No confidence grand debate exposes Rahul Gandhi’s lack of leadership abilities
The result of the No Confidence Motion in Parliament on July 20 has shattered the hopes of forming an anti-Modi front for 2019. The voting pattern clearly indicated that Rahul Gandhi’s ambition of being the knight exemplar of an oust Modi charge and Mamata Banerjee’s pipe-dream of leading a “federal …
With farsightedness, Syama Prasad called to link education and industry
The interest in the life and times of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee is increasing by the day. Not only the fortnight between his birth and death—June 23 (1953), the day he died in mysterious circumstances in Srinagar, and his birth anniversary falling on July 6 (1901)—but throughout the year there …
Through years of toil, the ‘Hindi Heartland Party’ has emerged as a Pan-Indian one
The BJP’s resounding victory in the elections in the northeastern states has conclusively broken one of the most resistant stereotypes, that of the party being a “Hindi heartland party”. Amit Shah has decimated that reductionist description and has seen his insistence that the party push eastward, fulfilled. When he had …
The Soil of India Alone could Sustain and Water the Experiment of Auroville
It was an age when the Cold War raged dividing the world into power blocs, with global equations and relations often on tethers and on the verge of a grand clash, when young minds across the globe were undergoing a restless churn, it was in such an era, that Mirra …
Food for Thought… Invoking Aurobindo for Spiritual Sustenance in Difficult Days
As India prepared to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this past week, it signified the culmination of an important cycle in the relations of our two countries. It had begun with Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Israel last July—the first by an Indian Prime Minister—and heralded the moving forward …
Contours and vision of the ‘Rahul Era’, and what it offers India in the future
The process for the formal anointment of Rahul Gandhi as president of the Congress began earlier this month. Prior to this epochal event for some, there has been an effort by the so-called and self-styled left liberal media and intelligentsia to give Rahul a makeover. The effort began when Rahul …
Need to end the national culture of selective forgetfulness
In our collective reading of India’s history and in that in narrating the lives of those countless personalities who made a contribution to our national awakening—political, cultural, and educational—we have often been selective, constantly eulogising some while marginalising others. This often flaunted habit, especially by an interested and influential section in …
Doklam episode demonstrates India’s civilisational approach
By the time this column appears, the process of disengagement between India and China on the Doklam stand-off might have advanced to a great degree. This is indeed a major diplomatic victory for India and reflects the sagacity, maturity, foresight and fortitude of the leadership of PM Narendra Modi. Not …
Poisonous creed of communism corroding entrails of democracy
“The communist strategy is simple,” philosopher Ram Swarup wrote in his Communists under Communism (1955). “It consists in serial liquidation of ‘enemies’, constituted of all the non-communist opposition and the ‘non-proletarian’ sector of population. Blackmail, vilification, character assassination are the characteristic methods used to achieve this end.” ‘Enemies’ for communists …
Compradors backing satellite ideology out to destabilise India
In his discussion on cultural self-alienation among a section of present-day Indians, social and political philosopher Ram Swarup makes an interesting description. He talks of a satellite ideology, a local satellite ideology that is derived from a dominant imperialist ideology, and then works through its advocates and mouthpieces in its …
Nation-wreckers seek to dilute collective sense of ‘we’ in India
The summer of manufactured grievances is upon us once more, a periodic and unfailing cycle, seen in repeated clockwork regularity in the last three years. The high priests and articulators of this summer of grievances sit in the rarefied and acclimatised climes of privileged quarters of various cities and towns …
Unaware of reality, communists see politics behind triple talaq
When asked what advice would he give the Left-wing writers, leading British conservative philosopher and writer Roger Scruton replied “acknowledge the legitimacy of disagreement”. Scruton’s description of the Left and Communist intelligentsia, and his analysis of their methods of political and intellectual impositions are applicable in the Indian context as …