In our time and country the vital liberty of thought and speech,so crucial for health of democracy,has been under severe stress for the strangest of reasons.Such freedom is being curbed in the name of preserving peace and harmony in society.Consider the legions of criminal cases relating to hate-speech and ‘hurting the sentiments of communities.’. Now it is true that hate-speech[Read More…]
(1) A deeply disturbing,indeed ominous feature of our contemporary debates and struggles on the question of the state has been the increasing penetration and dominance of Hindutva ideas in them. It has not occurred abruptly and suddenly,but over years,incrementally and with increasing force and conviction,supported by well-planned popular movements at the ground level.The opposition,after having long ignored it as of[Read More…]
Udayanidhi Stalin’s declaration of war against ‘Sanatana Hindu Dharma’ has provoked a wave of denunciation and diatribe in different parts of the country.The Prime Minister has thundered that the critics of this ‘Sanatana Dharma’ whom he identifies with the INDIA alliance of the opposition is set on wrecking the whole millennia-old edifice of Indian spiritual heritage. But what IS this[Read More…]
BJP is addicted to gigantism.Everything it does is on a gigantic scale,even the frauds.The last general election of 2019 for example ,if Satpal Malik’s account of Pulwama is to be believed.For effect on a stunned oposition and a bemused public it also carries them out with lightning speed. I have a terrible apprehension that this election is going to witness[Read More…]
There’s little doubt that the sole purpose behind BJP’s raucous campaign to rename India as ‘Bharat’ is to create some confusion and unease in the mind of the masses about the United opposition’s challenge to the oppressive,exploitative and intensely divisive regime under a common banner blazoned INDIA. As far as I can see the ordinary voter is seething with anger[Read More…]
The BJP spokespersons are lauding the newly dressed and christened penal code of the country as a refreshing native product,free from the traces of colonial origin.The authors of the code have claimed they have purified the IPC of its colonial character, and thoroughly ‘Indianized’ it.One would think they meant by it a code worthy of a free democratic country.But it[Read More…]
One hopes fervently that the honourable judges of the Supreme Court understand the final repercussions of the present government’s latest initiatives.It is nothing less than the abolition of constitutional democracy as we understand it.The draconian provisions of the revised penal code,the brutal elimination of existing safeguards for tribal rights,human sustenance and environmental sustainability from biodiversity laws,and the Chief Economic Adviser’s[Read More…]
While not denying the value of opposition dramatics at Parliament,one might yet worry that activities at the ground level are at a low ebb.Particularly because the saffron camp is in a furious but orchestrated drive to unsettle minds and in the chaos start divisive fires all over the country.Right from riots to vicious communal campaigns to camouflaged religious armed drills.Thus[Read More…]
Two days back news about the Bajrang Dal holding an arms training camp at the playground of a school in the district town Mangaldoi here in Assam created sensation and heated controversy. Firearms were used in the training,and such use of firearms,except by organizations under license,is against the law.The District head of the polce(SP) has said in response to questions[Read More…]
Assam has been in uproar over an haphazard process of dilimitation of constituencies and for a couple of weeks erupting into cries of frustration and rage over the way it has resulted in strange and absurd outcomes.Entire constituencies some going back more than seventy years have disappeared and many brand-new ones have been created.Entire communities have lost their address,odd fragments[Read More…]
The extraordinary silence of the Prime Minister on the horrifying situation in Manipur has been broken by an extraordinary statement on a viral video of rape of one woman and forced naked parade of three hapless Kuki women by a Meitei mob.Extraordinary?Yes.While the Prime Minister says his blood boils in agony and rage at this brazen cruelty he carefully refrains[Read More…]
It sure is heartening news that the long-awaited opposition unity has at long last materialized in the Bengaluru meeting.Most political parties that matter and oppose the BJP have come together in an desperate attempt to confront the demon in a body.The country has come to the tipping point where we are just an inch or so from sliding downhill into[Read More…]
The observations of the Gujarat High Court judge who refused to stay the metropolitan magistrate’s sentence on Rahul Gandhi make strange reading.Reportedly the magistrate himself had reached the present tier in judicial hierarchy through somewhat shady paths.While upholding his verdict the honourable judge regretted the lack of ‘purity’ among present-day politicians. One hopes this had not been the type of[Read More…]
That the relevance of a uniform civil code should turn out to be a hot topic for debate and political contestation is a paradox mirroring the confusion in present political discourses of India.Nobody in the Constituent Assembly probably thought it would take such a turn.It had been mooted as part of a modernizing project for transformation of a backward,tradition-bound society[Read More…]
Listening to Karan Thapar’s numerous interviews with Meitei and Kuki interlocutors on the Manipur situation,I carried away the impression that it is not possible to acquire a clear idea of the situation through the haze of pain,grief and anger of the victims,however affecting these are.At the opposite pole neither is it possible to grasp the truth behind the Prime Minister’s[Read More…]
It was Vico who had introduced us to the now common notion that it is given to man alone to understand things made by man.To create a thing is to endow it with sense which is decoded by people.Giving names is one such form of creation.To remove such names is destruction of such creation. Positivist historians persuade themselves they can[Read More…]
Certain friends remind us it is the fifth anniversary of a dark moment in our recent history.About this time seven or eight years ago the govt agencies in charge of state security announced to a dazed country the incredible story of an horrendous plot to assassinate the Prime Minister linked to a tortuous plan to create absolute mayhem in the[Read More…]
The least the present government could have done,even if to save appearances,in response to the ghastly train accident at Balasore,was the Rly Minister’s resignation.For there can be no doubt whatsoever that the accident or disaster had been caused by gross human error and utter blatant negligence. This is no one off default but routine systemic malady.Last year’s CAG report had[Read More…]
