/Tag: Mahatma Gandhi

A QUESTION OF ENGLISH


The Telegraph

In 1905 and 1906, Mohandas Gandhi, his wife, and their children shared a home in Johannesburg with an English couple, Henry and Millie Polak. Later, writing of their life together, Gandhi recalled that ‘Polak and I had often very heated discussions about the desirability or otherwise of giving the children an English education. It has always [...]

THE REAL OFFENDERS


Hindustan Times

Narendra Modi may never have banned Joseph Lelyveld’s The Great Soul had the books editor of the Wall Street Journal been as discerning as his counterpart in the New York Times. The Manhattan dailies carried reviews on the same weekend, but these could not have been more different in style or substance. The Times reviewer, who [...]

GIVING AND GAINING


Hindustan Times

Arguably the most important crucible of Indian nationalism was the ashram run by Mahatma Gandhi in Ahmedabad from 1915 to 1930. It was here that the programmes for the major satyagrahas were designed, and the activists and social workers who led those satyagrahas trained. Gandhian ideas of non-violence, the upliftment of women, Hindu-Muslim harmony, and the [...]

FAITH CYNICAL AND SUBLIME


The Telegraph

In the spring of 1907, the London publisher John Murray published a book on Persian mystics by one F. Hadland Davis. The book appeared in a series called ‘The Wisdom of the East’, whose editors desired their publications to be ‘ambassadors of good-will and understanding between East and West, the old world of Thought, and the [...]

A PROPHET ANNOUNCES HIMSELF


Times Literary Supplement

In the third week of September 1909, The Illustrated London News published a withering attack on the idea of Indian nationalism. Its author was G. K. Chesterton, who was then writing a weekly column for the magazine. The Catholic novelist was not especially known for his interest in Britain’s colonies; indeed, this may have been his [...]

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE BILINGUAL INTELLECTUAL


Economic and Political Weekly

This essay is inspired by an argument between the scholar-libarian B. S. Kesavan and his son Mukul that I was once privy to. I forget what they were fighting about. But I recall that the father, then past ninety years of age, was giving as good as he got. At periodic intervals he would turn to [...]

SEARCHING FOR CHARLIE


The Telegraph

It was on on my last trip to Kolkata that I went searching for the grave of Charlie Andrews. A friend had told me that it was in a cemetery on Lower Circular Road. I decided to walk there from my hotel in Park Street. Fortunately, it was winter, so the weather was (relatively) mild. More [...]

REFORMING THE HINDUS


The Hindu

Three men did most to make Hinduism a modern faith. Of these the first was not recognized as a Hindu by the Shankaracharyas; the second was not recognized as a Hindu by himself; the third was born a Hindu but made certain he would not die as one. These three great reformers were Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal [...]

THE LOCALITY AND THE NATION


The Hindu

On Independence Day this year I was driving from Bangalore to the small temple town of Melkote. At traffic lights within the city we were hailed by vendors selling the National Flag. When we got to the highway, we passed boys on motor bikes waving the tiranga jhanda. Clearly, the Supreme Court order allowing private citizens [...]

CRICKET ON THE VELD


The Hindu

There is a cricket World Cup now in South Africa, and watching the tournament on TV shall doubtless take me back to the one time I did visit the country. That was back in October 1997. Apartheid had recently been vanquished, and the greatest man the world has known since Mahatma Gandhi was in power. The [...]