So, young Indians cannot tell their friends in what they like on Facebook, without being “pre-screened” by Harvard types (or hauled into a police station by Shiv Sena goons). So, bloggers cannot publish their “online private diaries” without the sword of 66(A) hanging over their heads. So, tweeters can be blocked and Savita bhabhi‘s enviable…
Tag Archives: Ashis Nandy
How come nobody heard or saw the worm turn?
SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: Hindsight, as the moronic aphorism goes, is always 20/20. And we have been seeing plenty of hindsight dressed as foresight over the last fortnight following the announcement of the results of the general elections, which bucked the “anti-incumbency” cliche and put the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance back in power. #…
‘If a journalist cannot write, then who else will?’
A two-judge vacation bench of the Supreme Court of India has restrained the Narendra Modi government in Gujarat from arresting sociologist Ashis Nandy, for an opinion piece titled ‘Blame the middle class’ he wrote in The Times of India in January this year. Justice Altamas Kabir: “There is no ground for harassing a journalist. Let…
170 intellectuals protest case against edit writer
170 academics, writers, film makers, journalists, activists, and other public intellectuals drawn from several countries have expressed their strong protest against the charges of criminal offence brought against political psychologist and sociologist Ashis Nandy over an editorial page article written by him in The Times of India in January this year, in the aftermath of…
Not the land of the cow, the land of holy cows
The “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic” of India is fast becoming, if it has not already become, the “notionally sovereign, chauvinistic, parochial, intolerant republic”. Especially from a media point of view. On Sunday, political psychologist Ashis Nandy came under attack from the BJP government of Gujarat for an “opinion” piece blaming the middle class for…
‘A DISGRACEFUL ASSAULT ON MEDIA FREEDOM’
What is the role of a newspaper in a democratic society? Is it just supposed to reassure us that the sun rose majestically in the east this morning? Is it committing a cardinal sin in reporting that the big fellow may have strayed off his path while we were groggy? Is a newspaper wrong in…
IJR 