Reading a recent news suddenly my mind raced back across to a time when as an inquisitive child of twelve I used to read all available printed stuff in Assamese or Bengali.I recall a debate in Bengali magazine PROBASI between an irate eminent scientist Meghnad Saha and an elderly Hindu scholar who argued that ancient shastras had anticipated all the[Read More…]
It has become the confirmed habit of the saffron zealots to embroider every claimed achievement of their camp with adulterated facts.No wonder the ‘Sengol’ presented to Nehru by an influential Hindu Monastery of South India was duly declared to have been a divinely blessed sceptre now restored to its rightful dignity by the pious Hindu regime. Contrary to the spin[Read More…]
It is a great disappointment that the Supreme Court bench of JK Maheswari and PS Narasimha has refused to entertain the petition by an advocate seeking a prohibition of the forthcoming inauguration of the new Parliament building by the incumbent Prime Minister on the ground that article 79 makes the President the head of the state and pre-eminent member of[Read More…]
The higher judiciary in india are given to quoting pronouncements of American judges and jurists,to the chagrin of Hindu revivalists who consider this an undesirable deference to Western ideas of law.They would prefer references to ancient Indian Dharma shastras like Manu Samhita to give a native stamp to our laws. But honorable judges remained unfazed,leaving the passionate nativitists fuming.As far[Read More…]
My well-meaning friends shake their heads mournfully over my odd habit of persisting with the most unusual questions after an issue has been discussed thoroughly,and settled most expeditiously.For example,when the Supreme Court cut through the maze of Maharashtra politics to rule that the Governor acted beyond his constitutional powers when he ordered a floor test in assembly after the much-publicised[Read More…]
The Karnataka pre-election surveys indicate a pro-Congress wave which naturally raise the spirits of the Congress and the opposition,while it sees BJP ICON Prime Minister publicly showing his hurt sentiments by weeping before a crowded rally at alleged calumnies by opposition leaders. So far so good.But the BJP is sure to use its trump card, highlighting divisive communal issues which[Read More…]
I hazard an intrusion into an area which professional historians might regard trespass or even worse.Nevertheless as a person interested in lessons of history and the way these are consciously or unconsciously dispensed one needs must observe and watch closely the unfolding project to refashion it in a particular way to derive a preconceived lesson.Reasons are plain and need not[Read More…]
The elusive goal of opposition unity is a perverse reality for several reasons.First and foremost is that current lot of party-workers are far more driven by personal ambitions of power and pelf than by ideology.The professed ideologies are usually covers for various narrow group interests,and equality is sought at the cost of others,liberty is also a cloak for class or[Read More…]
Rahul Gandhi may be forgiven for worrying about vicious attacks on the image painstakingly built over months of triumphant Bharat Jodo Yatra.But images are perhaps not the most important part of the campaign to save democracy,indeed the country.And it is just a waste of time for the entire manpower of the party to throng the streets for weeks on end[Read More…]
Law Minister has accused Rahul Gandhi for seeking bail in the case where he was convicted (The Hindu,April 5) of putting pressure on the judiciary. As they say,every action has a reaction. This step taken by Mr Gandhi may be understood as a natural reaction to the pressure put on him.So why such pother about a law of nature or[Read More…]
Rahul Gandhi has become the rallying point of the democratic opposition parties not so much because of shared conviction of the enormity of the alleged links between PM and Adani,as because of the shockingly shoddy and brutally despotic way in which Rahul Gandhi has been deprived of his legitimate place in the house of the people and the right to[Read More…]
I may be wrong,but I believe that the ominous and dangerous verdicts of both the Judicial Magistrate of Surat and the Honourable Speaker are marred by an elementary fallacy we all learnt during the penultimate years of higher secondary education. Let us put the most offensive construction on Rahul Gandhi’s remark.Then it will turn out like this: ALL THIEVES ARE[Read More…]
Before resuming continuation of section 2 of Part 1, I have to deal with the latest news about Rahul Gandhi.It transpires that the charge of defamation apparently pertains to his remarks on how all thieves uncannily have the title ‘Modi’. Much depends on whether he made the remark at a press conference or on some public platform or in private[Read More…]
(1) Attack,they say,is the best means of defence.And here we take up two arenas where at the moment this adage is most conspicuously in a frenzy of operation.Though poles apart they show the same entities and ideas locked in mortal conflict. First the sentencing of Rahul Gandhi to two years of imprisonment on the charge of ‘having defamed the country’.[Read More…]
Comments are no part of COUNTERCURRENTS.ORG repertory.But I am risking a chance on the ground that Ramakrishnan’s eye-opening article on India’s shift to a defence-dependant economy needs greater attention from sober citizens with genuine concern for the future of our society and nation. The big shift to a defence-related economy is definitely going to trigger tectonic shift in the psychology[Read More…]
I am profoundly shocked and dumb-founded at Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju’s reported remarks about certain retired Supreme Court judges having joined a gang of anti-nationals and started among other things to criticise the highest court in the land.(Indian Express,19th March)They are also warned of possible consequences. This comes close enough to the scene that Rahul Gandhi had conjured in[Read More…]
There are philosophers who can argue you into a corner where meaning itself becomes meaningless and reason an endless self-deception,to their own vast self-satisfaction.In this country current turn of events has brought us to a situation where you find reason itself being put to tasks that cancel one another out. Rahul Gandhi on his return has been the target of[Read More…]
”Bharat Jodo” meant uniting in love a country torn by hatred and malice.The word ‘whole’ had once been associated with health,and so the divisions and distrust are also threats to the health of the country. Definitely a most desirable end and spiritually uplifting objective. But the divisions are too complicated and stubborn to be overcome by a noble intention though[Read More…]
The really awful mistake is to treat the present as an oasis of peace and wish away all bad omens as temporary noise bound to get filtered out.Now in jitters thanks to stirring of conscience and resistance among broader sections of the people, the evil regime is desperate to encourage this illusion and gag any open sign of defiance.’I am[Read More…]
