NB: A recent article headed The Right is Writing Now, celebrates unsung warriors, and (if the report is correct) criticises the ‘Left’ for ignoring them. It is unfortunate that history has become a battleground and that aristocratic warfare seems to be the sole focus of those historians who choose to identify themselves as ‘Right’. (Judging… Read More P. Sainath: ‘The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom’
Webinar Link: https://youtu.be/m16ytCnXfBg About the Lecture: Ours is an age of ideology. Ideology is a means of submerging everyday existence into a dream-like waiting room. Ideologically-sustained life is a relentless deferral of presence on behalf of a hoped-for glorious future. Our gaze is prompted backward and forward, the future being the domain wherein the past may be… Read More The Disappearing Present: Reflections on Ideology: Webinar on October 16, 2020
First posted October 03, 2019 NB: This article appeared today in the Deccan Chronicle, as part of a series commemorating Mahatma Gandhi’s 150 birth anniversary. This is an audio-visual recording of a talk with the same title, given on October 4, 2019, under the auspices of the Raza Foundation. DS The Compass Gandhi’s life-work combined a complex of ideals, concepts and practical… Read More The Compass
First posted July 20, 2012 I as a German prefer much more to see India under British Government than under any other…I must not connect the fate of the German people with these so-called ‘oppressed nations’ who are clearly of racial inferiority. Adolf Hitler, Mein KampfNB: I placed these comments on a Facebook site called Lets Speak India,… Read More Hitler’s annihilation of the Romanis
First posted January 17, 2018 NB: Amidst the fanfare of the Israeli Prime Ministerial visit to India, and the warmth being displayed towards him by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it may be of interest for Israeli citizens to know the ideological roots of India’s current ruling dispensation. DS Briefly put, it’s simple: their icon, V.… Read More Some information for Israelis (and the rest of us)
First posted Hiroshima Day, August 6, 2014 NB: This article was written for an edited volume on contemporary terrorism, more specifically, terror in the name of Hindutva. I disagree with the habit of approaching terrorism with a prefix, but nevertheless wrote it, in order precisely to make my point more explicitly. It was completed more than… Read More A matter of time
First posted November 2011 (written in 1988) Dilip Simeon NB: This essay on Marxist economic categories arose out of a lecture delivered in Hindu College in 1987, and was published in Mainstream, Vol XXVI No. 35 June 11, 1988 The founder of neo-classical economics, Alfred Marshal, defined economics as the study of man “ in the ordinary business of… Read More A Summary of Marx’s Critique of Capital
First posted August 27, 2016 Oh what a tangled web we weave / when first we practice to deceive: Sir Walter Scott The Supreme Court recently took up a PIL challenging a statement made by Rahul Gandhi alleging that the RSS killed Mahatma Gandhi. (Rahul Gandhi was then reported to have amended his statement, and the RSS demanded an apology. A comment sent… Read More The Supreme Court, Gandhi and the RSS
DHIRENDRA K JHA is a contributing writer at The Caravan November 1, 2022 NB: How things have changed since June 4, 2024. Mr Bhagwat, not to mention Messrs Naidu and Nitish, have been emboldened by the unforeseen successes of the opposition INDIA alliance. The two N’s are sneering at the opposition, which is ironic, because it is… Read More Bhagwat eclipsed
Dilip Simeon Permanent spring: Seminar # 607, March 2010 ON 30 April 1908, two young men, Prafulla Chaki and Khudiram Bose, entered the boundary of the Muzaffarpur Club in Bihar and waited for the hated judge Douglas Kingsford to appear. They were members of Jugantar, the foremost nationalist-revolutionary group to emerge during the Swadeshi movement… Read More Permanent Spring: Indian Maoism and the Philosophy of Insurrection
After the truth-shower 