Manmohan Singh: India’s Last Liberal
Former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, who died last week, embodied public decency but also the contradictions of India’s neoliberal turn, which helped fuel today’s Hindu nationalism.
Page 1 of 2 Next
Thomas Crowley is a graduate student in geography at Rutgers University and author of the book Fractured Forest, Quartzite City: A History of Delhi and Its Ridge.
Former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, who died last week, embodied public decency but also the contradictions of India’s neoliberal turn, which helped fuel today’s Hindu nationalism.
The megacorporation Tata has shaped Indian capitalism for 150 years. Despite its best efforts to sustain an image as an ethical company, Tata’s roots in war profiteering and the opium trade, and its sophisticated suppression of worker organizing, is testament to the fact that “ethical capitalism” is only ever a contradiction in terms.
The massive farmer protests in India are facing down a Modi government that has no qualms about using repression to push through its neoliberal agenda. The farmers’ resolve has been remarkable — and they’re providing a glimmer of hope that Modi’s far-right government may not be as invincible as it seemed just months ago.
In India, the transformation of Delhi Ridge from a site of working-class politics to a site of breezy recreation shows how a world-class megacity is made under the spell of neoliberalism. Workers are pushed to the side in order to make way for the affluent.
Workers in India last week launched a general strike that brought out an estimated 250 million people, arguably the largest in human history. Now, they’re joining hands with farmers to protest Narendra Modi’s pro-corporate, far-right agenda.
This week, Donald Trump went to India to sign a new arms deal with the far-right leader Narendra Modi. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the pair remained silent as Hindu nationalists unleashed a wave of violence against Muslims — targeting their homes, businesses, and places of worship.
With the ongoing mass protests to Modi’s anti-Muslim Citizenship Amendment Act, India is at last seeing a real challenge to right-wing Hindu nationalism.
Narendra Modi and Donald Trump’s love fest over the weekend was sickening. It was also a reminder that our fight against the far right must be international.
Modi’s right-wing party is the favorite in the almost-completed Indian elections. But the lack of a unified opposition doesn’t mean left-wing dissent has disappeared.
Last week, millions of workers in India launched a general strike — a dramatic effort to combat Modi’s anti-labor policies.
A new wave of protest suggests that the centuries-old struggle against the caste system in India may be entering a new phase.
An anti-caste, pro-land reform movement in Modi’s home state suggests a way forward for progressive forces in India.
Unrest in India continues to build, but its direction remains uncertain.
Fifty years after her inauguration as India’s first female prime minister, Indira Gandhi still casts a long shadow over the country’s politics.
Amid economic failure and a rising student movement, Indian Prime Minister Modi has turned to outright repression.
It will take worker agitation and a broad front of popular forces to chip away at Modi’s power over Indian politics.
John Oliver is mad at corporations but not capitalism. It’s time he channeled the spirit of Mad Max.
In India, even as prominent left parties falter, radicalism persists.
Under Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s two main tenets are clear: neoliberal orthodoxy and violent Hindu nationalism.
The Indian National Congress won’t be going anywhere — but it’s never been a force for social change.