It is absurd for India’s future to be held hostage to a dispute in the tiny Kashmir Valley. And who can deny that we are now in the same league as China and not Pakistan?
Vir Sanghvi writes.
It is instructive that at the end of over four decades in existence, all of them with Thackeray as its supreme leader (no other Indian party has been led for so long by a single individual), the Shiv Sena still has no positive agenda or dreams of glory to inspire Maharashtrians. Vir Sanghvi examines...
I’ve dwelt at length on the Chatwal case because the government seems determined, for some mysterious reason, to brazen it out and it’s important to expose the hollowness of its claims. But Chatwal is not the problem. He is merely a symptom. The real problem (as I wrote on this page two years ago) is the method by which we select the Padma awardees, writes
Vir Sanghvi.
I suspect old media may be making a huge mistake by being so blinkered. There is a new generation out there, expressing itself in ways that were largely unknown even a decade or so ago. As this generation comes of age, its views will determine the path India chooses to follow, writes
Vir Sanghvi.
Amar Singh will be back. And it will be far sooner than the media are ready to concede. Whatever his faults — that he is a bully, that he is brazen, that he talks too much, that he is a publicity hound etc. — he has many, many strengths that make him invaluable as an ally to those he chooses to befriend, writes
Vir Sanghvi.
What we are short of, however, is grace. And our directors need to learn that no amount of box-office success can buy you class. Our film industry will never hit the big time if its leading lights continue to think like small-timers. It’s time for Aamir, Chopra and Hirani to show some grace. Otherwise they risk coming across as three idiots, writes
Vir Sanghvi.
The real problem is not that politicians are venal but that members of the educated middle class — IAS and IPS officers — either help them in return for protection and advancement (as Rathore clearly did) or refuse to speak out when injustice is committed.
Vir Sanghvi examines...
David Headley was formally charged, allowed to appoint a lawyer and is now entitled to all the protections of the US Constitution: he would be within his rights to tell Indian investigators to take a flying jump. Why would the US treat a 26/11 suspect with such consideration?
Vir Sanghvi examines...
When our prime ministers talk to Pakistan, they act like statesmen. They are reasonable and flexible. When Pakistanis talk to us, it is an entirely different story, writes
Vir Sanghvi.
Ayodhya was a symbol of two things: a growing anger among Hindus who felt that Muslims were being pampered by the state and Advani’s vaulting ambition. When the BJP came to power, both factors vanished. Hindus could no longer claim that Muslims were being favoured. And Advani got the power he so desperately craved. Vir Sanghvi examines...
Our response to 26/11 has been a failure. At the time we believed that the event was so horrific that Pakistan would stand isolated in the community of nations. And that our shared experiences would lead the US to help us in our own battle against terror. Both hopes have been belied, writes
Vir Sanghvi.
When it comes to its children, the political class is united. It’s them first. And it is the rest of us afterwards. But I don’t think that any of us will let it be. We recognise what the politicians are up to. They think that if they hold firm, the issue will die down and all of us will find other things to worry about. After all, they managed to get Manu Sharma out of Tihar jail without anyone noticing, writes
Vir Sanghvi.
The real criticism of Bluestar is not that the forces of the Indian State entered the Golden Temple in 1984. The real problem is that they did not go in much earlier and take out Bhindranwale and his gang of terrorist murderers, writes
Vir Sanghvi.The next time somebody tells us that we need to keep the US in good humour because American goodwill will get us a seat at the Security Council, be very sceptical, writes
Vir Sanghvi.
She gave us Emergency and dynasty politics. But Indira Gandhi also made India ready for the 21st century, writes Vir Sanghvi.