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Standing Upon the Ruins of the Macaulite Project: India, The English Language and the Need for a Native Idiom of Intellectual Discourse
India has yet to develop a native and sustainable language of modern intellectual discourse. However, a new native language that would replace English as the pre-eminent mode of intellectual expression in India is nowhere on the horizon. At the same time English is declining. Thus we are left in a linguistic-intellectual no man’s land where we can neither speak English properly nor can we have a decent intellectual discussion in our own languages.
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The Question of God
The question of God is too important to be settled by the question of whether he exists or not. Normally considered the most meaningful question, I consider the question: “Do you believe in God?” to be the most meaningless question one can ever hope to ask about God. People who...
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CRI Announcement: Please Welcome our New Editors!
Dear Friends, As loyal readers of CRI will be aware, our humble project began life two years ago. Amar and I had nothing but ideas and ambition. The ambition to craft a credible platform for the articulation of meaningful Indian political thought. The voices of India’s blogosphere and social media...
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Books in Chicago
I spent some of the previous afternoon at the Barnes & Nobel Bookstore in Downtown Chicago. I leafed through some books. I began with Jonah Lehrer’s “Imagine: How Creativity Works”. Lehrer’s op-eds in The New York Times and Wired Magazine have been rewarding. His book however is not. It appeared...
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The Paradox of the Political
“Thus the question arises of what is the best regime. The first answer given by such men as Plato and Aristotle, and Socrates before them, is that in which the wise rule, absolutely and irresponsibly. Irresponsibly in the sense that they are not responsible to other human beings. That the...
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China Does Capitalism Better Than America
“For all appearances, China has emerged unscathed from the global economic crisis, in stark contrast to its biggest debtor, America. China’s admirers point to its ability to mobilize state resources, quick decision-making and business-friendly environment as reasons for its economic ascendency. But can its brand of state-directed capitalism overcome rampant...
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Guest Post: Responding to Deepak Lal
Editor’s Note: A few days ago, I uploaded an essay by economist Deepak Lal on Centre Right India’s “Gyan” page. It is a page on which we feature articles and essays that are likely to stimulate and broaden the horizons of Indian Political Animals. The essay, titled Asia and Western Dominance:...
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The Fall of the West and the Rise of China: The Master Narrative of the 21st Century
Stories detailing the rise of China have dominated the op-ed pages of Western newspapers for the better half of the last decade. But, what is the essence of this rise? What does the rise of China mean for the world and what are the possibilities of its derailment? I shall...
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Chicken Soup for the Political Animal
Liberalism negated the political; yet liberalism has not thereby eliminated the political from the face of the earth but only has hidden it; liberalism has lead to politics’ being engaged in by means of an antipolitial mode of discourse. Liberalism has thus killed not the political but only understanding...
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Carl Schmitt and America’s Liberal Wars
Humanity as such cannot wage war because it has no enemy, at least not on this planet…When a state fights its political enemy in the name of humanity, it is not a a war for the sake of humanity, but a war wherein a particular state seeks to usurp...
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The Face of Contemporary Britain or This is England
As Lord Balfour noted in his introduction to Walter Bagehot’s The English Constitution, “[the] whole political machinery presupposes a people so fundamentally at one that they can safely afford to bicker; and so sure of their own moderation that they are not dangerously disturbed by the never-ending din of political...
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Thoughts on Osama
Osama bin Laden, like Michael Jackson, had ceased to be relevant to his craft long before his actual biological death. He died the moment two large commercial airliners flew into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre on the 11th of September, 2001. More accurately perhaps, I should say that he died the...
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BJP in Beijing
An interesting news item has been brought to my attention. Nitin Gadkari is leading a team of BJP office-bearers and his wife on a five day visit to China. Vibhuti Agarwal of the Wall Street Journal has been quick to quip that “despite ideological differences, India’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party...
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The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the 21st Century
I recommend that you concentrate on Stefan Halper’s and Ted Galen Carpenter’s presentations and skip Bonny Glaser. Stefan Halper’s achievement lies in the fact that he succeeds in framing China’s challenge to the West in primarily ideational terms consciously effacing the geopolitical and economic narratives that tend to dominate less original assessments. The Western values he speaks of...