Sunday Posts

A conversation with a self-avowed right-wing (and Trump admiring) friend made me think what I really think is wrong with America's Iran war. But let me start by acknowledging the differences of our political standpoints first.  First, my friend thinks that America's military might is enormous and it has the ability, and therefore the right, to shape the world in its image. I do not think that America's might is limitless, and it has been proven many times over, in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. It has largely failed to shape the world in its image, and therefore, it should be more circumspect about getting involved in foreign wars. Second, he also thinks that Iranian regime was repugnant, which has killed tens of thousands of its citizens, and should therefore be overthrown. My view is more nuanced on this: I do not believe what the mainstream media (like the BBC says) and I don't follow Persian channels to balance the English language narratives. Therefore, I am not 10...

India prides itself of its diversity, but lately it has decided to go monochrome. Suddenly, India's model is China, though no one would admit of it. Harmony, after all, is good for economic growth, goes the thesis. Therefore, Indian institutions - and the states - are being harmonised in the quest of economic growth. The protests, the cacophony of opinion, unmissable characteristics of Indian democracy for its first seventy years, are increasingly branded 'un-Indian' and pushed to the margins.  I am aware that my timing for bringing this up would immediately position this as a reaction of the farmer's protests and the Indian government's indifferent handling of the same. And, it is indeed something worth talking about : The lack of consultation and due process, the silence of most of the mainstream media, the underhand techniques used to undermine the credibility and even the Supreme Court's actions, indicate a total absence of space for alternative views. India...

Going back isn't the best way to go forward. But that's exactly why the keepers of the existing world order, besieged by popular discontent, want to do: They are desperately clinging onto the Nineteenth and early Twentieth century labels, such as 'Liberalism' and 'Progressive Politics'. All those victories and persistent popularity of Messers Trump, Johnson, Putin, Modi, Bolsonaro etc. have pushed them into such a corner that they would now accept as fellow liberals anyone who finds any of these developments disagreeable. Almost everyone except die-hard communists and Islamic fundamentalists perhaps - everyone else is welcome to the party! Apart from the impossibility to seeing complex contemporary developments through the outdated and intentionally distorted lens of nineteenth-century liberalism, this also results in a misdiagnosis. The democratic crisis that we face today is very much a crisis of those liberal principles. The liberal world order is in ...

I was protesting against cynical war-mongering by South Asian politicians on Facebook when a friend called me out: He blamed my 'liberal' ideology rather than my oft-expressed and admittedly utopian desire to see a peaceful and prosperous Asia for my ardour. I am used to be called socialist and even some cases, a communist, but 'liberal' is a first and that made me think. The popularity of the 'liberal' label is recent and bears a particular sense: An American one! It somewhat lumps a variety of things, socialism, free-markets and progressivism together for a start, without no other common theme than a belief that things would get better with time (which would have been called 'whiggism' at a different time). In that sense, liberalism should be seen opposed to the beliefs in a coming judgement-day that their opponents generally hold, though socialists, in that regard, should sit in the other side of the fence, in that sense. But then, I am ...

Liberalism is a contested word. So contested, in fact, that I can't even qualify it with some catch-all phrase, like 'as it is commonly understood'.  In fact, it is not understood at all: It's often a term of abuse in India, where it's seen as a form of retardation (hence, the coinage, in the great Indian English tradition of joined-up words, 'Libtard') while in the West, it's a lost ideal nostalgically mourned. In North America, Liberalism is often synonymous with economic justice, an activist state restraining the excesses of the market, combined with unrestrained individual choice, allowing people to live their lives as they please; in Europe, it is about a non-interventionist state and unrestrained operations of the market, with individuals permitted to do as they please as long as they don't threaten social harmony. So, the creation of a National Health Service would be considered a Liberal policy and right to abortion a great Liberal ca...

I just heard Michael Ignatieff hope that when some of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese students studying in the United States choose to go home, and confront the authoritarian society at home, a democratic change will come. His source of hope was the Russian experience, and the belief that the Russians educated abroad challenged the Soviet regime and brought about the change: The same may happen to China. But will it?  All the answers to this would be speculative. But this assertion has an implicit claim about Western Higher Education that I would like to contest. Indeed, the big idea here is the idea of Liberty - the magic wand that transforms people and makes them the agents of change - but the usage of word has so changed over time that it needs to be interrogated again. Liberty in the current Western sense is the liberty to consume, to live a life of unrestrained economic possibility. This makes a difference: The Chinese government doesn't restrict economic pos...

I am now in India, after a gap of several months. A lot has changed in the few months since I was last here. Most visibly, the money has changed - the Rs. 1000 notes have vanished and the ubiquitous Rs. 500 notes have a new look, and there is a strange purple-pink Rs 2000 note in circulation, which very few people want to accept. It is one of the signs of the great experiment that is now underway in India, where even the most fundamental things can change overnight. One such event in the few days I have spent here was the coordination of the Bihar state. Bihar, which is one of the most populous states in Eastern India, has a large lower caste population, and have consistently rejected the upper caste Hinduvta politics of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). True, BJP had participated in the Government in coalition with one of the other 'caste' parties in the past, but they were never the senior partner. And, in fact, Bihar electorate dealt a severe blow to Mr Modi...

