Papers by Sukumar Muralidharan
K.L. Tuteja and Kaustav Chakraborty, Tagore and Nationalism, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla and Springer Books. , 2017
Tagore's hostility towards nationalism and Gandhi's ambiguous relationship is famously memorialis... more Tagore's hostility towards nationalism and Gandhi's ambiguous relationship is famously memorialised in their debate in the 1920s. Neither of the Utopian schemes that contended in the debate recognised certain realities of society in India, and the possibility that a "state" built on those foundations could turn into an oppressive reality. This paper argues that without the caveats entered by Ambedkar, India's transition to nationhood and its often tortured efforts at preserving that status, would be self-defeating.
Free Speech Collective , 2025
A Pune-based editorial cartoonist, known mononymously as Alok, had the perfect comment on India's... more A Pune-based editorial cartoonist, known mononymously as Alok, had the perfect comment on India's recent Independence Day observance. A series of panels depict Indian citizens affirming their rights to read, to speak, to eat, and to dress as they choose, but offscreen is the loud and unyielding arm of the vigilante forbidding every such freedom. This article recounts recent vicissitudes faced in gaining the right of public exhibition, of films that for reasons real and trivial, irritate some strain of public opinion.
Social Scientist, 2012
Re-upping this paper from 2012 in the light of the acquittal by the Bombay High Court of all six ... more Re-upping this paper from 2012 in the light of the acquittal by the Bombay High Court of all six accused in the Mumbai suburban train bombing of 2006. The paper seeks to develop a conceptual understanding of the fuzzy category of the "minority" in a liberal democratic polity. The specificities of the Indian experience have conspired to create certain associations with the term, particularly in terms of how the national identity is constructed and aspirations towards modernity framed. From being an impediment to modernity on account of its antiquated social practices, the minority was at a certain stage of India's evolution, cast in the role of an active antagonist, that deploys terrorism to halt the country's onward march. This paper looks at how that narrative has been propagated in the media discourse, and constitutes the logic of exclusion in the public sphere.
Economic and Political Weekly, 2006
Iran's claim that it has mastered the nuclear fuel cycle does not mean it is near assembling an a... more Iran's claim that it has mastered the nuclear fuel cycle does not mean it is near assembling an atomic bomb, but this has not prevented scaremongers in the US from sounding the drumbeats of war. For a US administration besieged by growing public scepticism about the war in Iraq, a renewed military adventure may well be an escape route. It could as well be a fatal error.
Economic and Political Weekly, 2012
This article, written when the Syrian civil war was entering its second year, argues that it was ... more This article, written when the Syrian civil war was entering its second year, argues that it was no more about merely that country. If it were to continue for any further time, the article forecast, the civil war in Syria would draw in virtually every country of consequence in the wider region. In this respect, the article concluded, the Syrian conflict could well be prelude to a civil war in the entire Arab world, potentially a fatal challenge to the key principles of western geopolitics in the region: to keep Iran out, Arab nationalism down and Israel on top.
Economic and Political Weekly, 2005
With the disintegration of Syria, an imperial project that began in 2003, with the failure of the... more With the disintegration of Syria, an imperial project that began in 2003, with the failure of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, achieves another milestone, though in circumstances not entirely of its choosing. Here's a re-up of an article written in 2005, on why Syria and Lebanon were the next battlegrounds designated by the internal logic of the U.S. imperial project.
Cast a long shadow
Donald Trump’s impeachment defence pushes familiar tropes of executive privilege a little too far... more Donald Trump’s impeachment defence pushes familiar tropes of executive privilege a little too far. US President Donald Trump is on a phone call with a newly elected Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky. A comic actor whose only previous brush with the presidency was playing the role for a TV series, Zelensky is dealing with a tough security situation, fighting active Russian involvement in an ethnic conflict and 20 broken ceasefires in five years.
Divide and rule
URI, May 10, 2019
Unravelling the threads of identity
URI, Jun 1, 2020
No country for free speech
URI, Mar 22, 2021
Fake it like Real
URI, Apr 14, 2018
Rest in Pieces
URI, Sep 14, 2019
India’s Wire scandal a lesson for media
A reward for 'egregious' violations
URI, Nov 11, 2019
Blaming the Messenger: Kashmir's media under pressure – South Asia Citizens Web
Junctures of civil unrest in Kashmir invariably call forth the reflexive attitude of blaming the ... more Junctures of civil unrest in Kashmir invariably call forth the reflexive attitude of blaming the messenger, making any form of restraint on the working of the valley's journalists – which often…
Us and them
URI, Nov 24, 2018
The Wire, 2024
In its push for "absolute victory", Israel threatens a large scale campaign of extermination. Pal... more In its push for "absolute victory", Israel threatens a large scale campaign of extermination. Palestinians in Gaza, already refugees many times over and never afforded the protections of international law, now face the stark choice between ethnic cleansing and mass murder. Israel has been in the three-quarters of a century of its existence, the one state with absolute impunity in the application of international law. Its military operations in Gaza now threaten to bury international law, a construct that with all its imperfections, has been a vital prop of the post-World War II global order.
The India Forum, 2024
Sudha Bharadwaj and Prabir Purkayastha bear witness from their unique vantage points to the natur... more Sudha Bharadwaj and Prabir Purkayastha bear witness from their unique vantage points to the nature of our times. Both have been made examples of by a regime intolerant of dissent, but emerge from these narratives as case studies in courage and commitment. Their life stories of opportunities foregone and commitments forged, provide significant insights into the pathways that brought India to its current pass, and also propose strategies to find a way forward.
The historian Rashid Khalidi has identified six phases in the war of colonial conquest of Palesti... more The historian Rashid Khalidi has identified six phases in the war of colonial conquest of Palestine, beginning with the Balfour Declaration in 1917.The end point that Khalidi identifies for sixth phase of war is 2014, when the fifty-one day war against Gaza took place with massive casualties and the almost complete destruction of infrastructure. The formal declaration of war on October 7, 2023 is without clear legal foundation, but could be regarded as an extension of the sixth phase, or as the inauguration of an entirely different phase. What cannot be doubted is that there is a deep organic connection between each of these phases, and its arc bends quite clearly towards ethnic cleansing, perhaps genocide.
The Wire, 2023
The complete expulsion of Palestinians has long been a goal of Israel's political leaders.
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Papers by Sukumar Muralidharan