The BJP party and government(there is actually no difference.) has crossed all rational limits to crush the little but numerous vibrant signs of revolt under the steamroller of the state.Such responses are also absurd to the point of being ridiculous.The gagging of the BBC documentary and frantic persecution of some viewers and platforms betray the growing insecurity and apprehension of[Read More…]
At this very moment a hideously frightening yet absurd antic is going on in Assam in the name of law.Of course we are getting blase about Hindutva forces in and out of government staging all kinds of ludicrous drama,like the RSS (in a recent issue of The ORGANISER,official organ of the RSS) coming out blazing all guns in support of[Read More…]
The fog enveloping both the subjects discussed in my last article has not cleared thanks to the studied silence of the accused.If Hindenburgh Research is to be believed, Adani’s 413 page is not much of an answer as it allegedly fudges or skips over key issues.We are only spectators in the game but we are keen that things should be[Read More…]
It may or may not be a coincidence,but it is surely striking that from two countries regarded as close allies of Prime Minister Modi two quite alarming missiles have exploded near him and his close friend corporate magnate Gautam Adani.The BBC documentary directly holds him responsible for letting the ghastly pogrom of 2002 happen in Gujarat during his watch as[Read More…]
We have not cared to question the state-led fashioning of an intricate network of digital data we have been forced to supply.All services provided by the state directly or indirectly have required and extorted our Aadhar number.Besides the different identifying coded names or numbers for different services are being linked through our own submissions without our being aware of potential[Read More…]
My friend of sixty years,founder-member of Delhi Socialist Teachers Forum with Manoranjan Mohanty,brother of brave human rights crusader in Kashmir Balraj Puri, has died after a painful struggle with cancer.His friends remember him as a caring and humane person,totally unassuming and yet making a deep impression on his friends with the depth of his knowledge and firmness of his convictions.[Read More…]
Much heart-burning and grumbling seem to have followed the not unexpected SC verdict on Demonetisation.It was a little naive to expect the contrary.For had the SC verdict gone the other way,it would not have been a mere loss of face for the PM.It would have conceivably gone all the way to delegitimise the Modi government,and the consequences might have led[Read More…]
One thing the opposition may learn from the RSS/BJP combine is that the latter has always the big picture in mind in planning its course of action and making its tactical moves.Something the fragmented opposition fighting among themselves and used to moving down the beaten track have not been able to do. It knows that by renewing the furore about[Read More…]
Assam is the dark side of the planet that is India.Rest of India neither knows nor cares what happens there.That has happened time and again.That is to say India does not seem to really know what is happening to it or it is impossible to retrieve the truth from the messy accumulation of lies and distortions.For example the truth about[Read More…]
Some time back a friend of Teesta Setalvad,one of the most courageous and outstanding Human Rights workers in the country,asked me to write a brief piece on what the Constitution of India mean to me.At that time,what with my involvement in various protest movements and my writing engagements,I could not find time to comply.Then it also occurred to me that[Read More…]
Back in 1968,when I was busy giving final shape to my revised thesis, I don’t think anyone in Cambridge had heard of Jaques Derrida.The impact of continental ,largely Hegelian Marxism charmed younger scholars while seniors were slightly dazed, though they appeared to prefer their empiricist slumber.Derrida had already thrown his first stone at the bee-hive in the form of a[Read More…]
While not entirely unexpected, the SC verdict on reservation for economically weaker sections has caused dismay and disappointment among those already enjoying reservation.It is not envy of the newly reserved class which will not encroach on their turf,but fear that it might push many in their position farther back in the race for advancement. Ravish Kumar of NDTV has rightly[Read More…]
This morning was spoilt for me by my disgust at yet another shoddy attempt to besmirch Nehru’s reputation by somehow linking him to the disappearance of Netajee Subhash, great national leader and patriot of India.The disappearance is itself a conjecture till date as the remains in a Japanese temple(Yashukuni shrine) are yet to be conclusively proved as those of Netajee[Read More…]
The country is lumbering towards an abyss,what with the reckless government caught in the toils of its own rash policies,and brazening it out with more and more incredible lies. Society still foundering in the terrible wilderness of divisive and hate-filled campaigns,and the opposition still unable to unite in their intoxication with imagined electoral triumphs. Not unexpectedly Rahul Gandhi’s bold initiative[Read More…]
(1) The so-called ‘Western powers’ in a rash bid to turn the Ukraine offensive into a nightmare for Russia and shell-shock the comity of nations that desperately yearn for peace has prodded Ukraine to launch more and more provocative attacks on Russia. Naturally it has entrapped Russia into more and more ruthless reprisals,which might well escalate to a nuclear strike.Whereas[Read More…]
I had hailed the Bharat Jodo Yatra as soon as it set out as a potential game-changer.It could catapult Rahul Gandhi out of his accustomed comfort zone,enable him to have direct contact with the masses,and make over his image as an inept political amateur.Most of which it has begun to accomplish according to media reports.It has brought back cheer and[Read More…]
We in India have evry reason for concern as despite contradictory reports our economy already seems to be under severe stress,and the fortunes of this war are likely to have incalculable impact on world economy and trade.It is most necessary to have a fair idea of the way this war is going.True we made windfalls gains like cheap Russian crude[Read More…]
At this moment the the topic that has aroused most heat on social media and portals and some TV channels in my state has been the untimely death of a talented budding musician at a district hospital in Majuli,said to be the largest river island in the world.Fifteen year old Tejaswita Barua,who had won the hearts of audiences with the[Read More…]
I begin at a tangent. Today,on the 2nd October ,I had left home in the morning to join a public assembly to pay homage to the Father of the Nation.People do not fully understand why he alone among all the tallest leaders of the Freedom Movement should be given that epithet,and that too by one of his most bitter critics[Read More…]
