At least one biblical injunction – thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour – has been so badly mauled in Gujarat that one cannot but feel the urgency for a mature debate on conversions, as suggested by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Thankfully, church leaders have not refused … Read More
“O dharma, how hard it is to understand your essence. Only you know who protects you and who destroys you.” Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s pensive dirge may be taken as a warning that the legitimate perspective of culture should not become a predicament for society. Few know that Vidyasagar’s first work, … Read More
Weaving its silent enigmatic conundrum, Time has enveloped the world in a powerful synchronicity. As Muslims observe the holy Ramadan, the mysterious hand of the divine has ordained that the month-long ritual coincides with and overlaps the Jewish Hannukkah and Christian Christmas at one end, and the Hindu Makar Sankranti … Read More
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has not acted a day too soon to assert the majesty of his office vis-a-vis his party and associated groups, and assure citizens, particularly minorities, that his Government will be responsive to their legitimate concerns. In a masterly statement, he has called for national reconciliation … Read More
Given the enormous divergence between the findings of opinion polls, prudence demands that commentators writing on the eve of the elections refrain from risking their reputations in wild speculation, and let the ballot box tell its own tale. As the first major round of Assembly elections after the Atal Bihari … Read More
As leader of the world’s largest organised religious community, it is not surprising that the Pope, threatened by burgeoning New Age consciousness, should feel challenged to spell out a vision for Christianity’s survival in the third millennium of its creation. The Church is in crisis, especially in regions with an … Read More
Indians in blood and colour have united, and are on a carnival of self-denial, self-denigration and self-incrimination, the like of which we have not seen raj ‘toadies’ were silenced by the fervour of the nationalist movement. There can be no other explanation for the spontaneous expressions of scorn that erupted … Read More
Louis Fischer described him as “a living sermon”. A man who preached what he dared practice must indeed have seemed so to a Europe at the end of its tether battling Nazi tyranny, yet forced to prepare for a showdown with Stalin’s gulag in the aftermath of a bitter war … Read More
When Sonia Gandhi decided to “save” the moribund, demoralized Congress party by campaigning for it in the general election earlier this year, it was popularly assumed that she was largely guided by the looming shadow of the Bofors payoff scandal. Though there was a measure of truth in this perception, … Read More
Having spewed venom and cast aspersions on the intellectual credentials of historians recently nominated to the Indian Council of Historical Research, the once dominant Left-liberal school of historiography finds itself repenting at leisure as its own performance comes under public scrutiny. Though the arraigned historians have held their peace, cursory … Read More
