Ramachandra Guha's Blog, page 20

Sycophants Saffron and White, The Telegraph

They say a writer is known by the enemies he makes. Earlier this week, I was alerted to an attack on me posted on the website of the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr Narendra Modi. ‘Ramachandra Guha’s impotent anger’, claimed Mr Modi’s website,

‘is typical of a snobbish but vacuous intellectual who simply cannot tolerate a person from humble background attaining greatness by the dint of his own hard work, learning and persistence. But Ramachandra Guha, after more than 40 years of Dynasty history...

The Two Bengals, The Telegraph

Of the countries close to or bordering India, I have been once to China and Afghanistan, twice to Sri Lanka and Nepal, and three times to Pakistan. I have declined several invitations to visit Bhutan, but were anyone to invite me to Bangladesh or Burma I would accept without hesitation. I am told Bhutan is pretty—very pretty—and were I a botanist, Buddhist, or birdwatcher I would surely want to go there. But given my interests, I am attracted more to Burma and to Bangladesh, which are much la...

Dams and the Damned, The Telegraph

In September 2010, a large public meeting was held in Guwahati to discuss the impact of large hydroelectric projects in the North-east. In attendance was Jairam Ramesh, then the Minister of Environment and Forests in the Government of India. Ramesh heard that the people of Assam were worried that the hundred and more dams being planned in Arunachal Pradesh would reduce water flows, increase the chance of floods, and deplete fish stocks downstream. Representatives from Arunachal had their own...

The Greatest Living Gandhian, The Telegraph

When Dr Manmohan Singh went to call on Aung San Suu Kyi earlier this week, I wonder whether the great Burmese lady recalled her first encounter with India and Indians. In the 1950s, as a young teenager, she moved to Delhi with her mother, who had been appointed Burma’s Ambassador to India. The years she spent in our country were absolutely formative to her intellectual (and moral) evolution. As Peter Popham writes in his recent The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi: ‘Intellec...

Smash-and-Grab Crony League, The Hindu

I live in Bangalore, down the road from the Karnataka State Cricket Association. I am a member of the KSCA, which means that I can watch all the matches played in its stadium for free, and from a comfortable seat next to the pavilion. I exercise the privilege always during a Test match, often during a one-day international, and sometimes during a Ranji Trophy match. However, I have not yet watched an IPL game played at the KSCA, nor do I intend to in the future.

My original reasons for boycott...

SMASH-AND-GRAB CRONY LEAGUE, The Hindu

I live in Bangalore, down the road from the Karnataka State Cricket Association. I am a member of the KSCA, which means that I can watch all the matches played in its stadium for free, and from a comfortable seat next to the pavilion. I exercise the privilege always during a Test match, often during a one-day international, and sometimes during a Ranji Trophy match. However, I have not yet watched an IPL game played at the KSCA, nor do I intend to in the future.

My original reasons for boycott...

Congress Party Must Get Over The Gandhis, The Financial Times

A joke doing the rounds several months ago was that the “i” in Brics stood for Indonesia. Recent events lend credence to that witticism. Indian growth rates are closer to 6 per cent than 8 per cent. Inflation rates exceed 10 per cent.

The rupee is at its lowest-ever level against the US dollar. Long-promised reforms such as the opening of the retail sector and the promotion of a countrywide goods and services tax have been abandoned.

The Indian economy is slowing and spluttering, and will conti...

Congress Party Must Get Over The Gandhi’s, The Financial Times

A joke doing the rounds several months ago was that the “i” in Brics stood for Indonesia. Recent events lend credence to that witticism. Indian growth rates are closer to 6 per cent than 8 per cent. Inflation rates exceed 10 per cent.

The rupee is at its lowest-ever level against the US dollar. Long-promised reforms such as the opening of the retail sector and the promotion of a countrywide goods and services tax have been abandoned.

The Indian economy is slowing and spluttering, and will conti...

CONGRESS PARTY MUST GET OVER THE GANDHI’s, The Financial Times

A joke doing the rounds several months ago was that the “i” in Brics stood for Indonesia. Recent events lend credence to that witticism. Indian growth rates are closer to 6 per cent than 8 per cent. Inflation rates exceed 10 per cent.

The rupee is at its lowest-ever level against the US dollar. Long-promised reforms such as the opening of the retail sector and the promotion of a countrywide goods and services tax have been abandoned.

The Indian economy is slowing and spluttering, and will conti...

Varieties of Censorship, The Telegraph

In about the year 1985, I was having dinner with two friends in Chungwa Restaurant, off Chittaranjan Avenue in central Kolkata. We had been undergraduates together in Delhi in the 1970s; now, a decade later, we were in our first jobs, I as an academic, the other two as journalists. We spoke, among other things, of our current projects. One of the journalists said he was working on a story about chemical pollution, caused by a plant owned by a large industrial house outside the city. The other...