Why There is No Team Modi – Because There Can Only Be a Brand Modi, The Telegraph
In December 2018, I was having lunch with an entrepreneur-friend who works closely with the Central Government. The BJP had just lost state elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh, [...]
Why Authoritarianism is Bad for Science, But Bigotry is Even Worse
There have been many protests against the Citizenship Amendment Bill (now Act), and there will be many more. This piece of legislation strikes at the heart of the Constitution, seeking [...]
From Indo-Pak to Chindia and Back Again to Indo-Pak, Hindustan Times
On 26th January 2006, the New York Times ran a story headlined ‘India Everywhere in the Alps’. The story began: ‘Delhi swept into Davos on Wednesday, with an extravagant public [...]
History Against Sectarianism, The Telegraph
In December 1947, the annual Indian History Congress was held in Bombay. The President-elect that year was Professor Mohammad Habib of the Aligarh Muslim University, a historian of early medieval [...]
The Cities That Shaped Gandhi, The Cities That Gandhi Shaped, Hindustan Times
Mahatma Gandhi famously claimed that ‘India lives in her villages’. The focus of his political and social work, and his philosophical writings, was that India was essentially an agrarian civilization, [...]
Searching For Gandhi, Hindustan Times
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG) run to one hundred volumes. Many years before I read these volumes, one by one, their Chief Editor, Professor K. Swaminathan, had satirised [...]