word from new delhi: all articles

Why does Hindu nationalism take an aggressive, exclusive form? This is a question of psychology
as well as politics. Rajeev Bhargava, in New Delhi, examines the worldview of activists who use
"Indianness" as a weapon against their Muslim, Christian, and secular fellow-citizens.

The great Indian economist Amartya Sen has proposed the mind-opening idea that democracy is a protection against famine. Rajeev Bhargava takes up the theme. How can political freedom help the poor, he asks, not just in their material life but in expanding their sense of society and its horizon of possibility?

The Indian government has finally refused America’s request to send thousands of troops to help police Iraq. Our New Delhi columnist welcomes a triumph of principle over power but questions the meaning of its long delay. For India’s ambitious new elite, the request appealed to the country’s martial-imperial legacy and its own hunger for global status. Can the moral foundations of Indian statehood survive this elite’s ambition to make India a superpower?

The election of a new government in Indian-controlled Jammu & Kashmir in September 2002 has opened the way to an initiative by India’s prime minister to restart discussions with Pakistan over the future of the disputed territory. In the light of historic India-Pakistan tension, twelve years of murderous violence, and the complex shades of Kashmir’s politics, is there at last real hope of a resolution of this dangerous conflict?

The short Iraqi war offers a chilling prospect to Indians: the US can launch wars against medium-sized states whenever it wants. But if this renders national independence a fig leaf, it also challenges India to escape from the trap of a world ruled by violence.

The reality of war, and the threat of its extension to her Indian homeland, leaves this Delhi school student with only hope left to hope for.

American militant foreign policy and the images of Iraqi civilian dead have tipped even India’s prosperous citizens into ferocious denunciation. Tani Bhargava takes the temperature of a significant shift in the political atmosphere.

An Indian veteran of 1960s political struggles, invited to speak on war, empire and unilateralism at Porto Alegre, is inspired by the encounter with a newly-hopeful generation. Yet he warns that such exciting events need to be part of a long-term strategy.

The first Asian Social Forum, held in Hyderabad in January 2003, anticipated the World Social Forum at Porto Alegre, Brazil later that month. But it was a pioneering event in its own right.

There is intense concern in India about the divisive impact of globalisation on the country’s economy, society, culture, and even its democracy itself. Our Delhi columnist reports from a recent conference where discussion centred around the dilemma: should the beast be fought, tamed, or humanised?

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has just been re-elected to govern Gujarat. On a recent visit there, our New Delhi editor found a near-uniform hatred of Muslims among the Hindu middle class. Beneath the communal poison, a deeper crisis of the Indian public realm is at work – an egoism that is fostered by caste-based identity, and reinforced by globalisation.

An Indian’s visit to Bali entailed more than the discovery of another form of Hinduism – it made her see her own homeland with fresh eyes. But after mass tourism and now the terrorist bomb, our South Asia co-columnist asks: what kind of Bali will survive?

India, the world’s largest democracy, is in danger. Fundamentalists, religious fanatics and a corrupt government have combined to threaten its future as a constitutional, democratic state. The challenge to its secular rule of law echoes and reinforces contests elsewhere around the world.