Tag Archives: Institutions

Capitalism, Culture, Debates, Left watch, Right watch

Red Dreams, Saffron Marches – Longue Durée of India’s Struggles and Strategies of Power: S. M. Faizan Ahmed

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Guest post by S.M. FAIZAN AHMED

[The author writes about the current scenario, reflecting on the one hundred years of the communist movement as well as of the RSS. In these important reflections Ahmed recounts the great achievements of the communist Left, while at the same time speculating on where the RSS scored over it – leaving us with a number of questions to seriously ponder about. – AN]

Image courtesy Liberation

On October 1, 2025, a day before Gandhi’s birth anniversary, long revered and associated with ahimsa and moral conscience, the government unveiled a ₹100 coin at the Dr. Ambedkar International Centre, 15 Janpath, marking a century of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. A day earlier, as if to turn ideology into spectacle,  a Shakha parade, named Path Sanchalan, traced its way through Jawaharlal Nehru University—once a fortress of dissent and the audacious poetry of thought. The rhythmic march of uniformed bodies through corridors once alive with debate did more than display ceremony; it signaled a shift in the republic’s moral conscience, where the choreography of discipline seeks to mute the dialectic of doubt, and the university—once a sanctuary of questioning minds—becomes a stage for the theatre of obedience. Continue reading Red Dreams, Saffron Marches – Longue Durée of India’s Struggles and Strategies of Power: S. M. Faizan Ahmed →

Debates, Law, Politics, Right watch

Some Reflections on the neutrality of political institutions and the project of making Modi more palatable: Moiz Tundawala

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Guest Post by MOIZ TUNDAWALA

“ … . however good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However bad a Constitution may be, it may turn out to be good if those who are called to work it, happen to be a good lot. The working of a Constitution does not depend wholly upon the nature of the Constitution. The Constitution can provide only the organs of State such as the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The factors on which the working of those organs of the State depend are the people and the political parties they will set up as their instruments to carry out their wishes and their politics.”

[Dr. Bhimrao Amdedkar]

These observations of Babasaheb Ambedkar, made on the 25th of November, 1949, one day before the Constitution was finally adopted after three years worth of labour, should suffice for anyone who dismisses Modi skeptics as excessive scare mongers. As a second year law student in 2006-07, I couldn’t quite understand why our revered constitutional law teacher Prof. M.P. Singh would keep reiterating these sentiments in class, something which I thought was so axiomatic it did not need emphases. With only a few days left for the outcome of what is being called an election for the soul of India, I now realize the wisdom underlying those constant reminders, especially in a law school converted by the culture and priorities of its students into a factory churning out smart but unreflective products for the corporate sector. I think those of us who find Modi problematic, but would still vote him in for the lure of the promised economic miracle, while at the same time consoling ourselves with the talk of sufficiently robust political institutions capable of surviving any onslaught, must listen to Ambedkar carefully. The Constitution is an artefact, a human creation, constantly needing ‘good people’ at the helm to work it out. If nothing else, resistance to Modi’s rise to power is at least resistance against the enthronement of ‘bad people’, who deep down have only harboured contempt for the Constitution as a foreign document.

Continue reading Some Reflections on the neutrality of political institutions and the project of making Modi more palatable: Moiz Tundawala →