Finding meaning in meaningless political speeches
It is ‘promise time’. With elections round the corner, people are being treated to a whole lot of promises and pledges – that ‘if you vote us to power we will bring you moon and stars!’ And every single group is doing it these days. Some are seeking support on the basis of what they […]
Simplistic inferences lead to wrong conclusions
Peoples’ participation in the just concluded Urban Local Bodies and Panchayat elections has once again surprised many – though political realists had anticipated it to be so. Given that the separatists had called for boycott and their calls were endorsed by a wider cross-section, including the vocal civil society actors, the people choosing to cast […]
You heard it right, it’s about manufacturing wars!
Bosnian Serb scholar and politician, Vasa Cubrilovic, who was part of the gang that assassinated Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914, which is believed to have triggered the World War I, once said that the “countries that still go to war have not evolved.” When asked ‘evolved from what?’, he was unequivocal: “From fear. From […]
God bless those who say what they feel must be said!
Even as it is a known fact that all revolutions must have ideologies to spurn them on, however, it is also true that “in the heat of the conflict these ideologies tend to be smelt into rigid dogmas claiming exclusive possession of the truth”. And this is where the tragedy lies, because dogma is the […]
Public disinterest has a reason
Every manufacturer, the simple business logic goes, constantly tries to come up with goods that are in great public demand. Personal likes and dislikes doesn’t matter much, because at the end of the day, every business is market-driven, and in order to be successful one has to cater to the requirements of the consumers. Nobody […]
History – a medley of changing rules
All those people who share a particular geographical territory during a particular era in time, have claim to a shared history, as have those who despite not sharing the geography nevertheless observe history while it’s being shaped up. There are others also who study it in real time, or even decades later using modern scientific […]
Bombardment by meaningless rhetoric …
“Padshaham Drag Wouth, Ada Palaav Khiyew!” This is the Kashmiri version of that folk legend of French Revolution times when those brought up in royalty, and having no idea of what draught and famine meant, would wonder why people were not eating cakes. Every single day people here are treated to promises of progress and […]
Re-cultivate public trust
The situation in Kashmir continues to remain chaotic. The reason being that none of the different actors active in the political amphitheatre seem to have drawn necessary lessons from what has happened here thus far. While those pitted against it are always ready to latch on every single opportunity to precipitate a crisis for the […]
Selling differences as political myths…!
DIFFERENCE, though an inherently natural and important behavioral characteristic, is also a dangerous trait in socio-psychological make-up. Beginning as a minor difference in (of) opinion, left unchecked and uncontained, it takes no time in acquiring monstrous proportions of difference of (in) interests. Once interests — be they selfish personal ones, or the social, political, cultural, […]
Let actions also do some talking!
It has been for long now that people here have been listening to the official assertions about prioritizing development to bring a turnaround in the situation here. The words and terms like ‘fast-track’ (development) despite being recent entrants into the official vocabulary have become sort of clichés by now. Cynicism aside, the unfortunate reality is […]
