(They article was originally published in the India Foundation Journal on August 31, 2022. Views expressed are personal.) India is a land of extreme diversity – in language, social order, cuisine, customs and religion. Over millennia, it mastered the art of managing that diversity and maintaining unity. “Samaano Mantrah Samitih Samaani Samaanam Manas Saha-Chittamesham” – […]
(The article was originally published in Malayala Manorama Magazine on August 15, 2022. Views expressed are personal.) India’s independence movement had many small and big streams flowing parallel to each other. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) too was one such stream. Dr K B Hedgewar, the founder of RSS was a prominent Congress leader in […]
(The article was originally published by OPEN Magazine on August 10, 2022. Views expressed are personal.) Jinnah became even more bitter as Gandhi gained in stature India’s freedom and its partition happened at the same time. On that fateful midnight of August 14, 1947, not one but two independent nations were born. It was not […]
(The article was originally published by Indian Express on July 21, 2022. Views expressed are personal.) There is much to celebrate in the election of Droupadi Murmu as the 15th President of India in the Amrit Mahotsav year of independence. In Murmu, the country not only has a Santhal tribal woman as the head of […]
(The article was originally published in Indian Express on July 12, 2022. Views expressed are personal.) Indians were great warriors. From the epics to history, India’s story is full of wars and conquests. Empire building was seen as a virtue, through concepts like the Rajasuya. Over millennia, the concept of “dharma yuddh” (just war), a […]
(The article was originally published by India Today on July 9, 2022. Views expressed are personal.) Loya Jirga or Grand Assembly of religious leaders and elders, elected at the local levels, is the Afghan traditional democratic assembly system, in vogue for several centuries. In the Afghan political system, ratification by the Loya Jirga was considered […]
(The article was originally published in OPEN Magazine on June 30, 2022. Views expressed are personal.) Someone needs to challenge the radical and revisionist interpretations of Islam The horror of Udaipur is a chilling reminder of the deep penetration of Islamist radicalism among the Indian Muslim youth. Hindu–Muslim tensions have a history of more than […]
(The article was originally published in Times of India on June 7, 2022. Views expressed are personal.) Politics is about leadership and narrative. Jawahar Lal Nehru, the longest serving Prime Minister of India, who held that portfolio for seventeen years – “six thousand days” as Amiya Rao and B G Rao called in their book […]
(The article was originally published by India Today on May 18, 2022. Views expressed are personal.) Until a decade or two ago, Sweden, the Nordic country in Northern Europe, was considered one of the safest European destinations. But last year, a German newspaper, Bild, headlined that “Sweden is the most dangerous country in Europe”. Today, […]
(The article was originally published by India Today on April 23, 2022. Views expressed are personal.) Access PDF here In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping, the then supreme leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), decided to focus exclusively on economic development. He realised that for the China dream to come true, the economy, shattered by […]