Former EC member SY Qureshi has made the context of the meeting of four eminent Muslims with RSS supremo Mohan Bhagavat clear.The account of the meeting also makes one sigh with some relief that the usual constraint and strain of such exchanges seemed absent in it.Next we hear of Mohan Bhagavat himself visiting the chief of the Council of Imams,and[Read More…]
One hopes the old idiomatic phrase is still understood by many. For nothing else can catch the frenzy the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ provoke among die-hard adherents of Hindutva.Our Prime Minister has re-affirmed his old links with them with a recent remark. Shedding his jovial neighbourly expression and putting on his portentuous mien and manner,he has reportedly declared that the[Read More…]
Few recall these days the furore on the Mandal Commission report.At that time I found to my dismay even some progressive academics at the Delhi University campus wavering on the question of reservation.(I had been there for some reason I do not remeber now,but vividly remember the vehemence of passion against the policy of reservation in the campus.)Some well-known professors[Read More…]
Rahul Gandhi’s bold new initiative has the potential to electrify the aggrieved and oppressed masses of India.Provided it is not a rehash of the ‘Karwain Mohabbat’ type march for spreading the gospel of love.In this divided and frustrated country where beneath the surface of patient suffering there is smouldering anger and resentment.From time to time there are explosions of fratricidal[Read More…]
They have seized our country and taking it away from us. Our lush forests,rolling plains,our upstanding hills,our majestic rivers,fruits of our toil, future of our children’s children.Our freedoms,our dignity,our past,our cherished heritage,our hearty laughter and our rousing songs. All that our fathers had fought and died for,all that our mothers cherished and nourished with the warmth of their breast. But[Read More…]
There can be little doubt that the two recent events that have caused most stir and grabbed most attention are Ghulam Nabi Azad’s letter of resignation from the Congress after an association for nearly fifty years and the Adani group’s precipitate bid for hostile take-over of the NDTV.Both have lessons for the defenders of democracy in their mortal struggle for[Read More…]
The seven hundred and odd pages long proposed constitution for the Hindu Rashtra,to emerge out of the ashes of our present constitution,has been dismissed as a joke by our secular media and enlightened public analysts.But are they being too complacent and a little rash,perhaps? The actual responses of the communally fired,divided masses cannot be predicted so confidently.Already we have some[Read More…]
The latest news on Ambani’s expanding empire might leave most readers slightly puzzled.The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition by wild life activists to cancel the government’s permission to Mukesh Ambani to open and manage a zoo covering an area of 168 acres.He has been collecting animals from different quarters including Black panthers from Assam and elephants courtesy forest department[Read More…]
Five hundred years ago Francis Bacon,arguably a pioneer of what later became the European Enlightenment,had mooted the idea of four major sources of error and obstacles to clear thinking about truth.He called them idols.For instance ‘idols of the cave’ or ‘idols of the mind,on which we need not dwell at the moment.The ‘Idols of the marketplace’ with which we[Read More…]
Suddenly the country is abuzz with freebies.The media resounding with high-minded denunciation of them.Experts,opinion makers,op-ed writers are homing in on them.The Supreme Court is shaking its head.Now a committee of taxpayers are to decide if parties can promise freebies before elections.That too at a time when prices of gas cylinders etc are hurtling through the roof.One question continues to[Read More…]
Justice.M.Khanwilkar’s recent judgments have provoked much controversy.His retirement has become an occasion for acerbic reviews of his past orders and also the SC’s role.It has been suggested that he had been assigned cases where the government was in a tight spot and every time he came to the government’s rescue with a battery of arguments as well as a deeply[Read More…]
When the present Chief Justice of India speaks,India listens.Not because of his position and power,but because he has restored a measure of trust in the justice system of the country following its steep decline under some of his predecessors. The point is critical.For the highest courts in the world are prone to be subjected to heated controversy from time to[Read More…]
The order passed by the SC bench led by Justice D.Y.Chandrachud releasing Mohammed Zubair on bail and clubbing together all six cases filed by UP and Delhi police comes as welcome relief at a time when the extraordinary judgment of another bench ordering prosecution of Teesta Setalvad,well-known human rights activist, seemed to be the culmination of courts’ indecisive and[Read More…]
The scenes unfolding before us are rather dispiriting.Consider the lone crusade of the opposition’s joint candidate for the post of the President,Yashwant Sinha, as he travels from state to state like an old but sturdy war-horse.It now appears that some elements in the opposition have been brought up short by the support generated for Droupadi Murmu among considerable numbers[Read More…]
Both the central government and the government of my state run on increasing debt,and annual expenditure far outstrips the budget.In the case of the Centre deficit runs into lakhs of crores.The CM of the state announces every heavy loan with flourish breathing the intoxicating mantra of ‘Vikash’.And the struggling shopkeeper,[Read More…]
This is not a disquisition on history,for I am no historian,not by a long shot.But it is an essay nudged by an interest in education.And in these times for all I can see resistance to a misguided and systematic destruction of our entire modern state[Read More…]
It is good that the CJI has reminded a foreign audience abroad that the judiciary is committed to the constitution and its values,and not to any government creating havoc by flaunting its banner.In another recent function here a Supreme Court Judge has expressed his unhappiness at the media criticism of the different verdicts of the courts in different cases.[Read More…]
It is rather ironic that at a time when the CJI is addressing students at New York on democracy and senior Justice of Supreme Court D.Y.Chandrachud is speaking at King’s College,Cambridge on human rights and civil liberties,a vacation bench of SC here has administered an unexpected and rather uncalled-for blow to noted human rights activist Teesta Setalvad,prompting Gujarat Police and[Read More…]
