June 2015
The Bose Whom Japan Still Remembers, The Telegraph
I was recently in Japan, and asked my hosts what memories remained in that country of Subhas Chandra Bose, the great Indian patriot who fought alongside the Japanese against the British and whose ashes are [...]
May 2015
Dreams Of Bat And Ball, The Telegraph
When I was young, many of my dreams were about cricket. I was then obsessed with the game, which I played quite seriously at both school and university. My college eleven may have been the [...]
Homage To A Birdman, The Telegraph
The Urdu word ‘shareef’ has many meanings. An online dictionary offers ‘noble’, ‘gentlemanly’, and ‘civilized’, to which one can add: ‘refined; courteous; honourable; civil; civilized’. Among the most shareef men I knew was the conservationist [...]
April 2015
Why Liberals Must Support A Common Civil Code, The Telegraph
Thirty years ago this fortnight, the Supreme Court passed its famous judgment in the Shah Bano case. A Muslim man had divorced his wife and stopped providing for her maintenance. The brave woman fought the [...]
Traveling With Tagore, Penguin Classics
Rammohan Roy was able to assimilate the ideals of Europe so completely because he was not overwhelmed by them; there was no poverty or weakness on his side. He had ground of his own on [...]
March 2015
Where Are The Conservative Intellectuals in India, Caravan (March 2015)
There is a paradox at the heart of Indian public life today: that while the country has a right-wing party in power, right-wing intellectuals run thinly on the ground. This makes India an exception among [...]