore as an ideology which gives coherence to the activities of the nation-state and capital, and which best serves and manages the conflicting requirements of accumulation and legitimation for neoliberal elites. Thus Radhika Desai contends:

... the deployment of the language of particularity, of cultural difference and nationalism, in counterfeit answer to the accelerating universalism of capitalism, which it supports and promotes, is the ingenious reality of the right today.i

In India, the chief cultural nationalist movement is Hindutva: a communalist Hindu nationalist ideology seeking to conflate the very idea of ‘Indian-ness’ with ‘Hindu-ness’. The core practitioners of Hindutva are organised under the umbrella of the Sangh Parivar organisation, which is avowedly inspired and influenced by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) a ‘social and cultural organisation’ with a known fascist pedigree and a Hindu majoritarian political agenda. The importance of this movement, a deeply conservative multi-headed Hydra, can be measured by the presence within its ranks of the former ruling party of India, now the main party of opposition, the Bharitiya Janata Party (BJP).

On organizations and communication  

Posted by The Merry Men

From "Organizations" (March and Simon):

Not only are organizational communications characteristically specific with respect to the channels they follow, but they also exhibit a high degree of specificity with respect to content. Here there is a strong contrast between organizational communications and communications through mass media. The audiences to whom newspapers and radio address themselves possess no common technical vocabulary; there is no subject about which they have any shared special knowledge; there is no good way of predicting what they will be thinking about when the mass communication reaches then. In principle at least, the recipient of an organizational communication is at the opposite pole. A great deal is known about his special abilities and characteristics. This knowledge is gained from considerable past experience with him and from a detailed knowledge of the work environment in which he operates.