Category: Politics

To Read: First Part: https://tamizhini.in/2018/11/14/the-ba-in-the-bapu-kannan-t/ Second Part: https://tamizhini.in/2019/01/13/the-ba-in-the-bapu-part-2-kannan-t/ Third Part: https://tamizhini.in/2019/02/17/the-ba-in-the-bapu-part-3-kannan-t/ (12) A few days before his death, Vallabhbhai Patel said, ”The love that Ba bore me I never experienced from my own mother. Whatever parental love fell to my lot, I got from Bapu and Ba…” This was not an isolated remark from one person. It was […]

To Read: First Part : https://tamizhini.in/2018/11/14/the-ba-in-the-bapu-kannan-t/ Second Part : https://tamizhini.in/2019/01/13/the-ba-in-the-bapu-part-2-kannan-t/ (9) After a long period of personal and political transformation, the Gandhi family left South Africa in July, 1914. While the rest of the party went to India directly, Gandhi and Kasturba first went to England, along with Kallenbach, to meet Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who was recuperating […]

“Whither do we go from here”, asked Jawaharlal Nehru, on the eve of India’s freedom, and answered that the nation needed to “create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.” It is that idea of India that is now hijacked and perverted by a […]

Part 1 : https://tamizhini.in/2018/11/14/the-ba-in-the-bapu-kannan-t/ (5) Manilal, the second son of Gandhi and Kasturba, also had a strenuous apprenticeship under his father. More than Harilal, it was Manilal, who had often been at the receiving end of Gandhi’s experiments. Harilal was away from Gandhi for long periods during his formative years. But Manilal spent a good […]

(1) Gandhi’s relationship with various women associates from Mira Behn to Manu Gandhi has become a major talking point of biographies, novels, gossips and take-downs. Gandhi’s brief relationship with Saraladevi Chaudhurani is pitched as a major selling point for new biographies on Gandhi. But his most remarkable relationship with a woman has probably drawn the […]

I. The word “Devadasi” is one of the most contentious terms in contemporary cultural discourse. In certain parts, the Tamil variation of the word “devadiya” is an abuse and used as an alternative for the word harlot. On the other hand, in Karnataka, the Kannada variation “Devadiga” invokes respect and the term is still in vogue […]

“Devadasis: Beyond Conventional Constructs” by B.C. Anish Krishnan Nayar published in Tamizhini on September 13, 2018 was an exercise in revisionism and mudslinging. The author tries to flatten a complex history into a whitewashed simple portrait of devadasis as holding a place of pride in Tamil society and even as vanguards of Hindu faith with […]

The term “Devadasi” can be translated as “female servant of God”. Devadasi is one of the most contested terms in Indology, Sociology and Gender Studies. The system was (and is ) condemned as a machination in the guise of religious ritual to exploit women and turn them into mere bodies designed for the pleasure of […]

I Thoothukudi. A polluting factory. Years of sporadic protest, culminating in a sustained 100-day mass protest, leading up to police firing on the last day. 15 people reported dead. Probably more. With the factory closed, for now, and with all the dead cremated and long gone, we may forget who the protestors were; forget whether […]

America and India, the world’s oldest and largest democracies, are at crossroads of what it means to be a liberal and secular democracy. If liberalism as an idea is under threat in America it is the idea of secularism that is under assault in India. If an opinion is sought today in India to determine […]

Why do people consider a lying demagogue – someone who deliberately tells lies and breaks publicly-endorsed norms while appealing to private prejudices – as authentic? The 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections presented us with this puzzle. It is no surprise to any of us that politicians lie and that they often do so to further their […]