If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!The elite have functioned as a willing arm of the political establishment
In the Indian Express, the ever perspicuous Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes,
The third dimension of the crisis is social. Elites set standards in any society. And the extraordinary social respectability, [...]
A simple matter of governance
While Indian media gets its knicker in knots over the assault on pub visitors in Mangalore, it ignores the fundamental issue at stake here: the acquiescence of the Indian state to private violence. Or as this blog had written in the context of many of Raj Thackeray’s violent campaigns in Maharashtra,
India [...]
This blog has long concluded that responding to Ms Arundhati Roy is a waste of time. She is so far beyond the pale that a reasonable dialogue is impossible. Still, engaging her–rather, not letting her uneducated nonsense go unchallenged is important.
Now, a serving police officer has penned a brilliant rebuttal to her latest,
According [...]
The debate on Mumbai or Bombay can wait. Violence is unacceptable. And what about globalization?
In an interview wih Karan Thapar, socialite Shobha De seems terribly confused. She claims she does not support Raj Thackeray but seems sympathetic to his cause–as Thapar points out multiple times. Considering she berates the Marathi intellectuals for not standing up, [...]
Amitabh Bachchan’s cowardice encourages Raj Thackeray
It is easy enough to understand why the common man may not be willing to stand up to Raj Thackeray and his thugs: He is the commander of a few lumpen elements who are ready to indulge in violence at his command; the state machinery has been ineffectual in handling [...]
Understanding cultural wars
Writing in the Rediff, Saisuresh Sivaswamy mounts a defence of the Marathi Manoos. He argues that unlike his native Chennai, Marathi culture has been swamped in Mumbai by the arrival of outsiders who have refused to ”assimilate” and attempt to retain a distinct identity. Therefore, it is inevitable that the ”mild-mannered” Maharashtrians would [...]
BJP faces a leadership crisis
After the virtual retirement of Atal Bihari Vajpayee from active politics, L.K Advani is, by some distance, BJP’s tallest leader. A master politician who rescued the party from electoral irrelevance, Advani’s position as the party strategist is unchallenged. But has Mr Advani–BJP’s prime ministerial candidate–emerged as a statesman? At least on [...]
No one.
A simple spat between two Bollywood actors has assumed regional colors,
After Raj Thackeray decided to support fellow Maharashtrian Nana Patekar, Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda threw his weight behind Tanushree Dutta, who belongs to his state, in the spat between the two actors.
Koda on Tuesday condemned the statement of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena [...]
One of the constant themes of public debate in India is to link the post 1991 reforms to problems faced by the Indian society. According to this intellectually lazy line of thinking, capitalism is responsible for all of India’s social and economic challenges. That despite reforms, the Indian economy remains highly regulated–India can hardly be [...]
Raj Thackeray’s goondaism is legitimized by the Indian state’s acquiescence to violence
In his column published in the Indian Express, Raj Thackeray’s justifies in vitriolic campaign citing examples of past political struggles invoking everyone from the Mahatama to Narendra Modi,
I will start with the one on violence…Isn’t the outbreak of spontaneous outrage in a people’s movement [...]
