South Asia Citizens Web

The song dictated by force won’t be as sweet as the one that’s freely sung. When people are pressganged to show respect for the national anthem their real feelings may end up as entirely the opposite.

In a country the vast majority of whose people are poor, a display of wealth by its leaders is not just unseemly but obscene. It stinks of the worst kinds of social organisation, in which royalty and aristocracy are far above the ordinary people.

The city of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh suffered the world

A couple of years ago, I paid obeisance at the shrine of Maulvi Mohi-ud-Din in Nihalpora, Pattan. Maulvi Mohi-ud-Din was my maternal grandmother’s spiritual and religious mentor. Visitation at shrines and tombs was an integral part of my grandmother’s religious experience, and I was keen on keeping the tradition, which my grandmother had cherished, alive.
Legend has it that despondency afflicted Akbar Jehan’s parents, Rani jee and Michael Henry [Harry] aka Sheikh Ahmed Hussain, because, (…)

February 2009 audio recording from The British Library