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At 75, will India return to the divisive logic of Partition? Plus six other Sunday reads
At 75, will India embrace the logic of freedom or partition?
For some time now, the Narendra Modi government has attempted to mine the 1947 Partition for political gain. In recent years, it has backed the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens, promising to settle outstanding business from the time British India was divided into two countries.
In this vein, on Saturday, Modi announced that August 14 would be observed as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day. In the Indian Express, Pratap Bhanu Mehta points out that India can today remember August 15, 1947, either as the moment of Partition – trapping Indians in “compulsary identities” – or as the liberation of Independence, which lets Indians define themselves.
More here.
Each state making OBC list will mean a recipe for turmoil
For some decades now, the Other Backwards Classes, who comprise more than half of India’s population, have driven electoral politics in India. In fact, the Bharatiya Janata Party owes its rise greatly to its courting of Hindu OBCs. So it isn’t surprising that the just concluded Monsoon session of Parliament unanimously passed the Constitution (127th Amendment) Bill, 2021, transferring the right to identify OBCs to the states.
However, in The Times of India, Shyam Babu of the Centre for Policy Research objects to…