Retributions  

But does that mean that partition and the role of principal players–and Jinnah definitely was one–should not be critically examined? After all, why did India fail to prevent partition? Even if we assume that intentions of Nehru and rest of the Congress leadership was completely overboard, they failed at certain level otherwise India would never have been divided. How is it possible that Pakistan–a concept which was ill-defined as late as 1940–suddenly became such an unstoppable force that the Congress was forced to agree to a division which its top leadership deeply disagreed with? These are important questions which must be dispassionately explored in detail. Why the reluctance to do so?

Bad timing but..
Pressing academic commitments mean this blog will be silent for the next three months though this silence may be punctuated by very occasional posts. Regular service is expected to resume from the first week of July.
You can however continue to follow Retributions on Twitter–it is expected to be updated at least for the [...]

Towards a better polity
By Harsh Gupta
The BJP is the only party which can be both truly nationalist and truly liberal – and while it has many defects it is much closer to those ideals, compared to other parties. The other parties are pseudo-secular and throwback leftists- these communal socialists believe in vote banks and socially [...]

May it bring good tidings
Retributions wishes all its readers a very happy and prosperous new year.
Keep readings. And as The Acorn would say, thanks for helping with my education.
p.s In case you have not noticed, Retributions is now on Twitter too. Hop on for gyan in small doses. Subscribe or follow via  sidebar.

Tell us
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A question of power

Echoing Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar, Amit Varma asks,

1] Frame an argument, or even your position on the subject, that states why Kashmir should remain part of India.
2] Then replace the word ‘India’ with ‘the British empire’, and ‘Kashmir’ with ‘India’.[link]

Now, the secession argument is terribly complex. Taken to its logical conclusion, what [...]

India turns 61
A very happy independence to all readers of this blog.
p.s I am back from the rather extended work and travel related break. Regular blogging resumes from tomorrow.

A War of Ideas
The Indian media’s reaction to blogging has been marked by two divergent trends. On one hand, almost all major Indian media houses-especially television channels-have embraced blogging by hosting blogs on their site while many top journalists utilize popular blogging platform like Blogspot and Wordpress. No doubt, some of the blogs are merely [...]

Shrilal Shukla’s Raag Darbari and Pahla Padav are among the finest satirical novels in Hindi. Humorous but almost never comical, decades after they were written, they remain relevant for those interested in understanding small town India. In an article in Outlook, Amitava Bagchi discusses the novel and what they mean to us: We the [...]

Addressing the annual convention of All India Muslim League, held in Madras in 1941, Muhammad Ali Jinnah said,           
In this land of yours (meaning the Madras Province) there is another nation, the Dravidians.   This land is really Dravidistan. Imagine that three percent of the Brahmin high caste, by skillful maneuvering and skillful methods of electioneering [...]