It is difficult to imagine today how strongly the reaction in the public was against Fischer’s challenge of a deeply entrenched national myth… the warning he wanted to give to younger historians was to avoid national partiality and not to identify the writing of history with nationalist causes or government politics. He lived his advice.… Read More Professor Fritz Fischer (1908 – 1999)
An excerpt from Adman Madman by Rupangi Sharma and Prahlad Kakar NB: Prahlad and I go back sixty-three years, so he is among the few l can classify as chaddi dost. I first saw him in knickers and hairy legs when his mum, a friend of my parents, brought him to the Sainik School Kunjpura… Read More Memoir: Prahlad Kakar and Dilip Simeon: A Friendship in the Shadow of the Naxals
The name of the book clearly suggests that it is part of a glorification drive for Modi. We need to ask whether it is appropriate to use university resources for this campaign. Apoorvanand The vice-chancellor (VC) of Delhi University, Yogesh Singh, last week exhorted the audience at a program in the conference hall of the university to think about giving… Read More A Controversial ‘Book Launch’ and Delhi University’s Descent Into Party Propaganda
How Nietzsche Came in From the Cold: Tale of a Redemption Philipp Felsch, translated by Daniel Bowles Reviewed by Morten Høi Jensen In 1935, the Russian-born philosopher Dimitry Gawronsky wondered how it could be that Nietzsche was held to be “the pioneer, the ideological founder of the Third Reich” at the same time that he… Read More Operation Nietzsche
NB: It could also be called the standardisation of thought; the co-option of history by ideology, and the elevation of outrage to an art form. DS Apoorvanand Historian Aparna Vaidik is under attack on social media. A controversy arose following a discussion on her new book at a lit fest in Kanpur. It was alleged that Vaidik… Read More Bhagat Singh, Kanpur lit fest, and the culture of hasty comment
Apocalyptic thought in the aftermath of the world wars George Prochnik and Anson Rabinbach In what way does writing about catastrophe, either predictively or retrospectively, risk kindling a new blaze? Conversely, is it possible to identify aspects of such texts that work against the drive to catastrophe? Conventional wisdom suggests that temporal distance from historical… Read More In the Shadow of Catastrophe: An Interview
It’s a conundrum of the philosopher’s biography that most basic human needs were alien to her By Judith Thurman The French philosopher Simone Weil was a soul at odds with herself and with a world of affliction. The causes she espoused as a social activist and the faith she professed as a mystic were urgent to… Read More The Supreme Contradictions of Simone Weil
Srinath Raghavan Vinayak Chaturvedi. Hindutva and Violence: V.D. Savarkar and the Politics of History Some years before his passing in 1966, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar wrote an essay titled “How Hindu organisers should read and write their national history.” Savarkar explained that he had long intended to write this essay, but political work had taken precedence. Now, in… Read More History in the Service of Hindutva
War heightens the kaleidoscope of temporality. That you might say is the premise of Grossman’s entire book. It is an effect of combat and of the proximity of death. There would be other such moments in World War II – Bagration, Normandy, and the Battle for Berlin come to mind. But perhaps never again, indeed… Read More Reading Vasily Grossman’s ‘Stalingrad’ and ‘Life and Fate’
Kindly donate to support Mainstream Weeklyhttps://tinyurl.com/2rsy4ss6++++++ In this issue: Letter to the readers, Mainstream, Dec 7 to Dec 28, 2024 Undertones of Parliamentary Election Schedule | Amal Mandal The ongoing controversy regarding places of worship! | Suresh Khairnar Logistical comparison of the EVM & the ballot paper | Faraz Ahmad A Bengali Nationalist’s Search for ‘Civic Consciousness’| Arup… Read More Mainstream, December 7 to 28, 2024
