ASIA-PACIFIC Engaging India is a weekly online column analysing the issues, trends and forces behind the business and politics shaping India and its impact on the world, which appears on FT.com India, a dedicated online section on India. Engaging India appears every Thursday morning exclusively on FT.com India and is written by Jo Johnson, the Financial Times’ South Asia bureau chief; Amy Yee, New Delhi correspondent; and Joe Leahy, Mumbai correspondent.
It is a fair bet that when the ruling elite of a poor developing country ignores a non-violent protest by 25,000 desperate citizens, it will soon face a violent one. When a 25,000-strong army of landless workers, indigenous tribespeople and “untouchables” from the bottom of Indian society marched 320km to Delhi to highlight the growing divide between haves and have-nots, they were met with crushing indifference. Admittedly, their timing was bad: Mumbai’s Sensex index on Monday punched through the 20,000 mark for the first time, triggering orgiastic self-congratulation by the English language media and eclipsing all other national news.
