'Nehru's inability to take religion seriously as a category led to serious errors of judgement in his dealings with the Muslim League, and later, also with the Hindu right.'
By the looks of it, the Congress cannot hope to return to power even in election 2024. What it can do is to start from the bottom, hold organisational elections, which are honest, and co-opt those elected to form teams of office-bearers at all levels, right up to the working committee. By the very nature of the elections that they are going to lose, the party should use the interim to shore up youth power, or whatever remains, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A new Congress leader may make an electoral impact by his very presence. Congress voters who had moved away from the party, after being influenced by the BJP's 'family rule' campaign, can now return with a certain moral satisfaction, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The ideal thing that should be done in Kashmir is call for an election -- before the end of the year.'
'If Modi wants to help the poor and get the credit for it as well, he must do what China does. He must openly adopt pro-capital policies.'
'The biggest danger is that majoritarianism is getting normalised, insidiously and overtly... We are bringing the worst, not the best in us... We are looking for new enemies - Muslims, urban Naxals, tukde tukde gang, some enemy or the other which keeps this majoritarian wheel turning,' says journalist Rajdeep Sardesai.
President Kovind offered his condolences to Kumar's family and said his demise marks the end of an era of Indian cinema.
A day after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley criticised Nehruvian model of development, saying it had held the country back, Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday termed Jammu and Kashmir a glaring example of the "failure" of Nehru's political model.
I have always believed that the Nehruvian vision of giving a separate status to Jammu and Kashmir was a flawed one, says BJP's Arun Jaitley.
There are justifiable concerns that, if all financial allocation powers are now shifted to the finance ministry, then the end of the Commission might be counter-productive -- states' needs could, in fact, be addressed less.
'I am as Bengali as they come in my cultural and personal orientation and I think probably all the BJP candidates who are contesting are pretty non-vegetarian in their food and as Bengali in their cultural orientation.'
'Like in cricket, M S Dhoni was the captain and Virat Kohli played under him.' 'Then Dhoni played under Kohli.' 'Now imagine, having a second switch.' 'That is the analogy here, and I find no other example in Indian politics, or even world politics.'
If the BJP wins by getting Hindu voters to consolidate, its opponents can't beat it by bundling together the Muslims and some of the 'others', observes Shekhar Gupta.
Sharma had on Monday slammed Congress' association with the ISF led by Muslim cleric Abbas Siddiqui in West Bengal, contending that it was against the "Gandhian and Nehruvian secularism" and the party cannot be selective in fighting "communalists".
'Mamata wanted the Congress in alliance with the BJP in Bengal against the Left Front government.' 'Pranab Mukherjee opposed it, stating it would amount to compromising on secularism.' 'In 2021, Mamata defeats the BJP and becomes a champion of secularism.'
'To consider BRICS anything more than a temporary club with some common interests would be folly. The goal should be to induce others (Japan, ASEAN, South Africa) to align with us -- a non-threatening, democratic nation, rather than with malevolent China or waning America. For us to consider aligning with either China or the US would be absurd. India is just too big to be a sidekick,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
10 per cent for those who earn up to Rs 30 lakh a year and 25 per cent for those who earn more, suggests T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday condoled the death of Indian cinema icon Dilip Kumar, saying he can never forget his generosity in helping to raise funds for a trust to set up cancer hospitals in his mother's memory.
If an elected government had been sworn in, Jung's tenure and the government would have been more or less co-terminus and Jung would have been just the ceremonial head of Delhi. Now, he will run Delhi, pending another round of assembly elections, says Aditi Phadnis
'Earlier India as part of the Third World fought for the rights of the Palestinians. But oddly the defeat of the Congress and the decline of the Nehruvian imagination has altered such perceptions. The new middle class expresses an open sympathy for Israel, contending that Jews like many Hindus has been misunderstood,' says Shiv Visvanathan.
The electoral bounty reaped by the Congress was nothing more than an ill-gotten gain of a casteist, divisive campaign; nothing to be proud of and certainly not a moral victory, argues Vivek Gumaste.
'If the Congress party wants to take on the BJP it cannot do it in this fuddy-duddy, grand old party, style.'
Is anyone in the BJP listening -- to what Nitin Gadkari had to say, but possibly left unsaid? asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
'There is good indication that the economy is bouncing back, but the problem is, we should look at the eight quarters preceding March 2020.' 'The growth had fallen below 3.1% before March 2020.' 'So, the governments must realise that even if you transform the best of green shoots into banyan trees, you see only 3.1% growth.'
'We should give azaadi to Jammu and Ladakh from the domination of Kashmir valley politics,' suggests Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Amid a raging debate over intolerance, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday deplored "blatant violation" of the right to freedom of thought by "some violent extremist groups" and shared the view that it was an "assault on the nation".
'We cannot ignore the role of public institutions in driving development... I don't see much focus on institutional renewal.'
The court case in India against Wendy Doniger's book The Hindus was in a way initiated in Atlanta, Georgia, by a group of Indian-American businessmen including Dhiru Shah, who have been fighting against several controversial books on Hinduism by Western thinkers and professors in recent years.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday stepped into the raging debate on intolerance by condemning the murders of dissenters and some on the basis of what they eat and said the nation is deeply concerned at the "blatant violation" of the right to freedom of thought, belief and speech by some violent extremist groups.
Kapil Mishra had been invited because he was an "anti-corruption crusader", one 'IIT B for Bharat' organiser said. But in his half hour-long speech, Mishra didn't mention corruption. His entire focus was on the long "battle" Hindus had fought for their identity.
'The BJP is the most progressive force within Hinduism today.'
'The government wants foreign companies to capture the insurance market.'
'KRN's journey from a humble cottage in Uzhavoor to Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi was no less spectacular than that of Abraham Lincoln from the log cabin to the White House'.
The Union government has no 'Buy India' policy, but has a 'Buy Air India' policy.
'Modi, focused on youth and their aspirations, has articulated a truly disruptive change: One of hope, of duties rather than rights, of standing up to the world instead of being bullied by it,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'The new generation voter is hyper-nationalistic, but it isn't essentially illiberal.' 'They will find the rants of Adityanath as laughable as Irfan Habib's. They will also find the BJP's polarising approach to vote-gathering unacceptable if it fails to deliver jobs and growth,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Certainly if Advani had agreed to Vajpayee in sacking Modi, then we would never have been talking of Modi today.'
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.
