“As a person who believes in democracy, it’s disappointing to read from your comments that you are ideologically opposed to western values“.  My heart sank a little as I read this somewhat definitive conclusion about my cultural values, posted by a friend on Facebook. She was responding to an observation I had made in reference to the triumphalist tone and

What is the opposite of a cynic? I have been wondering about this question since I heard the news of David Graeber’s death yesterday. I haven’t quite been able to come up with an answer: believer, idealist, optimist? All of those words capture something of his character, though all of them sound too much like happy accidents of temperament. Put

In 1991 India changed. We opened up. We started becoming part of the global economy. Globalisation finally engulfed us. Slowly some disturbing signs started emerging. In 1996 we at SIDH (“Society for the Integrated Development of the Himalayas”), organized a week long seminar on: “Re-thinking the New Economic Order: Gandhi & Beyond”. It was not a typical seminar in which speakers come, read their papers and often do