Sarah Shaffi Rushdie’s Twitter account was inactive for a period following the attack, but the author begun posting again at the end of last year. He has also supported friend Hanif Kureishi’s recovery from a fall and spinal surgery, with Kureishi tweeting: “My friend Salman Rushdie, one of the bravest men I know, a man who has… Read More Salman Rushdie will not promote new novel after attack
By Gerry Shih, Karishma Mehrotra. and. Anant Gupta Published in: The Washington PostDate: January 25, 2023 All told, the remarkable steps taken by the government seemed to reinforce a central point of the BBC series: that the world’s largest democracy was sliding into authoritarianism under Modi, who rose to national power in 2014 and won reelection in 2019 on a Hindu nationalist… Read More Censorship, arrests, power cuts. India scrambles to block BBC documentary
THE THIN EDGE | The BBC documentary on Narendra Modi Ruchir Joshi The recently broadcast first part of India: The Modi Question, BBC’s documentary on Narendra Modi and the Gujarat killings of 2002, makes for curious viewing. For any Indian engaging with the news since 2002, much of the material is familiar, the ground the film explores… Read More Lingering shadow
Bharat Bhushan The airing of part one of a BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question” has raised political hackles in India. It suggests that the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi was directly responsible for the riots, which left 2,000 people dead, mostly Muslims. It has since been taken down from YouTube and other social media… Read More Gujarat riots documentary: BBC’s motives are less clear
Truth, and the memory of truth, are public enemy number one for authoritarian governments today. The most relentless Swachh Bharat programme has been a campaign against Sachh Bharat. Mitali Saran The guiding principle of the Modi government is ‘If you can’t fix it, bury it.’ Information is power, so suck up as much of it… Read More One nation, one version
Olga Shparaga The imprisoned Belarusian opposition politician Maria Kalesnikava has been in a critical condition since the end of November. In October she was awarded an honorary professorship at the University of Salzburg. The philosopher Olga Shparaga, a fellow member of the exiled Coordination Council, pays tribute to a feminist legend. ‘It is a great… Read More Risking all in the fight for democracy
First posted November 11, 2016 A few weeks ago, five people who were selling papers outside Hyde Park were arrested by the police for obstruction. When taken before the magistrates, they were all found guilty, four of them being bound over for six months and the other sentenced to forty shillings fine or a month’s… Read More George Orwell: Freedom of the Park (1945)
First posted January 13, 2013 NB: These extracts are from the Book within a Book in Chapter 9 of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four; first published in 1949. Sixty fours years later, the dystopian vision contained in the book throws light on the contemporary world, its fascination with war, violence and the fanatical ideologies that justify a continuous system of thought… Read More Ignorance is Strength; Freedom is Slavery; War is Peace
First posted September 13, 2017 While Hindu-right organisations, under the patronage of the Narendra Modi government, are claiming spaces within the spectrum of associations with instrumental roles to play in the India’s nationalist movement, the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) – the primary government-sponsored institution for funding historical research and publications – has found itself… Read More Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta: ICHR Blocks Manuscript on Freedom Struggle Because It Makes the Sangh Look Bad, Alleges Historian
Deniz Polat Ankara University On New Year’s Day, Sezen Aksu, Turkey’s most famous composer/lyricist/singer artist, released a new version of an old song, “Living is a Wonderful Thing” on YouTube. The release antagonized pro-government religious groups in Turkey, and a huge debate erupted in the country. The reason for the controversy is the following lyrics: “With… Read More Turkey’s Endless Test with Artistic Freedom: The Case of Sezen Aksu
After the truth-shower 