This also tells that everything that rhymes is music, and everyone who can string together catchy lines is an artist. Badshah’s work is a reminder of that uncomfortable truth.
Throughout the tournament, while Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan often grabbed the spotlight, Shivam Dube and Axar Patel quietly made their presence felt.
In the romcoms of the 2000s, the central tension was whether someone would fall in love. In the 2020s, the tension often feels like whether the systems we depend on will remain stable.
One can feel the difference the moment the train enters Keralam—cleaner railway platforms, more hygienic food stalls, orderly passengers, no stench, and, of course, fresh air.
With listicles and op-eds galore, fashion magazines are working overtime to print articles on Carolyn Bessette — her style, her life, even people who met her once are now piping up.
Festival names are an example of Hindi hegemony. For a generation that grew up watching Bollywood, Dhanatrayodashi became Dhanteras, and Marathi Bhaubeej became Bhaidooj.
Pujarini Pradhan, who hails from Bengal’s East Midnapore, discusses caste, feminism, Stanley Kubrick, Munshi Premchand and Khaled Hosseini in her Instagram Reels.
Karnataka contributes billions to national growth and FDI, but its own finances show a revenue deficit, spiralling interest costs, and liabilities crossing Rs 11.2 lakh crore.
The Nirouyeh Vijeh Pasdaran Velayat, or NOPO, was the only force Ali Khamenei trusted.It was founded in 1991 and is more feared than the Revolutionary Guards.
Rating democracies is a tricky business. I am only using the simple metric of who in the Indian subcontinent has had the most peaceful, stable, normal political transitions and continuity.
Very unfortunate. Kashmiri Muslims too face discrimination, sometimes violence, in other parts of the country. It is not just the land that is one, indivisible. It is the people as well.
There is no defence of an issue like this one. None.
However, Das stops exactly where the article should begin. She documents the wound, points to the guilty party, and exits. That is not analysis. That is a grievance filed and forgotten — useful for a moment of outrage, useless for lasting change.
Racism against Northeast Indians is not simply a story of mainland bigots. It is the predictable outcome of decades of geographic isolation, political neglect, and mutual unfamiliarity — a failure of the Indian state to weave its northeastern citizens into the national fabric.
For most of independent India’s history, the Northeast remained physically and culturally cut off from the rest of the country. Congress governments, for all their rhetoric of unity, left the region chronically underdeveloped and infrastructurally starved. The result: two populations growing up with almost no organic interaction, no shared cultural references beyond a passport and a flag.
Improved connectivity and economic opportunity have now changed that. Northeast Indians are moving to Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai. That is a good thing. But visibility without familiarity is a recipe for friction. When people encounter those they do not know — whose features, food, language, and customs are genuinely different — suspicion fills the void that knowledge should occupy.
This is not unique to India. After 9/11, Sikh men in the United States were beaten and in some cases killed — mistaken for Taliban because of their turbans. In the so-called first world, ignorance translated directly into violence. The mechanism is identical: unfamiliarity breeds fear, fear breeds hostility, and hostility needs only a small trigger to ignite.
The couple in Malviya Nagar did not need a sophisticated ideology to do what they did. They needed only the absence of a reason not to.
Appearance Is Not Prejudice — Targeting Is.
It is also worth saying plainly what Das conflates: noticing that someone looks like they may be from the Northeast is not the same as abusing them for it. Humans read identity cues — appearance, accent, clothing, manner — as naturally as they breathe. A Tamilian in Lucknow, a Kashmiri in Chennai, a Punjabi in Kolkata: all identifiable by various markers, all carrying an identity that precedes their introduction. That is not racism. That is the texture of a diverse country.
Racism begins when that recognition becomes a hierarchy — when ‘you look different’ becomes ‘you are lesser,’ when curiosity curdles into contempt. The incident Das describes is the latter, without question. But conflating all identity-reading with prejudice muddies the diagnosis and makes the remedy harder to prescribe.
Das offers no solutions oversll. That is the article’s central failure. Here is what the conversation should actually be about.
The government must invest in cultural integration — not tokenism, but sustained, structured exposure. School curricula should reflect the full geography of India, including the Northeast. National media should tell Northeast stories routinely, not only when there is an atrocity to report. Cultural exchange programs between states should be funded and scaled.
Bharatiyata — the sense of shared Indian identity — cannot be decreed from above. It has to be built through familiarity, through the ordinary experience of living, studying, and working alongside one another. That requires deliberate policy, not just slogans.
Anti-discrimination enforcement must be strengthened. The legal architecture exists but is poorly enforced. When racial abuse is documented and reported, it must be prosecuted visibly enough to register as a deterrent.
