In Praise of Madhu Dandavate, The Telegraph
The Indian socialist tradition is now moribund, but there was a time when it had a profound and mostly salutary influence on politics and society. Yet few people now know [...]
Hindutva as Pop Culture, The Telegraph
In recent years, a stream of books and articles have appeared seeking to analyse the theory and practice of Hindutva. They have sought to alternatively explain, critique, or justify the [...]
Caring for the Earth, The Telegraph
The climate crisis has brought human ill-treatment of nature forcibly to our attention, though of course India’s environmental problems are by no means the product of global warming alone. The [...]
A Godson Remembers: Thammu Achaya and Indian Food History, The Telegraph
My first editor, Rukun Advani, once described himself as ‘a composite hybrid of the Indian and the Anglo-European’, who sought to reconcile ‘within himself those varying cultural influences which chauvinistic [...]
Einstein: The Scientist as Moralist, The Telegraph
I saw Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer earlier this week. The main character in the film, J. Robert Oppenheimer, was a physicist whose family was Jewish, and who worked for many years [...]
After Sobers, Who? The Telegraph
In one of the first books I read, the writer had posed the question: ‘Who was the greatest all-rounder in the history of cricket?’, before providing this answer: ‘He was [...]