It's not such a bad picture to my eyes. One of the kids is smiling...

Smiling tends to offset the exploitation angle. The kids knows he's performing for the camera.

I see that....what is the "fear"? Are we supposed to be scared of these kids? Are they scary because they are brown? because they are poor? because they have their arms raised? are they scary because they are brown, poor, and have their arms raised? they don't look scary for a single moment

What makes it scary is this
"It's the leaders' style to pick up good strong boys and take them to the forest to brainwash them, so whenever they see a Muslim, they'll kill him."

Riiight, So this bunch of people kill on a daily basis. It is strange that no one knows about this daily killing.

Seriously, this group is a fringe extreme right hate group, and does pose a problem. This sort of phenomenon is nothing new in India (or elsewhere) for that matter. It is by no means a mainstream group and in any position to become one in India.

As for Slate and its readers, It would be interesting if it bothers to carry articles about extreme right wing hate groups in the US, or even the extreme evangelicals, who fund terrorist organizations abroad, in places like the Northeastern states of India.

Al Mujahid: Dont forget that quote was by a communist. Its not true.There is a long history of rivalry between RSS and the Communists. Never ever take anything a communist says, esp stuff about religion at face value.

As someone who knows these issues fairly well through many relatives on both sides, its clear to me that this article is lazy and incompetent journalism at best and conscious vilification at worst.

The only explanation i can think of is that either the author has been fed some wrong ideas and has fallen for it, or she is trying to write stuff that will sell here without caring for the truth.

I realise issues of such complex nature are difficult to understand for a westerner,but there should atleast an effort made to dig deeper.

Let me repeat an approximate analogy: Bajrang Dal is like a fringe white supremacist organization, RSS is like Cristian Coalition(much better in my opinion though)and BJP is like Republican party.

I feel a little vindicated now though, because a few days back when i said the same things, not many agreed with me.

Eliza Griswold's claim to fame is being arrested in pakistan while trying to pass herself off through a security check point as a woman wearking a burka.

She is known for her left wing human rights articles.

I think her articles might be genuinely well intentioned but they are sensationalist.

It exoticizes these cultures by taking fringe elements of the culture and portraying them to be a part of the mainstream.

Articles like this become cannon fodder for idiots.

Example: Read this post by a racist bigot from the slate messageboards (strangely this post was reccomended by the editors)

Remember, centuries of uneducated masses being fed Monkey Gods, Rat Gods, and Cow Gods was done so for a reason...Build in fear of retribution from Gods with 8 arms, elephants, and outside religions...

Some of the responses to the post are even more ridiculous where the same guy talks about his supposed Indian muslim son in law eating monkey brains. (me thinks confusion w/ Indonesian sterotypes)

It struck me as a pretty stupid article, but those kids in the pic don't look the slightest bit scary. The kid on the right has a particularly cool hat.

Another white man slumming it in a brown ghetto!

When is an Indian journalist/magazine going to examine the ghettoes of America, with the killings, slaughters, welfare babies, nihilism, murder, drug addiction, AIDS, not only in the inner city, but the red neck murderer's too, who kill Sikhs in petrol stations and beat up Muslims and Hindus too?

Hurry up and do it we have to bring the nasty smelly underbelly of America to light!

We have to save America from itself!

We will help you!