History Archive

Late Sanjay Gandhi was expected to be the political heir of Mrs Indira Gandhi. He was supposed to be the next Congress head and PM candidate after Indira, as Congress had by then already become a family run dynastic enterprise. Such was the influence he wielded over the party, merely on account of being the son of Mrs Indira Gandhi, that surreptitiously sliding into the role of head of Indian Youth Congress, displacing the veteran Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, that nothing would move in the mother organization, without his vetting.

Very little is known or spoken about the actual views and opinions of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s assassin and discussion surrounding him relegated to calling him a monster and a bigot or a Hindu terrorist. In this article, we shall discuss non-violence as preached by Gandhi, from the perspective of Koenraad Elst and his analysis of the courtroom speech of Nathuram Godse on the issue of Gandhian nonviolence.

On October 31, the world’s tallest statue, the Statue of Unity dedicated to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The work on the 182-metre tall statue has been completed after round the clock work by 3,400 labourers and 250 engineers at Sadhu Bet island on Narmada river in Gujarat. Sadhu Bet, located some 3.5 km away from the Narmada Dam, is linked by a 250-metre-long long bridge.

Weeks after India pushed back Chinese troops from the Line of Actual Control along the northern borders, there has been an ongoing debate about the Nehruvian blunders, that has imposed a severe cost on the country and its citizen.

November 12 holds a special significance in the history of India. For this was the day in 1969 when one of India’s most powerful prime ministers, Indira Gandhi, was expelled from her own party on charges of violating the party discipline. 

Nowhere have the contradictions posed by an Islamist solution become more evident than in the case of a South Asian Muslim divorcee who sought support from her husband through the court system. To examine the case of Shah Bano is to call attention to the pivotal yet problematic role of one mode of governance, the judiciary, as it functions in the three major Muslim states of South Asia: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Indira Gandhi was one of the most prominent leaders who led the country. She was known for many things. Indira Gandhi was an astute and shrewd politician who waded her way through the political corridors dominated by males through sheer grit and what some say as ruthlessness. The way she handled foreign policy to the role India played in the Bangladesh liberation war of 1971 under her rule, Indira Gandhi has left an indelible mark on India's post-independence history.

Jesus Christ never said that his Gospel of Love and Care should be spread far and wide around the world  through violent means. Unfortunately, in the early centuries and later when European Imperialism took the world by storm, the guardians of Christian faith considered the followers of other faiths  across the globes were pagans or heretics. They were against idolatry and, in particular, the one prevailing in India.

We have grown up, reading about all the good things about Jawaharlal Nehru. Every 14th November, we offered our tributes to him, year after year! Why Nehru’s birthday is celebrated as Children’s Day across India? Was it because little innocent children referred him as Chacha Nehru? What historians falsely portrayed him as ‘spending his entire life for the welfare of children across India’ has well served its purpose.