It seemed like a perfectly sensible policy at the time, but with the coherence of hindsight, it can now be seen as the first in a concatenation of cock-ups. The year was 1772. The East India Company was in charge …
William Dalrymple’s colonial complex
There was a time, still hovering on the limits of living memory, when Britain specialised in the manufacture of William Dalrymples. Eton and Harrow squabbled annually over who had produced the most William Dalrymples; Oxbridge was little more than a …
How Modi weaponised yoga
One of the most arresting images from Narendra Modi’s first term in office as India’s Prime Minister dates from 21st June 2015. He is kneeling on a yoga mat laid out on Rajpath, New Delhi’s great ceremonial boulevard. Behind him, …
The race to choose the next Dalai Lama
This time next year, the world may find the arcana of Tibetan Buddhist reincarnation taking centre stage in global politics. For the 14th Dalai Lama, who celebrated his 89th birthday a few weeks ago, has long promised to reveal his …
Arundhati Roy’s radical zeal
After bagging the Booker for The God of Small Things in 1997, Arundhati Roy made a life-altering decision: “to postpone reading Don DeLillo’s big book” about nuclear and bodily waste in order to make time for “reports on drainage”. This …
Inside India’s Potemkin election
Always a rather grubby affair, as if put together by minimally competent quiet quitters, Indian democracy is now in serious trouble. To be sure, its formalistic trappings remain in place. Nearly a billion Indians will file into polling stations starting …
Modi has created a new theocracy
India’s entry into the ranks of the world’s surviving theocracies — Iran, Afghanistan, the Vatican City — arrived bathetically. When the history of the nation’s descent from secularism to Hindu nationalism is written, it might end in Ayodhya. Just after …
Big Tech is tyrannising Indian workers
When Abhishek Kumar goes to work in India’s eastern state of Bihar, he has to upload a time-stamped and geotagged image of himself to log in and out. If he doesn’t, he won’t get paid for that day. It’s all …
Rishi Sunak is no son of India
Has the Raj returned to roost? After the press captured Rishi Sunak offering a prayer inside New Delhi’s Akshardham temple on Sunday, that was the implication for many. A Hindu man leads Britain; to the north, the First Minister of …
China isn’t as strong as you think
You wouldn’t have guessed from Narendra Modi’s beaming smile after the G20 last weekend that the global economy was running out of steam. The latest IMF forecast projects it to expand by 3% this year, down from the 3.5% anticipated …
The desperate plight of trans widows
“Terrible things are happening to women and girls across my country… and the media doesn’t care. It’s only interested in the trans issue.”
Vaishnavi Sundar, an Indian feminist filmmaker, has long been furious at the way women and girls are …
Vivek Ramaswamy and the rise of Indian America
Crammed together on a crowded stage during the first Republican debate of 2023, two figures stood out: 38-year-old Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy, a biotech millionaire with a Harvard pedigree, and 51-year-old Nimrata Haley (née Randhawa), an accountant, former governor of South …
Will Russia split up the Brics?
When the 15th annual Brics summit gathers in Johannesburg next week, the vaunting hope of the five invested countries will be that the group finally begins to show some of its initial promise. The host, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, …
Should Pakistan surrender?
Pakistan is in a mess. Controlled by an increasingly unpopular military, the nation is teetering on the brink of default. By July, the country’s foreign exchange reserves are set to fall below $3 billion, barely sufficient to cover a month’s …
Narendra Modi’s useful idiot
India’s reputation as the world’s largest secular democracy has suffered grievously since Narendra Modi’s victory in the general elections of 2014. The first Hindu supremacist to govern with an absolute majority in parliament, he has presided over the subversion of …