The anti-neta neta

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AAP is doing what politicians have forgotten to do As the summer kicks in, people's representatives are often seen scurrying for their cool drawing rooms. A wicked theory about the daily demands for the immediate resignation of the PM is that most MPs desire a salubrious October election this year rather than face a sweaty trawl through Real India in mid-May 2014. Yet Arvind Kejriwal and his AAP party are doing what most mainstream politicians no longer want to do: risk the summer heat. So far AAP has an angry, anarchist, urban Naxalite image. Think of AAP and you think of unruly folk on the streets staging dharnas outside the power bungalows of Lutyensland, or tearing up electricity bills, or voicing the kind of strident anti-corporate anti-growth sentiments that strike fear in the heart of the middle class. But whether it's in taking up the issue of....

Mr Fixit vs Mr Dreamer

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The Modi-Rahul face off is good democracy The forthcoming electoral contest of 2014 is fast passing into pop culture. The Battle of the "Bachelors" - Rahul Gandhi vs Narendra Modi is a colourful confrontation. Pappu vs Chappan, RaGa vs Namo, Yuvraj vs Hindu Hriday Samrat: you know a political contest has caught the public imagination when it is described in multifarious ways in choicest slang. On social media, Twitter trend wars between RaGa supporters and Namo bhakts has been joined. Yet the question arises: is there really a significant difference in what Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi actually say? Both talk of changing systems, both have made pitches to business and industry, both shun press conferences, although Modi has attended two media gatherings. Both have talked of systems change, empowering the citizen and making government accountable. Both have generally refused to take "uncomfortable" questions from journalists, although....

India's most wanted

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The police must answer why innocent Muslims are being implicated in terror cases When in doubt about a terror investigation, blame the most readily available Muslims. Within days of the February Dilsukh Nagar blasts in Hyderabad, the police announced the suspects were the 'Indian Mujahideen', that Bhatkal was the possible "mastermind", and that Imran' and 'Maqbool' had recced the area. In the same week as the names 'Bhatkal', 'Maqbool' and 'Imran' swirled around in the media, two youths, journalist Muthi-ur Rahman Siddiqui, also once dubbed "mastermind" in a terror conspiracy by the media and DRDO scientist Aijaz Mirza were released after six months in jail. The NIA admitted they could find no evidence against them. Home Minister Shinde was made to apologise by the BJP for his remarks on saffron terror. But the Opposition did not ask the Home Minister to apologise for the wrongful arrest of two young....

The closing of the Indian mind

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The counter argument to narrow mindedness is missing From the Grand Mufti's fatwa against the all-girl band in Kashmir, to the now lifted ban on the film Vishwaroopam, to Salman Rushdie's aborted visit to the Kolkata Literature Festival, to the forcible removal of paintings at a Bangalore art gallery to protests against nude paintings at a Delhi art gallery, the freedom of artists, writers and filmmakers is threatened like never before. Group identities are on the ascendant. There are aggrieved bands of proud Hindus, angry Muslims, outraged Marathi manoos everywhere. "Hurt sentiments" of every kind are pushing the country into what Rushdie has already termed a "cultural emergency". A class war accompanies the culture war. Those out on the streets in their numbers protesting against writers and film makers are invariably self-styled "sons and daughters of the soil" fighting elitist modern English-speaking folk who do not understand....

God Of This Great Vast: glimpses of the Mahakumbh

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Dawn is misty on the banks of the Sangam. Enveloped in a gigantic quiet, the water awaits the pilgrim. Sanatan Dharma - dizzyingly varied, incorrigibly plural, welcoming of all, celebratory of difference and eccentricity - reveals its ancient provenance in millions of little rituals performed on the ghats. There is incense, there are lamps and there is cannabis. The greatest Mughal emperor too succumbed to the addiction of the Sangam. The orthodoxy wanted a face off with Akbar, but Akbar's face was turned towards the Sangam. The emperor built his largest fort - the Allahabad fort - on the banks of this quiet confluence and dreamed of Din-i-Ilahi, Sulh-i-kul, respect for all religions. Sangam is a belief system. Sangam is a way of life. The spirit of the Sangam infuses the great unifying philosophies of India. The amrit of the Kumbh is innocence. The innocent belief....

