Recently, in response to Richard Seymour‘s essay on Winston Churchill in Jacobin–one whose tagline read “Churchill was no hero — he was a vile racist fanatical about violence and fiercely supportive of imperialism,” I wrote the following on my Facebook status page: Indians have known this and said this forever. Hopefully, now that a whiteContinue reading “On Being Both ‘Bad’ And ‘Great’”
Category Archives: History
Ramachandra Guha On The Lack Of Modern Indian Histories
In India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy (HarperCollins, New York, 2007), Ramachandra Guha writes: Of his recent history of postwar Europe, Tony Judt writes that ‘a book of this kind rests, in the first instance, on the shoulders of other books’. He notes that ‘for the brief sixty-year period of Europe’s history sinceContinue reading “Ramachandra Guha On The Lack Of Modern Indian Histories”
‘Passing for Pakistani and the Two-Nation Theory’ At Three Quarks Daily
My essay ‘Passing for Pakistani and the Two-Nation Theory‘ is up at Three Quarks Daily.
Toppling Confederate Statues Does Not ‘Erase’ The Confederacy From ‘History’
News from Baltimore and Durham suggests a long-overdue of cleaning American towns and cities of various pieces of masonry known as ‘Confederate statues’; young folks have apparently taken it upon themselves to go ahead and tear down these statues which pay homage to those who were handed a rather spectacular defeat in the American CivilContinue reading “Toppling Confederate Statues Does Not ‘Erase’ The Confederacy From ‘History’”
The Bollywood War Movie And The Indian Popular Imagination
In 1947, even as India attained independence from colonial subjugation, war broke out in Kashmir as guerrillas backed by Pakistan sought to bring it into the Pakistani fold. That war ended in stalemate after intervention by the UN. Since then, the fledgling nation of India has gone to war four more times: first, in 1962,Continue reading “The Bollywood War Movie And The Indian Popular Imagination “
Prophecy And Propaganda As Compensatory Fantasy
In a footnote in his chapter on Herder in Three Critics of The Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2000, p. 231), Isaiah Berlin writes: Like other passionate propagandists, Herder pleaded for that which he himself conspicuously lacked. As sometimes happens, what the prophet saw before him was a great compensatory fantasy. TheContinue reading “Prophecy And Propaganda As Compensatory Fantasy”
The Trump Presidency And The Iran-Contra Precedent
Perhaps because it has been over three decades, memories of the ginormous political clusterfuck that went by the name of Iran-Contra seem to have faded from our collective memory. As our nation’s polity lurches from one scandal to the next, and as cries of ‘impeachment, if not now, then when?‘ fill the air, it isContinue reading “The Trump Presidency And The Iran-Contra Precedent”
Historical Amnesia And Stasis In Political Action
Over on his blog, and on his Facebook page, in response to a series of repeated claims stressing the uniquely dysfunctional and authoritarian nature of the present administration¹, Corey Robin has often made remarks which echo the sentiments expressed in the following: We have a culture in this country that is relentlessly, furiously, ferociously, anti-historical.Continue reading “Historical Amnesia And Stasis In Political Action”
Nixon, Kissinger, And The 1971 Genocide In Bangladesh
This evening, Jagan Pillarisetti and will be speaking at the New York Military Affairs Symposium on ‘Indian Air Force Operations in the 1971 Liberation War.’ Our talk will be based on our book Eagles over Bangladesh: The Indian Air Force in the 1971 Liberation War (Harper Collins, 2013). Here is the jacket description: In DecemberContinue reading “Nixon, Kissinger, And The 1971 Genocide In Bangladesh”
John Muir On The ‘Negroes’ Of The American South
John Muir often wrote soaring prose about the beauties and majesties of nature, about how the outdoors were our ‘natural cathedrals’; he urged his fellow human beings to leave behind their sordid, grubby, weekday cares and let themselves be elevated by the sublime qualities of hill and vale and river and babbling brook. Here, onContinue reading “John Muir On The ‘Negroes’ Of The American South”
Samir Chopra 