Wish Honourable PM Will Say
In his column, for the Indian Express, senior Congress leader and advocate P Chidambaram writes wittingly, a speech, which he wished the prime minister would make as India turned 75 on 15 August, 2022.
In this article, he opines how the Modi government failed in properly implementing demonetisation and GST. Through this satirical piece, he also expresses his wish of the prime minister withdrawing the Citizenship Amendment Act and ensuring communal harmony in the country.
"My foremost worry is the growing communal divide. No country can progress until all the people — especially women, Dalits, Muslims and tribals — feel safe and secure and are able to share the fruits of progress. I accept that my party has to shed its prejudices and my government has to do more to put an end to the divisive rhetoric, and finally, punish those who promote hatred, celebrate India’s diversity and pluralism, and make our government and institutions more inclusive and representative of all sections of the people."P Chidambaram
What India Needs at 75: A Museum of Untouchability
In this article for the Indian Express, writer and thinker Suraj Yengde recalls instances where Dalits have been targetted in independent India. He believes that the nation is far from being independent, as people from the marginalised communities continue to lack liberty and freedom. He says, "There must be an exhibition of atrocities as well as Dalit memorials to remind the nation that such unwarranted incidents continue to occur."
"There cannot be any festivity of national pride when a Dalit child’s touch is feared. For those still in denial, this is another reminder that people religiously hold such ancient practices in current times. How sinister is a nation that devalues a child and considers it pollution? There is no comparison to it. The government should seriously reflect on the quality of progress it has achieved. It should aggressively push for an anti-caste education curriculum and public dialogues on caste and its menace. The government has to invest and declare a decade towards a caste-free society. Everyone benefits in the struggle against caste, for caste is not just a Dalit or Adivasi problem. It is a subcaste problem, and all jatis suffer their share but are comforted at the sight of a dying Dalit."Suraj Yengde
Shame
In the Indian Express, columnist Tavleen Singh, reflects on statements made by heads of several states following the brutal attack on writer Salman Rushdie. She opines, while most of the democratic leaders condemned the attack, it was in fact the words of President Biden and President Macron that were most eloquent. Meanwhile, she also points out that by remaining silent, PM Narendra Modi's has let down Salman Rushdie.
"From the leader of the world’s largest democracy, we have heard not a single word. Narendra Modi has said in many speeches that the idea of democracy is an inherently Indian idea and not one borrowed from the west. In one recent speech, he described India as the ‘mother of democracy.’ So why has the Indian Prime Minister found it so hard to condemn this horrific attack on a writer who has told India’s story to the world with beauty and elegance in so many of his books? As puzzling as Modi’s silence was the response of our Minister of External Affairs. When asked a question about the attack, all he said was that he had heard about it. India has let Salman down many times before. This time shamefully."Tavleen Singh
We Have Turned Our Back on Rushdie
Veteran journalist Karan Thapar, in his column in the Hindustan Times, wonders how the Indian politicians have been indifferent towards the barbaric attack on Salman Rushdie. In an attempt to find answers to India's apathy towards the incident, he asserts how the Rushdie has always been rooted in the nation's consciousness and how he never identified himself with Pakistan.
"Rushdie was born in India. Though his citizenship may have changed, he continues to identify with this country. In 2000, in an interview for BBC’s Hardtalk India, I asked him: “Is this country still home?” This was his reply: “There’s a sense in which the country in which you were born and grew up as a child is always home. You never have that feeling about any other place. Anyone who reads my books knows the extent to which my imagination calls this country home.” If anything, his answer to my next question was even more telling. I asked: “If I was to ask, is Salman Rushdie Indian or English or Pakistani, which identity would you accept?” His response was short, stark but simple: “Oh not Pakistani!” The laugh that followed sounded more like a sneer. He found the very idea of being Pakistani ludicrous."Karan Thapar
Bengal Scams Show How Public Life Has Become Mired In Corruption
Former Member of Rajya Sabha and right-wing ideologue Swapan Dasgupta writes about how the recent cases of corruption in Bengal are only a partial reflection of rackets that are run in connivance of the state government. In his column for Times of India, he writes how the fight against corruption has become a national imperative, which prime minister Narendra Modi can't seem to ignore.
