In the pulsating chaos of Indian democracy, politics has undergone a peculiar metamorphosis, a transformation so profound that it demands a new term: (M)olitics . This is not merely politics modified but Modi-eized, a term that captures the ideological alchemy of PM Narendra Modi’s hegemony, where the political is sublimated into a spectacle of moliticks—a tick-like parasitic attachment to...
Why “Secularism” and “Socialism” Must Remain in the Preamble
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has recently called for the removal of the words “secularism” and “socialism” from the preamble of the Indian Constitution, igniting a contentious debate. Some frame this demand around the historical context of their inclusion—during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency in 1976—suggesting they were political impositions. However, this perspective misses the core issue: these terms are not...
The MODI Syndrome: A Lens on India’s Political Illusion
In a scathing critique of contemporary Indian politics, journalist Sagarika Ghose has coined the term “MODI Syndrome” to describe what she perceives as a troubling approach to governance. The acronym MODI—standing for Misinformation, Opacity, Distraction, and Incompetence—offers a framework to analyze the strategies that, according to critics, have come to define the current administration’s playbook. Far from aligning with...
Loyalty or Dissent and its Costs for Goa
On June 18, 2025, Goa’s Art and Culture Minister Govind Gaude was unceremoniously dropped from the state cabinet, a decision that coincided with Goa Revolution Day—a symbolic irony not lost on observers. The move came barely three weeks after Gaude publicly alleged corruption in the Department of Tribal Welfare, a portfolio directly overseen by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant. Gaude’s...
Contesting Oversimplification of Decolonial Theory and Counterposing Decolonial Goan-ness
Decolonial theory, as articulated by scholars like Walter D. Mignolo and applied in contexts like J. Sai Deepak’s India That Is Bharat, has gained traction as a framework for challenging Eurocentric knowledge systems and colonial legacies. However, its application, particularly in Deepak’s work, raises critical concerns about essentialism, historical oversimplification, and its co-optation by exclusionary nationalist agendas. Furthermore, Mignolo’s...
Rethinking Intellectual Colonization: Hindutva’s Misdirection and the Battle for India’s Mind
In the art of magic, misdirection is a masterful tool. A magician diverts the audience’s attention, creating an illusion that obscures reality. The hand flourishes, the cape swirls, and while the audience is captivated by the spectacle, the real trick unfolds elsewhere. In contemporary India, the ideology of Hindutva employs a similar sleight of hand, using misdirection to mislead...
Costs of Indo-Pak Rivalry : Past Hurts , Present Politico- Economics Draining Democracy
The latest Indo-Pakistan crisis, sparked by the April 22, 2025, terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, which killed 26 people, and culminating in a fragile ceasefire on May 10, 2025, is a stark reminder of the enduring rivalry between the two nations. Drawing from Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur’s The India-Pakistan Rivalry: A Perilous Dynamic (2024), which...
Remembering and Forgetting Afflicting Indian History Writing
India’s historical narrative is a contested terrain, shaped by selective remembering and deliberate omissions. The marginalization of India’s Buddhist past and the disproportionate focus on premodern Islamic rulers have contributed to a skewed historical imagination that underpins the rise of Hindutva politics. This article examines how Orientalist frameworks and selective historiography have distorted India’s pluralistic heritage, fueling divisive ideologies,...
A Philosophical Defense of Comedy
In India, comedy has increasingly found itself under siege, its practitioners navigating a minefield of censorship, legal threats, and social outrage. The powers that be—whether political, cultural, or religious—seem to harbor a profound suspicion of humor, as if laughter itself were a subversive force capable of dismantling their authority. This rejection of comedy, however, is not merely a cultural...
After Finitude as an Antidote to Reductive Hindutva
Quentin Meillassoux’s After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (2006) is a philosophical tour de force that challenges the anthropocentric limits of post-Kantian thought. While its primary target is the correlationist paradigm—the idea that reality is only knowable through human perception—it offers a speculative framework that can resonate far beyond Western philosophy. In the context of India,...
