This article is based on the 25th Chandrashekar Memorial Lecture delivered on 20 September 2020. The original lecture was delivered in Hindi and the event was organized by Punashcha, the Indian People’s Theater Association (IPTA) and Koshish. Friends, comrades gathered here; I am very honoured to be invited to deliver the Chandrashekhar Memorial Lecture this year but I cannot say[Read More…]
The Chief Chaddis smirked, stroking his little beard menacingly. This was the moment he and his fellow Chaddis had waited for and chewed so much cud over. They had finally got their prey – the Black Sheep, now trapped in a corner from where he could not escape. The Black Sheep, popularly known as Beep Beep to his friends, had[Read More…]
As India and China squabble over a tiny but strategic strip of land along their long border, some may be tempted to classify this as a clash between a democracy and a communist dictatorship. And yet, a closer look reveals that India is not much of a democracy anymore – with rampant state repression, subversion of institutions, mass surveillance and[Read More…]
Two months after imposition of the most stringent and large-scale lockdown in the world, with the pandemic still undefeated, it is the Indian Republic that is looking more and more like a struggling COVID-19 patient. It is running low on oxygen in its blood, several organs are already failing, costs of treatment shooting up and the country’s leadership looks utterly[Read More…]
It was early summer, but the sun was hardly very hot for the time of the year. There was even a pleasant breeze blowing and the path ahead was a stunningly scenic one. And yet, every passing day, the comrades were dropping dead by the wayside, some succumbing to disease or injury, some just too tired to continue. Nila stopped[Read More…]
“They have decided to extend the lockdown by another three weeks!” said Chicken Number One, who was always the first with the news. The information set off a wave of outrage among the five thousand plus birds at the Corona Chicken Farm, the cacophony almost blowing the tin shed above their heads. “Our food supplies are dwindling, we can’t go[Read More…]
It is a capricious little virus with a funny crown and a flimsy protein coat, zipping across the planet, leaving behind a trail of utter confusion, death and destruction. And as nations rush to prevent exposure to COVID-19’s deadly effects, the virus is in turn exposing each one of them for whatever they are – good, bad or ugly. Depending[Read More…]
A month ago, if someone had said ‘social distancing’, I would have really thought they were talking about the Indian caste system with its perverse idea of untouchability. ‘Lockdown’ till recently would have evoked images of a very entertaining style of wrestling where all matches take place inside a steel cage. And ‘flattening the curve’ would obviously be an attempt to trim[Read More…]
Note: The global hype and scare around the coronavirus outbreak is reminiscent of similar panic over SARS, avian flu and swine flu in the last decade and half. Driven by half-truths, poor quality data, sensational media coverage these are pandemics of idiocy at best and geopolitical conspiracies at their worst. In this context we are reproducing an article on SARS,[Read More…]
In the ongoing movement against the Citizenship Amendment Act the images of Gandhi, Ambedkar and even Bhagat Singh have been put forward as symbols of religious tolerance, non-violence, Dalit empowerment and even socialist revolution. However, outside Tamil Nadu, few seem to have remembered E.V.Ramaswamy ‘Periyar’, the founder of the Dravidian movement– who perhaps offers the most potent challenge to the[Read More…]
On 26 January 2020, as India marks 70 years of becoming a modern Republic, it also faces its biggest crisis as a democratic federation of religious, linguistic, ethnic and regional groups. Not only is the soul of India – its traditions of secularism, tolerance and respect for diversity – under threat, even the very flesh and bones of the nation[Read More…]
If the record of December 2019 is anything to go by 2020 promises to be one of great hope for all Indians interested in preserving their country’s traditions of secularism, democracy and tolerance of diversity. The New Year may well be a turning point in the dismal record of hate and hubris that has prevailed over the last several years[Read More…]
There are many dreadful things we all know about human societies and institutions, which are absolutely true and yet we like to think otherwise, lest we come across as being too cynical. Even more so we live in the hope that, some of our wishful thinking about how things really are, will rub off on reality and magically produce a[Read More…]
From political speech to social media tirades, for half a decade or more now, the use of rude language, gestures and threats has become ubiquitous around the globe. The complete absence of politeness – along with (or because of) growing economic woes, political turmoil and ecological destruction – seems to be the chief characteristic of our times. Politeness emerged in[Read More…]