Thousands of youths upon the streets.Mainly but not exclusively BJP-ruled states. On their faces a burning desire to avenge a wrong.But not necessarily a maniacal rage with indiscriminate targets.Buses and trains in flames.Youths storming at everything associated with government with sticks and pelting stones at police.Police trying desperately to stem the tide.Lathi-charges and in one incident bullets. Frightening and disturbing[Read More…]
I propose to deal with two entirely different issues under the same rubric,as one daily comes under an avalanche of news,a benumbing mixture of sheer frippery and disturbing political trends.Are we drifting towards a dangerous period of violent anarchy and brutal mind-boggling repression? First the daily inflow of one more senior and influential leader of the main opposition party deserting[Read More…]
There is a Bengali saying,”He who rides a tiger cannot dismount”.This would seem to apply to the entrenched political lobby which have been seeking assiduously to undermine the country’s constitution by burrowing into it and weakening it from within. The recent rather strict action taken against a national spokesperson of the ruling party,though nine days after her offending remarks,and only[Read More…]
Our leaders seem fascinated by the phrase ‘surgical strike’,like a child with a new toy playing with it any number of times.The suddenness that takes the target by surprise,the abruptness and the concentrated force that overwhelms resistance,all combine to put the party using it under a spell. The detoxification of Congress heritage in the state is the field where the[Read More…]
Rahul Gandhi is being barracked by the saffron camp for saying the constitution does not mention the word ‘nation’.They argue the Preamble does so clearly.But no constitution in the world talks about any ‘nation’. Constitutions talk about the structure and powers of the State and the rights of the people.They are rendered necessary by the urge and need to eliminate[Read More…]
A few days back,a story jointly authored by The Wire journalist Sangeeta Pisharoty Barua and the online Assamese newsportal Cross Currents created a sensation in Assam and elsewhere.The report states that during the first onset of COVID 19 then Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma claimed that he was the only minister of any state government to have ordered PPE[Read More…]
During the heyday of the Non-co-operation Movement led by Gandhijee,the firebrand Bengali rebel poet Kazi Nazrul Islam wrote a poem where he held out a warning to the leaders.He was aware of rising Hindu-Muslim tensions and growing indiscipline among its ranks.The title and the first line of the poem is :”Beware helmsman!”,obviously addressing the leaders of the movement. I have[Read More…]
I think we are in the midst of an undeclared multiple emergency that is flattening all our familiar signposts in every sphere of public life.Mere refutation of the prolific lies and recourse to conventional remedies seem no longer of any avail.Included of course is the alarming fact that most of the institutions guarding the public interest have been totally disarmed.There[Read More…]
There is near-consensus in the academia that facts and facts alone are sovereign in research,and theories are suspect.This does not prevent reputed scholars to author huge times on ‘the end of ideology’,’the clash of civilizations’,’the mind of Islam’, ‘the fading of the American dream’,and so on.Nevertheless the insistence is reiterated ad nauseam. It is especially when someone writes something that[Read More…]
It is disgusting that the day Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani got bail at the CJM’s court,he was re-arrested on patently trumped-up charges of obstructing police officers from carrying out their duties and ‘outraging the modesty of a woman police officer’ by a police team from a different district of Assam. In both these cases the police are obviously the sole[Read More…]
One disturbing and intriguing aspect of current opposition politics is the persistent illusion that but for a few exceptions it is business as usual in politics.It is not.There is a vast,far-reaching but insidious and unobtrusive plan at work to change the character of the state.The campaign is two-pronged,both from the level of the state and the level of popular mobilization.Every[Read More…]
I am immensely and most disagreeably surprised by the excessive action of the Assam Police in arresting legislator Jignesh Mewani from far-off Gujarat for a bitter critical comment on the Prime Minister on the complaint of someone from Assam. The complainant may have the highest regard for the Prime Minister.But others are within their rights to hold and air a[Read More…]
Recent reports on Gautam Navlakha’s appeal to change his jail term when the case just drags on on health grounds once again revive nagging doubts on the fabulous Maoist conspiracy case against a miscellaneous group of lawyers,social activists and human rights workers on the basis of documents allegedly retrieved from the laptop of some of the accused.The case is hanging[Read More…]
This article owes nothing to philosopher Nietzsche except a faint echo of the title of his celebrated work,TWILIGHT OF THE GODS,suggesting a similar crisis and detour of European spiritual culture as its icons were getting brittle after reigning supreme for a century. Nietzsche promises to go to them with a hammer.I have no such pretensions.I am only referring to the[Read More…]
There it is and it cannot be wished away.The Congress has come a cropper for the THIRD time,and someone must take responsibility for it. We have heard for the third time the tired plea that the people’s verdict had been accepted with humility. Some noted commentators have said that Rahul Gandhi et al must now leave politics and retire to[Read More…]
This unfamiliar term means ‘Scence of Place Names’ and traces origins and histories of place-names.The current saffron craze for changes in place-names purportedly associated with Muslim rule actually plays havoc with Toponymy,and by association,with history Originating in a thirst for revenge against alleged ‘historical wrongs/injustices’, this mania actually sins against history.Colonial rulers sometimes failed to pronounce native names correctly,and changed[Read More…]
Reports say some authority in central(union) government had rejected the tableaux from three states for the Republic Day parade.What does the republic stand for? Not a centralized state,but as CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury had insisted in Parliament during the first Modi government ‘a union of states’.He had invoked the Constitution.But leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley had promptly retorted that[Read More…]
Everything that reminds people of Nehru’s legacy is being smashed.Along with it the ideas of democracy and all-round development he espoused so tenaciously. Now there is no need to put him on a pedestal and burn incense to his memory.He had his faults,but he had been practically the founder of modern Indian democracy as we know it[Read More…]
