In the act of denouncing the recent Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conference under US-Soviet auspices in Madrid, Iran has made another bold move for leadership of the Muslim world. This has long-term perhaps significant implications for India as well. The denunciation of the conference as ‘treason’ has come from Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, … Read More
It is possible to take the view that Nehru put aside the issue of the pre-eminence of Hindu civilisation because he was convinced that Hindus needed first to overcome the weakness resulting from their lag in the field of science and technology. Nehru, it may also be recalled, spoke frequently … Read More
Unlike most of his followers, Jawaharlal Nehru was deeply involved with the problem of the cultural-civilisational personality of India. This much should be obvious in view of his struggle to discover for himself the soul of India as reflected in his Discovery of India. What is not equally obvious is … Read More
The Indo-Pakistan dialogue-I in New Delhi from October 31 to November 3 is a notable event if only because this is perhaps the first time in the history of the two countries that so many prominent Indians and Pakistanis – 10 Pakistanis and many more Indians – have engaged in … Read More
When the dust has settled, it may well be found that in launching a campaign in Ayodhya, VP Singh has once again rendered great service to the Bharatiya Janata Party. As in 1989 when he brought down his own government by deciding to implement the Mandal Commission ‘report’ without reference … Read More
While it is only natural that the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, as we have known it, should have provoked a debate on India’s own future foreign and defence policies, it is clearly premature to draw firm and long-term conclusions. No one can … Read More
It is a mere coincidence that the Narasimha Rao government’s decision on job reservations for ‘other backward castes’ and the poor among the ‘forward castes’ has come in the wake of dramatic moves by it to liberate the country’s economy from the stranglehold of the permit-license Raj. But it is … Read More
In no article by any Indian writer on new possibilities (or dangers) in Indo-US relations in the wake of the end of the cold war has there been the vaguest reference to the common compulsion to try and contain Muslim revivalism. Though this is rather disquieting, it is not particularly … Read More
Not to speak of other capitals, New Delhi itself has not yet realised that recent events may have begun to transform the nature of the struggle in Jammu and Kashmir and to give it importance far beyond Indo-Pakistan relations. At stake in Jammu and Kashmir may no longer be just … Read More
Politics, as the saying goes is the art of the possible. In pushing the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Bill through the Lok Sabha in the face of opposition by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Narasimha Rao government has, in my view, disregarded this well-recognised … Read More
