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A Bangkok on the Yamuna? Lessons from the Thai insurgency « Shadow Warrior
- Rajeev Srinivasan on why the Thai troubles should be an eye-opener for India, which faces similar insurgents with covert agendas
- Rajeev Srinivasan on why the Thai troubles should be an eye-opener for India, which faces similar insurgents with covert agendas
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What alarms me about the Bangkok situation is that I can easily imagine a similar situation in New Delhi, with the capital held hostage by gangs of Communist insurgents, quite possibly barricaded inside the JNU campus, where they gain succor and support from armchair urban guerillas. Just as in Bangkok, we might watch on TV the hopes of a stable and progressing Indian economy going up in thick, black, acrid smoke – welcome back to the dark ages of ‘roti-kapda-makan’ and the rent-seeking neta-babu-journalist nexus, a preview of which we got with the 2G scam.
There are differences, of course. The Indian Army is not involved in business, whereas the Thai army is a smaller version of the Pakistani Army in that context – it runs many industries, and is not dependent on the national government for all of its budget.
But the eerie parallels to, say, Nepal, are many: the end result may well be a ‘secular’ movement to overthrow the Buddhist monarchy, which will then be portrayed as roundly corrupt, godless, feudal – whatever else the spin-meisters can think of.
The destruction of the Thai State would be a tragedy. It was just about the only Asian nation that, through some fancy footwork, avoided being colonized. This has given the average Thai a certain self-confidence. Secondly, turmoil is likely to be exploited by vulture-like missionaries descending on the country, much as they did in the aftermath of the tsunami elsewhere. In Nepal, it is reported that a million people were converted to Christian sects after the Communists took over. Similarly the number of mosques, and presumably adherents, has soared. We might find the same in Thailand.
Odd, isn’t it, that there are Communist revolutions in Hindu and Buddhist monarchies, but never in Christian or Mohammedan monarchies? Coincidence? Communists have been accused of being ‘useful idiots’ for others. Let us note that, according to reliable sources, the manifesto of the Communist terrorists in India speaks at length about extinguishing ‘imperialism’ and ‘liberalism’, but is silent about ‘poverty’ and ‘tribals’.
The extinction of the State, neo-colonization and neo-conversion – these are the downsides of globalization. India would be well-advised to watch the Thai example with great care.
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