There is a danger in focusing too closely on the lack of fit between what the US says and what it does because it distracts us from the decisive shift away from pluralism in Western countries GAZA casualties live statistics Mukul Kesavan 2023 will go down in history as the year of the cynic. When… Read More Mukul Kesavan: A cynic’s year
Driving down Prithviraj Road, one of New Delhi’s famously leafy avenues, I passed a lane that opened on to it. The street sign said “Aurangzeb Lane”. Aurangzeb Road might have morphed into A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Road, but the emperor lives on, if only in a little feeder lane. Of the roads that commemorate Mughal emperors, all… Read More Mukul Kesavan: Delhi’s roads tell the story of the republic
Vladimir Putin anticipated Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by writing screeds about the essential one-ness of Russians and Ukrainians, united as they were, in his view, by a common origin in the medieval principalities of Kievan Rus. Putin insisted that Ukraine had no real tradition of independent statehood and blamed Lenin and the Bolsheviks for inventing… Read More Mukul Kesavan: Ukraine – a conflict between two transnational entities / Vladimir Sorokin: Putin sits atop a crumbling pyramid of power
Festive celebrations were disrupted, Jesus statues were smashed and effigies of Santa Claus were burned in a spate of attacks on India’s Christian community over Christmas.Amid growing intolerance and violence against India’s Christian minority, who make up about 2% of India’s population, several Christmas events were targeted by Hindu right wing groups, who alleged Christians… Read More Hannah Ellis-Petersen: Statue smashed in spate of attacks on India’s Christian community / Sunita Viswanath: How do we break the cycle of religious violence in South Asia? / Mukul Kesavan – Magic and mayhem: The death cult at Haridwar
NB: India’s Prime Minister has warned the world of the threat of ‘regressive thinking.’ The rhetorical artistry of our Great Leader is indeed admirable; although I think his camp-followers will miss the irony. The article below describes what can happen in India in the name of politically correct nationalism. And here’s another: A Grateful Nation. We… Read More Mukul Kesavan: Photobombing death and the banality of evil / Evil, framed. By SLAVENKA DRAKULIĆ
I think I began to think about sport and nationalism a couple of years ago, when the Indian cricket team decided to take the field wearing specially commissioned military fatigue caps. This was Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s idea and Virat Kohli, who was captain by then, supported it enthusiastically. The gesture was made in solidarity with the… Read More Mukul Kesavan: The Nation State and Modern Sport
The government’s willingness to hold the Kumbh Mela in the middle of the worst health emergency in a hundred years and its unwillingness to curtail it despite a tsunami of second wave Covid infections raise an interesting question. Is Narendra Modi a rational actor on his own terms? Rational, here, doesn’t mean ‘secular’ or ‘progressive’.… Read More Mukul Kesavan – Kumbh vs Corona The logic of Hindu nationalism / Milind Murugkar: The political project of Hindutva is up against many contradictions
First posted March 29, 2021 NB: The authorities of a self-respecting university or college are expected to defend their staff and students. That was the case, anyway, when I was a student over 50 years ago. But Ashoka’s Founders were so infuriated by Professor Mehta’s criticisms of the Modi government that they not only pushed him… Read More Mukul Kesavan: An Ashoka for our time / Navneet Sharma & Prakrati Bhargava: No space for liberal education
The largest stadium in the world by capacity is the “Rungrado 1st of May Stadium” in Pyongyang, North Korea. Oddly enough, it isn’t named after Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Representative of the Korean People. Luckily for us, the Supreme Representative of the Indian People, unafflicted by bashfulness, stepped up to rename the second-largest stadium in… Read More Mukul Kesavan: The Absolutely Justifiable Renaming Of Stadium After PM Modi
NB: A friend sent me this piece a few days ago, and I’m grateful, for I hadn’t read it. It dates back to 2012. It’s a reminder of Kesavan’s brilliance and dexterity as a writer. Our times impose a somber tint to what we feel obliged to say, but every now and then we need… Read More Mukul Kesavan on connoisseurs of the unavailable
After the truth-shower 