'One big problem for the RSS is, while they spread their ideology of hard, Hindu-ised Indian nationalism, the absence of their own pantheon of modern nationalist giants. They missed out on the freedom movement quite comprehensively, in some ways comparable to the Muslim League and latter-day Communists. They have to find heroes elsewhere.' 'They borrow who they can from the Congress, like Madan Mohan Malviya and Sardar Patel, and then steal the entire lot of revolutionaries, from Bhagat Singh to Netaji, never mind that many of them were extreme leftists.'
The Congress has not invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to an international conference it is organising to mark the 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, joining the battle with Modi, who it accuses of trying to appropriate freedom movement leaders.
He will be around for another crack at the elections, and a clear majority, predicts Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is hopeful that the issue will come handy to its efforts to gain political traction in Dravidian state as it gears up for the Lok Sabha polls.
As part of its celebrations for the 125th birth anniversary of India's first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, the Congress will this week organise a conference bringing together many writers and historians, including Left leaning, to discuss freedom, equality, democracy and secularism in today's context.
'The BJP is trying to change this mantra.'
The book 'Modern Indian Political Thought', for MA course under the Distance Learning Programme, meant for the upcoming academic year, is not yet available in the market.
Manoj Tiwari is the only sitting MP whom the BJP has retained.
The old Parliament building will now be known as 'Samvidhan Sadan', Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said on Tuesday as the functioning of Parliament shifted to its new building in New Delhi.
The Aam Aadmi party has said that the purported letter by Jawaharlal Nehru allegedly calling Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose a 'war criminal' is "fake."
The specter of how the Munambam issue was exploited during the November by-elections is proof of the price Kerala is paying for its emergent politics. Controversies become the stuff of slow-burn and brinkmanship. The former promises mileage; the latter searches for an advantage, notes Shyam G Menon.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday expressed apprehension that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections would be the last opportunity for the people to save democracy, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi might prefer dictatorship in case his party wins the upcoming polls.
Kharge claimed that though the BJP says the corrupt must be put in jails, when leaders facing corruption charges join the saffron party, they are "put on the lap" and sent to Rajya Sabha or assembly.
Modi said laws which divide the country on communal lines and become a reason for inequality have no place in a modern society.
The new party president, the sixth member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to lead the political outfit, takes charge from his mother Sonia Gandhi at a time when the party is facing one of its worst crises, with the Bharatiya Janata Party occupying the centre stage of national and state politics.
Inaugurating the solidarity rally, Venugopal, a Rajya Sabha MP, strongly condemned the war unleashed by Israel in Gaza and their attacks against hospitals and refugee camps there.
It is for the first time in the history of Independent India that not a single Muslim is part of the Union Cabinet.
India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru appeared to have reservations about the Congress support to the 'liberation struggle' against Kerala's first Communist ministry led by E M S Namboodiripad, which was dismissed in 1959 within two years of coming to power.
The files were apparently declassified accidentally.
As per reports, the new Social Science textbook for Class VIII in schools of Rajasthan has erased Nehru from the pages of history.
How could a President, seen as a political time-server, have manoeuvred things to a stage where he could strike fear into the heart of a prime minister who, only two-and-a-half years before, had been elected with the largest majority in history?
The prime minister's insistence that his voice cannot be suppressed left me both puzzled and amused. He has at his call, the government's official news dissemination/publicity channels, the pliant newspapers and television channels that were eager to prostrate themselves before a powerful government and yet, the dominant voice thinks it is in competition with other voices! exclaims Shyam G Menon.
The recent remarks by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru appear to have rubbed 10 Janpath the wrong way, if party sources are to be believed.
The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday struck down a public interest litigation seeking directions for covering of statues of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi in various parts of Uttar Pradesh as they may help Congress "derive" political mileage during the assembly polls.
'His script, his body language is different, at the most he is a trained pracharak, a national politician building a base, an audience, a community of behaviours and followers from a younger generation, attempting to talk to children so they become his enthusiasts. Many are and that is his victory.'
The Green Revolution owes a debt to Norman Borlaug, whose birth centenary falls this year.
The scaling up of the India-US strategic partnership to the level of non-NATO ally with defence deals, sharing and transfer of defence technology, interoperability, joint collaboration and joint production of defence equipment has exacerbated Moscow's anxiety, notes Rup Narayan Das.
In all the highs and lows that India's most powerful, and only woman, prime minister faced in her life, the death of her younger son Sanjay was probably the most soul-destroying.
'How come with Nehru at the helm, India missed so many buses? He had such unchallenged power that he could have taken the country in any direction he wanted. The sad conclusion is inescapable that Nehru let things drift in true Hamletian ambivalence,' says B S Raghavan.
It's intriguing that the prime minister now wants his American partner to help protect the Hindu minority in Bangladesh. That's conceding to the Americans a pre-eminence India has always contested, resented and feared, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The Congress president during his year at the helm of the party has repaired the citadel for far more challenging years ahead, and played a crucial role in shaping the Opposition alliance.
With a staff in one hand and the other on his granddaughter's shoulder, the old man briskly takes the lead as the sun breaks over the horizon.
Targeting All India Congress Committee general secretary Rahul Gandhi, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray said the Congress leader has no prospects of becoming prime minister of the country.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Saturday said V D Savarkar, Jawaharlal Nehru or any other freedom fighter should not be maligned as they do not belong to any political party.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday embarked on the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Thoubal in Manipur with a promise to bring peace and harmony in the ethnic violence-hit state.
I think the 'What-if-it-had-been-Patel?' sentiment represents a yearning for more of what we are already seeing around us in India today, observes Aakar Patel.
The only visible hint of the impending election is the hoardings put up by local election authorities, urging citizens to exercise their franchise.
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party suffered stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states, partial poll results showed Tuesday, forcing the party to rely on allies to form the government after a bitter and divisive election that was projected as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity.
