(The article was originally published by OPEN Magazine on April 16, 2023 . Views expressed are personal.) BR Ambedkar insisted that wherever Indians go, caste follows. It may not be completely untrue. Over centuries, caste has got deeply entrenched in the Indian psyche. It is also true that some sort of a caste identity pervades […]
Ram Madhav
Maps that deceive
(The article was originally published by Indian Express on April 8, 2023 as a part of Dr Madhav’s bi-weekly column titled ‘Ram Rajya’. Views expressed are personal.) “ALL WARFARE is based on deception”, Sun Tzu, the famed Chinese military strategist averred in his treatise. Deception is integral to the Chinese leadership’s machinations. India has been […]
The Indo-Pacific Region: ASEAN Centrality and the Role of India
Text of Dr Ram Madhav’s address at the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics in Hanoi on the theme of “The Indo-Pacific Region: ASEAN Centrality and the Role of India” delivered on March 28, 2023. Good Afternoon! I am delighted to be here in Vietnam, a dear friend of India for millennia. India and […]
Tension in Indo-Pacific and Russia-Ukraine conflict are symptoms of an emerging global disorder
(The article was originally published by Indian Express on March 25, 2023 as a part of Dr Madhav’s bi-weekly column titled ‘Ram Rajya’. Views expressed are personal.) At the height of tensions between the US and China over the South China Sea, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in […]
Don’t Cry For Democracy
(The article was originally published by Indian Express on March 11, 2023 as a part of Dr Madhav’s bi-weekly column titled ‘Ram Rajya’. Views expressed are personal.) Fareed Zakaria argues in Future of Freedom that democracies are hardly perfect and while there are many illiberal democracies, there are some that are excessively liberal. India is […]
Questions on Seattle
(The article was originally published by Indian Express on February 25, 2023 as a part of Dr Madhav’s bi-weekly column titled ‘Ram Rajya’. Views expressed are personal.) THE UNITED STATES of America is variously described as an “idea”, a “dream” or “a land of opportunities”. The American dream has attracted millions from across the world […]
The Road to India 2047
(The article was originally published in OPEN Magazine on February 22, 2023. Views expressed are personal.) “Jamsetji Tata was more than an industrialist—he was a nationalist with a fervour to see India ranked among the great nations of the world,” the Tata Group’s website proudly proclaims. It was this passion that drove the group from […]
How Woke Won: The Elitist Movement That Threatens Democracy, Tolerance and Reason
(The review was originally published by Chintan – India Foundation Blogs on February 17, 2023. Views expressed are personal.) Thirty years ago, in 1992, when some Hindu youths pulled down the Babri structure in Ayodhya, the liberal world was livid. Yet nowadays their own kith and kin in European capitals and American university campuses are […]
How Pakistan can fix itself
(The article was originally published by Indian Express on February 11, 2023 as a part of Dr Madhav’s bi-weekly column titled ‘Ram Rajya’. Views expressed are personal.) “We will eat grass, even go hungry,” Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, as foreign minister in Ayub Khan’s government in Pakistan, famously declared in 1964, insisting that his country would […]
A hit job that is a damp squib
(The article was originally published by Indian Express on January 28, 2023 as a part of Dr Madhav’s bi-weekly column titled ‘Ram Rajya’. Views expressed are personal.) At 100, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is facing its worst crisis of credibility. Proliferation of channels, disinterest in the government over budgetary spending, revenue losses and job […]