November 2014
Religious Faith- Devilish and Divine, The Telegraph
I write this on a day when the front page of the newspaper reports that a Cabinet Minister has visited Rajasthan to consult an astrologer. Meanwhile, a back page photograph in the same paper shows [...]
How The Mehtas Conquered Manhattan, Hindustan Times
There is a rich literature on how the culture of modern cities has been nourished by immigrants from other countries. Books have been written on how American writers (from Ernest Hemingway and Richard Wright on [...]
October 2014
Nehru and Patel, Hindustan Times
The best biography of Vallabhbhai Patel was written by Rajmohan Gandhi. Based on full access to Patel’s own papers, it is a rich account of his life and struggles, set against the context of the [...]
September 2014
How Congress Lost the Diaspora, Hindustan Times
In April this year I was in Houston, which has a large Indian community. I had dinner with a group of NRIs, and we spoke about the 16th General Elections. I was told a hundred [...]
August 2014
The Indian Path to Unsustainability, The Telegraph
In her recent book Green Wars, the environmental journalist Bahar Dutt writes: ‘The editor of a leading media house, everytime I pitched a green story, would invariably complain: “Environmentalism is stalling growth; all I am [...]
The Past and Future of the Congress Party, Hindustan Times
In the year 1970, Rajni Kothari published a major book with the straightforward title, Politics in India. The bulk of the book was devoted to the then dominant Congress party. Kothari argued that before and [...]