Tag: History

Anil Nauriya, Against The Dying of The Light: Frontier Gandhi, Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988)

Against The Dying of The Light: Bharat Ratna Frontier Gandhi, Badshah Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988). This note is being circulated for the attention of the Presidential candidates in the forthcoming elections for the offices of President and Vice President of India and the electoral college in this election. Recently, taking advantage of Covid lockdowns,… Read More Anil Nauriya, Against The Dying of The Light: Frontier Gandhi, Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988)

Dilip

‘The Poets of Rapallo’ Review: Ezra Pound’s Fascist Paradise

If biology was the soil of fascism, history and aesthetics were the manure.. Percy Shelley called poets the “unacknowledged legislators of the world.” No poet sought acknowledgment more enthusiastically than Ezra Pound. No poet legislated so ambitiously or disastrously, either. Pound was the impresario of Modernism. He stripped the Victorian padding from the verse of… Read More ‘The Poets of Rapallo’ Review: Ezra Pound’s Fascist Paradise

Dilip

Orhan Pamuk on Dayanita Singh’s mesmerising photos of India’s disintegrating archives

What has most drawn me to Singh’s work are the photographs collected in her books File Room and Museum of Chance. In these, we find black and white images of India’s vast state archives, storerooms and registry offices. As we leaf through these books, we become filled with an idea of poetic decrepitude and a… Read More Orhan Pamuk on Dayanita Singh’s mesmerising photos of India’s disintegrating archives

Dilip

'Napalm Girl' at 50: The story of the Vietnam War's defining photo / “Because Our Fathers Lied”: Craig McNamara Reveals the Lies of His Father, Robert McNamara

The horrifying photograph of children fleeing a deadly napalm attack has become a defining image not only of the Vietnam War but the 20th century. Dark smoke billowing behind them, the young subjects’ faces are painted with a mixture of terror, pain and confusion. Soldiers from the South Vietnamese army’s 25th Division follow helplessly behind. Taken… Read More 'Napalm Girl' at 50: The story of the Vietnam War's defining photo / “Because Our Fathers Lied”: Craig McNamara Reveals the Lies of His Father, Robert McNamara

Dilip

Anjan Basu: The Crisis in Civilisation that Rabindranath Tagore red-flagged Is back upon us

NB: A very well written and timely reminder. My two caveats are 1) with the word back; and 2) with the positioning of the word crisis. It is not ‘back’, because after the Napoleonic wars it never went away; and a more appropriate title description  of our time (with due respect to Gurudev), would be… Read More Anjan Basu: The Crisis in Civilisation that Rabindranath Tagore red-flagged Is back upon us

Dilip

Book review: Kabir and the Question of Modernity

NB: An excellent review of an excellent book. Purushottam Agrawal has done us a public service. DS Kabir, the famous religious poet of Varanasi, lived from roughly 1440 CE to 1518 CE. He first became well-known outside of India in 1915 when Rabindranath Tagore published an English translation of 100 songs, or bhajans, att­ri­buted to Kabir. Tagore’s translation… Read More Book review: Kabir and the Question of Modernity

Dilip