The Indian legal community seems to have witnessed its own ‘Hans Litten’ moment as Advocate Mehmood Pracha’s office was raided by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police this week. Hitler hated lawyers, but one lawyer whose name couldn’t even be mentioned in Hitler’s presence was that of Hans Achim Litten. He opposed the Nazis at… Read More Avani Bansal: Raid on Mehmood Pracha’s Office: India’s Hans Litten Moment?
In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are… Read More Umberto Eco on Eternal Fascism, or Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt (1995)
The members of the RSS who control the Union government have subjugated the press, allegedly tamed the judiciary and used bribery and coercion to undermine or overthrow state governments run by other parties. The new laws aimed at curbing NGOs are animated by the desire to reduce to insignificance all voluntary organisations that do not… Read More Ramachandra Guha: Gandhi said RSS was ‘communal with a totalitarian outlook’ – and that’s still true
His name was Walter Benjamin; born to a Jewish family in Berlin, Benjamin was present for a pivotal moment in history, and watched Hitler rise to power. By the time he wrote his most famous essay, he was an exile living in France amidst financial hardships, having recognized that the Reichstag fire three years earlier… Read More Matthew Rozsa: This Marxist philosopher foresaw the rise of Trumpism more than 80 years ago
In political science literature there is a familiar term — democratic barbarism. Democratic barbarism is often sustained by a judicial barbarism. The term “barbarism” has several components. The first is the overwhelming appearance of arbitrariness in judicial decision-making. The application of law becomes so dependent on the arbitrary whims of individual judges that the rule… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta: SC was never perfect, but the signs are that it is slipping into judicial barbarism
If anyone embodies the archetype of the evil that was Auschwitz, it is surely Josef Mengele. Dubbed by the inmates and survivors of the camp the “Angel of Death,” the immaculate doctor – with a slight flick of the finger – would casually select those permitted to live and work and those destined to die… Read More Book review: How Did Josef Mengele Become the Evil Doctor of Auschwitz?
Press Release: Indians condemn Paris beheadings, deplore outrageous statements by Muslim religious and political leaders Well over a hundred prominent Indians from diverse backgrounds have today issued a statement condemning the Paris beheadings and deploring the outrageous statements by Muslim religious and political leaders. Among other things the statement read: “No God, gods, goddesses, prophets or… Read More Indians condemn Paris beheadings, deplore outrageous statements by Muslim religious and political leaders
