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Oct 10, 2024 | 
ndtv.com | Aditya Sondhi
(The following is an excerpt from Aditya Sondhi's Poles Apart: The Military and Democracy in India and Pakistan, being published with the permission of Penguin Random House India.
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Aug 20, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Aditya Sondhi |Aditya Sinha |Amey Tirodkar |Vaishna Roy
When, in the first week of August, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh resigned and fled the country in the wake of massive student protests that the authorities could not control—protests that led to over 400 deaths—Indian social media was filled with self-congratulatory posts that claimed our country had escaped a similar fate solely due to the strength of our Constitution and democracy thanks to the likes of B.R. Ambedkar and our first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
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Jul 25, 2024 | 
flipboard.com | Aditya Sondhi
‘Throne of Indira will crumble. They will chew iron lentils’—Bhindranwale in 1984In ‘Poles Apart’, Aditya Sondhi investigates the comparative roles of the military in the Indian subcontinent, to study their influences on the …
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Jul 25, 2024 | 
theprint.in | Aditya Sondhi
Negotiations with Bhindranwale were thorny as he insisted on the unconditional implementation of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution demands. Simultaneously, Akali Dal leader Harchand Singh Longowal declared an impasse on the movement of grain out of Punjab, which was a key supplier of grain to the rest of the nation.
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Jul 10, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Ilangovan Rajasekaran |V. Arasu |Aditya Sondhi |Madhulika Liddle
“Honour killing is the crux of this book. But this is not a book on death; it is about life too. It does not stop with stating that an honour killing occurred. It raises questions about ‘why’ it happened, thereby exploring the many aspects of life surrounding it, from multiple perspectives. The book brings our attention to the contradiction of an individual with fellow citizens, the distance between our ideals and practical lives and the many masks we hide our real faces under.
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Jul 10, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Saikat Majumdar |V. Arasu |Aditya Sondhi |Madhulika Liddle
Saikat Majumdar is a writer of sexuality. Thebody and sexuality are everyday terms for academic writers in the humanities. Majumdar, also a professor of English, claims this academic background for his latest novel, The Remains of the Body.
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Jul 8, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | V. Anand |V. Arasu |Aditya Sondhi |Madhulika Liddle
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s six-day visit to Europe in May, when he returned after five years for his first post-pandemic visit, covered France, Serbia, and Hungary, that is, western, central, and eastern Europe. China is commemorating 75 years of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), so this diplomatic outreach by Xi has special significance for the country’s foreign policy.
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Jul 8, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Milind Ghatwai |V. Arasu |Aditya Sondhi |Madhulika Liddle
One of the reasons for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rise to power was his oratory. The aggression, decisiveness, and muscular nationalism in his speeches resonated with supporters. His detractors found the same words divisive, offensive, and riddled with dog whistles. After the June 4 verdict brought a scowl to his normally impassive visage, his oratory is now on test. Modi finds himself in uncharted territory.
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Jul 8, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Saba Naqvi |V. Arasu |Aditya Sondhi |Madhulika Liddle
The first session of the 18th Lok Sabha saw a resurgent opposition confronting an authoritarian figure who is determined to indicate that nothing has changed. One has to give it to the BJP for its commitment to Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan (or Bharat).
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Jul 6, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Greeshma Kuthar |V. Arasu |Aditya Sondhi |Madhulika Liddle
Understanding south India in the past few decades has been guided by the imagined utopia of its political progressiveness. A comparison with north India withstanding, which is faulty considering how the regions are culturally very different, the argument still pits the north to be a better example of representative government, as the 1990s will show.
