Personal View

Our approach to language and education should be pragmatic, not sentimental Alok Tiwari Even as world gets embroiled in increasingly worse wars, we are fighting our own language battles. Language has been an issue in the country’s politics since shortly after independence. Reorganizing the states on linguistic lines may have helped in administrative convenience and social cohesion but it also gave rise to linguistic chauvinism. The states became protective of their linguistic heritage. It was not just the states. India too felt like forging a linguistic identity. This was always going to be problematic in a place that boasts of hundreds of languages and thousands of dialects. Promotion of Hindi by central government felt like an imposition to non-Hindi speaking states, particularly those in the South. Over time, though the linguistic fires cooled as more pressing issues came up. We became more concerned with everyday bread and butter things like agricultural and rural developme...

Only a fair non-proliferation regime can make nations not seek atomic weapons Alok Tiwari It is obvious Israel’s attack on Iran was largely to deflect attention from its growing atrocities in Gaza. The onslaught in Gaza was beginning to cost Israel dearly in terms of support from its mostly western allies. Initial action of Israel against Hamas leadership in Gaza had almost global backing in the aftermath of Hamas’s terrible raid Oct 7, 2023, in Israel that resulted in death of hundreds of Israelis with dozens more taken hostage. Even its action against Hezbollah in Lebanon was tolerated because of support the latter lent to Hamas. But nearly two years on, it is clear Israel’s retaliation has been much more brutal than the original action warranted. It is now targeting mostly civilians. Its aim no longer looks confined to neutralizing Hamas. Instead, it appears to terrify the Gazans into leaving the area permanently. This has not gone unnoticed, particularly in Europe. Under pr...

   Maybe it is time to accept armed struggle is not working. Could a Gandhi be more successful here? This column appeared in Lokmat Times on Nov 1, 2023 Alok Tiwari Critics of Mahatma Gandhi often credit success of his nonviolent movement to ‘gentlemanliness’ of the British. They say it wouldn’t have worked against someone like Hitler who might have had him picked up and sent to gas chambers long before he became a Mahatma. We would never know how it might have turned out. I personally think Gandhi would have run rings around Hitler. It’s the same argument that Palestinian organizations have used to reject his ways. They believe nonviolent struggle would never work against Israel backed by the devious West. Hence, they resorted to an armed struggle to secure the Palestinian state. This was earlier led by Palestine Liberation Organization of Yasser Arafat and is now waged through organizations like Hamas. The movement has gone through several wars, often backed by power...

Tragedies in Bengaluru and Mumbai show how precarious life in India is Alok Tiwari Two recent tragedies defined the unfortunate reality of life in India in general and our cities in particular. First was the stampede during victory celebrations of Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL. It left 11 mostly young people dead and dozens more injured. Days later, passengers fell off as two crowded suburban trains passed each other in Mumbai resulting in death of five. That too left about a dozen people badly hurt. Deaths in these incidents are tragic. What is more tragic is how commonplace such instances are in India. The Bengaluru stampede was just one in long line of such events that occur with disturbing regularity in our country. Just this year more than 60 people have died in stampedes. This includes official death toll of 30 in Mahakumbh in late January though eyewitnesses say the real number of casualties was much higher. A couple of weeks after that there was one at New Delhi rail...

  Our hopes of building a world-class educational industry are wildly misplaced Alok Tiwari American academia, until recently the envy of the world, is in turmoil. Some of the best-known names are being buffeted by political forces unleashed by President Donald Trump. Some, like Columbia University, have caved in. Others, like Harvard, have decided to fight in courts of law and public opinion. All are off balance as to what will happen next. Some in India see this as an opportunity of a lifetime for Indian Universities. Many academics and media commentators have called upon Indian institutions to seize the moment and emerge as global centre of excellence that attracts students from across the world. This, they say, is possible because India itself supplies a significant chunk of students to world’s best universities. By themselves they can constitute a base on which to build on. In addition, given that US is doing everything it can to make life difficult for international...