Salil Tripathi
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Articles by Salil Tripathi
Bangladesh history: How Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, chosen with overwhelming popular mandate, lost trust
In 1973, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman gave a speech at Paltan Bazar where he talked about smuggling. He asked people to catch smugglers and he said he would deal with them. But the audience was sceptical and dismayed – leading Awami politicians were known to be smugglers and Mujib was fast losing credibility. Realising this, in an attempt to capitalise on his popularity, Mujib held nationwide elections in 1973. The Awami League did spectacularly well, winning 282 of the 289 directly contested seats.
Bangladesh history: How Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, chosen with overwhelming popular mandate, lost trust
An excerpt from the revised edition of ‘The Land of Monsoons and Martyrs: A New History of Bangladesh’, by Salil Tripathi. In 1973, Sheikh Mujibur …
Why a Hunger Strike Is Rallying India’s Youth
On July 18, the award-winning Indian activist Sonam Wangchuk was picked up by the Delhi Police and taken to a state-run hospital against his will 20 days into a hunger strike. His fast is aimed at demanding accountability from the government after medical school entrance exam papers were leaked in May—supporting a nascent movement of young Indians fed up with unfairness in India’s hypercompetitive education system and high unemployment.
The Art of War: How artists and writers battle with censorship in times of conflict
War is brutal. During conflicts there is little time for art. Museums and theatres are flattened by bombs, a trend we have been covering in Index for some years now. On the ground, people often have more pressing concerns like finding food or repelling the enemy. But war can also inspire the most incredible artistic endeavour, as painters and poets are forced to look again at a fragile world and bear witness to the atrocities that warring parties would rather keep hidden.
Bangladesh's free press under fire
The Bangladeshi army stands guard at the Prothom Alo daily newspaper offices which were set ablaze during protests. Photo: AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu/Alamy This article first appeared in the Spring 2026 issue of Index on Censorship, The monster unleashed: How Hungary’s illiberal vision is seducing the Western world published on 2 April 2026. Smoke rose from two buildings late in the Dhaka night, thick and bitter, flames leaping through the shattered windows and gutting newsrooms.
From the India Today archives (1990) | Madhuri Dixit: Lonely at the top
Salil Tripathi (NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated August 31, 1990) It is a scene seldom seen in Hindi films. The love-smitten heroine sends her friend to tell the hero she'd like to meet him. The hero, surrounded by his chamchas, spurns her. But instead of breaking into a tearful song, the doe-eyed Madhu strides towards Raja and plants a kiss on his lips, taming him forever.
Regulate Companies, Not Children
Photo by Shutter Speed on Unsplash In late March 2026, two juries in the United States delivered what many parents, child rights advocates, lawyers, human rights experts, and politicians had long been demanding: accountability from social media platforms.
World Cup Shows How India's Dominance Reshaped Cricket
Foreign & Public Diplomacy Economics India Last month, India effortlessly outplayed Pakistan in a group stage match at a neutral venue for the T20 World Cup, which is being co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka. The match almost didn’t happen. The India-Pakistan rivalry, long intense, has worsened significantly in recent years—both in the world and on the cricket pitch.
How India’s Dominance Reshaped Cricket
10 hours ago Playing at home, India will be favourites to enter the final but England could halt their march in Mumbai on Thursday. Who: India vs England What: ICC Men’s 2026 T20 World Cup semifinal Where: Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, India When: Thursday, March 5, 7pm (13:30 GMT) How to follow: Al Jazeera’s live …
Bangladesh: A Laboratory of Paradox
Bangladesh has always been a laboratory of paradox. It must, however, turn away from the retributive politics of the past and build a future in which its industrious, talented, and skilled people receive the governance they deserve. A pale mist hung over Dhaka, which glowed in winter light. I did not need a sweater or heavy jacket, but a waistcoat did fine. The traffic was worse when I was here in 2017, and the rickshaws were colourful as ever.
After a historic vote, can Bangladeshis rise to the occasion? - Salil Tripathi
On a day that will be long remembered, Bangladesh’s interim leader, the 85-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, stepped down Monday after handing power to an elected government.
