India

How India’s crackdown on NGOs is serving Hindu nationalism

Over the past decade, the Indian government has systematically cracked down on dissenting, secular, and minority non-governmental organizations (NGOs) by limiting their access to funding. Organizations have been forced to shut down or severely limit their advocacy and community work. The gap that these organizations leave behind in communities is filled with exclusivist volunteer groups, which promote the government’s Hindu-nationalist (Hindutva) ideology. It appears that the crackdown on organizations is not only aimed at silencing critics, but it is also polarizing communitie

The Final Straw: How a cyclone created a revolution in Bangladesh

The birth of Bangladesh as an independent nation-state in 1971 was a remarkable moment in modern history. It was remarkable not only for its people’s lengthy fight for freedom but also because of the role history. It was remarkable not only for its people’s lengthy fight for freedom but also because of the role of the Bhola cyclone, an unforeseen natural disaster that accelerated Bangladesh’s separation from the rest of Pakistan. Yet the cyclone – and how it affected local, regional and global politics – has only received limited attention by the historians.

Ethnic cleansing and genocidal massacres 65 years ago by Ishtiaq Ahmed

One of the completest cases of ethnic cleansing – that entailed the murder of 500,000-800,000 Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs – took place in 1947 in the Punjab Province of British India. Until now very little research had been conducted on it though in Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi literature the horrors of the partition have figured […]

Incredible India Designs by Ravinder Kaur

In 2002, the government of India embarked upon a highly ambitious image campaign to create a new brand identity for the nation. The idea was to transform India into “a global brand, with worldwide brand recognition and strong brand equity” that will bring high end tourists and investors to the country. But how does one […]

At the High Table

by Stig Toft Madsen, NIAS On April 19th India test-fired a long-range ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear bomb. With a range stated to be more than 3.100 miles, the missile would be able to reach not only large Chinese cities beyond the Tibetan plateau.  It could reach even further. The distance from say […]

A Dane in distress

By Stig Toft Madsen Research Associate, NIAS-Nordic Institute of Asian Studies The Purulia Arms drop in 1995 was a rare example of a private team of white criminals delivering weapons to an oppositional group in India. The main organizer of the arms drop was a Dane inter alia named Niels Holck. This blog discusses various […]

Thinking about co-creation

Not so long ago I was making a journey from Copenhagen to Bangalore, in India. I boarded a fully booked flight which I promised myself never to take again. No sooner I had landed in Delhi, and preceded to immigration control I noticed that I had started up a conversation while in line with a gentleman who was an electric technician from Europe. He told me that he was here in India to work with some software engineers on a product that they were developing for internet subscription via the power grid for Europe.

Soft power: the Mango Festival and the Festival of India

THE ATTACK ON MUMBAI By Stig Toft Madsen Lund University

  The attack on Mumbai came after a series of terrorist acts in other Indian cities. Shortly after the attack, a hitherto unknown group, the Deccan Mujahidin, took the responsibility. Because the attack on Mumbai followed the attacks to which the similarly named Indian Mujahidin had owed responsibility, many commentators initially connected the two groups, […]

THE ATTACK ON MUMBAI

By Stig Toft Madsen