India election question: What does Congress mean by "freedom of personal laws"?
I'm drawing on translated materials here—I don't know what was said in the original Hindi and it seems possible that what's been said is being misrepresented in some way.
From what I am able to see, though, it seems like an odd idea to campaign on—it's hard to see strong arguments for law not applied equally to all. Is there something I'm missing?
@haskman 😂 Thank you — I'd be the first to admit I really don't know enough to have a strong opinion (or maybe even an opinion) about any of it, and was half expecting to get torn to shreds. So if a political part takes some flak here instead of me that's not an outcome I'll object to 😅
@haskman ... a poorly considered single law for all, that fails to take into account cultural norms for various communities or allow individuals the opportunity to exercise freedoms they really should be granted is harmful for those particular groups and, ultimately, for everyone.
It feels a little like a false choice is being offered between one law for all that disadvantages some or "personal laws". It's starting to make more sense.
@drupler Appreciate the input and I acknowledge there's going to be a range of views on this — my intention here has not been to start a debate that leads to any personal attacks, and I'd like to take this opportunity to make that clear🙏 I hope we can talk about ideas without making it about the character of the people involved in the discussion... I know that's not necessarily what you're intending here so I'd like to avoid the discussion going in that direction🧡 @haskman@mastodonindians
@drupler I think you're within your rights to have an opinion, and I hear what you're saying. I'd also like to be able to have a discussion about the question I asked, and for that people need to be able to speak with each other and exchange meaning. I'm not going to block you for having a view. But we're all people here and we all have reasons for the views we hold. We're all trying to make sense of the world as best we can. Let's remember that behind these screens are people 🙏 @haskman
@drupler I share your concerns about the students and the farmers—the unemployment... the detention of opposition party leaders (the timing of various investigations into them)... lots of issues that I don't feel I know enough about to talk about or understand, but there definitely are serious issues that haven't had as much scrutiny as they should ahead of the vote. ...
I've heard the outlet is known for taking a less-than-objective stance. Primarily, I'm trying to understand whether the way it's portraying and framing this particular issue is accurate.
@drupler That's interesting—I didn't know that. I'm not averse to discussing the hypocrisy of anyone. Hypocrisy is wrong no matter where it happens. My interest here is in understanding whether what is claimed to have been said is accurate—a TV report claims something was said... is it true? And then has it been taken out of context? Is it being misrepresented? Because taken at face value it seems odd. But perhaps that's because my historical knowledge is lacking. I'm asking to learn.
@drupler
Thank you—I appreciate you taking the time to fill me in on this background.
"Even if they do, it won't be UCC but another act of alienation for Muslims."
I think this is what I'm grappling with and what I'd missed—the idea of everyone being treated fairly and equally under a law is sound and not an unusual concept. But there's an issue in this particular context about whether the "universal" law that will be applied will treat people fairly or push an unhelpful agenda.
"BJP is trying hard to keep the election polarised but it's not working anymore. Don't help them... it's not even ranked in the top 20 issues around this ongoing election."
This is also very helpful—thank you. I'm surprised this is what got airtime if there are so many other things that have more public attention right now.
Is there a good way someone not in India and with limited access to local-language media can see what the top issues are? Any sources you'd recommend?
@drupler ok, thank you — I've run across some of those before. For a while I was turning to The Hindu, which seemed to take a more balanced view than some other outlets, and The Print. But The Print seemed to take a surprisingly pro-New Delhi stance on the issue recently with Canada's accusations, so I haven't been watching their stuff so much. The Wire has done some good reporting but I think they dropped the ball with that Facebook story, and that's put me off them a little bit. @haskman
@drupler I'm glad you mentioned the Indian Express—I'd forgotten them but you're right, they do some good reporting and I've found them very helpful before. I'm going to bookmark all these ones you've suggested... thank you again! Glad you're subscribing as well. No matter where we get our news it's important to pay for it—it doesn't gather itself. A lot of people seem to think it does! 😅 @haskman
So I want to leave .social for a better server that doesn't federate with Threads, but the ones on the fedipact website either actually do federate with Threads anyway (looking at you mas.to) or they're invite-only. :(
@trumpet Idealogically, as well, if people accept interacting with Meta products (because right now Meta wants to make that appealing), it makes this whole Fediverse concept meaningless. What's the point of building a decentralised alternative social network system if we just allow the same known bad actors to destroy it the way they do all other competition. Not everyone understands that yet, but that doesn't (at all) mean it isn't what's going to happen. I don't want to be any part of that.
@trumpet There are issues with the "limit/user-block" approach and the risk of the compromise is that it actually just ends up not meeting anyone's needs. It's being pushed by central Mastodon development, who have been having non-disclosed meetings with Meta and who are accepting development help from people compromised by links with Meta. It weakens the oversight structure that keeps instances accountable to communities and keeps the whole Fediverse healthy. It's a very destructive "solution".
@trumpet Something that could work is setting up an alternative instance—one federating with Threads and the other not—so they run as separate entities but are run under the same administration as mas.to right now. There might be a small overhead, but with the same total number of users a lot of the costs should be similar. It may be possible to migrate people at a database level so they don't have to do it themselves. But there are already plenty of instances that federate with Threads.