Kamal Maula Mosque at MP's Bhojshala built using parts of ancient temples, says Archaeological Survey of India
News Legal News Kamal Maula Mosque at MP's Bhojshala built using parts of ancient temples, says Archaeological Survey of India INDORE: Archaeological Survey of India has concluded that the Kamal Maula Mosque at Bhojshala complex in MP’s Dhar was constructed using parts of ancient temples, “based on scientific investigations, survey and excavation, study and analysis of retrieved finds, study of architectural remains, inscriptions, art and sculptures”.The existing structure was built centuries...
After a historic vote, can Bangladeshis rise to the occasion?
On a day that will be long remembered, Bangladesh’s interim leader, the 85-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, stepped down Monday after handing power to an elected government.
As Bangladesh Votes, Few Women Are on the Ballot
As Bangladesh Votes, Few Women Are on the Ballot Parties failed to meet a modest commitment to field more female candidates, despite the leading role of women in the 2024 protest movement. Last …
Few Women Are on the Ballot in Bangladesh's Election
Last month, as I walked from the stately offices of the International Crimes Tribunal at Dhaka’s Old High Court building to the Shilpakala Academy, I passed a raucous procession cheering a candidate for Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist party. It was striking: The party, which opposed Bangladesh’s independence decades ago, hopes to make its strongest-ever showing in the country’s elections on Feb. 12.
Who is cricket’s Shohei Ohtani?
After another banner year in which he hit 55 home runs, stole 20 bases and his pitching arm helped the Dodgers win back-to-back World Series, superman Shohei Ohtani has cemented his reputation as baseball’s greatest all-around player. But as a lifelong cricket fan — some would say fanatic — I can’t help asking: Who is cricket’s Shohei Ohtani? In other words, who is the greatest all-rounder in cricket’s 400-year history?
History is being written by the AI victors
Right: In a century, who is to say this faked meeting between Gandhi and Michael Jackson never happened? AI photo generated by Jyo John Mulloor This article first appeared in Volume 54, Issue 3 of our print edition of Index on Censorship, titled Truth, trust and tricksters: Free expression in the age of AI, published on 30 September 2025. Read more about the issue here. We are right to be concerned about what artificial intelligence is doing to our present and what it might do to our future.
History is being written by the AI victors
Erasing inconvenient truths isn’t new but technology is making it so much easier, writes SALIL TRIPATHI WE ARE RIGHT to be concerned about what artificial intelligence is doing to our present and what it might do to our future. But I am more worried about what it can do to our past. Access to archives is becoming harder. Manuscripts are fragile, and verifying historical evidence contradicting established narratives is time-consuming.
The response of the US Administration, including the State Department and a few politicians, to Norway's Government Pension Fund Global's decision to sell shares in Caterpillar, is amusing. Since… | Salil Tripathi
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Between speech and silence, justice can only emerge when it is allowed to speak
The central tenet of human rights law is that all rights are universal, indivisible, interlinked, and inalienable. They are complimentary, with the implicit assertion that the fulfilment of one right does not mean infringement of another right. That sounds fine in principle, but once we begin to examine it, we uncover dilemmas and challenges, and discover that we are caught between Scylla and Charybdis – where protection from one harm greatly increases another harm.
How Modi Misread Trump Original
Few leaders are as good at marketing themselves as India’s Narendra Modi. Since his election as Prime Minister in 2014, he has projected himself as the builder of a stronger and more assertive India, claimed credit for its robust economic growth, and has blamed his predecessors when things went wrong. A generation of voters believe India’s growing stature on the world stage is because of him.
How Modi Misread Trump
After Trump’s 50% Tariff, Amazon, Target, Walmart, Halt Order From India; Internet Says ‘Warning Bell For Jobs’ Donald Trump’s 50% tariff slapped on Indian exports is already bleeding businesses. Some of the bigwig retailers, including Amazon, Gap Inc., Target, and Walmart, among others, have halted orders, creating paranoia. Indian exporters associated with these retailers have received emails directing them …
Bangladesh: One Year Since Sheikh Hasina Ouster, Democracy Hasn't Arrived
Politics Human Rights On Aug. 5, 2024, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, facing massive protests against her government, fled the capital of Dhaka for India, where she remains in exile. She faces serious charges in Bangladesh, including crimes against humanity, corruption, and contempt of court. The country’s interim government has sought her extradition and revoked her passport; India, which considered Hasina an ally, has not responded to Bangladesh’s request.
