NB: A very well written and timely reminder. My two caveats are 1) with the word back; and 2) with the positioning of the word crisis. It is not ‘back’, because after the Napoleonic wars it never went away; and a more appropriate title description of our time (with due respect to Gurudev), would be… Read More Anjan Basu: The Crisis in Civilisation that Rabindranath Tagore red-flagged Is back upon us
NB: Amidst all the flames of outrage, let me add a small reminder taken from daily life: it is not merely the speaking of factual data that counts, what counts more is the manner of speech, the way in which we speak what we think is the truth. In all religious traditions, there are theories… Read More Bharat Bhushan: New Bharatiya Janata Party's troubled road ahead / Sickular Libtard: Nupurgate and after
NB: Our honourable senior judges may kindly let us know if they have totally abandoned their constitutional duty to exercise oversight on the actions of the executive. In face of their silence, may we assume that this kind of hooliganism by the Yogi government will be allowed to continue with impunity? Should we also assume… Read More Totally illegal, says ex-CJ of Allahabad High Court; bulldozer cases in limbo / Owaisi's questions for Yogi govt
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
Apoorvanand: When the Devil Speaks the Gospel The widespread reactions to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s speech in Nagpur on June 2, welcoming it as a call for the de-escalation of aggression against Muslims, proves one thing beyond doubt: that the RSS is perceived as the fountainhead of hatred towards Muslims, which spurs violence against them by various… Read More Aao, secular secular khelein
With the rapid radicalisation of sections of Hindu society, the Hindutva project has become dangerously autonomous. It is no longer possible to see it only as an electoral strategy of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Today one does not need to even presume the direct hand of the BJP or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh behind Hindutva’s every move. Its exponential social… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Autonomous Hindutva could devour both India and the BJP
As details of the Buffalo mass shooting emerged over the weekend, much of the media focussed on the shooter’s self-stated motivation: his racist belief that white Americans are being deliberately replaced through immigration in a “great replacement” theory. Over at Fox News, however, there was barely any mention of the white gunman’s alleged reasoning for opening fire… Read More Fox News goes quiet on ‘great replacement’ theory after Buffalo shooting / St. Louis newspaper slams Supreme Court as 'political hacks in black robes'
Last week I received a draft petition to the Election Commission of India from a well known writer and activist of civil society about the use of EVMs, with the request to obtain endorsements for it. I forwarded it to about twenty contacts, all well read people, engaged with and concerned about the state of… Read More Avay Shukla on the bulldozing of Indian democracy
A brilliant study of corruption by power, more specifically of the willingness of the German elites to chummy up to the psychotic vileness of the Third Reich. This is an account of clubs, diplomatic receptions and parties, but one shot through with a scholarly analysis of the nature of sociability, elitism and luxury in a… Read More Vases, Tea Sets, Cigars, His Own Watercolours: High Society in the Third Reich
Anyone who has ever genuinely immersed themselves in Ramcharitmanas will recognise the singular poignancy of one moment in the Sundarkand where Hanuman meets Sita. Until that point the story is hurtling towards disaster. Sita has been abducted. Ram is distraught and unsure of himself. But the moment Hanuman meets Sita is the point at which… Read More P. B. Mehta: With eyes wide open, we’re hurtling into an abyss / In Jahangirpuri, bulldozers leave trail of despair