As one of my correspondents accurately pointed out, responding my earlier post on UK General Elections , one big loser on the 8th June was Centrist politics. The Labour Party, under a now secured Mr Corbyn, is likely to move further to the Left, just as the now insecure Theresa May, living on the support of the reactionary DUP, is likely to move further to the right. The Blairite domination, which moved the Labour Party to the Centre is well and truly over, and the Compassionate Conservatism of Cameron is now a distant memory.   As someone who celebrates the end of Careerist politics, I should perhaps welcome this. But I acknowledge Centrist Politics is more than just a Careerist ploy. At a time when Britain faces existential questions - and the Post-War World System is endangered - the ability of politicians work with each other is crucial; polarisation of politics does not help in these circumstances. And, besides, it is perhaps time to revisit the categories of Right ...

2016 has been a watershed year for many 'Liberals' - with its paradigm shifting events such as Brexit and Trump - but the writing was perhaps on the wall. And, it is not just an Anglo-American affair: There was Modi in India, Abe in Japan, Putin in Russia and Erdoğan in Turkey, not to mention the muscular turns in China or Philippines. Nor this ends with 2016: That Marine Le Pen still remains the Front Runner in France, the Swedish election is uncomfortably close, there is open racism on the streets of Poland and Hungary, and Italy is all set to go crazy too, indicate that 2016 is some sort of a start. The twilight of the Liberals may have arrived. 'Liberals' is a very imprecise category, and over the years, it has come to mean almost everything, resulting in a confusion who the liberals really were, and what they stood for. The traditional definition - that Liberals are not Conservatives - has long been superseded by a mishmash of agendas, and Liberals came to me...

Today's election results in five Indian states may or may not be noticed by the world media, but they are, in a way, no less significant than the Brexit vote or Trump's victory in November. These election results indicate a shift in politics of a major country, which India is, with its huge population, growing economy, large military and preeminence among the G20. And, while the 2014 election win of the Bharatiya Janata Party (hereafter, BJP) and Narendra Modi becoming India's Prime Minister was more momentous and newsworthy than these elections, they still complete and confirm the process of change that was underway since. Admittedly, the results of these elections are mixed. Of the five states that went into poll, Indian National Congress (INC) and BJP, with their respective allies, controlled two states each, and another, the biggest one, was ruled by a large, caste-based, regional party, the Samajwadi Party (Socialist Party, or SP). The BJP has now gained two stat...

I am something of a veteran being on the losing side of elections. And, with interests in politics globally, I am on the losing side more often than normal. I have indeed no business taking sides on US or Filipino Presidential elections, or the referendum in Italy, but I did want an outcome and ended up being on the losing side. Closer home, I did vote Remain and was stunned by Brexit, and more disappointed than surprised by Indian choice of their Prime Minister in 2014. It is not a good time for people with 'Liberal' sympathies, and I am sure to be in for some more disappointments in 2017, including some major ones in France and Germany, as it looks like. However, I am writing this not to moan my plight, but rather to reflect on what one does when elections produce unpalatable results. I did indeed express my disappointment and question the merit of Direct Democracy in the morning after Brexit, a genuine feeling that I came to regret with time. In fact, now that the disa...

This is an admission of failure.  This is about Narendra Modi's rise to prominence, and his preeminent position in Indian elections right now. The fact that he may become India's Prime Minister soon is one of those dreadful prospects one has to live with. Whether this happens or not, though, this is one example how all those who cared about the 'idea of India' got it wrong. Simply, the prospect of Mr Modi, with the blood of Gujrati Muslim's in his hand, enraged us so much that we talked about that all the time. When our self-interested friends claimed that it is not the genocide, but the stock market that matters more, we got so enraged that we talked about it even more. All this helped, rather than hindered, Mr Modi, who indeed turned this against us, with copious sums of money thrown along the way. The fact that Mr Modi is the front-runner in polls today poses not just one problem - that a man of such terrible record could be elected - but several ot...

'Liberal' is a bad thing, something to be ashamed about these days. If you are one, like me, your views are likely to be dismissed to be some kind of a Hippie opinion that does not seem to matter. Why not, indeed, because 'capitalism' (with the attendant label of 'neo-liberal') seemed to have decisively won? It takes guts to say that standing in the middle of the greatest financial disaster of a lifetime. It takes arrogance to make such a proclamation when the system we have brought more miseries to more people than the World Wars and Dictators ever did. And, perhaps, it takes ignorance, self-induced ignorance of the charmer who has fallen in love with his own words and being charmed himself. This is, I shall claim, a break point. 'Liberal' got a bad name just at the point of its greatest triumph - when civil rights were finally firmly established and street revolutions got under way to change the society. Liberalism's defining year may hav...