Goodness Gracious Me in the age of Trump
SALIL TRIPATHI reimagines the classic British comedy sketch show as if it were written in 2025 Early draft of a scene from a forthcoming episode of Goodness Gracious Me, with apologies to Sanjeev Bhaskar and Meera Syal. “Why you want to go America when it is India only?” Location: a well-appointed apartment in Gurugram, formerly known as Gurgaon, near India’s capital, New Delhi. The ornate sofas have tight-fitting plastic covers.
Why Singapore’s Ruling Party Won Yet Again
Politics Elections Economics In the end, it was not even close. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s People’s Action Party (PAP), which has ruled Singapore uninterrupted since 1959, improved its vote share by more than 4 percentage points to 65.57 percent, securing victory in a landslide. The PAP maintained its near-total dominance in Parliament, winning 87 of 97 seats, including five of them uncontested. In several constituencies, it secured more than three-quarters of votes polled.
When Vegetarians Become Vigilantes
End your day with an easy meatless meal by trying these dishes! Each of these vegetarian recipes takes no more than 30 minutes to make, so you’ll …
Gujaratis' Dietary Rules Spawn Vegetarian Fascism in Modi's India
Sometime in 2014, the Indian writer V. Gangadhar was at the crowded Kuwait Airways counter at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, annoyed that his flight to Mumbai was canceled. Tempers were short. Gangadhar was tired and diabetic. His wife was anxious. He needed to eat, but the cafe was some distance away. Suddenly, a woman turned up and offered him masala puri, chutneys, and biscuits. She was Gujarati. “I heard you talking,” she said. “We have diabetics in our family,” and smiled.
Forbidden words - Salil Tripathi, 2025
The ban on Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses has been lifted in India after nearly four decades, but its absence from bookshelves continues, writes SALIL TRIPATHI WRITERS FROM AROUND the world head for India each winter, criss-crossing the vast country to participate in dozens of literature festivals. Each festival has a bookshop, where writers are invited to sign their books.
A Portrait of a Community' By Salil Tripathi
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Adani, Modi & Gujarat's journey from 'vibrant to flagrant, blatant, belligerent, and strident'
1 hour ago Ranveer Allahbadia is in trouble because of what he said on Samay Raina’s India’s Got Latent, with several police complaints filed against him. Now, other comedians are talking about it too. Some are making videos to show they support him, while others are using the situation to create new comedy …
Adani, Modi & Gujarat's journey from 'vibrant to flagrant, blatant, belligerent, and strident'
His rank fell steeply in early 2023, after the meltdown of his stock price following the critical Hindenburg report. The $25 billion group has interests in coal, infrastructure projects, commodities, media, telecom, and real estate. Its turnover represents 0.7 per cent of India’s gross domestic product, and its profit in 2022 was $1.8 billion. In 2018, when India awarded 126 contracts for operating piped natural gas networks, the Adani group secured twenty-five bids.
Salil Tripathi
Salil Tripathi is an award-winning journalist and has written three works of non-fiction
Book Excerpt: Of Gujarat, Kachchh and pastoral nomads of the western desert
In an essay in the magazine Seminar, Charul Bharwada and Vinay Mahajan write: ‘Be it the national highway or inner roads, forests or fields, villages or cities, the sight of a well-built, tall man holding a long wooden stick, a water pot hanging from his shoulders and a small cotton bag tucked in his dhoti moving with a herd of sheep, goat, camels or cattle is not unusual in Gujarat.
The Unmaking of the World's Largest Democracy
The New India: The Unmaking of the World’s Largest Democracy by Rahul Bhatia When Narendra Modi led the Bharatiya Janata party to victory in 2014 – the first Indian election in 30 years in which a single party secured a majority – many in India pinned their hopes on him. He had promised to usher in development, citing his performance in Gujarat, where he had been chief minister for just over a decade.
This book on Gujaratis is like a sumptuous ‘thaali’…
The Gujaratis: A Portrait of a Community By Salil Tripathi Aleph Books, 744 pages, Rs 1,499 “As the language of Gandhi, Gujarati has a claim to our interest,” writes George Cardona, a world renowned linguist and a Panini expert, in his 1965 reference grammar of this language. It has been the fate of this language to get introduced as the mother tongue of some or the other influential figure. In the previous century, it was usually Mahatma Gandhi and also Sardar Patel.
