We tend to think of young men leaving and moving on as something brought on by crisis, by failure. But when we look at the situations that immediately preceded their exit from the old homelands, what we see instead is success.

Once upon a time we hoped to equalise things by having electoral democracy, which was supposed to be a way of ensuring that the few could not exploit the many.

The singularity of its response, as it strains at an invisible leash, is a sign of something bigger, a force outside of human logic. It looks like figureheads, convenient and compliant. Anyone else with independent ideas will be scuttled.

Sam Miller tells these stories with insight and empathy, and cries out against passports and immigration quotas.

The corruption that is off limits to the general public is seen as all right, while the corruption that is only about getting past a brief hurdle for something that should have come to you automatically brings the biggest shame.

Akshya Saxena’s book explains how the language in India, with all its elite trappings, is also ubiquitous and helps make sense of a chaotic world.

Hindi is old. Its bones, and even its flesh, have stayed much the same, because it was already ‘fully grown’ by the 12th century, and adults do not change much once they are mature.

For those yearning for evidence of British colonial racism, reading Ian Sanjay Patel’s 'We’re Here Because You Were There' is like finding the mother lode.

An excerpt from 'Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India through its Languages'.

The most interesting part of Truschke’s book is how the era of the greatest ‘plurality’ of writers’ views coincides with texts beginning to come out not only in Sanskrit, but in vernaculars too.

What explains why some people, especially intellectuals, support others with different interests, and why does this create resentment among people of their own class?

While a government might yearn for approval, it is a huge stretch for it to regard all criticism as ‘anti-national’ activity. It is a desperate cry for immortality in the face of existential threat. It is a sure signal of distress.