Reference: India's hidden fragility, Bangkok Post, November 6, 2008

The nation of India has been a stable secular democracy of great cultural heritage and diversity since independence from Britain in 1947 wthout any non-democratic interventions in government. India is home to more people, more ethnic groups, more languages, more religions, both home grown and imported, and more cultural traditions than there are in North America and Europe combined. India's size and diversity are two of many measures of its greatness and importance in the global community of nations. Cultures often clash in this immense collage but the nation endures and that relationship is not a measure of India's fragility but of its robustness. The vicious negative spin put on India's diversity from an extremely narrow perspective (India's hidden fragility, Bangkok Post, November 6, 2008) appears to be blind to these more important global realities that India represents.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand