Let us not waste it on NOTA or in voting for a party that simply cannot spell what is arguably the most magnificent gift that democracy has given us – equality.

The tragedies that rocked India in 1947 dented Gandhi’s belief in the goodness of men and their ability to realise authentic freedom or Swaraj. It is testimony to his courage and his perseverance that he continued to try and restore peace in a troubled land.

A public intellectual can create a new vision that would inspire an India caught up in the pettiness of religious politics, to awaken the consciousness of a supine middle class which has ceased to care about the vulnerable and exploited. This is our crying need today.

The constitution that the people of India gave to themselves was a product of mass struggle, political compromises, idealism and commitment to every citizen. 

Think of the youth's profound disappointment when they realised that the people they had elected to parliament were supremely indifferent to the needs of their own people.

International integration has produced domestic disintegration in many countries. The populist response, including in India, seems to have taken a mostly right-wing form.

Are the people who stood around, watched, clapped, and cheered when Ramesh Bidhuri dishonoured a fellow citizens of this country and his community, not complicit in brutal hate speech that tars an entire community?

It is Bhosle who taught women across many generations to live and live well with a song on their lips, even if the men in their lives let them down.

The Indian constitution institutionalises the ideals of democracy. Left to itself, democracy can go completely haywire. It can be reduced to elections – as it has been in today’s India. Without a constitution, we will never know that there is more to democracy than just elections.

Though he founded the armed wing of the African Nationalist Congress, Mandela adopted a different ideal for tackling historical injustices at the time of his release. He realised that peace and reconciliation were essential preconditions of democracy.

Sujata Massey’s latest whodunit brings back her intrepid Parsi lawyer Parveen Mistry.

Nehru’s notion of the nation can be judged as inclusive and democratic only if we counterpose it to majoritarianism. Knowledge of Savarkar and Hedgewar will contrast the importance of inclusion, and of democracy. So don’t just knock them out.

A divine symbol will not make parliament more democratic. Only a government which is aware that the opposition has also been elected and deserves respect can accomplish that.

When governments do not want, communal riots do not happen. This is the ugly reality of our democracy; human lives are dispensable in the relentless search for power and more power.

Two projects of yoking ancient India to nationalism and national identity have been attempted. One carried the seeds of self-critique within it, the second one, that has Indians in thrall now, refuses to look at the ravages wreaked upon the people by so-called Hindus.

A party without an ideology is a party that is frankly instrumental. It can go this way or that.

Extending reservations to the 'upper castes' who are poor or singly disadvantaged delegitimises the concept of double disadvantage: social marginalisation and economic ill-being.

The informal working class makes the city, but the city has no place for its own makers.