“Congrats Ram! The world needs fewer Communists.” This message that I received from a foreign diplomat aptly sums up the significance of the Tripura results. Ronald Reagan is credited with decimating Communism; so is Margaret Thatcher. In India, that task will most likely be completed by Narendra Modi. “How did he do it”, those puzzled […]
The Canadian press has reported that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had supported the claim of one of the public service officials in his government blaming “factions in Indian government” for “sabotaging” his recent trip to India. This amounts to ulta chor kotwal ko daante, the thief blaming the police. Trudeau could have been a little […]
“Swagat hai mere dost! Why did it take so long? We have been waiting for you for 70 years,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Narendra Modi when the latter visited Israel in July last year. Netanyahu was right. It took 70 years after Independence for an Indian prime minister to set foot on Israel, and […]
Winning elections has become an art and a science these days. It is no longer just about the traditional ways of campaigning, casteism and cash. Democracy, right from the days of Herodotus, is, no doubt, the will of the people. But the ways of ascertaining the will of the people, or rather moulding their will, […]
A profound quest for eternal bliss that is yet to take its rightful place in the world Indic thought is the most liberal that the world has ever produced. This is because it is the most democratically evolved of all. It is a product of the deep contemplation of great sages and saints, their great […]
It was the year 49 BC and a general in northeast Italy, Gaius Julius, took the momentous decision to cross a shallow river called the Rubicon to march into the city of Rome. Roman law forbade entering the city of Rome with armies. Julius’s action led to a civil war and eventual conquest of the […]
Sometime in the mid-1980s, the then RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras had asked the assembled leaders of the organisation from all the states a simple question: “Should the RSS plunge fully into the Ram Janmabhoomi movement or allow it to be led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas (the body of saints […]
Populist’ is the chosen word of invective for a section of the intellectual elite these days. From newspaper articles by out-of-business columnists to platforms like the World Economic Forum, the buzz everywhere is about populism. Gone are the days of a hue-and-cry over socialism versus capitalism or secularism versus communalism. India’s people have seen through […]
This Independence Day is different. For the first time in 70 years, the high constitutional positions are all held today by individuals subscribing to a non-Congress ideology. When NDA 1 was in power, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat became the vice president and Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister. But this time around, the president, vice president and prime […]
The independence struggle as a narrative of the highs and lows of our national will The revisiting of history keeps happening. There are a couple of reasons why one revisits history time and again. One reason, of course, is that we get newer information as time passes. When we chance upon a new document or […]