The initial remarks in Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Parliament the motion of thanks to the President’s speech have provoked a storm of abuse from BJP ranks within and outside the house.The matter needs some scrutiny. Gandhi said the Constitution does not mention the nation. Quite so. But I believe no constitution in the world actually mentions the nation.It is usually[Read More…]
I do not find Vijay Parshad’s idea of the place of the individual in socialism very convincing.Though I salute the strength and courage of his conviction in the world-wide fight against imperialism it does not seem he has spared much thought for this crucial question.This hesitancy and silence marked all previous revolutionary leaders with possible exception in Che Guevara.All of[Read More…]
Poring over Appu Suresh and Priyanka Kotamraju’s THE MURDERER.THE MONARCH AND THE FAKIR(Harper Collins) at a stretch I have just finished reading it.The story has its own interest and the authors have brought to light things that can never be evaded now.Savarkar and his associates can no longer be simply absolved of guilt as has so far been done.The Prince[Read More…]
These days one wakes up every morning to headlines about fresh ravages of COVID-19 and one more scandalous attempt by the government at the Centre to re-fashion history and public memory. There are certain common threads to the latter campaign. For one the desperate attempt to sift and sweep out the great contribution of Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National[Read More…]
The juvenile remoulding of symbols by quenching the flames of the Amar Jawan Jyoti flame and magically merging the dead flame with one in the National War Memorial has caused widespread disgust.In the favourite tactic of surgical strikes the act had been neither in public demand nor anticipated.The logic barely stands scrutiny. Sure the dead in the First ever World[Read More…]
These days there is a lot of enthusiasm in progressive liberal circles about the powerful presence of dissent in Indian traditional thought.Accompanied by head-shaking about the pernicious effect of Anglophilia and dominance of the Engish language in academic circles. Inordinately nettled at the saffron camp’s repression of liberal thinking in the name of pristine Indian tradition and at its hostile[Read More…]
There is now a real hunt for coining ever new terms for new upsetting phenomena in society and politics,such as finer terms to denote different degrees of authoritarianism in stead of seeing as a whole the concerted and unremitting campaign to turn the state into a full-fledged fascist state. On the other hand there is a reluctance to examine the[Read More…]
When the Wire and Cross-current broke the news of the Assam Chief Minister’s family having been involved in a landscam in three different areas of the state,turning govt. land allotted for charitable purposes into real estate with majority shares under their belt,everyone expected the popular press here to raise a huge furore.The report pinpointed the location,the specific category of the[Read More…]
With due deference to prominent social activists and shapers of public opinion Venkatesh Narayan and Sandeep Pandey, and their insistence on the urgency and immediacy of the issue of freedom of expression,I would still like to propose that the right to privacy is of not less importance.After all freedom is indivisible as I had urged about three years back in[Read More…]
The Supreme Court in its historic judgment on the Pegasus scandal memorably castigated the government and formed a committee under its own watch to enquire into the alleged grave state violation of the precious right to privacy of citizens.The honourable court had also apparently prohibited any other agency from enquiring into it.Recently the commission led by Ret.Justice of SC Madan[Read More…]
The Prime Minister’s holy dip in the Ganga is no longer a private affair,but a state event reported on the media with plenty of fanfare.Twelve Chief Ministers from states have been called in to follow his lead.Like an emperor commanding his satraps to demonstrate their loyalty to him by taking subsidiary parts in the sacred ablutions. This is in stark[Read More…]
The Indian elite is given to thinking of the Constitution as some sort of a sacred emblem, and believes that none will dare commit sacrilege against it.But the constitution,however noble a document,is made by people,and it has to be protected by people from damage and danger.When one reads that an MP of the governing party has proposed in parliament alteration[Read More…]
Historian Marc Bloch talks of a ‘Longue Duree'( long or protracted time) to describe an historical period where inherent contradictions of a socio-cultural system develop slowly,giving it almost a stagnant look.It can be characterized by certain common features. I think the term may be applied also to a crisis,like our present constitutional crisis. CJI Ramana, yearns to tread the long[Read More…]
Nehru is now the favourite punching bag for all who call for change.Time was when he was nothing short of a demi-god.But now there has been such a volley of attacks on him as would seem to demand consigning him to the scrap-heap.As though he is guilty of all mishaps that have befallen us. But such demands are somewhat dubious[Read More…]
Like many others I also scanned closely the video of the Prime Minister making the ‘historic’ announcement on the farm bills. But I did not find a speck of sincere contrition and remorse in it.His eyes distant and his tone studiedly lofty,he was expressing a strategic and perhaps temporary withdrawal.Explaining the repeal as a failure to convince a minority of[Read More…]
The Assam Human Rights Commission closed on 10.3.2021 the case filed by Hirak Jyoti Bora,former General Secretary,Cotton College Students’ Union and now a member of the Assamese nationalist party AJP ,against the allegedly unprovoked police firing during the night of 12 December 2019 in Assam that had killed Sam Stafford and four other youthful protesters against the passing of CAA.[Read More…]
For the last five years or so heated discussion on violence committed on minorities in Assam has risen to such a fever-pitch that any plea for a reasonable assessment of the Assamese concerns has been virtually ruled out of court.The Assamese,or a section of them,have been grave violators of human rights.But that by itself should not justify ruling out any[Read More…]
The recent in the face bluster of the Centre that it need not always obey the verdict of the SC carried a disturbing undertone of menace.As if it will be infra dig for the SC to compel the Centre to comply with its orders.Treason,to put it starkly. But in democracy such obedience to constituted authority is the rule,as in its[Read More…]
Whatever has happened to Pegasus,the winged horse? The SC had put a simple question to the government’s counsel if it used it on certain citizens who can by no means be considered security threats.The government just refused to respond any way,leaving everybody on tenterhooks. Nothing has since been heard about it. Meanwhile reports say the Israeli government is in secret[Read More…]
