Bhagat Singh and the freedom struggle
In the story of the struggle for the liberation of India from the British Raj, Bhagat Singh and his friends deserve a prominent mention. Bhagat was born in a small…
Bhagat Singh: his times and ours
The 23rd of March will be the 86th death anniversary of Bhagat Singh, one of the most revered figures of the anti-colonial movement. In India, his life and death will…
Bhagat Singh’s warning
Religion-based politics has always had a devastating effect on any society in the world. Europe finally managed to separate the “Church’ from the ‘State’ – making religion a matter of…
Will Ganpati bless Bhagat Singh?
Two events this week have got me leaning on a mix of counterfactual history and mythology for help. It was Bhagat Singh’s birthday on Sept 28, and, as is customary…
Bhagat Singh: for the deaf to hear
Though it keeps resounding with “Inqilab Zindabad,” the film does little to explain the slogan that Bhagat had raised with unprecedented vigour. The most politically important scene in the movie,…
Can Obama ignore Bhagat Singh?
President Obama is likely to go to the Golden Temple in Amritsar next month. Different reasons are being given for the first visit by an American president to Sikhdom’s holiest…
A Mengal and Bhagat Singh
“All citizens, including Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Christians, have equal rights…” This is not from Quaid-i-Azam’s Aug 11 speech but from a statement by the DCO Lahore, a Mengal, around…
Something else about March 23
MARCH 23 evokes three apparently distinct events in different time zones, which are in a curious way linked. The day marks Pakistan’s national day. That’s when Delhi-based journalists would wait…
Remembering Rooplo Kolhi
In Pakistan, history textbooks are not inclusive in the sense that they seldom mention non-Muslim freedom fighters. It seems that the writers of the books the country’s education departments approve…
The Jaranwala tragedy
What happened in Jaranwala on August 16 is an example of all that is wrong with our extremist attitude towards the weak and vulnerable. The incident becomes even more tragic…
