My Jewish husband and I are being used as cannon fodder in BJP’s attempts to distract from Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Manipur. But there’s another reason I am being targeted. Sunita Viswanath On 28 June, I woke up to the news that my name was plastered across the Indian press. Many media outlets including Hindustan Times, Zee… Read More Not George Soros agent, I am a practising Hindu woman against Hindu nationalism
NB: Is India an empire? The British Raj certainly was, and the RSS/BJP ideologues who constantly denouce the Macaulay tradition in education; don’t seem to mind the continuance of colonial police codes and the divide and rule method of governance. Do they imagine that a combination of communal ideology and colonial policing will keep them… Read More Modi preaching peace abroad as Manipur burns reinforces historical alienation of the North East
Last week, the Wall Street Journal’s Sabrina Siddiqui faced trolling after she asked Narendra Modi about discrimination against minorities in India. The White House on Monday said the online harassment of journalist Sabrina Siddiqui, who asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi a question at a press conference last week, was completely unacceptable. On June 23, Modi had taken… Read More White House condemns harassment of journalist who questioned PM Modi
Hindu society must think about its own role in the creation of this Hindutva edition of Ramkatha. The electoral and behaviour of a large section of the community has led its leaders and cultural representatives to believe that its sensibilities have been so debased that it will have to accept Adipurush as its Ramayana. Adipurush has presented Hindu society… Read More ‘Adipurush’ speaks the language of Hindutva supporters. Why are they opposing the movie?
First posted April 29, 2020 Our history is a battleground. What we remember and what we forget is essential to the control of the national narrative Nearly a month after Gandhi’s assassination, Sardar Patel, the then home minister, wrote, on February 27, 1948, to prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and placed the blame squarely on “a fanatical… Read More Anil Nauriya: Manufacturing Memory
First posted January 20, 2016 The non-violent soldier of Islam, Bharat Ratna, died 28 years ago, on January 20, 1988. The assault on the university named after him in Pakistan is yet another attack on his legacy. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988) is better remembered in India as Frontier Gandhi, and in Pakistan as Bacha… Read More Mukulika Banerjee: Remembering Bacha Khan. The beleaguered legacy of Frontier Gandhi, Abdul Ghaffar Khan
NB: The RSS and BJP are inventing ever new avatars of communal politics, mixed with a generous dose of an Orwellian nightmare. A theocracy is the use of the state by religious leaders (self-styled representatives of God); and civil religion the use of religion by the state as in Japanese State Shinto. However, Caesaropapism (Caesar+Pope)… Read More Madhavan Palat: The Sengol Is a Symbol of ‘Divine Right’ to Power. It Does Not Belong in Parliament. सेन्गोल के रास्ते नेहरू की एंट्री | Sengol debate & Nehru’s return
Alan Morinis In February, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, had expressed his great joy at the revival of the Kumbh Mela pilgrimage in the locality of Tribeni in Hooghly district, West Bengal. At the time, Modi said, “[D]o you know why it is so special? It is special, since this practice has been revived after… Read More Toxic agenda
Bharat Bhushan Union minister of state for law and justice, Satyapal Singh Baghel, made a statement that there were very few tolerant Muslims, and even those who appear to be tolerant use it as “a mask” to stay in public life; to become governors, vice presidents and vice-chancellors. Nobody reacted; not the Opposition parties, not… Read More Indian Union Minister’s hate speech about Muslims liable for prosecution
Mukul Kesavan To watch an election show as an anti-majoritarian spectator in the time of Narendra Modi is a traumatic business for two reasons. One, you mostly lose and two, sometimes even the ones you win, you lose. There was a moment during the Karnataka results show when the Congress’s leads dropped to a bare… Read More BJP-bin Dakshin
After the truth-shower 