Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee-Frontline

More stories by this author

Han Kang giving a speech in Gwangju, South Korea, in 2023.

Why has literature Nobel winner Han Kang turned down celebratory events?

Han’s refusal stems from her conviction that writers must bear witness to global suffering, prioritising collective anguish over personal achievement.

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

Gandhi used Tolstoy’s letter to understand the political predicament of his time.

A letter to Tolstoy and Gandhi

How the Russian writer’s critique of colonialism influenced Gandhi’s philosophy and foresaw the pitfalls of pseudo-religion and scientific rationality

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

W.E.B. Du Bois’ enduring interest in Gandhi’s movement stems from their shared recognition that nonviolence’s radical potential lies in truth-based reconciliation

Kindred spirits across oceans: Gandhi and Du Bois’ transcontinental dialogue

How the two luminaries of civil rights forged an unlikely alliance, reshaping the discourse on race and nonviolence.

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

Delhi Chief Minister Atishi takes charge at the Delhi Secretariat, in New Delhi on September 23. By her words, Atishi has managed to suffuse the empty chair with meanings: it is no ordinary chair of an absent Chief Minister, but a chair-in-waiting that will remind the people of its occupier.

Atishi and the empty chair of sovereignty

Mythical symbolism meets modern politics as Delhi’s new Chief Minister invokes the Ramayana to address Arvind Kejriwal’s absence.

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

Rahul Gandhi listens to children during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, in Makthal in Telangana’s Narayanpet district on October 27, 2022.

Can listening transform Indian politics? Rahul Gandhi thinks so

Rahul’s approach, rooted in concepts of “heteronomy” and “self-annihilation”, challenges traditional power dynamics.

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

Members of Citizens for Peace, Justice, and Democracy protest against rising mob violence and cow vigilantism in Chennai on July 1, 2017.

Cow vigilantes and the pathology of violence

How sacred symbols become tools of oppression, laying bare a mindset that justifies communal violence under the guise of protecting religious values.

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

Mahatma Gandhi speaks with Jawaharlal Nehru in Bombay, in 1946. Both Gandhi and Nehru represented a tradition of “thinking-in-action” or “thinking-in-politics” that characterised Indian political thought during the anti-colonial movement.

Who needs political thinkers?

A prominent activist laments the disappearance of political philosophers in India, but are they truly missing or just unheard?

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

A slogan spray-painted on a gate to mark the recent anti-government protest that ousted then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in Dhaka University area, August 19, 2024.

Bangladesh’s ‘liberation’ is breeding a new intolerance

Secularists such as Abdul Bashir have become the new outcasts, and experts warn of democratic backsliding amid growing influence of religion.

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

The Karl Marx monument in Chemnitz, Germany.

Karl Marx’s Jewish blind spot

How the thinker missed the dangers of nationalism.

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

Sign in to Unlock member-only benefits!

Bookmark stories to read later.
Comment on stories to start conversations.
Subscribe to our newsletters.
Get notified about discounts and offers to our products.