In western countries, the notion of democracy evolved out of recognizing the individual rights of liberty. This form of democracy is called ‘liberal democracy’. India has a different past – one which has led to the realization of a ‘collective identity’ which is more prominent than the ‘individual identity’ of its citizens. This has resulted from our collective efforts to gain freedom from the Colonial administration which discriminated against Indians. The demand of equal treatment was always there. Indians resisted the British government by a variety of methods – Constitutional methods as used by the ‘Moderates’, Extremism and Violence as used by the ‘Extremists’ and Non-Violent methods of Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience as used by the ‘masses’. The most successful was the non-violent methods as they were mass movements. It was realized back then that the masses are the strongest force of opposition and the voice of the poor is not inferior or weaker than the rich and t...

We, the people of India, have always been emotional while talking about Kashmir. No matter which state we come from, what is our mother tongue or what religion we follow, Kashmir is a subject that always instigates our patriotic feeling. This is because Kashmir has always been at the focal point of our political discussions since independence, the reason being the unique relationship of J&K with the Indian Union. This relationship has now undergone a drastic change following the presidential assent to two separate bills which have respectively led to the scrapping of the special status to J&K and bifurcating the state into two Union territories – J&K with a legislative assembly and Ladakh without one. There has been a long standing debate in India about the special status of J&K which granted an unparalleled autonomy to the state to the extent that it could have its own constitution and even its own flag. The Kashmiris even had dual identities – they were state s...

In India, a large chunk of students post-matriculation do not give a well balanced thought before choosing their preferred   stream of study for their intermediate. The due thought that is to be given before choosing any subject as the preferred one for further study is absent. It is tempting for someone who is looking from outside and not having any prior knowledge of the prevalent system to think that it is a good sign to conclude that the students are not confused about what to do next. But it is far from being true. Let me backtrack a little bit into the pre-independence scenario to understand the problem in the education sector. Ours was a colonial past. The Britishers had their own agenda and stake in running the country the way they did. They always tried to maximize their output from India which was a huge asset for them. It is said that the industrial revolution in England could not have been possible without the contribution from their most prized colony India. The g...