Never in modern India has caste been such a conundrum. If Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati’s varna amity forged a truly elephantine electoral constituency, the narrow jati-vad displayed at Dausa represents a grim challenge to social stability and political-constitutional order. Traditionally, jati has been mobile, mutable, yet resilient; simultaneously the … Read More
When the tele-serial Mahabharata captivated the nation with the power of performance and integrity of presentation, I noted that the forceful dialogues which captured the epic’s philosophical truths and psychological insights with unsurpassed perfection were penned by renowned Leftist, late Dr. Rahi Masoom Raza. Like Muslim artisans who chisel murtis … Read More
Bahujan Samaj Party leader Ms. Mayawati has reached the pinnacle of the Indian political pole by daring, like the eagle, to fly to the top, unmindful of opposition. It would be churlish to deny her credit for weaving a winning electoral combination in a State dogged by two decades of … Read More
Recent developments in Saudi Arabia, from the suspiciously timely unveiling of a plot against the royal family, oil wells and army bases, to a revived demand for constitutional monarchy and electoral democracy, suggest something is rotten in the desert kingdom. Some years ago, President George Bush trained his guns at … Read More
Recent years have seen the jaws of justice open and spew out the indigestible guilty, rich, and powerful. The killers of Jessica Lal and Priyadarshini Mattoo initially walked free. The BMW driver who mowed down five pavement dwellers got bail, a degree from America’s Columbia University, and a celebrated business … Read More
Independent India’s failure to base its polity and constitution on the core values of Hindu civilization has long invoked surprise or disdain from intellectuals and observers, depending upon their respective worldviews. Most analysts tend to privilege western democracy as the only legitimate form of government in the modern world; the … Read More
Nandigram has emerged as the symbol of what a soulless state leviathan driven by an imported ideology can do to unarmed natives resisting its grand design of social deconstruction and corporate engineering. Nandigram showcases how native India combats ‘foreign’ tyranny – with blood, bones, and the raw courage of men, … Read More
UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s obvious complicity in the government’s appalling 17-day silence over the arrest of Italian fugitive Ottavio Quattrocchi is far more serious than ordinary suppression of information or contempt of the Supreme Court. Now that so much is known about the two decade old scandal, it is apparent … Read More
To those reared to believe in the protective parental shadow, Shamlalji’s passing away this morning represents the closure of a final chapter of childhood. The senior-most member of a tight-knit trinity comprising the late Prof. Sisir Gupta of Jawaharlal Nehru University, my own father and Shamlalji’s successor at The Times … Read More
The stoning of King Gyanendra’s cavalcade on the auspicious occasion of Shivaratri, supposedly by egalitarian Hindu devotees objecting to the custom of royal precedence, suggests growing Maoist fears that the forthcoming elections to the Constituent Assembly may not give them a winning mandate. Reports from Nepal indicate that the institution … Read More
