One can behold in capitalism a religion, that is to say, capitalism essentially serves to satisfy the same worries, anguish, and disquiet formerly answered by so-called religion. The proof of capitalism’s religious structure – as not only a religiously conditioned construction, as Weber thought, but as an essentially religious phenomenon – still today misleads one… Read More Walter Benjamin: Capitalism as Religion (1921)
Helen Davidson Chinese censors have reportedly been ordered to flood social media with innocuous posts about Xinjiang to drown out mounting complaints of food and medication shortages in a region under lockdown for more than a month. The Ili Kazakh autonomous prefecture, also known as Yili, is home to about 4.5 million people, and is believed to… Read More Xinjiang lockdown: Chinese censors drown out posts about food and medicine shortages
The French newspaper Le Monde described the book as “luminous” if also dense with ideas Angelique Chrisafis in Paris A novel depicting France’s #MeToo movement by the French punk feminist writer Virginie Despentes, irreverently titled Cher Connard – which roughly translates as Dear Arsehole – has become a bestseller, prompting a debate about sexual harassment and… Read More Dear Arsehole
Adam Morton There is no shortage of things to say about what’s going wrong. The extent of damage caused at 1.2C of global heating since pre-industrial levels is proving greater than was forecast by climate scientists not that long ago. As discussed last week, the disastrous toll of the historic flooding in Pakistan and heatwaves and droughts… Read More Reasons for (cautious) optimism: the good news on the climate crisis
Apoorvanand One can only sympathise with the vice chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University when she denies the originality of her ideas to defend herself. When attacked for thoughts expressed during a lecture on BR Ambedkar and gender on August 22, she said in exasperation, “I am only a professor, not an original thinker.” Which meant… Read More Are professors not expected to be original thinkers? How the JNU VC has undermined her own role
Brandon Gage Halfway through his invasion of Ukraine’s sixth bloody month, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power in Moscow is imploding as scores of Kremlin officials are calling upon the 69-year-old autocrat to quit. Putin had anticipated his February 24th “special military operation” to be a cakewalk through the Russian-controlled East into the Ukrainian… Read More ‘We ask you to relieve yourself of your post’: Kremlin officials are turning against Vladimir Putin
Comedian Kunal Kamra’s scheduled show in Haryana’s Gurugram was called off following protests by the right-wing organisation Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) Kamra was slated to perform for his gig on September 17 and 18 at Studio Xo Bar, however, it was ordered to be cancelled after the VHP filed a complaint with Gurugram’s district commissioner.… Read More Dare you to condemn Godse: Kunal Kamra’s letter to VHP after show gets cancelled
First posted May 8, 2018 NB: This is a longer version of my review of this book which appeared in the April 2018 issue of Biblio. DS The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962–1976 By Frank Dikötter; Bloomsbury Press, 2016 The GPCR was yet another example of the totalitarian impulse, the open secret that motivates all… Read More Book review: The State as Faction: Mao’s Cultural Revolution
First posted on May 18, 2016 NB: The late and much revered Professor Sabyasachi Bhattacharya’s Rabindranath Tagore: An Interpretation appeared in 2011. His most recent essay on Tagore deals with the much-discussed theme of nationalism. DS Antinomies of Nationalism and Rabindranath Tagore In our endeavour to understand Rabindranath Tagore’s approach to nationalism we have to recognize three… Read More Sabyasachi Bhattacharya: Antinomies of Nationalism and Rabindranath Tagore
First posted on January 24, 2017 By CZESLAW MILOSZ Translated by Louis Iribarne Milosz’s poem has been described as one of the most moving tributes to the Holocaust victims ever written In Rome on the Campo dei Fiori baskets of olives and lemons, cobbles spattered with wine and the wreckage of flowers. Vendors cover the trestles with… Read More Campo dei Fiori by Czeslaw Milosz
After the truth-shower 