"This isn’t the first time Bengal has witnessed such depredations. The interregnum between the Battle of Plassey and the beginning of parliamentary control over the East India Company saw the province being transformed from a zone of prosperity to state of impoverishment. Today, once again, Bengal has become happy hunting ground for a buccaneering class that couldn’t give a damn for state’s misfortune. The war on corruption has become a nation imperative."Swapan Dasgupta
August Musings
Giving a glimpse of wit and satire, former diplomat Gopalkrishna Gandhi, moves away from giving the audience a habitual read on politics, and writes a glossary of collective nouns for The Telegraph, highlighting the country's recent independence day celebrations.
"A Jai Ho! of songs. A Hind of hopes. A Bharat of dreams. Which brings me to the quotidian world of every day. A yesterday of ideals. A today of realities. A tomorrow of dreads. A rhyme of assurances. A fable of promises. A tumble of setbacks. A rut of despairs. A ditch of disappointments. A poem of apologies. A textbook of explanations. A varnish of amends. A polish of words. A paint of visions. A flair of pledges. A scoot of false oaths. A hollow of plighted words. Basically, collective nouns help us understand the subject by abstracting what is specific, by making it an image in the order of a noun. But — and here lies the beauty of collective nouns — by making that abstraction as visual, as familiar, as recognisable, as possible.The subject — like, for instance, despair — may be serious, but when placed within the collective noun, can be utterly real. As real as a rut."Gopalkrishna Gandhi
From Chicken Seller to President
Profiling the president-elect of Kenya for The Hindu, Stanly Johny writes about the humble beginnings of William Ruto. He writes about how Ruto carved a path for himself in politics, to become one of the most important leaders in the continent.
"Mr Rutho’s rise to the top office in Kenya has never been easy. As a teenager, he used to sell chickens and nuts to truckers in the highways of Kenya’s Rift Valley. He went to school barefoot and tended cows and helped till field on a family plot for farming. Now, a wealthy businessman whose fortunes multiplied when he was in government, Mr Ruto, 55, recalled his humble childhood during campaigns recently."
The Man Who Made More Money on The Stock Market Than Almost Anyone Else
Recalling his interactions with late Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, TN Ninan writes in Business Standard about how the man who made most money in the stock market, was more inclined towards having a conversation about his political views and country's future, than discuss ways to earn wealth.
"For a man who made more money on the stock market than almost anyone else, he was endearingly enough more optimistic about India than about the market, keener to talk about the country than his wealth. His political views veered towards strong Hindu assertion, and as usual neither his language nor his gestures were restrained. That I considered his political views half-baked made no difference to him; he would have his say. Interestingly, his donations to good causes were politically colour-blind."T N Ninan
India is Not Insecure, China Certainly Is
N Sathiya Moorthy writes in The New Indian Express about why China feels timorous, while India doesn't, when it comes to global issues. In his column, he lists out issues pertaining to One China Policy, Tibet, Arun'achal Pradesh and Taiwan, and asserts that Beijing is nervous, whereas India continues to 'be too big and strong' to (feel) insecure.
"Even as it purportedly demonstrated its military might and perceived strategic supremacy by undertaking a series of war exercises with live missiles around Taiwan, China still had its envoys across the world calling on the respective Heads of State/Government to seek and record such reassurance in the local media. In doing so, those envoys added their own host government to the long list of nations that still swore by the ‘One China’ policy. In this context, the problem for China was that New Delhi had not reiterated the ‘One China’ policy in recent years. Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), then clarified that there was no need to keep repeating the same position every now and again. Whether China is satisfied with the response or if it was seeing ghosts where none existed remains to be known."N Sathiya Moorthy
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