Tag: Opinion

An artwork based on the film’s poster The brazen display of animosity in Kashmir Files is part of a crafty political narrative that would further embolden polarization.

An etching that puns on the Kali figure. There cannot be a three-way election in 2021. That would mean an advantage for BJP, as it will cannibalise on the factionalism in the TMC and on the irrelevance of the CPIM. The dictionary meaning of blunderbuss is two-fold. The more archaic meaning stands for a gun with a short, large barrel, to be fired only at close range. The second meaning refers to an action lacking subtlety and precision. Either…

Biplab Sarkar, Be Waiting. Watercolor and pen on paper, 2019. Shot by the author at the Art Fair, Delhi, 2020. (co-authored with Rajendran Narayanan) The prime minister has taught people to measure their state exclusively against others’ miseries, tricking them into forgiving his many sins – from demonetisation to jobs to Swachh Bharat. There’s an old folktale that goes like this: to redeem his ills, a man prayed hard and long. His prayers bore fruit when god appeared and granted…

Pandora’s Vox What if the EVM could approximate voter behaviour? Your cheeky editorial about the speaking, pontificating, buttoned-up voting machine (‘I, EVM,’ IE December 12) gets it mostly right except that one, nagging doubt: If the EVM can be spoken on behalf of, can it not be thought-controlled too? The editorial claims that the EVM is, after all, the messenger of people’s will and not the will itself. Is it? What if, just what if, the EVM has grown a…

It is not about the Dolby stupid Multiplexes were never about choice. They are about business of film distribution. Your editorial position on the Maharashtra government’s decision to allow audiences to carry eatables inside movie theatres (‘Price of popcorn,’ IE, July 17) is singularly disagreeable. As a keen reader of your paper, if I offer a few points contradicting the editorial, I hope I will not overshoot my brief. The issue at hand is whether it was a worthy decision…

People walking past destroyed furniture caused by riots on Wellesly St in Calcutta, 1946. Archival image. The BJP has long had its eye on West Bengal, because without it, its idea of a Hindu Rashtra cannot fully be realised. The political locus of Bengal is rapidly shifting. In early April this year, the BJP used Ram Navami – an obscure festival in the local calendar – to flaunt a toxic brand of Hindutva, arming the children and youth with swords…

Poster of Tapan Sinha’s landmark Jotugriga, (The House of Wax, 1964). Bengali cinema has long lost its Madeleine and has also forgotten that it has lost it. With the new film Prakton, the forgetting is now complete. After watching Sairat, a Bengali professional based in Bombay posted a moving comment on his Facebook wall. The post said how the Marathi film reminded him of his parents – refugees and also ardent Communists in post-colonial India – who had an inter-caste marriage in…

No armchair politics. Mamata Banerjee in a file photo. Photographer Unknown A weakened opposition is unlikely to force Mamata to improve governance. Expectedly, Mamata Banerjee’s All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) has returned to power in West Bengal. Yet, the scale of its triumph boggles the mind. The AITC has, in fact, tallied the maximum amount of seats ever won by a single party in West Bengal. The results, similarly, will baffle the surgeons of the Left-Congress alliance, for they had…

Fade out. Free wallpaper by Dipanjano. There’s little to choose between the Trinamool and the Left in West Bengal Bengal started to vote on Monday and will do so for a month and a half. This is the first time in recent memory that a party other than the CPM, as part of a ruling Left Front, is the incumbent party. This is also the first time in recent history that the Congress and the Left parties, after having long…

Fools of the full moon. photo by author On 5 May, Eden was the place you would die to be at. I mean we generally pine to make it to the heaven in case we perish, but that day the rush was a bit too much, somewhat ‘hellish’, to put it mildly. No, really, we are not talking about jihad here in which ascending to heaven is taken at face value. We are against violence of all kinds, especially those…