A brief history of the past 70 years
8 years ago

A brief history of the past 70 years

The Hindu  

One of the outcomes of the recently concluded Assembly elections is that India is set to have the same party ruling at the Centre and in many of the States. It is the absence of any real opposition to the Congress for three decades after 1947 that is responsible for India’s slow progress despite its quite spectacular beginning under Jawaharlal Nehru. To effectively be the opposition, India’s grand old party would have to not just rethink its strategy but reflect seriously on what it stands for today. There, between the weary voice and measured cadence, members of today’s Congress party would find a purpose worth reclaiming. The ideal is summed up perfectly by Nehru who had ended his speech with: “All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations.” The Congress’s second moment after the national movement was to come in 1991 when it averted a default on India’s international obligations.

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INDIA bloc-ked? The Opposition front as a grand illusion
1 month ago

INDIA bloc-ked? The Opposition front as a grand illusion

India Today  

The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, or INDIA, once heralded as the grand anti-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition, now teeters at the edge of irrelevance. An encouraging piece of statistics for the Congress is the fact that 68 per cent of the OBC respondents recognise it as the true Opposition party, the highest among all caste groups, reflecting the impact of …

Bhagwat’s remarks on Independence are treasonous, says Rahul
2 months, 1 week ago

Bhagwat’s remarks on Independence are treasonous, says Rahul

Deccan Chronicle  

Bhagwat had sparked controversy during an address in which he claimed that true independence for India did not come in 1947 but rather through the continued existence of India’s “civilizational identity” that transcended colonial rule. In his tweet, Rahul Gandhi emphasized that the freedom fighters, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Subhas Chandra Bose, and Mahatma Gandhi, had made enormous sacrifices …

Antony cautions Congress rank-and-file against self-defeating discussions about leadership
2 months, 2 weeks ago

Antony cautions Congress rank-and-file against self-defeating discussions about leadership

The Hindu  

Veteran Congress leader A.K. Antony cautioned the party’s rank-and-file against engaging in self-defeating speculations about leadership after the Assembly polls in 2026. Speaking on the 100th centenary of Mahatma Gandhi’s election as the president of the Indian National Congress, Mr. Antony said such inopportune discussions would wreck the party’s unity. Mr. Antony’s comment was a riposte to the Left Democratic …

'India’s Independence will be in jeopardy if parties place creed above country', says V P Jagdeep Dhankhar
3 months, 3 weeks ago

'India’s Independence will be in jeopardy if parties place creed above country', says V P Jagdeep Dhankhar

New Indian Express  

NEW DELHI: Invoking Dr BR Ambedkar, the chairman of the Constitution’s drafting committee, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Tuesday said, India’s Independence “will be put in jeopardy a second time”, if parties placed creed above collective wellbeing the country. Addressing an event at the Central Hall of the old Parliament building to mark the beginning of yearlong celebrations for the …

The Modi Doctrine: Meritocracy as the Antidote to Dynastic Politics
11 months, 3 weeks ago

The Modi Doctrine: Meritocracy as the Antidote to Dynastic Politics

News 18  

Lalu Yadav recently garnered attention for questioning Narendra Modi’s stance on political families despite Modi himself not having one. Modi highlighted the importance of meritocracy and fair competition within parties, suggesting that a singular family’s perpetual control undermines democratic principles. Moving to regional parties, in the northern region, the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh has been led by the Yadav …

How not to have an opposition-less India
1 year ago

How not to have an opposition-less India

New Indian Express  

If Narendra Modi wins for the third time, equalling Jawaharlal Nehru’s record, he will be realising a long-cherished personal dream. Last Sunday at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park, when Rahul Gandhi ended his second yatra, all opposition leaders on stage said, not without a touch of nostalgia, that a third term for Modi would be the end of India as we know …

Indian opposition parties agree to work together to defeat governing party in next elections
1 year, 9 months ago

Indian opposition parties agree to work together to defeat governing party in next elections

Associated Press  

NEW DELHI — Leaders of 17 Indian opposition parties agreed Friday to set aside their differences and put up a united fight in next year’s national election in an attempt to deny Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party a third consecutive term. But its recent defeats in elections in northern Himachal Pradesh and southern Karnataka states have raised hopes …

Decoding flaws in country’s economic, political policies
1 year, 11 months ago

Decoding flaws in country’s economic, political policies

Hindustan Times  

In his new book, India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today, economist Ashoka Mody provides readers with an unvarnished look at India’s twin economic and political failures over the past seven and a half decades. In his new book, economist Ashoka Mody provides readers with an unvarnished look at India’s twin economic and political failures An economic historian …