Recently during a book-launch RSS supremo Mohan Bagavat is reported to have regretted that Savarkar has been the victim of an historical conspiracy of sorts.He warned that next,Swami Vivekananda may come in for similar villification.Apparently both are in the same league in his opinion.’Guruji’ Golwalkar had also written in his WE OR OUR NATIONHOOD DEFINED about the exceptional logical clarity[Read More…]
Review of Amartya Sen’s Memoir “HOME IN THE WORLD”,Penguin Random House,2021 Amartya Sen is rightly regarded as the iconic liberal democrat of our time,combining as he does a deep-seated commitment to fundamental civil rights with an unwavering passion for social justice,advocated with serene rationality unfailingly courteous to people holding different views.The only condition he lays down is that such views[Read More…]
Ashish Tripathi writing in DECCAN HERALD(October 4) has quoted an SC bench hearing a case against farmers’ protest objecting that it impedes the public’s freedom of movement by blocking roads.The bench made two observations.First since the laws have been stayed there was no reason for protests to continue. Secondly,the validity of the laws will be tested and decided at the[Read More…]
People squirm in unease when I refer to the legacy of Nazism while discussing present proponents of Hindutva.But once one sets aside quibbles the mindset of both camps cannot fail to strike one with their remarkable likeness. The fundamental generic unity lies in their deep discomfort with any strand of thought,culture or language that does not agree with their paradigm[Read More…]
Even a couple of days before it hapless Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, or anybody outside a charmed circle,had any idea that they will be set upon by hordes of murderers and hate=filled fanatics. Secrecy and suddenness are the basic elements of such mass assaults on life and property of victims of pogroms. Secrecy is no longer so important as[Read More…]
The second half of the thirties for the Weimar Republic in Germany was marked by both aspirations and apprehensions.The rise of the Nazis,with the connivance at their political thuggery by the police,did arouse anxiety,but Hitler as yet had not earned his evil charisma.The largest group in parliament were the Social Democrats,who were denounced as ‘social fascists’ simply for not joining[Read More…]
Government pleads in Supreme Court in defence of its stubborn refusal to disclose if it has used Pegasus spyware against civilian targets,that terrorists might disappear from the radar if the answer is made public.But the moment it became known that it could be used against suspected terrorists,they would have taken prompt precaution to disable the spyware or dive deeper into[Read More…]
Himanta Biswa Sharma,the much-toasted chief minister of Assam, has announced with trademark fanfare that thirty years after the last land-settlement survey he is launching a new land-survey to precisely demarcate,and record the land-rights of Assam with the latest, most modern equipment.There will be no more middle-men in business.Every owner of land will be in undisturbed possession of his land,he thunders,and[Read More…]
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi calls it an ‘insult to the nation.CPI(M) general secretary describes it as “an attempt to erase all traces of British atrocities in India”.It is both and much,much more.It is a shocking yet dead pan attempt to change the very meaning of India’s freedom movement.As objective observers and analysts of colonialism and imperialism have repeatedly underlined, all[Read More…]
Radical social critics often complain bitterly that the invocation of law and order is a fiction that merely upholds the legitimacy of propertied classes. The common man,who suffers most from the unequal rights under this system,whether in the hands of the police or in the callousness of bureaucracy,or for that matter,’the law’s delay’ in Hamlet’s monologue,tries ineffectually to escape its[Read More…]
The plan to marketise the vast infrastructure architecture of the country on the stock market for a windfall gain of Rs.6 lakh crore for the government has predictably agitated the opposition as it amounts to gambling with the ‘family silver’.I have no intention to pose as an expert in public finance as I have not even elementary knowledge of the[Read More…]
Nehru in retrospect certainly does not shine as brightly as he did during his lifetime.But the image has not dimmed as much as much as his detractors would like.There is a much more clear-headed perception of his weaknesses and failures,but also a willingness to make due allowance for the mistakes unavoidable in his pioneering leadership in a long march on[Read More…]
With substsantive politics,which has serious concern with the economy having been quietly shelved,and now being shaped by masters of global finance in the shadows, politics has steadily turned into a noisy theatre.A few decent politicians are still struggling against the current.But the pull of the current seems simply overwhelming.One is disquietened by shows like passionate protests verging on violence and[Read More…]
Noted Assamese poet Nabakanta Barua wrote a famous poem decades ago, with the title that translates into English as ‘There was a river here’. It describes in pretty ominous and disturbing words how the desert creeps in with slow invincibility.I used to nurse a feeling of dislike and disdain for it as it seemed to bracket out human agency. But[Read More…]
There are several reports in the press here in Assam that in several rural regions people queuing up from daybreak for the jab were told that the vaccine stock was exhausted after three or four hours.Incensed they created a huge ruckus,and at times vandalised the vaccine centre and attacked the staff.A friend from the countryside told me on phone that[Read More…]
Five hundred years ago,Francis Bacon wrote in his pithy way,”Revenge is a kind of wild justice.” Surely it gets wilder if you stretch your vendetta to a thousand years past.This is what we can conclude from what our External Affairs Minister said in a colloquiam to a fairly bland remark of Anthony Blinken,US secretary of state. S.Jaishankar,who had been a[Read More…]
I have been persuaded by Noam Chomsky’s luminous and lucid insight that the politics we are familiar with simply befogs and obfuscates simple moral questions of right or wrong,just or unjust,good or evil.The questions that the Pegasus controversy raises are also basically moral ones,if you clean up all the usual confusing clutter. This is dismissed by vested and extremely partisan[Read More…]
Most people in India do not know that the majority of the states in Northeast India were once part of the undivided province of Assam during Brtish colonial rule. Several of them also happen to be in the most earth-quake prone zone(zone 5) of the world.But the gruesome recent violence at Assam-Mizo border also forces us to recognize it as[Read More…]
