Articles
Racism: Is Liberal West Free from Filth?
It is argued that liberal democracies no longer reel under the oppressive customs such as racism. Only Asian countries like India and Pakistan bear the brunt of aggressive, pre-modern social customs. The Ferguson Shooting is a foil for this liberal democratic myth, if anything. The shooting of Mr. Brown, who was unarmed, led to a […]
Erdogan and Modi: Parallel journeys?
Back in March 2013, when I received and accepted an invitation to visit Bogazici University, I did not for a moment imagine that my arrival in Turkey would follow hot on the heels of a historic election in India. But so it did: I landed in Istanbul on June 1, 2014, five days after the […]
Homecoming of common man or Ghar WaPasi of Aam Admi
An evening stroll along one of the alleyways in Calicut had me hearing a thought provoking political satire in India. A young man waiting for his pillion rider in his bike outside the latter’s office was asking him in his phone: ‘yaar isn’t it time for Ghar WaPasi?’ (shan’t we return home yet?) Anyone who […]
The Colonial Lineage of Charlie Hebdo
In the 1995 neo-noir ‘The Usual Suspects‘, Kevin Spacey, playing the role of a con-man affected by cerebral palsy, rephrases Charles Baudelaire in a memorable one-liner: “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” This line can be seen overtly rephrased again and again ever since 9/11 and is […]
The Caste History of Ghar Wapasi
Today there are a lot of debates and analyses on Ghar Wapasi and Love Jihad in the media. It is to be noted in this context that these are social phenomena that can be traced back to the late 19th century. It was around this time that the Brahmins and savarnas, who had stood along […]
I Am Not Charlie Hebdo
The journalists at Charlie Hebdo are now rightly being celebrated as martyrs on behalf of freedom of expression, but let’s face it: If they had tried to publish their satirical newspaper on any American university campus over the last two decades it wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds. Student and faculty groups would have accused them […]
Ghar Wapsi and the Need for a Principled Resistance
“One sordid motive violates the whole preaching. It is like a drop of poison, which fouls the whole food. Therefore, I should do without any preaching at all. A rose does not need to preach. It simply spreads its fragrance. The fragrance is its own sermon …The fragrance of religious and spiritual life is much […]
Return To Which Home?
On October 14, 1956, Babasaheb Ambedkar, along with several hundred thousand “untouchables”, embraced Buddhism. The moral and ethical strength of Ambedkar’s embrace of Buddhism lies in its cultural and intellectual capacity to sustain among the ex-untouchables a growing association with it. Conversion as a cultural-intellectual movement that took off in October 1956 from Nagpur continues […]
2014 Events that Hogged Limelight
A year is bidding good bye. But are we so optimistic as to lay stress on the ‘good’ before the ‘bye’? Those who are optimistic have many things to single out to strengthen their belief. Firstly and most significantly, there is what many of us term progress in the generation-shifting technology. We have smart phones, […]
America That Erdogan Saw
RecepTayyip Erdogan is in the news, this time too, as always, for stoking up shock waves with his trademark nonchalant statement. In the conference of Muslim leaders held in Istanbul, he suggested a correction to the known history of America. It was not Columbus, he said, who invented America, but Muslims. Hearing him, one might […]
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