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May 31, 2024 | 
scroll.in | Govind Krishnan V
The RSS and the Sangh Parivar claim Vivekananda as an inspiration; Vivekananda is most important in the Sangh’s pantheon of cultural figures. However, Vivekananda had no influence on the RSS in its formative years when it developed its political ideology of Hindutva, or in the years immediately following Independence. The Sangh’s public adulation of Vivekananda seems to have begun in the sixties. He was presented as both a patriot and a glorifier of Indian culture and Hinduism.
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Feb 22, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | C.P. Chandrasekhar |Vaishna Roy |Govind Krishnan V
Vivekananda would not only have vehemently opposed building a temple where the Babri Masjid stood, he would have seen the triumphalism around the temple as the strongest clue to the danger Hinduism is in.
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Feb 8, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Sohini Chattopadhyay |Sharda Ugra |Bashir Ali Abbas |Govind Krishnan V
There is no recreational Indian woman runner who has not been heckled by some lout shouting, “Who do you think you are? P.T. Usha?” Decades after she retired, that is the mystic, weighty presence of P.T. Usha in the national imagination, even for people who never saw her run.
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Feb 7, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Bashir Ali Abbas |Govind Krishnan V |T.K. Rajalakshmi |Anand Mishra
Some time in late 2001, US State Department officials secretly met an Iranian delegation in Geneva.
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Feb 7, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Suwa Lal Jangu |R. Ramachandran |Govind Krishnan V |Manohar Shetty
The India-Myanmar border is witnessing unrest on both sides: in Myanmar, ethnic communities are fighting for their civil and political rights and a democratic government, while on the Indian side, ethnic communities are fighting for the protection of their sociocultural and economic rights. The porous border between the two nations is at the root of the ongoing ethnic conflict in Manipur, and the illegal activities, including smuggling, going on there.
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Feb 7, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Anando Bhakto |Karthick Ram Manoharan |Saumya Kalia |Govind Krishnan V
Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar’s impudent embrace of the Bharatiya Janata Party on January 28 to form a new government in Bihar was a fraught moment for the allies (the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress, and the Left parties) he abandoned in the populous State in the Hindi heartland. With 40 Lok Sabha seats, the State figures prominently in the opposition game plan to interrupt the BJP’s smooth ride to a majority in the upcoming 18th Lok Sabha election.
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Feb 7, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Karthick Ram Manoharan |Saumya Kalia |Govind Krishnan V |Bashir Ali Abbas
Irrespective of whether one believes in the god Ram or not, the formal consecration of the Ram temple on January 22, 2024, marked a milestone in Indian politics. The grand event in Ayodhya was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, among several other high-profile political leaders and celebrities. Modi called Ram the spirit and essence of the nation.
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Feb 7, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Vivek Narayanan |Bashir Ali Abbas |Govind Krishnan V |T.K. Rajalakshmi
Adil Jussawalla (b. 1940) and Arvind Krishna Mehrotra (b. 1947), to invoke the usual trope of Indian public life, “need no introduction”. They are widely acknowledged, even canonised, as being among the key founders of a new mid-20th century Indian modernist poetry in English, and find a prominent place in anthologies and syllabi. Yet, we find ourselves asking, are they being read? This is a different and more awkward question. Encomiums have been plenty, serious critical studies sparse.
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Feb 1, 2024 | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Govind Krishnan V |Bashir Ali Abbas |T.K. Rajalakshmi |Anand Mishra
With the inauguration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22 with the Supreme Court’s blessing, and the almost complete silencing of Muslim opposition, it is obvious that a certain idea of India is dead. The idea of a secular India—where no religion is favoured, where a citizen’s religious beliefs are her private affair, and faith plays no role in the functioning of the state.
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Sep 23, 2023 | 
millenniumpost.in | Govind Krishnan V
In the book ‘Vivekananda’, Govind Krishnan V presents a meticulous chronicle of the monk’s life, religious philosophy, social thought, and ideology, to cogently argue that the ‘liberal thinker’ was actually an arch nemesis of the RSS — which erroneously claims his legacy ‘Hindu’. Excerpts:I am a monk,’ he said, as he sat in the parlors of La Salette Academy which is his home while in Memphis, ‘and not a priest.
