Ayodhya Verdict: Judges Missed Chance to Speak With Courage
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Ayodhya Verdict: Judges Missed Chance to Speak With Courage

Apoorvanand That unanimity hurt. It did. One had hoped, or wished to have a hope, that there would be a chink in the armour somewhere. An ambiguity. The absence of it—the full glare of a “unanimous” majoritarianism—came like a stab in the heart of the idea of India. To be frank, there was not much…

What the Ayodhya Judgment Means for the Future of the Republic
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What the Ayodhya Judgment Means for the Future of the Republic

Siddharth Varadarajan The Supreme Court’s verdict in the Ayodhya matter has settled the ‘title suit’ in favour of the main Hindu plaintiff—essentially the Vishwa Hindu Parishad—but it is clear that there is much more at stake for the country than the ownership of 2.77 acres of land on which a mosque stood for 470 years…

Thiruvalluvar in Saffron, Strong Backlash in Tamil Nadu
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Thiruvalluvar in Saffron, Strong Backlash in Tamil Nadu

Bharathy Singaravel On Saturday, November 2, the Tamil Nadu BJP posted a couplet by the legendary Tamil poet, Thiruvalluvar. The chosen verse was taken from the Kadavul Vazhthu (In Praise of the Creator) chapter of Valluvar’s Tirukkural—the famed compilation of 1330 kurrals (as the couplets are known). Gopalkrishna Gandhi in his 2015 translations of the…

Remembering Maulana Azad: A Votary of Hindu–Muslim Unity
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Remembering Maulana Azad: A Votary of Hindu–Muslim Unity

Firoz Bakht Ahmed In the Shahjahanabadi old city of Delhi, between the Jama Masjid and the Red Fort, both monuments reminding of the Mughal pristine glory, a green and glossy patch covers an area where once stood the houses of the Muslim nobility. They were leveled after the Indian revolt against the British in 1857….

On October 2, 1947, Why Did Gandhi Say He Was Ashamed That He Was Still Alive?

On October 2, 1947, Why Did Gandhi Say He Was Ashamed That He Was Still Alive?

Courtesy: The Wire The plans to officially mark Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary are on course. At the ground level, however, the ugly face of communalism continues to rear its head in one virulent incident after another. It was an issue which agitated Gandhi until his dying breath and, in fact, was uppermost in his…

The Monk Who Shaped India’s Secularism
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The Monk Who Shaped India’s Secularism

Rahul Mukherji Has Indian nationalism turned utterly exclusivist? What would one of the icons of nationalism, Swami Vivekananda, have to say about this shift? Nationalism, after all, is a battle for the myths that create a nation. The practice of Indian secularism, despite its pitfalls, has distinguished the country from many of its neighbours. India…

Gandhi’s Lonely Furrow

Gandhi’s Lonely Furrow

(This article was published in Mainstream on 9 August, 1997. We are reproducing it here as it is still as relevant today.) As the country is getting ready to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of attainment of freedom, many memories come back to those who were fortunate to be witness to those momentous events. The subcontinent—both…

‘The Criticism of Religion is the Premise of All Criticism’
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‘The Criticism of Religion is the Premise of All Criticism’

[When Raosaheb Kasbe’s Zot was published in Marathi in 1978, RSS cadres made a public bonfire of it at the Janata Party convention in Pune that year. The book presented an incisive critique of M.S. Golwalkar’s Bunch of Thoughts, the main ideological treatise of the RSS. Kasbe traced the historical roots of cultural nationalism as…

Statement in Support of Kumar Prashant
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Statement in Support of Kumar Prashant

Press Release Battini Rao, Convenor, People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS) expresses its concern over the two FIRS being filed in Odisha (Kandhmal and Katak) against Shri Kumar Prashant, president of Gandhi Peace Foundation, allegedly for hurting sentiments of local RSS members, spreading lies about RSS and instigating…

Tagore’s Call for Rakhi Bond Between Hindus and Muslims

Tagore’s Call for Rakhi Bond Between Hindus and Muslims

Everything is different in Kolkata. While the rest of the country fasts for Navratri, Kolkatans feast for Durga Puja. When the rest of the country cheers for Dussehra, in Kolkata there are tears for Bijoya Dashami. On Diwali, Kolkata has Kali Puja, and for Holi, Dol Jatra. Little surprise then that there should be an…