Foreign policies brewed at home
IT’S a given that foreign policies of nations represent their national circumstances. Circumstances change, policies change. They changed for Pakistan from Jinnah to Bhutto to Zia. Likewise, the Nehruvian state…
The facade of Indian democracy
Seventy-five years ago, India gained freedom and declared itself a secular state. The constitution of the world’s largest democracy provides for “freedom of conscience and the right of all individuals…
A Marxist disowned by comrades
I met Somnath Chatterjee only once, for a couple of hours in Delhi in 1984. Comrade Somnath Chatterjee (Somjee), the only communist speaker of India’s Lok Sabha, died last month…
Do we need a communist party?
At a Moharram majlis in my native village of Mustafabad, which is part of Sonia Gandhi’s parliamentary constituency today, a believer was overcome with grief during a recitation of the…
How are the Hindus facing Hindutva?
Indian intellectuals claiming to be concerned for Pakistan’s Hindus accosted a Karachi journalist in Delhi recently. How was the minority community coping with the onslaught from Muslim extremists, she was…
