Akhtar Balouch Published March 23, 2015 First posted May 29, 2015 NB – This is a beautiful and moving story. It provides yet another example of human goodness, and reminds us how quick we are to pass it by, to overlook it, because we are so accustomed to negativity, denunciation and animosity. Beneath it (in the original) are scores… Read More Daya Ram Gidumal of Sindh: A silent servant, a silent sufferer. A good man
First posted September 06, 2020 NB: This is an example of how the micro-history of ordinary people can subvert all our stereotypes about animus based on race, ideology, religion and identity. Worth reading. DS. A love story between a 23 year-old black Army nurse and a 19 year-old white German POW during World War II? You… Read More Enemies in Love
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
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729 – 1781) An uneasy peace ruled in Jerusalem. Saladin’s victory against the Crusaders had cost the Muslims dearly, both in the loss of troops and in the depletion of the royal treasury. Saladin was resolved to rule with civilized humanity as far as possible. But it was an uneasy peace, with… Read More The Parable of the Three Rings
(This is a selection of Gandhi’s observations on consistency and changing one’s mind) My Inconsistencies I DECLINE to be slave to precedents or practice I cannot understand or defend on a moral basis. (YI, 21-7-1921, p228) I must admit my many inconsistencies. But since I am called ‘Mahatma’, I might well endorse Emerson’s saying that… Read More Mohandas Gandhi: My Inconsistencies
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
Gandhi’s Last Fast: January 13-18, 1948 First posted March 30, 2012 This article is based on a lecture I prepared for university students, named Mahatma Gandhi’s Legacy. It includes the text of the Delhi Declaration on communal harmony, January 18, 1948. Citations are from Gandhi’s Collected Works Gandhi’s Last Fast: January 13-18, 1948 From September 1947,… Read More Another time, another mosque
First posted January 31, 2015 यह चिट्ठी महात्मा मोहनदास करमचंद गाँधी को पहुंचे. महात्माजी, मैं न संसद-सदस्य हूँ, न विधायक, न मंत्री, न नेता. इनमें से कोई कलंक मेरे ऊपर नहीं है. मुझमें कोई ऐसा राजनीतिक ऐब नहीं है कि आपकी जय बोलूं. मुझे कोई भी पद नहीं चाहिये कि राजघाट जाऊँ. मैंने आपकी समाधि… Read More हरिशंकर परसाई: महात्मा गाँधी को चिट्ठी पहुँचे (1977)
First posted October 3, 2020 India’s greatest leader had moved to a village called Segaon two years earlier. He had renamed it Sevagram or a village of service. He built an ashram, a commune which was home to “many a fateful decision which affected the destiny of India”. Gandhi had moved in with his wife, Kasturba,… Read More Soutik Biswas: Rare photos of the last ten years of Gandhi’s life
