‘Eminent Historians’ or Criminals in Scholar’s Robes?
Column by N.S. Rajaram (Contributing Editor) In his article on Romila Thapar, Professor D.K. Chakrabarti remarked that “since the coming of this group to power [at the Indian Council of Historical Studies], the More...
The Year of Ludicre
What precisely is the difference between ridiculous and ludicrous? With their inter-changeable syllables they even sound like each other. Philology is not very helpful. One word has a root, ridicule; but there is More...
Goodbye, Sir!
Every childhood hero takes away a little bit of one’s life along with him when he dies. Shammi Kapoor filled those wondrously difficult years when laughter and optimism were the only pathfinders from an unknown More...
Now, freedom from some Indians please
Indian Flag | Illustration: Prince Pal We lost the central hinge of the plot on 15 August 1947. We thought that raising the tricolour over Edwina and Lord Louis Mountbatten’s palace marked the end of the More...
Mark this Antony
Column by M.J. Akbar - Unqualified, unmitigated congratulations to All India Radio. The government’s official broadcaster was not fooled by a mere communiqué from the All India Congress Committee, even when More...
Bollywood is changing
From the idealistic ’50s to the rebellious ’70s and from the degenerative ’80s to the formulaic ’90s, the Hindi film industry has come a long way. Now, with formula filmmaking coming to an end and despite More...
Demystifying the Sufis
History testifies the fact that most of the Sufi “saints” came to India either accompanying the invading armies of Islamic marauders or just followed them in their sweeping conquests. Hazrat Shaikh Khwaja Syed More...
Crowded City’s Solitary Fort
By Khursheed Wani On a clear sunny day, anyone roaming around in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, can never miss the hillock standing majestically in the middle of the highly congested city. Whether More...
Myth of “1000 years of Hindu slavery”
By MR Vaghela One thousand years of slavery. Millennia of defeat and domination caused by a dogmatic adherence to the doctrine of ahimsa, preventing an effective resistance to foreign domination. This is what most More...
Arabic and Persian Mahabharatha
By Pradip Bhattacharya PhD, IAS (Retd) The record of foreign invasions in India’s own history is not available in any systematic form. However, the references to foreign tribes are several, as in the Vashishtha-Vishvamitra More...