Rahul Gandhi’s Expulsion from Parliament May Work in His Favour, and Prospects of a United Oppn - News18
1 year, 11 months ago

Rahul Gandhi’s Expulsion from Parliament May Work in His Favour, and Prospects of a United Oppn - News18

News 18  

Will the drastic two-year-long jail sentence of Rahul Gandhi by a Gujarat court on a defamation charge and his disqualification from the Lok Sabha turn out to be a blessing in disguise for him and the Congress, actually helping the scattered anti-BJP Opposition to come together? With just about a year left for the Lok Sabha polls, it is palpably …

Political Line | Big Picture: There is nothing inevitable about opposition unity
1 year, 11 months ago

Political Line | Big Picture: There is nothing inevitable about opposition unity

The Hindu  

The expulsion of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from the Lok Sabha has suddenly changed the dynamics of Opposition politics in India. Soon after the disqualification of Mr. Gandhi, Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced this was not the fight of the Congress alone. Ms. Banerjee even took potshots at Mr. Gandhi: “The BJP is not …

Aakar Patel | India’s parties and politics of exclusion: How it hurts growth
2 years ago

Aakar Patel | India’s parties and politics of exclusion: How it hurts growth

Deccan Chronicle  

One party appears to have the monopoly on bigotry in India. You could vote for the PDP or the National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir or the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi or K. Chandrashekar Rao’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana. No other party deliberately excludes Muslims — of the BJP’s 303 Lok Sabha and 92 Rajya Sabha MPs, not …

Review: Ideology And Organization In Indian Politics; Polarisation and the Growing Crisis of The Congress Party (2009-19) by Zoya Hasan
2 years, 4 months ago

Review: Ideology And Organization In Indian Politics; Polarisation and the Growing Crisis of The Congress Party (2009-19) by Zoya Hasan

Hindustan Times  

At the annual meeting of the British South Asian Studies Association at Royal Holloway College, London, there were several papers and panels on the AAP party but none on the Congress. While it is widely recognised that the life of the Congress party and modern India converges, there is very little research interest in it among scholars from India and …

Independence and freedom: A probe into the Nehruvian pledge
2 years, 7 months ago

Independence and freedom: A probe into the Nehruvian pledge

The Hindu  

Bliss was in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven! This article reviews the pledge of ending inequality of opportunity made at the time of Independence under three broad heads: gender inequality, social inequality and the practice of democracy. Let me hasten to add, I do not berate India’s achievements as an economic power, its …

DC Edit | Congress’ ideas needed, but its death inevitable
3 years ago

DC Edit | Congress’ ideas needed, but its death inevitable

Deccan Chronicle  

We may speculate, how long did Allan Octavian Hume think his idea, and initiative, would survive? He would perhaps have a bout of serious disbelief if he learnt that the relevance and fate of the political party he founded, the Indian National Congress, would still be in business in 2022. Herein lies the rub — the spirit and idea of …

Leading India to full independence, writes Rajnath Singh
4 years, 9 months ago

Leading India to full independence, writes Rajnath Singh

Hindustan Times  

Great changes are witnessed in history on rare occasions. In dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, the PM has shown both vigilance and competence People generally don’t repose enough trust in an incumbent government to vote it back to power a second time. After the Supreme Court judgment on Ram Janmabhoomi, the degree of peace and amity that was seen across …

India’s main opposition Congress party in throes of crisis
5 years, 7 months ago

India’s main opposition Congress party in throes of crisis

Associated Press  

NEW DELHI — By appointing Sonia Gandhi interim president, India’s oldest political party seems to have sent a message that it can’t survive without the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Political analysts say the main opposition Congress party lost an opportunity to rid itself of an image of being driven by one particular family when Sonia Gandhi took back the party’s reins Saturday …

Personal ambitions leading to degeneration of Congress ideology: Arun Jaitley
6 years, 4 months ago

Personal ambitions leading to degeneration of Congress ideology: Arun Jaitley

India TV News  

Taking a swipe at Congress, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said the personal ambitions of the Congress leadership had led to the "degeneration of its ideology". Adding further, he said it was the "personal grievances and ambitions" which compelled the Congress party leadership to visit a congregation where anti-India slogans were raised. Jaitley said the Congress, which was the …

India at 71: Where Have All The Leaders Gone?
6 years, 7 months ago

India at 71: Where Have All The Leaders Gone?