Note: Ganesh Gaitonde is a fictional character from the Netflix series Sacred Games, but that does not make him any less real than anyone else on the planet. Warning: Profanity ahead. Get parental advice before proceeding. Somewhere on a yacht in choppy waters off the western Indian coast I met Ganesh Gaitonde, noted[1]political analyst, role model for the youth and[Read More…]
If any confirmation was needed Narendra Modi is determined to cast himself as a carbon copy of Indira Gandhi- albeit one with a venomous, communal edge – you need not look further than his latest Kashmir gamble. There is true ‘Indira-style’ audacity written all over his regime’s decision to scrap the special status given to the Himalayan state under the[Read More…]
A blond-haired US President openly hinting only white immigrants can be true American citizens, blue-eyed Nazis marching boldly on the streets of Europe, brattish Brexiteers in Britain harking back to days of the Raj and ‘twice-born’ Hindu supremacists in India fulminating against religious minorities. Many have called the times we live in the Age of Anger but more accurately it[Read More…]
“Medicine is a social science and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale”. Rudolf Virchow, 1821-1902 In recent days India’s health system – never the world’s best – has been getting really bad press. First it was negative publicity was over a week of agitation by thousands of doctors in Bengal after violence against them by families[Read More…]
As I glanced through the doom and gloom of the daily news one morning I came upon a dire new report on climate change, which predicts the human species may disappear by the year 2050, as the planet becomes much hotter and unlivable. Very bad news indeed, but something about that year ‘2050’ rang a bell in my head –[Read More…]
Note: On 6 June 2019 India voted with Israel in the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to prevent a Palestinian “human rights” organisation called Shahed, which Jerusalem insists is linked to Hamas, from getting observer status in UN institutions.This is the first time India has voted with Israel on a resolution initiated by Jerusalem at the UN. On[Read More…]
Ever since the ‘germ theory of disease’ was propounded by Louis Pasteur two hundred years ago, the world has understood bacteria as the cause of numerous infections, many of them deadly. The insight led to the advent of antibiotics, hailed as ‘magic bullets’ for their ability to treat infectious diseases effectively, and it was believed pathogenic bacteria had been conquered[Read More…]
In an era where national elections have become a strange cross between an episode of Big Boss and twenty-twenty cricket, it has become quite difficult to take the end results very seriously. This is even more so when, there is widespread suspicion of the poll itself being rigged through massive deletion of names from voter lists and possible tampering with[Read More…]
In the times we live in, where smoke and mirrors are the world’s two chief weapons of war, fiction is a better guide to contemporary events than ‘facts’ presented by governments and media. A case in point are the horrific Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, that killed over 250 and maimed scores of people, and has sparked fears of[Read More…]
All of Tamatarland was in great turmoil. There had been a vile attack on its security forces by a suicide-bomber, who had sneaked past dozens of heavily guarded checkpoints and murdered over two dozen Tamatarland soldiers. It was later claimed the culprit was a local Muli, trained and sent by Mataristan, the neighbouring and enemy nation. Not surprisingly, Tamatars across[Read More…]
It was a symbolically brilliant moment in October last year, when a policeman in Uttar Pradesh hid behind a tree and shouted ‘thain! thain!’ during a live encounter with criminals, after his gun jammed. The policeman’s attempt to replace real bullets with mimicked sound was considered by many as another laughable case of a poorly prepared Indian police force. In[Read More…]
Barely a week into 2019 I am still trying to figure out what exactly is so ‘new’ about this New Year that is upon us. The balance in my bank account has not changed for the better, nor has my weight, nor the cost of living, while the future all around looks depressingly same as a smog-struck Delhi winter day.[Read More…]
This article is based on a talk delivered in Hyderabad on 7th October 2018 as part of the 9th memorial meeting of ‘Remembering Balagopal’, an annual event commemorating the late social activist K Balagopal It is a truly a great privilege for me to be here today to speak to all of you at this meeting to remember Prof.[Read More…]
Republishing a letter written to a friend abroad enquiring about the horrific gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in the Indian capital New Delhi five years ago. Nothing has really changed in India since then it seems, going by the continuing spree of rape – including by self-styled religious ‘Godmen’. Dear Joanna, Thanks for your letter. Yes,[Read More…]
It has been a deeply ingrained habit to wish everyone ‘Happy New Year’ and I confess to enthusiastic participation in this annual ritual for a long time. Increasingly though, I am beginning to suspect I really don’t understand the phrase or the words it is made up of at all. I get the point that,this greeting,is basically a nice[Read More…]
