Word: secularist
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...have published a revisionist book on the history of Partition and, in particular, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Muslim Pakistan who Indians of all political stripes have often blamed for the violent sundering of the Subcontinent. Singh's Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence portrays Jinnah as a secularist and a great statesman, an image that would make members of India's ruling, secularist Congress party squirm, as well as Islamists in Pakistan. But Singh's book seemed to pose the greatest threat to the BJP, a party struggling to find its political relevance since its thumping defeat...
Silence is hardly the word to characterize the matter of France and professions of religious piety. Last year the country's highest administrative court denied the naturalization request of an otherwise irreproachable Moroccan woman on the grounds that her wearing a burqa was incompatible with French secularist statutes. On Tuesday, French Scientologists raised complaints of religious intolerance when state prosecutors wrapped up their arguments against the church on charges of organized swindling by requesting that the organization be disbanded and barred in France. (Read an argument against the veil by Azadeh Moaveni...
...observers point out, however, that most of these types of decisions actually came out in the BJP's favor. If the past is any indicator, Modi and the BJP may yet use this latest judicial blow to their advantage by painting Modi as a victim of a Congress-led secularist inquisition, designed to amass larger shares of the Hindu vote. (See pictures of the tempestuous ruling dynasty of India...
...something-for-everyone approach appears to have worked. While anti-American sentiment among Turks rose to historic highs under President George W. Bush, polls show Obama with an approval rating in Turkey above 50%. Even the typically antagonistic Turkish press - left, right, secularist and Islamist - were united in their praise on Tuesday. "He won our hearts," read the banner headline on the mainstream daily Vatan. More important, all referred to Obama's message urging democratic progress. "We must all change," said the top-selling Hurriyet...
...until his sudden death in a plane crash in 1980. Sanjay's widow Maneka is now Sonia Gandhi's implacable enemy. Maneka and her son Varun are now members of the Hindu nationalist organization, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the most ferocious rival of Congress as well as Nehru's secularist tenets. (See pictures of the tempestuous Nehru dynasty of India...