Tag: History

What the Veneration of Gandhi’s Killer Says About India. By Yasmeen Serhan

Imagine an America in the not-so-distant future. A right-wing populist politician has just been reelected president of the United States, stirring a wave of ethnonationalism not seen since the Trump presidency. Amid the country’s nativist turn, a cult of personality forms around John Wilkes Booth, the actor who fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s… Read More What the Veneration of Gandhi’s Killer Says About India. By Yasmeen Serhan

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Chandan Gowda: Keep party politics out of textbooks!

In use since 2017, the existing set of school textbooks in Karnataka were certainly in need of revision: many of the chapters in sociology were outdated, the discussions in economics, political science, history and geography drab and listless, and typographical and grammatical errors were found in the hundreds in the social science books.  But the… Read More Chandan Gowda: Keep party politics out of textbooks!

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Olexandra Povoroznyk: Tsars, spies and colonialism

Colourful onion-domed churches capped with sparkling snow, seductive spies in lavish mink coats, dancing bears, strong-willed revolutionaries…we see these tropes everywhere. They feature in Netflix shows such as Shadow and Bone, in Marvel blockbusters, gritty Cold War-inspired thrillers, and children’s animated films like Anastasia. Western pop-culture’s fascination with Russia – or, rather, with a simplified… Read More Olexandra Povoroznyk: Tsars, spies and colonialism

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If speaking against Savarkar is antinational, then put me in jail: Congress leader V Hanumantha Rao

“BJP is saying that if anyone speaks against Veer Savarkar then he is an anti-national. Yes, I am saying I am speaking against him. If I am anti-national arrest me and put me behind bars,” he added.  In a letter to the director of Salarjung museum in Hyderabad, Rao said that the name of former… Read More If speaking against Savarkar is antinational, then put me in jail: Congress leader V Hanumantha Rao

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Ranajit Guha, India’s oldest living historian, starts his 100th year with a dazzling legacy

NB: A timely tribute to a great intellectual. I will add something to this account: Ranajit Guha was always a political activist as well as a historian. This article mentions his affiliation with the CPI, and his disaffection with the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956; but it passes over his return to communist politics… Read More Ranajit Guha, India’s oldest living historian, starts his 100th year with a dazzling legacy

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Hindu College history professor booked for post on Gyanvapi ‘Shivling’ / Teachers, students demand immediate release of associate professor Ratan Lal

A Delhi University professor has been booked for an allegedly objectionable social media post on the claims of a ‘Shivling’ being found at the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi. Ratan Lal, an associate professor of history at the Hindu College, has been booked under IPC sections 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion,… Read More Hindu College history professor booked for post on Gyanvapi ‘Shivling’ / Teachers, students demand immediate release of associate professor Ratan Lal

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Vanessa Hua on Writing About the Forgotten Women in Mao’s Inner Circle

Vanessa Hua’s Forbidden City is narrated by a courageous, risk-taking sixteen-year-old whose life in a small village in China is up-ended when she is selected to join an elite dance troupe of young women trained in ballroom dancing to entertain Party leaders, including the Chairman. Hua’s is a fresh feminist take on the Cultural Revolution, an intriguing… Read More Vanessa Hua on Writing About the Forgotten Women in Mao’s Inner Circle

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Madhavan K. Palat on Nehru the Historian of Home and the World. Public lecture May 26, Jawahar Bhawan

Nehru was not a professional historian, but he composed four books of history to explain its importance. We may decide our future only if we can satisfy ourselves that the past has made it possible. The future he pursued was a united humanity, not one splintered into warring nations; logically, he began with a small… Read More Madhavan K. Palat on Nehru the Historian of Home and the World. Public lecture May 26, Jawahar Bhawan

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Alexei Yurchak on why Putin hates Lenin and how today’s Russia resembles the late Soviet Union

‘It’s impossible for the system not to change’    While waging war on Ukraine, the Russian state has intensified its already tight control over the Internet, press, and opposition at home. Meanwhile, the anti-war opposition has resorted to what are essentially guerilla tactics. Many politicians, journalists, and activists were forced to leave the country to avoid… Read More Alexei Yurchak on why Putin hates Lenin and how today’s Russia resembles the late Soviet Union

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Ahmed Diaa Dardir: The threshold of fire

The white gunman and the ‘rioters, anarchists, arsonists and flag-burners’ Ahmed Diaa Dardir // RP 2.11 (December 2021) On 25 August 2020, seventeen-year-old (white) Kyle Rittenhouse shot three antiracist protesters in the US state of Wisconsin, killing two and seriously injuring the third. Equally shocking was the impunity with which the shooting was carried out. Rittenhouse was protected… Read More Ahmed Diaa Dardir: The threshold of fire

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