Indian Currents

Dear Shri Harish Salve Ji, I usually do not watch television interviews, except when the interviewer is Karan Thapar, a habit I developed when he made his debut producing a weekly bulletin for the Hindustan Times, where I too worked. What prompted me to watch the interview you gave Arnab Goswami of Republic TV was a video clip from it that a friend sent me. I was shocked by some of your observations and decided to watch the full interview on YouTube. I was testing my own patience.

The politics of labelling certain groups or ideologies to demarcate them is emerging day by day from responsible individuals to particular groups. The most recent example is the expression "dimagi Naxal," literally "intellectual" or "mind-based Naxalite," which was used by the Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address to the nation on August 15, 2026.

It is heart-warming that the Catholic Church in India will observe August 23 as 'Justice Sunday.' The theme is 'Justice Begins with Us' (Is 1:17). In a communique dated July 22, 2026, the Chairman of the CBCI Office for Justice, Peace & Development, Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore, writes that the prophet Isaiah reminds us that true worship of God is inseparable from the practice of Justice.

In the Biblical classical underdog story of David and Goliath in the first Book of Samuel, chapter 17, the diminutive young shepherd David faces the nine-foot-tall, bronze-armoured Goliath, the head of the Philistine army. With a slingshot, David fells Goliath. A great feat for a shepherd boy. The story is evidently meant to show that the wandering Israelites defeated the Philistines and occupied their territory as if it were the will of their God against alien people.

Bruises Without a Country Sanatan borders bruised me In caste societies. Left Ideologies crushed me In European societies. Sharia societies Erased my skin. The Face I Never Showed When I called you from Dimapur, You asked me, "What have you seen in me?" I did not recognise your mask until You attacked me with iron rods, With words and humiliation, With insults and violence.

There is no better illustration of the state of accountability in India today than the absence of a one-line answer to a simple question: who ordered the firing of pellet guns on protesting students? Students protesting in the national capital were fired upon by the Rapid Action Force (RAF) with pellet guns — weapons ordinarily associated with riot control in militancy-affected areas such as Jammu and Kashmir.

Widening restlessness It came as a big surprise, for many a big shock, when they heard that 60,000 Moroccans had crossed their country's borders and swam across to Ceuta Island that belongs to Spain. If accepted there, they could look for fortune anywhere in Europe. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was totally taken aback. Trump said the Spanish crisis was a warning for the US; that this was exactly what he had feared for his nation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is known for coining new political terminologies, particularly for his opponents and critics.

There is a frightening moment in choral singing when the entire choir begins to lose pitch. Nobody notices it at first. The sopranos are singing confidently. The altos are following the sopranos. The tenors are following the altos. And basses, being naturally humble people, are following everybody while looking as if everybody is following us. The strange thing is that we all sound correct to one another. We are united. We are disciplined. We are singing the same song.

The politics of labelling is not uniquely Indian. Across time and space, governments and political movements have employed the tactic of naming their opponents that carry an immediate stigma. Once a person has been named an "enemy," "traitor," "extremist," or "anti-national," any logical argument becomes secondary. The label does the heavy lifting. This is particularly visible in the present global resurgence of populist and authoritarian politics.