The Young India

Kartikey Sehgal

[Happy Independence Day. Independent in thought. Yet a challenge - The Young India]

My grandfather’s friend wanted for him to come and live in Norway. This is a good time – he told him in the 1990s. Things will take a bad shape. The Asians are coming over (he named the communities). He was not happy with immigrants coming to Norway. He was an immigrant himself.

He further informed my grandfather: There will be a geographical section in Norway that …

Kartikey Sehgal

What if Rajbala were your mother?

Then you would post facebook updates in her support. You would make facebook groups and pages.

Why don’t you? Because Rajbala is not someone you aspire to be. If an author/pilot/astronaut or a rich woman were in Rajbala’s place, then you would show sympathy and rage. What does Rajbala wear? Salwar-kameez? Does she converse in English? Then why should we bother. If she were a minority member then we would have something to complain about.

Nobody bothers …

Ananth Venkatesh

[ Other recent stories by the author: The Double Standards of ‘Freedom of Speech’, Hindus in the Netherlands, The Failure of Islam in Multicultural Europe]

Another related issue that comes to mind relates to the extent of artistic and creative autonomy that should be granted to writers and painters.

In a state like India, what has engendered considerable Hindu unhappiness is that the paintings of the Late MF Hussein, which depict unclothed Hindu Gods and Goddesses, are regarded as a …

Ananth Venkatesh

[Previously written by the author: Hindus in the Netherlands, The Failure of Islam in Multicultural Europe] 

I have to declare that Europe, especially after overseas decolonization, has been a society very ready to discuss the ills that plague modern Christianity. Certain facets of Christian history and the invidious Christian role in European imperialism abroad have been denounced firmly and, at times, with certain ruthlessness. Therefore, Wilders has the right to decry the bellicosity that exists in certain clauses of the …

Santa Singh

One
Have a look at this lady [photo top: right]. She has acted in renowned and mostly-art-house filmmaker Shyam Benegal’s ‘Well Done Abba’. You would say that she is in the movie because she is pretty, graceful or beautiful. But then you learn that she has had a nose surgery done to rectify the nose that Mr. God gave her. While there may be something or nothing wrong in that (I find her pretty), it means that she does not consider herself as …