Babasaheb’s universalist vision of the community based on maitri enriches the political imagination everywhere Chandan Gowda During a stay at Shravasti, the Buddha asked the bhikkus, “Suppose a man is preparing to dig the earth. Does the earth resent him?” “No,” the bhikkus replied. “Suppose a man wishes to paint pictures in the air using lac and… Read More Ambedkar’s Ideal Of Maitri
CHS library at JNU won’t be shifted, say professors CHS library at JNU won’t be shifted, say professors
Fabio Fernandes It’s around 200 CE, in Ephesus, an Aegean city of Greek roots, now a major hub of the Roman Empire. Meandering down marble-paved Curetes Street, a dweller is lost in the bustle of the town, procuring produce and wares in shops tucked beneath the colonnades, attending the public baths – even a conveniently… Read More The great libraries of Rome
First posted May 05, 2013 NB: My review of Pandita’s book was posted on May 4, 2013, on the online journal North East Review. DS Superflous people Normal men don’t know that everything is possible: David Rousset, The Other Kingdom Rahul Pandita, Our Moon has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits Random House India, Noida, 2013 Introduction… Read More Superflous people: Rahul Pandita’s ‘Our Moon has blood clots’
Daniel Johnson on the life and work of Max Weber, whose controversial views on democracy still resonate today First posted August 28, 2020 As a young freelance of my acquaintance, exceptionally gifted, tells me that she has abandoned journalism in favour of a teaching post at a university. “I don’t think I’d be able to… Read More Daniel Johnson: Myths of the Prophet Max
John Bartlett in Santiago Days before Salvador Allende’s confirmation as Chile’s president in 1970, US President Richard Nixon met with a rightwing Chilean media mogul to discuss blocking the socialist leader’s path to the presidency, newly declassified documents have revealed. The documents, published in a new Spanish edition of the Pinochet files by archivist and writer Peter Kornbluh, include… Read More Files reveal Nixon’s role in plot to block Allende from Chilean presidency
I value George Orwell’s writing for his devotion to truthfulness and his recognition of all the ways that truths get corrupted. This is why, even if his private mores are of his time, his public writing still gives us tools to think about ours. By Rebecca Solnit The feminist writer Moira Donegan recently mocked contemporary social… Read More George Orwell in an age of moralists
France has retained a quasi-empire in Africa by stealth, and it is under threat like never before. Nabila Ramdani Retreats from crumbling empires are inevitably characterised by hastily arranged evacuations. Panicked civilians make their way to rickety airport terminals, in the hope of an emergency flight out of the chaos. This was the postcolonial scene… Read More The Niger crisis shows France’s quasi-empire in Africa is finally crumbling
NB: Meanwhile the JNU History Centre collection, one of the most valuable in the country, is being dismantled by the authorities to make room for a new centre of Tamil studies. I am sure lovers of Tamil language and culture do not wish for the university’s history collection to be removed. This is nothing but… Read More Sri Lanka, thirty one years after: Burning of the Jaffna Public Library, May 1981
NB: The temptation of our day is to accept the intolerable, for fear of still worse to come: Hermann Rauschning, The Revolution of Nihilism (1939). DS This is an appeal to the national and global academic community at large, including JNU alumni as well as teachers’ associations, student bodies and individual professors and students across the world.… Read More Appeal & Signature Campaign to Save the Centre for Historical Studies Library in JNU
After the truth-shower 