20/01/2024
This is a country which has turned to religious supremacy. This character will soon be consecrated and set for the near future. It has shed every pretense of secularism that its founders imagined as the soul of this union. This is a country which is smug. It does not know how to handle success well. It celebrates success by being a bully. It does not know how to take failure well. Failure in this land is a conspiracy against it and not a lack of competence. This is a country where personal gains must come at the cost of others. This is a country which has gone too far down the road of religious nationalism. This country’s schools do not shape young minds anymore. They indoctrinate. Teachers are religious evangelists. This land which set itself free using nonviolence as a weapon delight in the work of ‘unknown men’ and targeted killings.
Every generation goes through a few defining moments in its lifetime. This year and 22nd January is perhaps that for my generation. We may emerge relatively prosperous and many might gain. The losses are and will be incalculable.
This country needs hope more than that God of some of its people.
Contested Realities 
I was in India in September/October—I arrived the day before the “falling out” between India and Canada started. I had a lot of long conversations with friends who are especially apprehensive about what this year might hold. I wish I could say that there are not echoes of the same nationalistic/autocratic/fundamentalist shifts elsewhere, even the province I live in, but of course that not the case. 2024 will be a year that sets the course in many places, for better or worse.
Sadly true, Sachin! It’s so stupid that with so many real problems staring us in the face, all we can think of or talk about is religion and past glories, real or imagined. I don’t know what it will take to shake us out of this.