India’s Tryst with the RSS

The following article is a review and comparison of two books: The RSS: A Menace to India by A.G. Noorani (LeftWord Books, March 2019), and Messengers of Hindu Nationalism: How the RSS Reshaped India by Walter Anderson & Shridhar D. Damle (Hurst & Company, 2019). A shorter version of it first appeared in the London Review of Books (‘Strictly Technical’. vol. 42, no. 6, 19 March 2020). Ψ Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the subject of the two books at hand, is arguably the oldes[...]

श्रम पर हिंदुत्व का हमला

हो सकता है हिंदुत्व का झंडा लहराने वाले ज़्यादातर लोग देश की उन्नति ही चाहते हों। शायद उन्हें लगता है कि हिंदुत्व से जन्मे समाज में गौरव और स्वाभिमान के भाव हमें उस उन्नति की ओर ले जाएंगे जो दश[...]

How Modi pipped Advani for the ‘Pradhan Sevak’ prize

It is hard to have escaped the mania our fellow citizens seemed to have been gripped by recently, on the first of the so-called Janata Curfews. Those impressed by Narendra Modi’s ‘humble’ words being heeded by millions could do well to ask why the man chose not to use his popularity to stem the ‘riots’ that rattled the capital this year. The answer, for those not blinded by chauvinism, is rather simple – he’s a product of an organisation that wants a man just like him as our prime [...]

Strongmen Going Strong

There is bad news and there is good news. The bad news is that the strongmen are going strong all over the world. Jair Bolsonaro, the most extreme far right leader, won the Presidential Elections and will become the new President of Brazil early next year. As pointed out by our chief editor Vijay Prashad, 'Brazil, the largest country in South America, has decided to go the way of the Philippines, the U.S., Hungary and the others.' The good news is that Strongmen is also going strong. We are ta[...]

Facts of a ‘dirty war’: An excerpt from 'The Dirty War in Kashmir'

This is an excerpt from our new Shujaat Bukhari book  The Dirty War in Kashmir: Frontline Reports. Shujaat Bukhari was one of the most vital, balanced and well-informed voices in Kashmir. Perhaps for this reason, the 50-year-old journalist was shot dead by motorcycle-borne gunmen in Srinagar on the evening of June 14, 2018, as he was leaving the office of Rising Kashmir. This excerpt is from his Frontline report "Facts of a 'dirty war'" published on July 07, 2017 where he statistically anal[...]