I don’t remember where exactly I read the story of the APMC Mandis falling apart in certain regions not immediately involved in the farmers’ stir.I hope fervently it is one of the shoals of fake stories swirling around in the ocean of Internet.But if true I think it should ring alarm bells in the leading circles of the mammoth farmers’[Read More…]
Left-inclined people in India are usually left in a twilight between belief and scepticism when faced with conflicting reports on affairs in Tibet and Xin Jiyang from Western and Chinese sources. Western sources dwell on massive social and cultural oppression attempting to recast by force the native identities of the peoples of these two regions.But Chinese sources trot out impressive-sounding[Read More…]
In my early youth when the sheer magic of sound, rhythm and verbal atmospherics casts a spell on you,I remember having been captivated by a now-forgotten poem by the American poet Vachel Lindsay.It used stereotypes of Africa as a land of black magic in incantatory verse to evoke a feeling of dread of unknown mysteries.Named ‘Congo’,it used the words used[Read More…]
It was not fire-breathing communists but Jawaharlal Nehru who took the initiative to recognize Cuba at a time when Western powers were bristling with frustrated rage against the tiny island-country only thirty and odd miles from the American coast.Because Nehru saw the Cuban revolution as part of the national liberation movement that roused people against suffocating colonial and imperialist dominance[Read More…]
Terry Eagleton argues in his rollicking way that there is actually little to put your finger on when high-minded scholars talk about culture in hushed tones these days.He thinks the term stands in when proponents of modernity make a futile search for a transcendental purpose displaced from religion to maje sense of life.Religion was failing to provide a framework for[Read More…]
Justice must have a heart.It cannot be just an arena for legal pedantry and fireworks,though that unfortunately has been the case since the rise of Rhetoric in ancient Greece.If one does not FEEL the pain,suffering and loss an injustice causes,the outward demeanour of calm objectivity makes little sense.CJI Ramana had inspired some hope that we have left behind the long[Read More…]
Some observers like us have been saying in the face of much mistrust that without Congress in the team no coalition for a national opposition can really take off.But we too have been shaken by the continued stasis of the party.In states this has led to a strange inertia punctuated by quiet departures from time to time of one or[Read More…]
How,or indeed why, should parties that are bitterly opposed to each other,and come election time jump at each other’s throat, are toying with the idea of of coming together,is a much discussed topic in the press today.First thing to say is,of course,that we live in very very different times.We are enjoined by circumstances to unite in order to defend something[Read More…]
It is now out in the open.There seems to be quite a lot of dissatisfaction in the higher judiciary about the burden placed on their shoulders by the rising number of UAPA cases.The phrasing of the act is so wide and sweeping that it gives a government powers to practically put under arrest and detain anyone it finds inconvenient or[Read More…]
The cat is out of the bag at last.Kapil Sibal is one of the twenty-three dissidents who wrote a letter to the Congress president Sonia Gandhi pleading for organisational reforms leading to the installation of an elected president in place of one who was alleged to have inherited it.He was indirectly blaming the latter for the poll disasters Congress suffered.He[Read More…]
The Foreigners’ Tribunals of Assam were first constituted around 1965,when the first alarm was raised about massive infiltration of foreigners from East Pakistan(now Bangladesh) and the Border Police were ordered to detect and deport them.The fact that the British had promoted an influx of migrants amounting to ten lakhs or more every decade and the notion that Assam had plenty[Read More…]
So Messrs Angshuman Choudhuri and Suraj Gogoi are at it again———aiming pot shots at me while passing over or trivializing the main argument and point of view. Worse,their diatribe is assuming an increasingly personal tone and turning the debate into a squabble.Hence this is going to be my last and final attempt to clear up the confusion born of lack[Read More…]
From Education to Incarceration 
Tunakataa! Saying ‘No’ to Capitalism and Imperialism in Kenya 
Rising Islamophobia and Communal Discord: An Alarming Trend in BJP-Ruled States 
Speak Truth to Power and Pay the Price! 
USA’s Wars Took 12 Million Lives in The Last 25 Years 
US to send long-range ATACMS missile to Ukraine 
In Jawan, Shah Rukh Khan makes us an offer we can refuse 
Nijjar affair poses an existential dilemma 
On the Brink of Famine 
Appeal to withdraw the notification for the public hearing for the proposed Sijimali Bauxite Mining Project 
“Making a thriller from grain” 
Key Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) Likely To Collapse In 2025-2095 
Global Biofuel Alliance at G20: Land vs Water vs Food Security- Has the government addressed the trade-offs? 
The Nijjar Murder and Indian Government’s alleged “involvement”: Reactions and Reflections 
France Will Pull Out Its Diplomats And Military From Niger, Says Macron 
Imperial Footprints in Africa: The Dismal Role of AFRICOM 
Hunger in Africa has its roots in a History of Colonialism and Neo-colonialism 
The Climate March: Magnificent and Misdirected 
Imagining a Progressive Pentagon 
“Lost Voices of Fentanyl” Rally at the White House 
Indian Government Must First Evict Dalai Lama & his Followers before Admonishing Canada for Separatist Activities 
Peasant-rebels: lineages of insurgency 
Mission to Free Assange: Australian Parliamentarians in Washington 
Bayer-ICAR Collaboration Raises Serious Concerns Regarding Indian Farm Policy 
Place of Minorities as Allotted by Savarkar, Golwalkar and Upadhyaya 
What is in the name? Attempt to stop the usage of ‘India’ by the Government 
Poona Pact: A Reappraisal 
Hate Speech Inside Parliament: Reaching a New Low 
Criminal Justice And Freedom of Speech 
75,000 Climate Protesters Marched In New York With Demand To End Fossil Fuels 
On the Dark Side of the Moon.. 
Avoiding the War on Terror would have saved over 10 million lives at home and abroad 
The Angertainer Steps Down: Rupert Murdoch’s Non-Retirement 
Climate Emergency Update, September 2023 
My appeal to Meta’s Oversight Board: Palestinian political and resistance organizations & individuals are not “terrorists” as classified by Israel 
Artificial Intelligence: Profit Versus Freedom 
How Can We Understand the Passage of Time? 
Pre- and Post-Soviet Language Policy in the East-Baltic States 
Breadcrumb 
Three Indian Movies win TIFF 2023 Awards 
My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
