January 2012
Reading For The New Year, Hindustan Times
Late last year, seeking to make sense of the conflict between the Anna Hazare movement and the Central Government, I turned to an essay by the Indian scholar I most admire, the sociologist André Béteille. [...]
December 2011
Register Newsletter
[newsletter]
A Plague On All Our Houses, Hindustan Times
The Republic of India has a billion (and more) citizens who, at any given time, are involved in a thousand (and more) controversies. Knowing which controversy is the most significant is always hard, and often [...]
Jinnah Reassessed, The Telegraph
(17 Dec 2011) It was on a pavement near Bombay’s Flora Fountain, some fifteen years ago, that I discovered Hamid Dalwai. On the hard dark stone the title of his book leapt out for attention: [...]
October 2011
THE SARDAR OF SPIN, The Telegraph
In the third week of August, I got a call from a friend in Delhi, the great slow bowler Bishan Singh Bedi. ‘Everyone around me is shouting Anna Hazare! Anna Hazare!’, he said: ‘A few [...]
September 2011
NEARER THAN OUR NEIGHBOURS, Hindustan Times
When I was invited to visit Kabul, my family were naturally unenthusiastic. I disregarded their advice for two reasons: first, because my host was a brilliant and brave diplomat, whom I was loth to let [...]