For some time now I’ve been wanting to work on a book called “constitutional Indians” – a concept that I have briefly touched upon in the conclusion of my book Christianity and Politics in Tribal India: Baptist Missionaries and Naga Nationalism, just published by Permanent Black and Ashoka University in collaboration with the New India Foundation.

Partha Chatterjee: No one, not even Indians, can claim to be part of an ancient nation

My argument in it is that, for a putatively renegade ethnic community like the Nagas, the “idea of India” hangs precariously in the balance, supported by a piece of paper, the Indian Constitution, which we have until recently understood as a guarantee of equal rights to Indian citizens irrespective of religion, ethnicity, class, and gender….

https://scroll.in/article/1005123/for-nagas-the-idea-of-india-is-not-defined-by-the-brahmanical-notion-of-a-timeless-civilisation

Arjun Appadurai: Ripping Apart the Central Vista Is Nothing Short of the Reconquest of Delhi / Romi Khosla: Central Vista Project is Government’s Desire to Change History

Suhas Palshikar: Bhoomi pujan of the new republic // Pratap Bhanu Mehta: Political colonisation of Hinduism

Anand K. Sahay: The idea behind capturing power in any kind of way: fair or foul

Sankarshan Thakur – Compliant and complicit: Indians are living the funereal carnival of their own dispossession

Suhas Palshikar: A monumental failure of governance // ‘There should be no clampdown on information, people can voice grievances on social media’: Supreme Court

Suhas Palshikar – Disenfranchising The ‘Other’ // Ajaz Ashraf interviews Ashis Nandy on the future of India