India's Contradictions

The Commonwealth Games opened in New Delhi yesterday, while India continues its struggle to shake its reputation for mismanagement and religious strife.

If the latest culture-clash sitcom on NBC is any indication, India is on North Americans’ minds these days. Oh, it’s also been in the news lately.

Anyone expecting some hilarious, possibly monkey-related mishaps at the opening ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi was disappointed, as the competition kicked off without a hitch on Sunday. Still, an editorial in the Toronto Star (which ran an India-themed edition on Saturday) says that the missteps leading up to the games were a lesson for Toronto in what not to do, as the city prepares to host the 2015 Pan American Games. Poor conditions in the athletes village, a collapsed bridge, and construction delays have "badly eroded the reputation of Commonwealth Games organizers in New Delhi," the paper says.

The Globe and Mail’s editors criticize the recent Indian court ruling on the Adyodya Mosque, which was built in 1527 on a site considered holy by both Muslims and Hindus. In 1992, a Hindu mob destroyed part of the mosque, yet a judge awarded control of two-thirds of the site to Hindus. “There would have been a case for what some Canadians call reasonable accommodation,” says the Globe, suggesting a small Hindu shrine could have been placed on mosque property. The decision “effectively rewards the mob” and encourages more violence in a country prone to religious strife.

The Star’s Haroon Siddiqui, who was born in India, has a different perspective on the country's recent troubles. “[T]o me, all this sounds normal,” he writes. “India is forever in a crisis — and is not.” The Indian contradictions between “Efficiency and chaos … Wealth and poverty … Gandhian non-violence and murderous frenzy … can still unnerve Canadians,” Siddiqui says, but the good always outweighs the bad, and Canadians can’t afford to be squeamish now that the time is ripe to engage with India. As America’s economic troubles continue, “Canada can no longer postpone finding new markets,” he writes, and with a booming economy of one billion consumers, India is a big market indeed.