A sense of irony grips me as I recollect the late Ramesh Thapar’s contempt for family members who served the British Empire; “toadies,” he would sneer. Impressed by what appeared a rare display of courage, I never forgot the word, partly because it formed part of Thapar’s unique repertoire and … Read More
After decades of puerile rhetoric over dialectics, deconstructionism, modernism, post-modernism, multiculturalism, et al, Europe is finally realizing that it cannot live without fidelity to core values. For even Mammon has social roots, which is why White-dominated multinationals meant ‘free trade’ in the post-World War II era, but out-sourcing to India … Read More
Sonia Gandhi’s fragile but sustained claim to national leadership, underscored by her nervous induction of both children into the Congress party, makes it incumbent upon political analysts to spell out some of the contentious issues associated with nationality and the right to lead a nation. For modern Indians, particularly the … Read More
Recent incidents of bird flu and mad cow disease in leading meat-exporting nations are symptomatic of a much larger civilizational crisis, and must not be brushed aside or treated as mere health or gastronomic matters that should be handled by competent meat inspectors. Discerning citizens worldwide, especially in India, deserve … Read More
Having purchased and read James Laine’s Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India only after it was officially withdrawn by the publishers, I cannot view the events at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) as totally unjustified. Certainly, attacks on centres of learning have no place in Hindu ethos and must … Read More
A wag once complained that whereas history repeats itself, historians repeat each other! We may thus be destined to see adherents of the sidelined Marxist school of historiography reproduce the old discredited dogmas in ‘parallel’ textbooks aimed at competing with NCERT’s new course books. A fresh round of bloodletting amongst … Read More
The BJP has done well to slam the US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report 2003, which dubs the party as a Hindu nationalist party and links it with militant organizations that indulge in violence against religious minorities. Pointing out that the BJP membership embraces all minority groups, spokesman VK … Read More
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee deserves hearty congratulations for his foreign policy coup in convincing Bhutan to crack down on anti-India militants operating on its soil, while simultaneously ensuring that Nepal and Myanmar prove equally inhospitable to the fleeing rebels. The swiftness with which the Royal Bhutan Army (RBA) unleashed … Read More
Assam, which is still reeling under the impact of continuing illegal immigration from Bangladesh, is suffering equally from acute cultural violence in the form of a rising graph of rape and abduction of minor girls and young women by suspected ‘guests’ from this worrisome neighbour. This is an affront that … Read More
If asked to discern a common symbolism behind George Bush’s flamboyant visit to London, his furtive presence in Baghdad, and Jamaican poet Zephaniah’s spurning the Order of the British Empire (OBE), I would say they represent the death throes of the imperialistic thrust behind the White Man’s Burden. Benjamin Zephaniah’s … Read More
