Babu Mistri and Westphalia

People were migratory birds, not legal or illegal immigrants.

BABU Mistri may have never travelled to Assam but his story is emblematic of the tragedy of four million people who have been rendered homeless through an officially sponsored land grab. I use the term ‘land grab’ because Nehru had described it as an integral feature of majoritarian communalism, which I believe would be equally […]

Holding his feet to the fire

Will Imran Khan’s pursuit of the dream turn out to be any different? He deserves a chance to triumph or lose the plot, hopefully the former.

A PHOTOSHOPPED picture of Imran Khan has adorned my Facebook page for the last few weeks, which I am planning to remove. The frame is an election-time caricature shared by an irate friend. It shows Imran’s beaming face donning a general’s cap, which is placed over a judge’s wig. The message endorses the claim by […]

Fuss about meeting Muslims

The Sachar Committee report, which thoroughly explored the social and economic plight of Indian Muslims, was compiled by a non-Muslim.

ABOUT three years ago, eminent historian Romila Thapar urged Indian intellectuals to wake up and shore up democracy against a determined, subversive right-wing incursion. That is roughly what Noam Chomsky has been saying, albeit to a wider audience, probably across the world. She was not exhorting Hindu intellectuals and he was not addressing the Jewish […]

Nehru, Vajpayee and Modi

There are several reasons for the Indian left to be critical of Nehru. But why does the Indian right hate him ever so intensely?

MAURICE Hallet served as home secretary to the British government in India and occupied the governor’s post in Bihar and the United Provinces as part of his assignments between 1932 and 1945. His hatred of the Congress party was startlingly similar to Prime Minister Modi’s today. During the Quit India Movement, Jawaharlal Nehru suspended for […]

Beware the croupiers in 2019

There’s nothing the Modi government can do to win in 2019 if the opposition doesn’t want him to.

INDIA’S opposition parties must quickly deal with two problems ahead of the next election. One stems from an irrational fear of Prime Minister Modi, of what tricks he might have up his sleeve and so forth to outsmart the opposition in 2019. This problem is rooted in low self-belief and a battered self-esteem, which by […]

Shujaat Bukhari’s notebook

SHUJAAT Bukhari was among the most informed and least exultant Kashmiri journalists I have met. He let his incorrigible smile and straight reporting do the talking. He was shot dead on Thursday evening outside the Srinagar office of the Rising Kashmir newspaper, of which he was editor. There is predictable confusion about who may have […]