The Quint  

Here’s what we did on 15 August 1947. In the early years of our independence, our politics was ruled by those who had come into the freedom struggle for the sake of principles, not power. Their mistakes were honest mistakes – such as the embrace of the Fabian socialism that kept India poor for decades longer than it should have. …

The political impact of Prime Minister Modi’s ‘transform India’ mission
6 years, 8 months ago

The political impact of Prime Minister Modi’s ‘transform India’ mission

Op India  

In two earlier pieces, Modi’s transformation of India using the twin pillars – choosing the right policies and then executing them well – was examined in detail. More importantly, this is symptomatic of the deeper churn in the political ecosystem ever since Modi became Prime Minister. Modi’s focus on “development”, besides unleashing the economy, has enabled him to wrest control …

Enemies within the system
7 years, 7 months ago

Enemies within the system

The Hindu  

The framers of the Constitution of India opted for the British parliamentary system, as a matter of course, at the very outset of their deliberations, at a joint meeting on June 5, 1947, of the Union Constitution Committee and the Initial Constitution Committee. Ivor Jennings, one of the foremost authorities on the British Constitution, pointed out in his classic Cabinet …

State of the Union: India now yearns for a strong Opposition
7 years, 11 months ago

State of the Union: India now yearns for a strong Opposition

Deccan Chronicle  

It is now three weeks since the results of the last round of Assembly elections were announced. This country requires a strong Opposition” — followed by a long diatribe of how bad we were, but why we were also most needed at the moment. A retired general who was sitting next to me said: “I have advised my children not …

How the Congress rejected the Nehruvian economic trajectory
10 years, 3 months ago

How the Congress rejected the Nehruvian economic trajectory

The Hindu  

THE spat between the Bharatiya Janata Party -led government and the Congress leadership over the celebrations to mark Jawaharlal Nehru’s 125th birth anniversary must not divert attention from one important fact. There has been for around three decades now an explicit or implicit rejection of and a conscious or unconscious deviation from the Nehruvian economic vision across a broad spectrum …

Jawaharlal Nehru: Secular, above all
10 years, 3 months ago

Jawaharlal Nehru: Secular, above all

The Hindu  

THE 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru has brought back the discussion on the Nehruvian path and Nehru’s legacy and what it means in the present-day period. There were greater affinities between the Left and Nehru during the national movement for independence and more discontinuities and conflicts in the years Nehru headed the government of independent India. After the early …

Jawaharlal Nehru and his conflicts with Congress party
10 years, 3 months ago

Jawaharlal Nehru and his conflicts with Congress party

The Hindu  

Anniversaries have a habit of confronting us with uncomfortable contrasts. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, would have been 125 years old this year; the state that Nehru saw through its first years of independence is now ruled by forces he found abhorrent: supporters of a narrow-minded, exclusionary definition of national belonging, accompanied by crude capitalist profiteering and …

‘Govt. out to destroy Nehru’s legacy’
10 years, 4 months ago

‘Govt. out to destroy Nehru’s legacy’

The Hindu  

Launching a sharp attack on the Narendra Modi government, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday said his administration was an entity “operated by angry men” and “led by communal forces.” The government’s objective, she charged at a Congress function to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru here, was to “destroy his legacy” by targeting the secular fabric of …

India’s Modi leads BJP to historic poll win
10 years, 10 months ago

India’s Modi leads BJP to historic poll win

Al Jazeera  

Main opposition party on course to secure clear majority by defeating ruling Congress party in general elections. Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister-elect, has promised to work to “fulfil the dreams of 1.2 billion people” as he addressed his supporters for the first time after he led his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to a landslide election victory. Outgoing Prime Minister …

66 years of independence: Time for Indian politicians to grow up
11 years, 7 months ago

66 years of independence: Time for Indian politicians to grow up

India TV News  

New Delhi: Even after 66 years of independence, Indian politics remains as divided and fragmented as it was at the time of independence. The countrymen loved the idea of secularism but the political class tinkered with the basic philosophy of secularism that, originally, rests on equal treatment to all sections of the society without differentiating them on the basis of …

Candid Corner: Never the twain shall meet
16 years, 9 months ago

Candid Corner: Never the twain shall meet

Hindustan Times  

Drawing room discussions frequently throw up the sentiment: why do the BJP and the Congress not join hands to form a national government? Fed up with political battles and divisive politics, it reflects the electorate’s romanticised dream world — a world of orderliness, discipline and rapid progress to stated national goals. No doubt, there is a large consensus on several …

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