The observance of Republic Day is often an occasion for looking back and for national stock-taking. An assessment of the national trajectory is something that the occasion offers. In the oath that he administered on January 26, 1930, Mahatma Gandhi spoke unsparingly of the “inalienable right of the Indian people …

Ancient Indian texts on governance had always a detailed section on the ethics which enjoined rulers to establish and perpetuate a value-based relation with their subjects. Rulers were clearly directed to be accountable and responsive to those they ruled. Such injunctions on their conduct in public life also succeeded in …

By not tossing Leela Samson, the Government of India has, in fact, displayed a spirit of fair-play. And she, by accusing it of interfering and obstructing her work, has only taken recourse to falsehood in order to perpetuate a hollow impression of victimhood The founding ideal of the Kalakshetra, was …

It would be interesting to extrapolate some features of a civilisational state into the Indian context and juxtapose them against some present efforts’ The past six months have been positive for India, especially for her quest to rediscover her contours — physical, ideational and spiritual — as a civilisational state. …

Louise Burke noted that Vivekananda wanted to spread the Master’s message not only to Europe and Asia but also to South Africa, where an Indian community lived In her path-breaking multi-volume study, Swami Vivekananda in the West — New Discoveries, one of the few encyclopaedic works on Swami Vivekananda’s actions in …

In his “Reply to the Madras Address” in 1897, after four hectic years in the West where he reversed, to a great extent, the negative narrative of India that had been ingrained in a section of the intelligentsia by groups professing to labour for spreading the “light” of a particular …

“Eminent” Marxist historians possessing an intolerant Stalinist mindset have struck again. By referring to the Prime Minister in an inane resolution full of the pathos of the dying embers of an intellectual era and worldview that is fast decaying, they have spoken of the need to “isolate history-writing from chauvinistic …

The setting was, ‘balmy Goa’ but the agenda on the platter was an intense and fascinating mind brew. In witnessing it, I remembered the civilisational past of India as a knowledge society that evolved frameworks, charted new courses through continuous debate, dialogue The afternoon before I left for Goa to …

Present efforts that are focussed on good governance, are moves towards effectuating Dharma-based polity. This was also found during our civilisational times In a recent discussion on the topic of ‘good governance’, a leading speaker remarked that efficient Government alone did not suffice to make ‘good governance’. While this may perhaps …

Leading minds in Myanmar seem to acknowledge the way India has begun to look at her neighbours. They also expressed eagerness to be part of that change A fortnight back, I visited Myanmar as part of a delegation to attend a dialogue hosted by a group of think tanks comprising …

Ancient Indian texts on governance had always a detailed section on the ethics which enjoined rulers to establish and perpetuate a value-based relation with their subjects. Rulers were clearly directed to be accountable and responsive to those they ruled. Such injunctions on their conduct in public life also succeeded in …

There is reluctance, even hostility, among those who consider themselves to be Nehru’s heirs, to evaluate the country’s first Prime Minister dispassionately It was unfortunate, but perhaps not all that unexpected, to see Jawaharlal Nehru’s self-proclaimed political heirs display a very boorish non-Nehruvian spirit on the occasion of the launch …

Some time in the middle of June 1950, when the sacred relics of Buddha’s two chief disciples Moggallana and Sariputta had already travelled all over Myanmar for about two months, the Cultural Studies Group of the Rangoon Ramakrishna Mission Society convened an international conference on India’s cultural and civilisational linkages …

One defining characteristic of Indian civilisation has been its capacity to reach out to the rest of the world and develop multi-dimensional linkages In terms of civilisational continuity, India is perhaps the only civilisation that has not only had continuity up to the present, but was also one that had …