…..This week the British embassy in Washington decided to hark back to Blighty’s glory days….picture of a sparkler-bedecked cake “commemorating the 200th anniversary of burning the White House”….embassy quickly retracted: “Apologies for earlier Tweet. We meant to mark an event in history & celebrate our friendship today …. Today UK-US celebrate #specialrelationship”….. … ….. Whichever … Continue reading The “Great” is no more in Great Britain
…..Remittances from India….key role in making Scotland the most industrialised country by the mid-19th century….Dundee and Paisley were transformed by their trade in jute and textiles with India….a man has died after 35 people found in a shipping container….survivors from the Indian subcontinent….staff alerted by “screaming and banging” from inside… …. The “trade” between India … Continue reading Immigration (good face, sad face)
…..my first academic job at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata…..a friend sent me a petition on the plight of Tamils….he hoped some of my colleagues would sign……a senior historian said: “As Marxists, the question you and I should be asking is whether taking up ethnic issues would deviate attention from the ongoing … Continue reading The neo-Marxist historians of India
Professor Jamal Naqvi, one of the stalwarts of the Pakistani Left, recently wrote a book about leaving the Left behind. it has caused a stir.. In defense of Jamal Naqvi Extracts: The fact is that Leaving the Left behind is the first book in Pakistan that confronts fundamentalism and defies the dogma of the left. … Continue reading Leaving the Left Behind
A critique of Doniger which steers away from the Hindutva-secular fight and asks some pertinent questions, one of which is: does the distinguished professor know (or care) about what is special (or unique) about Hinduism? …. Such a shared core may well be close to, among other ideas, the Upanishadic monism that crystallized in the … Continue reading Hinduism: is it only sex (and death)?
