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 [...]
July 2014
History Beyond Marxism and Hindutva, The Telegraph
In October 1984, I got my first academic job, at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Kolkata (then Calcutta). A week after I joined, a friend from Chennai (then Madras) sent me a [...]
Carpets Red and Green, Hindustan Times
Shortly after the Trinamool Congress came to power in West Bengal, I was invited to speak at a university convocation in that state. I flew in the day before the event, and was met at [...]