“But who really knows? Who can tell where all arose? For the Gods themselves came after Creation. Who then shall proclaim how Creation happened?” Nasadiya Sukta, Rig Veda Since Independence from colonial rule, India has emerged as a successful modern democracy,holding regular elections, with a functioning judiciary, smooth transitions of power and a very fine Constitution. It is even[Read More…]
On that dreadful evening of 5th September, if Gauri Lankesh had seen her own corpse lying in a pool of blood outside her house she would have -I am very sure- simply smiled For even in her death she had done what was closest to her heart – expose India’s saffron supremacists for what they really were. A sorry[Read More…]
It is an emotionally loaded term like ‘faith’, ‘nationalism’ and ‘family’, that is often used by the middle-classes to provoke strong feelings of anger and disgust against politicians. And yet on closer scrutiny the phrase ‘corruption’ turns out to be a fuzzy concept, that fails to capture how power and injustice really operate in human societies. In its popular[Read More…]
You can smell it at a distance, in the burnt out, blackened frames of torched homes and vehicles from yet another communal pogrom. You can see it in the blood stained corner of a railway platform, still fresh from a recent lynching. And you can hear it in the guttural cries of the frenzied, saffron swathed mobs, pledging murder[Read More…]
Cows, cows and more chocolate brown cows. Driving on the highway that cuts through the vast Argentinian pampas, south of Buenos Aires, that’s all one sees everywhere around for miles and miles on end. Thousands of cows, peacefully grazing on grass or eating non-stop at the feedlots – huge dumps of artificial feed where they grow fatter and fatter- till[Read More…]
This article is based on a presentation made at a conference on 13 June, 2017 in Rosario, Argentinatitled ‘Madre Tierra: Una Sola Salud” or “Mother Earth: Only One Health” Many years ago when my daughter was just eight years old she sprung a surprise question on me. ‘Papa’, she asked, ‘who are we and where does everything in the[Read More…]
It was always the worst kept secret in India, but has now finally become official – those who run the Republic of India do not need the Public of India at all. What is worse, they in fact see the latter as a grave threat to their very existence. All this was amply evident on Republic Day this year, as[Read More…]
Much later, historians in the 22nd Century would call it a ‘close shave’ for Indian democracy and a ‘hair razing’ experience for millions of citizens. And yet, when it happened real-time -everyone was simply lost for words. The year was 2018 and in an emotional address on primetime TV, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had exhorted his countrymen to[Read More…]
A Cashless, Corruption-free, Cow-friendly India that also Cares for the Poor. As the Narendra Modi regime shoots forth silken promises like buttered popcorn from a hot oven – it is time to remember India’s long history of using colourful fiction to rip-off the public and carry out caste oppression. Let me explain. For over a millennium one of the recurring[Read More…]
It is early winter and a thick, grimy fog, black and white tinged with grey, hangs over Delhi much of the day. Morning visibility is bad, clears up a bit with a dull sun in the afternoon, before darkness descends again on the city. A month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his demonetisation policy, the gloomy weather in the[Read More…]
The currency shortage in the country following the demonetisation of 500 and 100 rupee notes on 8 November has become so bad, there is real danger today of all law and order breaking down very soon. The patience of the Indian public is running out, after three weeks of standing in queues and denied their own cash for making basic[Read More…]
The abrupt demonetisation of 500 and 1000 rupee notes by the Narendra Modi regime is a drastic move that is staggering in its scale, ambition and repurcussions. The only other figures in modern history one can think of, devious or stupid enough to attempt something similar, are the likes of Marcos, Suharto, Idi Amin and Pol Pot. For all its[Read More…]
Note: This article is based on a lecture delivered at a conference of the People’s Health Movement in Cochabamba, Bolivia on 24 September 2016. Dear Friends, I am privileged to be here to talk to all of you from the health and environmental movements from all over Latin America. First of all, as someone coming from India I would like[Read More…]
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This article is based on the 25th Chandrashekar Memorial Lecture delivered on 20 September 2020. The original lecture was delivered in Hindi and the event was organized by Punashcha, the Indian People’s Theater Association (IPTA) and Koshish. Friends, comrades gathered here; I am very honoured to be invited to deliver the Chandrashekhar Memorial Lecture this year but I cannot say[Read More…]
