Thakazhi Shivasankara Pillai — Three visionaries I don’t know how the rest of India think of Kerala, the narrow strip of land at the West coast of South India and where some of India’s greatest minds had come from. Adi Shankara and Narayana Guru are the two most revered names. As for the rest of…
Category: People
Fabian Socialism
What I learned from Harold Laski? He shaped my political beliefs in my younger days My another favourite writer and thinker was Harold J.Laski (1893-1949). I must have read and re-read almost all his volumes at one time. Now, as I read his biography (Harold Laski: Isaac Kramnick and Barry Sheerman, 1993), I felt inspired…
Hugh Gaitskell : Labour Leader I admired most
When Democractic Socialism was at its best phase Under Gandhi’s influence we can say now that the rest of the nationalist movement was under an unclear mindset about our Independence. We were still made to believe in the benign rule of the British government. It was the emergence of Hitler, we in India too began…
C.S.Ramakrishnan — Conversations On Gandhians, Tagoreans and much else!
On an unexpected day I had a caller in Bangalore. It was C.S. Ramakrihnan (CSR), a long time friend. I have had many friends, big and small and I often wondered whether I have friends in the sense others talk of theirs. I cant say I have childhood friends whom I remember now. Nor my…
Globalisation ended Marxism?
Eric Hobsbawm, the Marxist historian, at the end of his rather elaborate essay on the fall of Communism in 1989 asks the question: Whether or in which of its forms, Marxism, the intellectual justification and inspiration of communism, would continue remainsa matter of debate. Clearly, if Marx would live on as a major thinker, which…
Remembering Mulk Raj Anand
December marks the hundreth year of the birth of Mulk Raj Anand who lived to a ripe age of nearly 99 years. And who in his life time strode the Indian arts stage, literally like a colossus! I had the good fortune to come into contact with this multi-faceted great Indian who inspired countless fellow…
National traits, attitudes and character
A series of scandals ! Yet Indians deny themselves all truths! What about the special Indian traits? Our attitudes? Our character? Why we don’t talk so much about our Indian weakness for double talk and double standards? Each nation and culture has its own special raits, attitudes and character. US President George Bush talks and…
My Oxford day intellectuals and scholars
I have written elsewhere, some time ago, about the number of persons who influenced my thought and also the way I think about issues. Those whom I didn’t not know personally but whose books influenced me form one set of such persons. These range from poets to philosophers, journalists, men like Boris Pasternak and other…