In this essay I address the emergence and growth of the Hindu identity in late colonial Punjab, giving special attention to the participation of Lala Lajpat Rai both as an ideologue and activist in the context of the shifts taking…
No scientist has always been right, and therefore, science does not defer to authority. What must remain sacrosanct, instead, is observed data, in so far as it is collected accurately, and the scientific methodology in all its rigour. (The Indian…
The adolescent period is often described as exhibiting high energy, enthusiasm, and a willingness to engage in novel experiences. The phenomenon is characterised by notable changes in cognitive and behavioural patterns, particularly concerning interpersonal interactions. The adolescent population of a…
It wasn’t a radical film by any definition of radical that existed at the time. The maker himself was clearly a radical figure. The first impression of Kumar Shahani was always that of frailty. A pronounced limp, sharp eyes and…
On 2 February 2024, a Tamil-speaking IT professional based in the United States, who produced and edited Wikipedia pages in his free time, called me over phone. He had read the obituary I had written in The Wire for historian…
Paul S. Landau, Spear: Mandela and the Revolutionaries, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2022, 412 pages. The present book, Spear: Mandela and the Revolutionaries by Paul S. Landau, is meant primarily for that section of academia which is willing to approach…
This issue leads with a version of the Presidential Address to the Modern India section of the Indian History Congress 2022, delivered by Salil Misra. The essay tells the story of Hindi’s rise as a major language, noting that there…
Bipan Chandra gave his first Presidential Address, ‘Colonialism and Modernization’, for the Modern India section of the Indian History Congres in 1970, in which he argued that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the periods when the links between British colonialism and…
On 7 October 2023, the Hamas led an attack on the Gaza envelope, which is part of the southern district of Israel, killing reportedly 1200 people. Hamas is a political and military organization governing the Gaza Strip of Palestinian territories…
Communalism has been one of the serious problems facing modern India, and fighting and defeating it has really become an uphill task. Communalism in modern India gradually grew in the lap of nationalism. A communal understanding of Indian history forms…