On November 11, 1888 Abul Kalam, better known as Maulana Azad, was born in Mecca and two years later his father came to Calcutta to consult a surgeon. Since then his family never went back and stayed in India. It is here that Maulana Azad was educated in traditional knowledge. He never went to any university and did not[Read More...]
Mera azm itna bulund hae, Parae sholon se dar nahin. Mujhe dar hae tu atish e gul se hae, Ye kahin chaman ko jala na dein (my confidence in self is strong, I’m unafraid of foreign flames I’m scared those sparks may ignite, that in the blossom’s bosom lay ) — Shakeel Badayuni’s couplet which was very dear to Salman Taseer who was assassinated by[Read More...]
India, sadly, is witnessing the Hindutva juggernaut running amok crushing whatever was democratic, liberal and egalitarian in the Indian polity. The RSS as the charioteer is not ashamed of this vicious campaign, instead, taking credit for it. It was not long back that it used to claim apolitical status. Even when its cadres like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani[Read More...]
The incidents of lynching, killing and abusing the opponents particularly of the Muslims in India have become a norm and the country seems to be either satisfied with justifying things or calling these events as aberrations. Every time such incidents happen and some of us shed our tears and go to the families. Some do fact findings, others go and[Read More...]
We have all been taught that love begets love. That might not be always true as many of us have learnt at great emotional costs. Is that true of hatred too? Does hatred sometimes beget love, or tolerance or benign indifference? I wonder going by the events that have taken place across the country with the accession to power[Read More...]
Diasporas have existed since time immemorial. However they have never been so influential, as they are in contemporary times. Their political weight has increased importantly throughout the twentieth century. Historically, there have been numerous examples of American Jewish groups encouraging rightwing extremism in Israel, Tamil tigers in London and Malaysia supporting the Tamil liberation movement, Kurd in Netherlands or the[Read More...]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi who describes himself as Hindu nationalist will unfurl the Tricolour from the Red Fort on October 21 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the declaration of ‘Aarzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind’ an Urdu term meaning Provisional Government of Free India on October 21, 1943 at Singapore by Netaji Subhash Chander Bose. Earlier Netaji had announced the raising of[Read More...]
The Ayodhya case is now ready for hearing by the Supreme Court from October 29, 2018. This is happening after a hiatus of almost eight years when the legal proceedings was last heard with a shoddy judgment pronounced by the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court in 2010. This time when the uninterrupted hearing is going to happen, it’s for[Read More...]
The Nobel Peace Prize committee should immediately intervene and strip a children’s rights activist of the prize given to him in 2014. Kailash Satyarthi not only attended the annual event of Hindu supremacist group Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS) at its headquarters in Nagpur, India, but went to the extent of praising the organization. He even suggested that the RSS[Read More...]
Do not show the face of Islam to others; instead show your face as the follower of true Islam representing character, knowledge, tolerance and piety ― Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (17 October 1817 – 27 March 1898) An educated, secular and liberal Indian Muslim is in a bind; he is torn between finding the right balance between loyalty to his faith and[Read More...]
