Cover Story

Tracing the Roots of Self-Governance to the Countryside

V Shoba

It takes a village

Requiem for the Gandhi Topi

Lhendup G Bhutia

After a brief revival, the cap that once adorned nearly every leader’s head is almost extinct

The Grace of the Guru

Shashi Tharoor

Sree Narayana Guru’s genius lay in offering a synergistic model for holistic human liberation. The three pillars of castelessness, education, and enterprise formed an unbreakable chain of progress

National anthems, like national flags and independence days, are shortcuts to patriotism. Their elevation to iconic status makes them supersede their immediate contexts by becoming timeless emblems of peoples nations

Digital Sovereignty

Sudeep Paul

National autonomy will be lost and won at the altar of artificial intelligence and the odds are against democratic societies. There is a perfect storm coming from China. The price of India’s AI revolution is a permanent state of high alert

Hasrat Mohani: Mystic As Rebel

Ullekh NP

A freedom fighter and poet with a grand vision for India, Hasrat Mohani—a communist, a devout Muslim who admired Tilak and worshipped Krishna, and the coiner of the slogan ‘Inquilab Zindabad’—had called for ‘Poorna Swaraj’ from British rule as early as 1921, a demand then rejected by Gandhi but endorsed many years later

Half a Legacy

Pramod Kapoor

Partition was a division of not just land but a shared civilisation down to its files, flags, furniture and even postage stamps

The Ghost of Partition

Swapan Dasgupta

It is time we in India recognised that 50 years after his death, the killers of Mujibur Rahman have launched a civilisational war on India. As in 1971, it is India. As in 1971, it is a battle against those who won’t stop unless they have undermined India's political and cultural foundations

Anomaly at Midnight

MJ Akbar

Pakistan was created by a tortured argument which diminished a universal faith, Islam, into parochial nationalism. Within a decade, Pakistan had degenerated into a 'jelly state'

Who Are We?

Siddharth Singh

From the massacres in Noakhali in 1946 to the ongoing revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, the Hindu part of the Indian identity has been seen as a threat. But it is no longer taboo to say there should be an element of faith in Indianness