Celebrated historian (and obviously a Stephenian) Ramachandra Guha, in his article “The shrinking of St. Stephen’s,” in Hindustan Times claims that, ‘the galloping Christianisation of [his] old college has hurt its image badly.’ He emphasizes ‘concern’ over the increasing numbers of Christians in the institute, especially after the Supreme Court’s judgement, that gave St. Stephen’s the right to admit up to 50% students from its founding community – the Christians. This quite surprises me, coming from a respected intellectual. In what follows, I mention few things why Guha’s opinion downplays certain issues at hand.
Tag: Ramchandra Guha
Ramachandra Guha is among Indias’ most visible intellectuals, and his newspaper columns and television appearances mark him off from the more reticent world of academic historians. At 900 pages his new book India after Gandhi is not shy of claiming its own space on the bookshelf: from it’s title page, where it announces itself as “The History of the World’s Largest Democracy” (not A History, mind you, but The History); to it’s end papers, which tells us that the author’s entire career seems in retrospect to have been preparation for the writing of this book.
Azadi From Liberal India?
As of now there are no direct links, and the alliances between the Azadis, in India and in Kashmir. But remarkable and perplexing exchanges are not uncommon in history, and we should not close our eyes to such possibilities beforehand. Kashmiris have demonstrated the ability to patiently out-wait the state, not least of all in this present crisis of the post-370 abrogation. The rhizomatic subterranean diffusion and spread of Azadi into India’s social – slowly navigating across barriers and police pickets, surviving and seeking life – into all different directions, should also be patiently nurtured and allowed to grow for more mature solidarities and struggles to come later in the day. It’s not the responsibility of the oppressed to emancipate their oppressors but somehow Kashmiris might have just given India such a gift. How far India will go with this gift is an open question.
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