Published by The Hindu, Nov 6 2010.
I recall remarking once to a colleague that if we as citizens were given a choice of belonging only to one or the other theocratic state, my vote would be for a Hindu Rashtra.
And for the simple reason that whereas a Christian or Islamic State would give me no more than a handful of holidays a year, a Hindu Rashtra would give me many more. Indeed, the Hindu archive being chokeful of gods and goddesses, even a full working year may not do justice to them all.
From "Identity Politics in Jammu & Kashmir," ed., Rekha Chowdhary, Vitasta Pub., Delhi,2010;
pUchtE haen voh ke “GaLib kaoN hae”?
kOI batLAO ke ham batLAen kya.
“Ghalib, what are you just who?”
They ask of me today;
Pray help and tell me, after all,
Whatever shall I say. (1)
[Collected here are some of Badri's poems]
September 30, 2011
Crossing the Line
Sardar Montek Singh Ahluwalia,
He plan my poverty;
Suddenly I am a rich man,
For my income is thirty three.
Having crossed the line by a whole Rupee,
I now have more and more;
I see around my jhuggi things
I never could see before.
That magic buck floats angelic
Beyond my penury;
The thirty two upon the ground
Reach up for the Christmas tree.
The knowledge that this extra buck
Puts me among the haves,
Makes me feel I needed not
The sumptuous fishes and loaves
[Originally published in The Hindu October 25, 2009]
by Badri Raina
first published in The Hindu November 7, 2008
VIJAY PRASHAD’S new book, The Darker Nations, is history enumerated not just by a scholar but by an anguished participant in the destiny of the world’s oppressed who scrutinises the collapse of a promising world-idea in order to understand better how new ways may be found to resurrect a humanist order.
by Badri Raina
first published in the Mainstream Weekly, September 3, 2008
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark;
O cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right.
(Hamlet)
In an act of conspicuous courage (some might say ‘audacity’) the young, bright, and fiercely upright Omar Abdullah has breached the pall of silence in which the Valley has remained suffocated since the coerced exodus of the Pandits in 1990.
In a statement recorded on his blog, Omar has made the following candid aversions that interrogate Kashmiri Muslims as a whole:
by Badri Raina
First published in People's Democracy, September 30, 2007
Epigraph
“I am one of the unemployed, but if I was in India, I
would say the same thing that Mr Gandhi is saying.”
(A Lancashire mill worker to Gandhi, 1931)
by Badri Raina
first published on June 1, 2007
by Badri Raina
first published May 22, 2007
India's ruling think gurus are forever on the lookout for a smart panacea for what they perceive the country's ills. In arguing for a two-party political system, the idea seems to be to subdue the proliferation of organic discontent among the lower orders of the polity by imposing a mechanical structural arrangement from the top.
by Badri Raina
first published in Mainstream Weekly, November 22, 2005
I t is now obvious that the neo-imperialists in America—and their apologists at home here—wish to hard sell the thesis that the Westphalian bedrock (sovereign nation-states, and the principle of non-interference), upon which international relations have been based for over two centuries, must be deemed to have slipped with finality from under the countries of the world.
