Indian liberals cannot be selectively loud in one case of fundamentalism and whisper in another as is shown by their response to the ban on Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses and that on Rohinton Mistry...
Of Life, Letters and Politics
Indians are great champions of banning anything and everything. Why is it that we prefer prohibition and vandalism to a frontal and intellectual attack on the book or work of art in question? There...
India's politicians have figured out that coalition politics can not only be played out but also played with and lately, that is what all of them are doing.
The annual Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan in Pune has a long history going back to the early 2oth century. The events surrounding the 83rd sammelan, held last month, when Maharashtra chief...
There was a time when India was a champion of independent foreign policy. That was the meaning of various formulations that were current in Nehru's days. Indira Gandhi knew how to handle the US and...
While Indian elites hanker after recognition from the American dominated world, we have debased our own awards. They are now often given for services rendered to the powers that be. What does this...
It is usually the State - at times the media - that indulges in censorship. In the world of Marathi theatre and films, however, censorship is currently invisible and non-official, and carried out...
The Indian people have been miles ahead of the Bollywood boys or media savvy purandhrees in fulfilling their democratic duties as far as voting is concerned. Who are these glamour boys and girls to...
The Taliban has destroyed the Dargah of Rehman Baba on the grounds that women visit it and offer their prayers there. Closer home an ignoramus called Mutalik dictates to all Hindus what Hinduism...
In the reams and reams expended on criticising Pramod Muthalik, the Sree Ram Sene and their ilk for their attacks on women, we do not see that the Muthalik kind of defence of Indian "culture" is the...
In the realm of foreign policy, the Indian elite have surrendered the initiative to Washington. For them, it must be a peaceful south Asia under the American aegis. Everybody from the Congress to the...
Only in India would you expect to see the central government decide which language is "classical" and which one is not. Sanskrit, Tamil, and now Kannada and Telugu have been decreed by the State as...
It is all one big confusion of lines. The opposition in Singur borrowed its lines from familiar left rhetoric, bombast that should have belonged to the other player in the drama over Tatas' small car...
The Marathi Sahitya Sammelans have been the victim of the crass vulgarity that characterises our literary culture.
M F Husain comes from Pandharpur, known in history as the capital of protest. Husain's paintings must be judged by the criterion of aestheticism and not on the grounds of "blasphemy". There is no...
