Marginalia
53 articles
BULANDSHAHR’S MESSAGE FROM THE BARREL OF THE GUN
Bhisham Sahni’s epic novel Tamas, which offers a fictionalised account of real events during the bloody partition of the sub-continent, starts with a tanner, Na...
Every Autocrat Loves A Good Pandemic
The chaotic conditions of Germany after the World War I became a catalyst for the rise of Hitler and his Nazi Party. The panic that was caused in 1933 by the in...
Dalit Lives Matter Too!
Soon after George Floyd’s horrifying murder, caught on camera, sometime in June in USA, the stars of India’s film industry, Bollywood, had bombarded the social ...
A Memory Bank Of Torment That Kashmir Invests Itself In
I met Eibhlin over a year ago in Belfast. When she unfolded the knot of memories of the years of Irish conflict, she had only bone chilling stories of horror, t...
Encounters Of The ‘fake’ Kind
“Allegations of fake encounters and other abuses by Indian security personnel abound. None of the accused men have been tried in civil courts during three decad...
The Dark And Light Of Roshni
The Jammu and Kashmir State Lands (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act of 2001, popularly known as the Roshni Act, opened the gates of unscrupulous metho...
Superstitions As A Fuel For Unholy Men, Unholy Deeds
The historic moment of freedom at midnight may seem romantic but only for the effect. The story behind the midnight jubilation may not be as appealing. 70 years...
Hindutva Meets White-ism At Capitol Hill
What was an Indian tri-colour doing at Capitol Hill? Finding space with American flags and flags of other nationalities like Iran, Vietnam and Korea, it shouldn...
Welcome But Half-hearted
Modi’s address on vaccination is better news for India but appears driven by theatrics Prime minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on Monday appears to...
Not In My Name. Not In Gandhi’s Name Either!
Indian liberals showed an impressive show of solidarity in various Indian cities under the banner of ‘Not in My Name’ campaign against the brazen lynchings of m...
Is Cold War In The Offing?
One and half years into the global pandemic, the romantic notions of a world standing together in solidarity and focused on a universal challenge can safely be ...
A Trojan Horse And An Army Of Lap Dogs
When Bernstein and Woodward broke the Watergate scandal for the Washington Post in 1972 and nailed the US president Richard Nixon for illegally creating a wiret...
A Salute To Afghanistan’s Brave Women Of Substance
In May 2017, when I visited Kabul, the situation had begun to deteriorate and yet looked up with promise of modernization and negotiations for peace towards a d...