HT Syndication: The rise and fall of Indians in the US
Posted On: 2025-01-18 Posted By: Salil Tripathi Health & Lifestyle Education Employment Technology Cities Real Estate & Construction International MINT New Delhi, Jan. 18 -- When Christopher Columbus set sail from Europe and turned up on the American continent, he was in fact trying to reach India. Native Americans came to be called Indians, and the continent got populated by people from Europe.
The rise and fall of Indians in the US
In Indian Genius: The Meteoric Rise of Indians in America, Meenakshi Ahamed, a US-based journalist and writer who has worked at the World Bank, offers a fascinating account of the early history of Indians who came to the US. The earliest to arrive in significant numbers were in the 19th century, when Punjabi farmers came to work on farms and build railroads. Some of them claimed citizenship as “Aryans", but the US judiciary frustrated their attempts.
Bangladeshi and British politics collided to bring down Tulip Siddiq
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Bangladeshi and British politics collided to bring down Tulip Siddiq
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A force for good
Music has long been used in Bangladesh as a form of liberation and a means for expressing national identity, writes SALIL TRIPATHI IN 1905, LORD Curzon, the British viceroy in India, decided to divide the province of Bengal into two - East and West. What seemed like an administrative decision had a profoundly political implication. It tore apart a land united by language into two segments - one predominantly Muslim, the other predominantly Hindu. The move was immensely unpopular.
Meet the Gujarati women writers who wrote innovative fiction, memoirs, and poetry
But what about our women? Gujarat has the dubious honour of having the highest school dropout rate for girls in India, in contrast, Kerala has the lowest dropout rate for girls. Kerala is a state Gujaratis love to ridicule because it is frequently ruled by communists and many Malayalis work abroad, conveniently ignoring that so do Gujaratis. Among 16-year-olds, only 29 per cent of girls attend schools in Gujarat, while in Kerala the figure is 93.6 per cent.
The Gujaratis: A Portrait of a Community
Gujaratis are an uncommonly industrious and resourceful people. In India alone, there are some 55 million people who consider Gujarati to be their mother tongue, and possibly 6 million more of them abroad, on every continent, if not in every country. They are known for their entrepreneurial spirit, and their love of business and the profitable deal. After all, paiso bole chhe—money talks.
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In my days as a reporter, I covered two air crashes: both in the late 1980s, both for India Today -- one was in Ahmedabad (I went on the relief aircraft), the other in Bangalore (which I reported on from Bombay). 1/4 A few things I learned: 1. The kindness, care, and concern that the people who lived in shantytowns around the airport showed, to help with relief efforts. Their selfless help was exemplary.
Be nice, or you’re not coming in
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is greeted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he arrives at the Presidential Palace in New Delhi, India, Friday, Feb. 23, 2018. Photo: credit: Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP/Alamy This article was first published in the Spring 2024 issue of Index on Censorship.
Scriptures over science
SALIL TRIPATHI looks at how science in India is being distorted to fit the prime minister’s populist agenda IN 5 SEPTEMBER 2014, within months of his election as India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi addressed high school students. It was India’s annual National Teachers’ Day. When an earnest student asked Modi about the climate crisis, he first made some paternalistic comments about children being so clever these days. Then he added that the climate was not changing, we were changing.
Will Bangladesh Turn Islamist?
This summer country-wide student protests led to an uprising that toppled the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed and her secular nationalist Awami League political party. Militant Islamist groups have taken advantage of the turmoil to target minority Hindus (and Christians) in Bangladesh. But apopleptic predictions are uncalled for. A better understanding of the country is required in order to gauge the relative strength of the Islamists and other groups.
Salman Rushdie’s New Memoir Reflects on “Satanic Verses” Attack
United States India It was more than 33 years after the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa, or Islamic legal ruling, condemning Salman Rushdie to death when the novelist was attacked by a deluded man. This man had not read the novel The Satanic Verses, which had so offended the ayatollah and prompted the fatwa.
When the original is better than the remake
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When the original is better than the remake
SALIL TRIPATHI says even Bollywood is being captured by a Hindu nationalist narrative IN A FILM with a convoluted, improbable plot of the kind only Bollywood directors are capable of, the 1977 Hindi blockbuster Amar Akbar Anthony told the story of three brothers, separated at birth. In the film, a wealthy man kills someone by mistake and asks his driver to take the rap, promising that his children will be looked after. When he is released from jail, the driver finds his family starving.
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