And — this is rarely said — the responsibility is not one-directional. As Northeast Indians gain greater presence in Indian metros, there is value in both communities making the effort to know each other. That is not asking victims to bear the burden of their own mistreatment. It is asking for a two-way bridge rather than a one-way accusation.
Articles like Das’s serve a purpose: they keep the issue alive in public conversation. That is not nothing. But public memory is short, and outrage without direction dissipates fast. The couple in Malviya Nagar will be forgotten in a week. The structural conditions that produced them will remain.
Racism against Northeast Indians is a multi-layered problem rooted in history, geography, and policy failure. It will not be solved by periodic condemnation, however justified. It requires the kind of sustained, unglamorous institutional work that no single op-ed can do alone.
Name the wound, by all means. But then pick up the tools to close it.
Very unfortunate. Kashmiri Muslims too face discrimination, sometimes violence, in other parts of the country. It is not just the land that is one, indivisible. It is the people as well.
There is no defence of an issue like this one. None.
However, Das stops exactly where the article should begin. She documents the wound, points to the guilty party, and exits. That is not analysis. That is a grievance filed and forgotten — useful for a moment of outrage, useless for lasting change.
Racism against Northeast Indians is not simply a story of mainland bigots. It is the predictable outcome of decades of geographic isolation, political neglect, and mutual unfamiliarity — a failure of the Indian state to weave its northeastern citizens into the national fabric.
For most of independent India’s history, the Northeast remained physically and culturally cut off from the rest of the country. Congress governments, for all their rhetoric of unity, left the region chronically underdeveloped and infrastructurally starved. The result: two populations growing up with almost no organic interaction, no shared cultural references beyond a passport and a flag.
Improved connectivity and economic opportunity have now changed that. Northeast Indians are moving to Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai. That is a good thing. But visibility without familiarity is a recipe for friction. When people encounter those they do not know — whose features, food, language, and customs are genuinely different — suspicion fills the void that knowledge should occupy.
This is not unique to India. After 9/11, Sikh men in the United States were beaten and in some cases killed — mistaken for Taliban because of their turbans. In the so-called first world, ignorance translated directly into violence. The mechanism is identical: unfamiliarity breeds fear, fear breeds hostility, and hostility needs only a small trigger to ignite.
The couple in Malviya Nagar did not need a sophisticated ideology to do what they did. They needed only the absence of a reason not to.
Appearance Is Not Prejudice — Targeting Is.
It is also worth saying plainly what Das conflates: noticing that someone looks like they may be from the Northeast is not the same as abusing them for it. Humans read identity cues — appearance, accent, clothing, manner — as naturally as they breathe. A Tamilian in Lucknow, a Kashmiri in Chennai, a Punjabi in Kolkata: all identifiable by various markers, all carrying an identity that precedes their introduction. That is not racism. That is the texture of a diverse country.
Racism begins when that recognition becomes a hierarchy — when ‘you look different’ becomes ‘you are lesser,’ when curiosity curdles into contempt. The incident Das describes is the latter, without question. But conflating all identity-reading with prejudice muddies the diagnosis and makes the remedy harder to prescribe.
Das offers no solutions oversll. That is the article’s central failure. Here is what the conversation should actually be about.
The government must invest in cultural integration — not tokenism, but sustained, structured exposure. School curricula should reflect the full geography of India, including the Northeast. National media should tell Northeast stories routinely, not only when there is an atrocity to report. Cultural exchange programs between states should be funded and scaled.
Bharatiyata — the sense of shared Indian identity — cannot be decreed from above. It has to be built through familiarity, through the ordinary experience of living, studying, and working alongside one another. That requires deliberate policy, not just slogans.
Anti-discrimination enforcement must be strengthened. The legal architecture exists but is poorly enforced. When racial abuse is documented and reported, it must be prosecuted visibly enough to register as a deterrent.
And — this is rarely said — the responsibility is not one-directional. As Northeast Indians gain greater presence in Indian metros, there is value in both communities making the effort to know each other. That is not asking victims to bear the burden of their own mistreatment. It is asking for a two-way bridge rather than a one-way accusation.
Articles like Das’s serve a purpose: they keep the issue alive in public conversation. That is not nothing. But public memory is short, and outrage without direction dissipates fast. The couple in Malviya Nagar will be forgotten in a week. The structural conditions that produced them will remain.
Racism against Northeast Indians is a multi-layered problem rooted in history, geography, and policy failure. It will not be solved by periodic condemnation, however justified. It requires the kind of sustained, unglamorous institutional work that no single op-ed can do alone.
Name the wound, by all means. But then pick up the tools to close it.