Tavleen Singh
Tavleen Singh, a leading Columnist associated with The Indian Express. Find all Columns from Tavleen Singh here.
Articles By Tavleen Singh
Fifth column: Anti-Indian music?
In the past four years, these fanatics have been more active than usual because they believe they have a Hindutva government in office.
Fifth Column: Hindutva will not work
Plans have been announced to build a mighty statue of Ram on the edge of the Saryu river. And, pressure is building from the RSS and Hindu religious sects to begin construction on that temple in Ayodhya before next year’s general election.
Real secularism please
In a peculiar way, secularism is safer in the hands of the ‘communal’ BJP.
Fifth Column: How very embarrassing indeed
If the Prime Minister believes that by remaining silent and letting sundry ministers speak on his behalf he remains untouched by the dirt and ruthless grind of politics, he is wrong.
Can MeToo get beyond me
There is much that can be done by MeToo pioneers to improve conditions in the workplace for these most voiceless and vulnerable of India’s working women.
Fifth column: Why I am not MeToo
As someone who has been reviled as ‘anti-women’, may I say that in my reporting days I made it a point to seek out women who had been abused.
Fifth column: Rahul Gandhi helps Narendra Modi again
If I had any doubts that Rahul Gandhi’s advisors spend their time lounging about in the salons of Lutyens Delhi, they disappeared when I heard him speak at last week’s Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
Rajasthani reality
Bad policies for decades give urban Indians hefty subsidies on water supplied to their homes while rural Indians buy it at exorbitant rates from tankers, or drink water the colour of mud from village ponds.
Can the RSS change?
The ugly truth is that the colonisation of India has continued with greater success after the British left, mostly because they left behind a colonised Indian elite. So there is much that the RSS can do if it wants to bring about real change.
Fifth column: In defence of Mallya
Instead of competing to distance themselves from big business our political leaders should explain to the people of India why a company that produced 40 per cent of our copper was forcibly closed by the Tamil Nadu government.
The first lynching
Three years after the murder of Mohammad Akhlaq, there is no remorse in his village. There is a sense of menace.
Fifth Column: A false narrative
The essence of the new narrative is that Modi has ‘destroyed’ the institutions of democracy and that if he gets a second term he will make sure elections are never held again.
Urban Naxals et al
The embodiment of Leftist economic policies is MGNREGA. It supposedly guarantees jobs but is in fact just dole. It may ‘alleviate’ poverty but can never help poor people rise out of poverty. Modi seemed to know this when he first became Prime Minister.
Fifth Column: A goof or a goof up?
If it can be argued that Modi’s chances remain very strong because Rahul is a goof, we must also acknowledge that Rahul has become a serious challenger today entirely because the BJP has taken this goof very, very seriously.
Fifth column: A personal tribute to Atalji
"After the Babri Masjid was demolished I asked him why he did not leave the BJP if he was so unhappy with what had happened. He replied in the words of that famous song, ‘Jaayein, to jaayein kahaan (Where should I go)’."
Fifth column: Truth about the Fourth Estate
The least abusive epithet used for me is that I am a ‘Lootyens’ journalist.
Fifth column: Reviving bad memories
In recent weeks I have heard of tax raids in which there has been open extortion and in which upright citizens have been publicly humiliated.
Fifth Column: Taliban Khan or Imran Khan?
Narendra Modi’s hand of friendship has been as firmly slapped away by the military men next door as Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s was when he famously travelled across the Wagah border in that gilded bus in the winter of 1999.
Fifth column: Back to vote banks
The most powerful vote bank has always been the Muslims and this does not belong to the BJP, so in the past four years they have been punished.
Towards a Hindu Pakistan?
If the BJP does manage to win a second term, the Prime Minister would do well to ask himself why we have violent Hindutva instead of a Hindu renaissance that could make Indians truly proud, writes Tavleen Singh.
