W.E.B. Du Bois’ Enduring Admiration of Mahatma Gandhi Stems from a Shared Belief of Nonviolence
In May 1929, Gandhi received a letter from W.E.B. Du Bois, the Black American scholar and civil rights activist, via British missionary C.F Andrews. Du Bois expressed his pleasure at meeting Sarojini Naidu and Andrews, requesting Gandhi to contribute a message for Black people in his magazine, The Crisis. Gandhi
One Year of Gaza War | Shashi Tharoor Writes: What Qualifies as ‘Genocide’ Depends on Which Side You Are On
Palestinians bid farewell to relatives at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, following an Israeli strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza, on October 1, 2024. | Photo Credit: Ahmad Salem/Bloomberg In his famous 1946 essay ‘Politics and the English Language’, George Orwell wrote about how language was being corrupted in
Tolstoy’s Letter and Gandhi’s Insights on Love, Nation, and Politics
Two years before Tolstoy passed away at the age of 82, he wrote a letter, “A Letter to a Hindu”, dated 14 December 1908, in response to a letter from Tarak Nath Das, a Canadian immigrant from Bengal who ran the newspaper, Free Hindustan. The letter gained historical significance when
O.P. Sharma Photography: Pioneering Indian Pictorialist’s Artistic Vision and Legacy | Retrospective Exhibition 1950s-1990s
The first thing you saw at the retrospective titled “O.P. Sharma & the Fine Art of Photography: 1950s-1990s” (September 5 to October 3)—organised by the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts in collaboration with Art Heritage, at Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi—was not a photograph. It was a watercolour,
“Bhakti Is A Matter of Fire and Blood’: Jerry Pinto on Translating Bhakti Poetry, Its Challenges, Rewards, and Cultural Bridges
It is hard to find a form of writing that Jerry Pinto does not revel in. He started as a poet. His 2006 biography of the Bollywood dancing star Helen (Helen: The Life and Times of A Bollywood H-Bomb) changed that. These light-hearted literary avatars were pushed aside by the tender
Ahead of Her Times: Freedom and Feminism As Seen Through Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay’s Eyes
Autumn 1947, New Delhi. British rule in India had ended. Cyril Radcliffe had drawn a line dividing the subcontinent into two. In the violent Partition riots that ensued, half a million people died and 10 million fled. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay arrived at the newly created Relief and Rehabilitation Secretariat in New
Nobel Laureate Han Kang Declines Celebration Amid Wars in Ukraine and Gaza
Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for her craft, the South Korean writer Han Kang was immediately faced with her sense of political responsibility. A writer is not an isolated being lost in the island of literature. She is a political being who lives in the midst of the world
Baba, Bollywood, Bishnoi and Brand Mumbai: How a Politician’s Murder Shook Mumbai’s Power Corridors
In this photograph taken in July 2013, then Congress leader Baba Siddique is flanked by actors Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan at an Iftar party in Mumbai. | Photo Credit: PTI This story has all the elements of a crime thriller. Former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique (66) was killed
Ranjit Hoskote’s Translation of Mir Taqi Mir: An Attempt of Failure
Mir Taqi Mir in 1786. | Photo Credit: Wiki Commons Let me admit that I am a votary of the following falsifiable proposition that is almost a cliché among those who follow Urdu poetry: A great poet creates a new idiom for the language. This proposition yields the following corollary
Baburao Bagul’s ‘Lootaloot’: A Deep Dive into the Struggles of the Oppressed in Mumbai
In the titular story of Baburao Bagul’s classic short story collection Maran Swasta Hot Aahe (Death is Becoming Cheap)—published in Marathi in 1969 and now available in translation as Lootaloot—a poet and short story writer walks through the city in search of a muse but finds, instead, sordid stories of the dispossessed. “This