Scenarios, indicators, and what to watch The limits of prophecy In the early 2000s, the psychologist Philip Tetlock published the results of a long experiment. Over two decades, he had collected more than 28,000 predictions from hundreds of experts on politics and economics, and then checked them against what actually happened. On long-range political questions,
The Cockroach Republic — Part 6: 2026–2029 Read Post »
The movement at a crossroads Five months later On October 16, 2026, Abhijeet Dipke was detained and then arrested on his way to a march called Lehra Do Tiranga, wave the tricolour, in central Delhi. The next day he was granted conditional bail; under its terms, he must ensure that there is no breach of
The Cockroach Republic — Part 5: Can the Cockroach Survive Its Success? Read Post »
Identity, masculinity, and the right wing after the cockroach A cockroach among Ravan’s kin This Dussehra, at the Keshav Ramlila grounds in Delhi’s Pitampura, a fourth figure will stand beside the familiar effigies of Ravan, his brother Kumbhkaran and his son Meghnad: a cockroach, thirty feet tall. The organising committee, headed by the BJP legislator
The Cockroach Republic — Part 4: The Battle for the Young Hindu Read Post »
How the ruling party responded, and what its response reveals The government that did not resign In 2015, as opposition parties demanded cabinet resignations over two scandals, the then home minister, Rajnath Singh, drew a line between the new government and the coalition that had preceded it: ministers, he said, do not resign here. The
The Cockroach Republic — Part 3: The Strongman’s Dilemma Read Post »
Humour, the feminine, and the oldest grammar of Indian resistance The barricade at Patel Chowk On July 20, 2026, the day Parliament opened its monsoon session, thousands of young people set out from Jantar Mantar towards the Parliament building. They were demanding the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, over the leak that had
The Cockroach Republic — Part 2: Laughter as a Weapon Read Post »
Why millions of young Indians became cockroaches in a week A week in May On May 15, 2026, during a hearing about fake educational degrees, the Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant, reached for an image of contempt. As widely reported, he likened young people who fail to find a place in the profession, and
The Cockroach Republic — Part 1: The Insult That Named a Generation Read Post »
How a loaded memory met a generation in crisis, 1991–2026. Why 2014, Not 2004 On 16 May 2014, the votes of India’s general election were counted, and the Bharatiya Janata Party won 282 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha: the first single-party majority in thirty years, and the first ever for a party
The Wounded Civilization — Part 4: The Crystallization Read Post »
How the Indian republic carried the wound, 1947–2008. Three Shots at Birla House On the evening of 30 January 1948, Mahatma Gandhi walked out to his daily prayer meeting in the garden of Birla House in Delhi. A man stepped from the crowd, bowed to him, and fired three shots at close range. Gandhi died
The Wounded Civilization — Part 3: The Inheritance Read Post »
How British rule wrote, counted and divided India’s memory, 1757–1947. The Insult of Eight Hundred Years In late 1842, the Governor-General of India, Lord Ellenborough, issued a proclamation to the princes and chiefs of India. A British army, retreating from a disastrous war in Afghanistan, was bringing home a pair of gates taken from the
The Wounded Civilization — Part 2: The Narrators Read Post »
Seven centuries of Islamic rule, and how a civilization remembered them. The Question This Series Asks In June 2014, in his first speech to the newly elected Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of a “slave mentality of 1,200 years” that was still troubling India. The number deserves a second look. British rule lasted,
The Wounded Civilization — Part 1: The Soil and the Encounter Read Post »
