Patron saint of the shopping mall

90

A wonderful new film has given us a new word. "Gandhigiri" has entered the popular lexicon. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was never more trendy. The young are buying books on him. Gandhi T-shirts and Gandhi mugs are now widely available.Members of the Congress party attended a screening of Munnabhai to remind itself of the values it claims to stand for. Historians are sheepishly admitting that a film has done more to popularise the teachings of Gandhi than they have been able to do. Munnabhai, that gangster with the golden heart is the alter ego of a new Mahatma. But who is the Gandhi that the nation has collectively re-discovered? Have we re-discovered the political philosophy of satyagraha, the virtues of vegetarianism, of sexual self-restraint, nature therapy and cleaning lavatories which were in fact the keystones of the Gandhian vision? Or have we in fact simply re-cast Gandhi as....

We don't need no education

186

Those who believe that India's hopes reside in its youth might glance at the events of the recent week and take off their rose- tinted glasses. In Madhav College in Ujjain, students beat up and killed a defenceless unarmed professor of Political Science because they believed he was responsible for the cancellation of student elections. The furious hysterical faces of ABVP activists threatening to wipe the floor with their teachers, wagging fingers and spewing abuse was captured in full close up by television cameras. A policeman standing next to the students shockingly failed to realize that criminal intimidation is a punishable offence and simply looked on. In another part of India, in Chandigarh, irate young women demanded an apology from and suspension of a teacher who punished a girl for speaking on her mobile phone in class. And in Meerut, girls from a local college vandalised....