Civilizational tasks for the Narendra Modi Government
Introduction Let me start by thanking the many people who have tangibly helped me: with money, hospitality, logistical support, and information. No names here, firstly because it would be unfair to those I forget, secondly because in my case, I don’t return a favour by publicly associating people with my controversial self. Chronologically the first More...
Epic parallels and symbols in the 2014 elections
Even before Narendra Modi’s evocative Ganga arti and his prostration before the steps of Parliament, this election was replete with symbols. While all sides attempted to use them to their advantage, the BJP turned More...
Narendra Modi: the first anti-Nehruvian Prime Minister
Some men, wrote Friedrich Nietzsche, are born posthumously. But some men also die posthumously: Jawaharlal Nehru belongs to this category. Biologically, he died on 27 May 1964, at the age of 74. But it was almost More...
Open letter to Ed Miliband
Dear Ed, Your prolonged silence on the little matter of the Indian elections compels me to write to you. It may have passed you by, or you may have been holed out in a cave with best friends, so you missed the More...
Congress and AAP buried under their own slander
Press Council of India (PCI) chairperson Justice Markandey Katju once said that 90 per cent of Indians are “idiots.” It seems political parties, especially the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress could not More...
Indian intellectual mafia in panic mode
Once upon a time, India was so good from the perspective of intellectuals. Which means Nehruvian. Socialism, secularism, and non-alignment—the key ingredients of the Nehruvian consensus—were flourishing. Of More...
Narendra Modi’s challenge to Islam
Narendra Modi poses the greatest challenge to Islam since modern Turkey’s Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, perhaps an even greater one. This has been understood perfectly by adherents to the marginal Wahhabi sect that has More...
BBC hosts sculptor who calls Narendra Modi a mass murderer
On 17 May 2014 on the BBC’s #Newsnight show that discussed Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi’s stupendous election victory in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, the Indian sculptor Anish More...
Prime Minister Narendra Modi: the promise of a resurgent India
“Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive but to be young was very Heaven,” said William Wordsworth welcoming the fall of the ancient regime in France in 1789. Many of us heard it from Hiren Mukherjee, then an More...
Should Narendra Modi tolerate Sushma Swaraj’s tantrums?
Club 160 is at it again. L.K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, et al. Sulking, sullen, upset—these are some of the words the media uses to describe their mood. Caught in a time warp, they refuse to acknowledge More...