Sikh Leader’s Killing in Canada Could Renew Ethnic Tensions in Modi’s India
Diplomatic relations between India and Canada remain tense after the murder of a Sikh leader in Canada, which Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has blamed on India. Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed...
View ArticleBesieged by the Re-Energised ‘Social Justice’ Movement, Narendra Modi...
Desperate times invite desperate remedies. Narendra Modi has quickly comprehended the moment. As of old, the Sanatan agenda of forging “Hindu unity” seems suddenly overtaken by a renewed push for...
View ArticleBig Blow to India’s Global Standing: We Lose the World Cup
It is a mournful time in Bharat. Our trusted partner in the Quad has stabbed us in the bat and in the ball. That too in a stadium named after the world’s most invincible leader, Narendra Modi. Had this...
View ArticleThe Israel-India-U.S. Triangle
In 1981, India’s post office issued a stamp showing the flags of India and occupied Palestine flying side by side above the phrase “Solidarity with the Palestinian people.” That now seems like ancient...
View ArticleDespite Higher Overall Vote, Congress Loses Three Hindi Belt States: What’s...
Five odd months before elections to the Lok Sabha are due, the Congress party has lost three assembly elections in the Hindi heartland. Despite the fact that the contest was between the Congress and...
View ArticleSecret Indian Memo Ordered “Concrete Measures” Against Hardeep Singh Nijjar...
The Indian government instructed its consulates in North America to launch a “sophisticated crackdown scheme” against Sikh diaspora organizations in Western countries, according to a secret memorandum...
View ArticleThe Suffocation of Democracy in India
On December 18 and 19, 141 members of the two houses of India’s Parliament were suspended, as of December 19, by the Speaker of the lower house, Om Birla. Each of these members belongs to the parties...
View ArticleHistory Repeats, Twists and Turns: Democracy Is Again in the Doghouse
History, we have been instructed, is now the story of warfare, now of the struggle for existence, now of the evolution of the species, now the unfolding of a divine idea, of the effulgence of...
View ArticleAs Modi Decrees a New Diwali, Remember There’s More to Indian Politics Than...
These are the days of bold political reclamation. Three principal axes of India’s mainstream politics seek centre-stage at perhaps the most fraught moment of post-Independence history. First was the...
View ArticleThe Tragedy Of India’s Authoritarian Descent: The Case of Prabir Purukayastha
Despite all the talk about India being the world’s largest democracy the existing reality is very different indeed. For persistent dissidents and opponents of the current Hindu nationalist regime...
View Article‘Murder of Democracy’ Said Supreme Court. Nation Waits to Hear from Its PM.
Modi speaking of a third term seems both democratically unlovely and rather ominous, given the shameless transgression in Chandigarh. The Trump-India moment is here, make no mistake. Elections are to...
View ArticleIndian Port Workers Refuse to Load Weapons for Israel’s War
On the 135th day of Israel’s relentless onslaught on Gaza, a resolute voice emerged from India’s maritime labor force. The Water Transport Workers Federation (WTWF), representing fourteen thousand...
View ArticleThe Invisible Farmers
The lives of farmers’ wives are the real miracle sustaining the community. Unlike their male counterparts, these women are not listed as the primary owners of the fields they cultivate and have no...
View ArticleIndia Alliance’s Patna Rally: Is a Great Political Change in the Offing?
In the words of the English romantic poet who died a young man full of dreams, namely Shelley, the INDIA alliance rally in historic Patna was a “sight to behold, not to tell”. Close to a million (you...
View ArticleModi Government Crackdown on Dissent Hits ‘Crisis Point’ Before Indian Elections
As India’s right-wing government cracks down on opposition ahead of next month’s general elections, Amnesty International on Friday urged authorities to “stop weaponizing the criminal justice system to...
View ArticleWhy the Far Right Rules Modi’s India
The rise of the far right is a global phenomenon. Perhaps nowhere is the far right stronger than in the second most populous country on Earth, India. There, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, under...
View ArticleIndia’s Farmers Are Mobilizing Against the Modi Government
Just over three years ago, Indian farmers mobilized in one of the biggest social movements the country has seen for decades, and delivered a significant blow to the government of Narendra Modi. Since...
View ArticleThe Myth That India’s Freedom Was Won Nonviolently Is Holding Back Progress
If there is a single false claim to “nonviolent” struggle that has most powerfully captured the imagination of the world, it is the claim that India, under Gandhi’s leadership, defeated the mighty...
View ArticleElection 2024 is For the Opposition to Win
As narratives are being floated with the obliging connivance of the captive media, each day is proving to be rather too long in current Indian politics. Just when you thought that the coming elections...
View ArticlePopular Movements, Not Elections, Will Bring Transformative Change in India
With the exception of a brief period, India has been more fortunate than many other nations in being able to maintain parliamentary rule over the last 77 years. With 900 million voters—more than the...
View ArticleModi Could Squander an Unprecedented Chance at Normalizing India-Pakistan Ties
Mired in economic and internal crises, Pakistan is primed for normalization and trade with India—but Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government is failing to seize the chance When Narendra Modi...
View ArticleLust for Unbridled, Uninterrupted Power is Making Modi Plumb the Depths
India must be the only republic where an 80% majority is constantly persuaded that it has everything to fear from a beleaguered 14% minority. Much of the time not at a loss for words, this once I am....
View ArticleIndia’s Billionaire Wealth Is on Display as Nation Votes
There are several exercises in extremes playing out in India right now. Nearly a billion people are voting in elections that will last into early June, braving record-high temperatures to cast ballots....
View ArticleWhy India’s Farmers Are Targeting Modi in the Elections
As the world’s largest democracy began the first of its seven-phase general elections last week, India’s farmers were back on the streets protesting the government’s U-turn on earlier promises. It has...
View ArticleModi, Rahul Gandhi and the Amethi ‘Debate’: Who Is Running Away from Where?
The Bharatiya Janata Party is askance that the Congress does not play to its script. Smriti Irani is crestfallen that her celebrity candidature has been insulted by being given a nondescript adversary....
View ArticleIndian Women Have Gone Backward Under Narendra Modi’s Rule
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which currently heads the ruling coalition government in India, has long had a reputation as a male-dominated, Hindu supremacist organization with an upper caste and...
View ArticleModi’s Hypocritical Doublespeak About Religion and the Constitution
Passing references apart, the most worrying feature of the current election campaign has been the lack of popular or systemic outrage against the way Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)...
View ArticleDear White Friends: Can You Smell the Yellow Roses of Dier al-Balah?
One of the first things that I heard from people when I immigrated to the United States from the Global South in early 2000 was, “Oh, you speak our language so well.” To which I would reply politely...
View ArticleIn the Largest Democracy, a Spade Must Not Be Called a Spade
Had Indira Gandhi been alive today, she would have learnt how to run an Emergency without declaring it. That she invoked, injuriously, a then-existing provision of the constitution to so do gave her...
View Article“We the People” Need a Government That is Creatively Unstable
Let us pray that ‘we the people” have not voted for a brute majority to any party, followed by a ‘strong’ leader at the helm. Governments born of such a combo, as we have seen repeatedly worldwide, and...
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