Tamil chauvinism must be prevented from taking an anti-India form
It is repugnant, but legitimate, for political groups in India to support the LTTE. It is repugnant, but legitimate for them to engage in lawful political activism to promote their cause. But it is wholly illegitimate and totally unacceptable for them to attack an Indian army [...]
US counter-insurgency in Afghanistan, Pakistan army’s choices and implications for India
In today’s Mint. Sushant & I argue that General Kayani’s political decisions will depend on the course and outcomes of US negotiations with ‘moderate’ Taliban. We suggest that while moderate Taliban is an oxymoron it is also “a label of convenience, using moral connotations to [...]
Watch out for the LTTE’s mischief in Tamil Nadu
The LTTE leadership probably calculates that destabilising Tamil Nadu by inciting widespread political violence will serve its interests. If you think that lawyers in the Madras High Court turned into violent mobs, torched police stations and got into street battles with riot police just like that, think [...]
…and must be defeated
The outcry over a bunch of thugs going about their thuggery donning the mantle of ‘Hindu’ armies of Rama might well distract attention from other, more pressing, security issues. But it is well-deserved. The UPA government’s dismal record on stamping down terrorism and bringing terrorists to justice has created a cynicism that [...]
And is as abhorrent is any other kind of terrorism
Even as we await more details of the plot behind the terrorist attacks in Malegaon, and even as media and political reactions to the affair take on even more grotesque forms, some commentators have argued that there can be no moral equivalence between a form of [...]
…played into the Hurriyat’s hands
Praveen Swami’s indictment is damning: “New Delhi’s well-meaning but ill-conceived dialogue process communalised Jammu and Kashmir and laid the ground for the ongoing crisis”
Experts have been telling New Delhi that the solution to this Islamist upsurge lies in negotiations which will give power—if not independence—to secessionists. Both the premise of this [...]
The right to protest does not imply that the protests are right
K Subrahmanyam’s piece warning against giving in to separatist demands makes a very important point—the tendency to tolerate and appease those who take to the streets to press their demands.
But the challenge facing India is whether we try to set right our governance and [...]
On socialism, constitutionalism and curbing intolerance
For contemplation on Independence Day—on the need to expunge socialism from the Constitution in letter and spirit; on the norms of public activism; and how competitive intolerance might be reined in.
Related Links: Three thoughts on Independence Day 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004 & on Republic Day 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
There are good reasons to carry the Olympic torch. Aamir Khan gave the worst one.
Aamir Khan, it has been reported, has turned down pleas by Tibetan refugees, fans, friends and some members of his family not to carry the Olympic torch on its Indian leg on April 17th.
His decision is in sharp contrast to that [...]
Comrade Yechury does
He’s probably smiling because the patently idiotic BJP party workers who stoned the Communist Party headquarters in New Delhi handed the comrades just the kind of publicity they like—that of being victims. He’s also smiling because that’ll distract attention from what the Communist thugs are doing in Kerala. With activists like these, does [...]
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