Time to make a choice: are we a modern democracy or a tradition enraptured society?

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Almost as shocking as the Delhi gang rape has been the range of voices that have sounded after it. Patriarchy is chillingly omnipresent and kicking harder than ever before. The son of the President of India, Congress MP Abhijit Mukherjee called anguished young women seeking answers about their safety, "dented and painted" women. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said rapes are occurring in India and not in Bharat, because of decline in Hindu values and the rise of western culture. Kailash Vijayvargia of the BJP said women who step outside the lakshman rekha should expect to meet Ravana. Asaram Babu's statement that the gang rape victim could have prevented the crime if she had said a few mantras, fallen at the attackers feet and called them "brother" is the latest utterance from society's "leaders". Not a single male society leader or politician so far has been able....

Riders on the storm

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Muslims are seeking a new narrative in Gujarat beyond victimhood The land of historic Gandhian satyagrahas like Kheda, Bardoli and the Dandi March, Gujarat today is curiously apolitical. No rival ideologies or competing political visions jostle for space in the public discourse. Stop by a roadside market or at a local restaurant and you are unlikely to find fierce political arguments like you would in Bengal. Leaders of all three main parties Narendra Modi of the BJP, Shankersinh Vaghela of the Congress and Keshubhai Patel of the Gujarat Parivartan Party are or were all rooted in the RSS and the Hindu consensus in Gujarat is overwhelming. Mercantile,entrepreneurial and aspirational Gujaratis have created India's first perpetually red republican state where the majority sentiment is culturally conservative and economically right wing, no matter what the exact party complexion of the ruling regime. But within this largely Hindu state with a....

Scoundrels of new India

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Shobhaa De's new novel 'Sethji' is a rattling good read Long before chronicling urban India became intellectually fashionable and literary tomes were written on the slums and high-rises of Mumbai, there was Shobhaa De. A pioneer in the usage of chutneyfied English, she is said to have coined terms like 'Garam Dharam' and Zeenie Baby when she was founder editor of the iconic film magazine Stardust. In a novel writing career spanning over two decade, De has ventured boldly into the bedrooms and soirees of urban socialites and bored housewives, revealing their sexual escapades, class aspirations and adventures in the big bad world of Mumbai, in such bestsellers as Socialite Evenings, Starry Nights and Sultry Days which have streamed effortlessly from her pen since the late eighties. The books are perhaps not high on literary pretension. They are instead robustly told raunchy yarns that provide neon lit....

Power, Pretension And Lemon Tarts

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In tribute to IK Gujral, we reproduce Sagarika Ghose's article published in Outlook magazine when he became the prime minister in 1997. Prime Minister IK Gujral's real alma mater was Delhi's hallowed India International Centre OH, think upon the pleasures of this grey-green palace, the India International Centre! This liberal, rationalist Nehruvian dream immortalised in brick and mortar (with a little help from architect Joseph Allen Stein). This monument to the fashionably radical, to the thinking, chattering, policy-making, handloom-wearing, environment-friendly classes who ooze in and out of its tasteful corridors discussing the fate of the Indian Black Buck. "Lots of prime ministers come here," says a staff member. "VP Singh used to come here, Indira Gandhi when she was not in power. In fact, everyone here is a VIP." "Lots of prime ministers come here, old prime ministers, new prime ministers, ex-prime ministers, aspiring....

Trapped in a sieve

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It's open season on 'modern' women A fashionable cultural conservatism dominates a land in the throes of the seismic shocks of liberalisation and westernisation. Elaborately dressed ladies lined up on karva chauth recently to view their husbands through sieves and fast for his eternal health. Sex ratios may decline, attacks against women may increase, politicians like Sri Prakash Jaiswal and Narendra Modi may brazenly utter anti women statements in public and be applauded, yet at most Indian festivals, women continue to fast and pray for the well being of men. In a son-worshipping culture like India, there are no festivals that pray for the well being of women. Cultural conservatism is now labelled as a return to roots and the combination of tank tops and elaborate rituals have become a familiar feature. India's modernity is one where we may work as cutting edge software engineers and scientists,....