A never-say-die journalist’s life story with an in-depth analysis of crucial historical events, fascinating anecdotes about the high and mighty, revealing behind-the-scenes events and a bouquet of delightful snippets . . .This book traces one man’s journey stretching from the time of Jawaharlal Nehru to the Manmohan Singh era. As a journalist, S. Nihal Singh had a ringside seat in observing and analysing important developments in India and the world: The 1969 split in the Congress, with Indira Gandhi emerging victorious; the Emergency imposed by her in June 1975, her downfall, her phoenix-like rise and her assassination; the game of musical chairs with the Congress as music master as prime ministers came and went in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s; the tempestuous relations between India and Pakistan; the 1991 Gulf war; and the litany of scams that have buffeted the Manmohan Singh Government. The scandals facing the government had been long in the making, but they illuminate features like the erosion of the country’s once-famed administrative structure, the rise of corruption in an increasingly consumer-oriented acquisitive society, the democratization of polity by the inclusion of hitherto excluded sections and the decline of the mother Congress Party. The Manmohan Singh–Sonia Gandhi harness in a two-horse tonga became necessary because Sonia’s so-called foreign birth turned into a major political controversy. The scandals, and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s desire to milk them, merely accentuated the problems of a prime minister without the politician’s ability to tame events while his co-ruler, the party president, became the recognized power centre. Over the decades, editing two major Indian newspapers (The Statesman and the Indian Express) and Dubai’s Khaleej Times ensured a varied and eventful life with never a dull moment. Outside his home country, Nihal Singh was a witness to dramatic events in South-east Asia, Eastern and Western Europe and the United States. His tour of duty also took him to Moscow, where he rubbed the Soviets the wrong way.
A long-term observer and analyst of the Indian political scene takes a hard look at the Narendra Modi phenomenon. S. Nihal Singh believes that the rise of Modi marks a sharp break from more than six decades of political consensus. While Atal Behari Vajpayee’s six years of power at the head of a coalition government were broadly in line with Nehruvian philosophy except for teasing the fringes, the emergence of Modi as the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party represents a significant shift in the working of the polity of the world’s largest democracy. In essence, Modi and his mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, are seeking to change the basis on which independent India has evolved. Instead of consensual politics in a country of many religious and ethnic groups with Muslims alone constituting more than 172 million people, the new dispensation is emphasizing separateness with loud Hindu overtones. Where this will take the country is a question time will answer.
A never-say-die journalist’s life story with an in-depth analysis of crucial historical events, fascinating anecdotes about the high and mighty, revealing behind-the-scenes events and a bouquet of delightful snippets . . .This book traces one man’s journey stretching from the time of Jawaharlal Nehru to the Manmohan Singh era. As a journalist, S. Nihal Singh had a ringside seat in observing and analysing important developments in India and the world: The 1969 split in the Congress, with Indira Gandhi emerging victorious; the Emergency imposed by her in June 1975, her downfall, her phoenix-like rise and her assassination; the game of musical chairs with the Congress as music master as prime ministers came and went in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s; the tempestuous relations between India and Pakistan; the 1991 Gulf war; and the litany of scams that have buffeted the Manmohan Singh Government. The scandals facing the government had been long in the making, but they illuminate features like the erosion of the country’s once-famed administrative structure, the rise of corruption in an increasingly consumer-oriented acquisitive society, the democratization of polity by the inclusion of hitherto excluded sections and the decline of the mother Congress Party. The Manmohan Singh–Sonia Gandhi harness in a two-horse tonga became necessary because Sonia’s so-called foreign birth turned into a major political controversy. The scandals, and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s desire to milk them, merely accentuated the problems of a prime minister without the politician’s ability to tame events while his co-ruler, the party president, became the recognized power centre. Over the decades, editing two major Indian newspapers (The Statesman and the Indian Express) and Dubai’s Khaleej Times ensured a varied and eventful life with never a dull moment. Outside his home country, Nihal Singh was a witness to dramatic events in South-east Asia, Eastern and Western Europe and the United States. His tour of duty also took him to Moscow, where he rubbed the Soviets the wrong way.
A long-term observer and analyst of the Indian political scene takes a hard look at the Narendra Modi phenomenon. S. Nihal Singh believes that the rise of Modi marks a sharp break from more than six decades of political consensus. While Atal Behari Vajpayee’s six years of power at the head of a coalition government were broadly in line with Nehruvian philosophy except for teasing the fringes, the emergence of Modi as the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party represents a significant shift in the working of the polity of the world’s largest democracy. In essence, Modi and his mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, are seeking to change the basis on which independent India has evolved. Instead of consensual politics in a country of many religious and ethnic groups with Muslims alone constituting more than 172 million people, the new dispensation is emphasizing separateness with loud Hindu overtones. Where this will take the country is a question time will answer.
Caste is a contested terrain in India’s society and polity. This book explores contemporary realities of caste in rural and urban India. It examines questions of untouchability, citizenship, social mobility, democratic politics, corporate hiring and Dalit activism. Using rich empirical evidence from the field across Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and other parts of north India, this volume presents the reasons for the persistence of caste in India from a new perspective. The book offers an original theoretical framework for comparative understandings of the entrenched social differences, discrimination, inequalities, stratification, and the modes and patterns of their reproduction. This second edition, with a new Introduction, delves into why caste continues to matter and how caste-based divisions often tend to overlap with the emergent disparities of the new economy. A delicate balance of lived experience and hard facts, this persuasive work will serve as essential reading for students and teachers of sociology and social anthropology, social exclusion and discrimination studies, political science, development studies and public policy.
Drawing on insights from theoretical engagements with borders and subalternity, Beyond Religion in India and Pakistan suggests new frameworks for understanding religious boundaries in South Asia. It looks at the ways in which social categories and structures constitute the bordering logics inherent within enactments of these boundaries, and positions hegemony and resistance through popular religion as an important indication of wider developments of political and social change. The book also shows how borders are continually being maintained through violence at national, community and individual levels. By exploring selected sites and expressions of piety including shrines, texts, practices and movements, Virinder S. Kalra and Navtej K. Purewal argue that the popular religion of Punjab should neither be limited to a polarised picture between formal, institutional religion, nor the 'enchanted universe' of rituals, saints, shrines and village deities. Instead, the book presents a picture of 'religion' as a realm of movement, mobilization, resistance and power in which gender and caste are connate of what comes to be known as 'religious'. Through extensive ethnographic research, the authors explore the reality of the complex, dynamic and contested relations that characterize everyday material and religious lives on the ground. Ultimately, the book highlights how popular religion challenges the borders and boundaries of religious and communal categories, nationalism and theological frameworks while simultaneously reflecting gender/caste society.
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