The RSS… is aware that Hindu–Muslim couples are only acting out the oldest impulse of our species—the pairing off of two persons attracted to each other. This impulse is not easily curbed. It resurfaces in even the most difficult of circumstances. This means that its prevention requires the constant threat of violence, which can only… Read More Casting Them Out
Current decolonisation project drips with resentment. It conflates modernity merely with colonialism. To see the insidiousness of this project, just ask this question: What should be the terms on which citizens relate to each other? “Decolonise!” This imperative seems to be the ideological flavour of the moment. It is behind the calls to restructure education,… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta: The current talk of decolonisation is about an exclusionary political agenda
“We tolerated all the rules of repression and censorship as far as our conscience allowed. We stayed alone and wrote. But they did not tolerate the same and harassed us for thinking and writing… even if we don’t write, they will bother us. Because we still think. Because we know the truth and adhere to… Read More Iranian liberal Majid Tavakoli set to be sent back to prison
First posted November 10, 2013 NB: Fascist political speech may be summarised in three words: affirmation, repetition and contagion. They spread lies and practice deceit as a matter of habit. Truth is whatever is convenient for serving their interests. More than anything else, it is the onslaught on the human mind that is the most dangerous feature of totalitarian… Read More Modi says Congress committed ‘sin’ of partition / The Non-politics of the RSS
the law is the only thing capable of making people equal: The Judge (2014) Chris McGreal Mugshots define eras. Bugsy Siegel peering malevolently from beneath his fedora in a 1928 booking photo summed up the perverse romance of gangsters in the prohibition age. Nearly half a century later, mugshots of David Bowie, elegantly dressed but dead-eyed after his arrest… Read More Belligerence and hostility: Trump’s mugshot defines modern US politics
The perfected mafia state uses ostensibly legal procedures and insider loyalty to protect corrupt autocrats from accountability Jan-Werner Müller Could there be such a thing as Trump indictment fatigue? Every week seems to bring a new set of charges; one might be forgiven for losing any sense of what’s what in the four major cases… Read More Trump yearns to govern a mafia state. Fitting that he faces racketeering charges
Tim Adams A few days after he announced he would sell his Nobel peace prize medal at auction – and give the millions of dollars raised to Ukrainian refugees – the Russian newspaper editor Dmitry Muratov was sitting on a train bound for the city of Samara. Just before the train pulled away from Kazansky station in… Read More Nobel peace laureate Dmitry Muratov won’t be silenced by Putin
Jawhar Sircar There is no doubt that the increasing politicisation of the bureaucracy has been corroding, for quite some time, the pillars on which fair and efficient administration rest. The pains taken by the founding fathers of our constitution to protect and insulate the civil service from political interference had ensured a large degree of… Read More Modi is hell bent on building an administrative system that treats him as King
With the new Netanyahu government, the anti-Palestinian violence (the pogrom in Huwara, the attacks on the Stella Maris Monastery in Haifa, etc.) is no longer even formally condemned by the state. To a Western European with a vague knowledge of Italian, “Manipur” automatically associates with “mani pulite” (pure hands), the big anti-corruption campaign in the… Read More Slavoj Žizek: Manipur is not only in India
Talk delivered to the Creighton Philosophical Club at Syracuse University in April 1940 Introductory remark Both the intellectual glory and the political misery of the Germans may be traced back to one and the same cause: German civilisation is considerably younger than the civilisation of the West. The Germans are, strictly speaking, less civilized than the English… Read More Leo Strauss: The Living Issues of German postwar Philosophy (1940)
After the truth-shower 