Asim Ali-Frontline

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The book also wades into the “memory- wars” taking place around the places of worship (Gyanvapi, Ayodhya) and historical figures (such as Aurangzeb). Here, an aerial view of the Gyanvapi mosque (left) and the Kashi Vishwanath temple on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi in December 2021.

Muslims in New India: A survival story

Hilal Ahmed’s latest book says Muslims in contemporary India are not passive victims; they are adapting to survive and thrive within the constraints.

Daily wage labourers wait for work on a Mumbai street on June 11, 2021. India’s precariat was wrecked, while the upper middle class prospered, through the COVID-fuelled recession.

Power to the people: India’s democracy needs a subaltern revival

For democracy to function, the masses must feel invested in it. A subaltern strategy thus could be a potent tool to counter the BJP’s hegemony.

Arvind Kejriwal offering prayers at the Hanuman Mandir in Connaught Place in New Delhi on the eve of the Delhi Assembly election in February 2020.

Confident AAP presents national narrative as challenger to BJP after Gujarat gains

However, it has deliberately kept the ideological contours of this challenge open to interpretation.

B.R. Ambedkar described the Constitution as “both unitary as well as federal according to the requirement of time and circumstances”.

How do we frame the battle for the ‘idea of India’?

The political battle is not so much between secular and communal ideas of India as between a federal and a unitarian idea of India.

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