Mukul Kesavan To watch an election show as an anti-majoritarian spectator in the time of Narendra Modi is a traumatic business for two reasons. One, you mostly lose and two, sometimes even the ones you win, you lose. There was a moment during the Karnataka results show when the Congress’s leads dropped to a bare… Read More BJP-bin Dakshin
The BJP has grown and thrived by evoking the worst in this country’s citizens. It cannot be the presumption that what has been evoked, and what is on display, will disappear on its own by not facing up to it. This is just wishful thinking. What is the point of an opposition that is afraid… Read More The call for banning the Bajrang Dal shows rare electoral courage
Rather than confront the inherent role of the university as a class-sorting mechanism (as well as an engine of the military-industrial complex),.. educators settled on a pedagogical model that valued the individual and immediate experiences of students over general civic and literary instruction. In lieu of learning a shared curriculum, students earned course credits through… Read More The Language of Democracy
Hannah Ellis-Petersen Explainer How Imran Khan became the man who divided Pakistan From cricket star to ousted PM, Khan is an anti-establishment rebel to some and a corrupt force for destruction to others Hannah Ellis-Petersen Imran Khan is often regarded as the most divisive man in Pakistan. For some, the former superstar cricketer turned prime… Read More How Imran Khan became the man who divided Pakistan
NB: This is the result of the relentlessly divisive politics of India’s ruling establishment. They have no principle other than ‘divide and rule.’ When sections of officialdom go along with this policy, they are doing nothing less than defile the Indian Constitution. The irreparable consequences of this policy will be felt for a long time.… Read More ‘Everything is gone’: entire Indian villages burned in ethnic violence
Nationalistic propaganda in Russia has intensified noticeably since the invasion of Ukraine last year, and the country’s 17.7 million schoolchildren have not been spared. Vera Akhalaya That said, it’s impossible for the Kremlin to control every teacher – and some are risking prison and their careers to tell their students about the realities of the… Read More How teachers are resisting the Kremlin’s war propaganda in Russian schools
A thorough dissection of America’s capitalist mythology reveals the sham to which lots of people continue to subscribe, despite growing nationwide suffering. Much of what is now a core part of the American psyche is a series of get-rich-quick schemes passed off as meritocratic necessities within a capitalist society. Key words and phrases like “the… Read More It’s Called the American Dream Because You Have To Be Asleep to Believe It
Xu Zhiyong’s dream is for China to become a democratic country that is “beautiful, free, fair and happy.” It is a simple wish, yet in the eyes of the authorities, his vision is dangerous and subversive. The 50-year-old human rights lawyer and champion of social equality was sentenced to 14 years in jail earlier this month, along with fellow… Read More How one man went from China’s Communist party golden child to enemy of the state
William Shakespeare (aka William Sexpeare in Waste Bengal) had got most things right, especially when it came to portraying the seven deadly sins, as per their revised version in India’s Amritkaal. Whether it was “honour killing” in Othello or “love jihad” (by Romeo, naturally, trying to entice a Capulet to become a Montague) in Romeo… Read More Avay Shukla: ‘A rose by any other name..’ really?
James Baldwin, who grew up in the church and was briefly a preacher, said he abandoned the pulpit to preach the Gospel. The Gospel, he knew, was not heard most Sundays in Christian houses of worship. And today with ministers wary of offending their aging and dwindling flocks — who are counted on to pay the clergy… Read More Chris Hedges: The Hypocrisy of the Christian Church. Talk at Princeton Theological Seminary
After the truth-shower 