In bringing them to where they are today, MK Gandhi and Ram Manohar Lohia were crucial not just as politicians, but also as thinkers who shaped Indian mores. Both were organic intellectuals of the Banias, both had prestigious Western educations and mastery over English, and both wrote and published extensively. They gained immense stature amid...
NARENDRA MODI BECAME PRIME MINISTER in 2014 on the back of proclamations that he belonged to the Other Backward Classes, implying that he was a representative of the Shudras. Many accepted the proclamation without the scrutiny it deserves. Looking closely at Modi’s caste group, the Modh Ghanchis of Gujarat, we should be skeptical of his assertion...
When the government implemented the Mandal Commission recommendations, in the early 1990s, it was meant to be a watershed moment for the Shudras. The measure reserved positions in government employment and public higher education for the Other Backward Classes—a category made up overwhelmingly of disadvantaged Shudra castes, traditionally labourers and craftspeople. The commission had identified...
A village chief and a gang of higher-caste men opened fire on poor farmers in northern India and killed at least 10 of them in a land dispute, police officials said on Thursday. Experts said it was one of the deadliest such episodes in India in years. “It was a massacre,” Roma Malik, an activist...
MD IRSHAD AYUB The term Fascism refers to “the aggressive, radical and ultra-nationalist ideology as well as right wing political system, which believes in the ideas of totalitarian, authoritarianism, centralised and corporate state.” The word fascism comes from fascio, the Italian word for bundle, which in this case represents bundles of people. Its origins go...
One should not underestimate the effectiveness of SAM-centric air defense strategies. Notably, the 1973 Yom Kippur War’s early stages and the Egyptian air defense units’ record revealed the fact that ground-based air defenses could indeed bleed modern air forces. Likewise, lessons-learned from the 2008 Russo-Georgian War are very telling in this respect. Thanks to the upgrades by...
On July 12, 2019, Turkey began receiving the first batch of the S-400 deliveries from Russia. Ankara’s aspirant procurement can fundamentally transform the Turkish military strategic posture. Above all, acquiring a game-changing Russian surface-to-air missile (SAM) system will lead to drastic changes in the Turkish Air Force’s concept of operations (CONOPS). Inevitably, a novel operational art...
Alongside the mob lynching of Muslims, we are witness to growing attacks on dalits. Muslims and dalits are the new combined ‘other’ under the current political regime. While attacks on Muslims consolidates the Hindus, simultaneous attacks on dalits defines who that Hindu is. A number of incidents of mob lynching that have targeted Muslims are...
Pakistani Prime Minister Khan will be paying a three-day trip to the US starting from July 21. This will be his first official visit as the head of the South Asian state, as well as his first face-to-face meeting with US President Trump. This is the next logical step in the global pivot state’s geopolitical...
By Dr Mohammad Manzoor Alam A few weeks ago I had written a piece, “Let’s give peace a chance.” In it I had argued for co-operating with the Supreme Court-ordered Ayodhya mediation committee that seeks to find an amicable out-of-court settlement of the dogged Babri Masjid-Ram Janambhoomi conflict. I had argued for a settlement of...