Aijaz Zaka Syed

Can the south save India?

Can the south save India?

It has been raining like cats and dogs in Hyderabad in India since the return of the native. Yet, the heat coupled with humidity is never far away. It is back as soon as the rains take a break. After long years of being part of the endlessly monotonous and parched environment of an Arabian […]

 Aijaz Zaka Syed

The growing voices of sanity

The growing voices of sanity

In Bertolt Brecht’s legendary poem Die Losung (‘The Solution’), written after the 1953 uprising in East Germany, a government functionary hands out bulletins informing the people that they have cost themselves the trust of the government. The poem concludes by demanding: “Would it not be easier/In that case for the government/To dissolve the people/ And […]

 Aijaz Zaka Syed

Trump shuts out the world

Trump shuts out the world

Check this out. With more than 1.8 billion population, Muslims are currently the second largest religious community in the world after Christianity. Islam’s followers form nearly 25 percent of humanity. According to a much cited global survey by the Pew Research Centre last year, in the next half century or so, Christianity’s long reign as […]

 Aijaz Zaka Syed

Who killed Shujaat Bukhari?

Who killed Shujaat Bukhari?

I never had the pleasure of meeting Shujaat Bukhari, the soft-spoken editor of the Rising Kashmir with a steely spine, who was assassinated last week. But we remained in touch over the years. He often shared his amazing articles and I told myself: here was another reason why I must visit my beloved Kashmir once […]

 Aijaz Zaka Syed

The end of the Modi affair

The end of the Modi affair

Isn’t it interesting that just when the battle for 2019 is about to take off in India, more and more ardent admirers of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are falling out of love with their larger-than-life hero? From the perpetually Congress-bashing Tavleen Singh to foreign policy wonk Sadanand Dhume and from corporate head honcho Gurcharan […]

 Aijaz Zaka Syed

The road from Kairana

The road from Kairana

That the tide has started turning against Narendra Modi has been apparent for some time. Nothing demonstrates it more spectacularly than a little known town in western Uttar Pradesh called Kairana, which had been at the heart of a major communal showdown orchestrated by Hindutva groups in the run-up to 2017 assembly elections. The sleepy […]

 Aijaz Zaka Syed

Modi and the southern challenge

Modi and the southern challenge

Nothing succeeds like sweet success. And it is doubly sweet when it is snatched from the jaws of defeat as it has been in Karnataka. Working with the Janata Dal (S) and other secular parties, an alert Congress for once has upstaged and outsmarted a power-crazy BJP at its own game, setting the agenda for […]

 Aijaz Zaka Syed

This is not about Jinnah

This is not about Jinnah

  Seventy years is a long time in a nation’s history. You would think it is enough to heal the wounds of an unforgiving past. In Europe, which witnessed the bloodiest war in history with more than 80 million deaths, the bitterest of foes have been able to bury the past and embrace a peaceful […]

 Aijaz Zaka Syed

Korean lessons for South Asia

Korean lessons for South Asia

What prevents India and Pakistan from shedding their 70 years of baggage and take that leap of faith for peace and a more rewarding future for their people? Much like the two Koreas, the South Asian twins have had an incredibly volatile and difficult past, not to mention the three wars that they have fought over Kashmir.

It’s not every day that you see history in the making. Watching the leaders of North and South Korea, locked in an existential struggle for more than six decades, take those deliberate steps towards peace with great dignity last week was a surreal experience even for distant observers like me. And no, North Korea’s Kim […]

 Aijaz Zaka Syed

Missed opportunities and the Gulf El Dorado

Missed opportunities and the Gulf El Dorado

This must be one of those sweet ironies that life throws up from time to time. At a time when there is so much bad news emanating from India about hate attacks, rapes and lynchings targeting its Muslim minority, the World Bank has revealed that India stood first in the world in terms of foreign […]