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Friday, November 21, 2025
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PastForward

PastForward is a deep research offering from ThePrint on issues from India’s modern history that continue to guide the present and determine the future. As William Faulkner famously said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Indians are now hungrier and curiouser to know what brought us to key issues of the day. 
For now, this is available immediately to all ThePrint readers. Very soon PastForward will be among the premium offerings that go behind a paywall, only available to subscribers.

India’s beef with tallow is older than Tirupati scandal. Jain Shudh Vanaspati shocked Hindus

+TFP Antara Baruah -
Beef panic reached Hindu kitchens in 1983. The upholders of purity, Jains, were accused of selling animal fat in 'shudh' ghee. Lok Sabha rocked. VP Singh was on the defensive.
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Gun-toting IAS trainee vs academy director. 1981 scandal shaped dissent in civil services

+TFP Vandana Menon -
In 1981, a drunk IAS probationer terrorised peers with a gun during a Himalayan trek. When Home Ministry didn’t act, academy head PS Appu quit in protest, setting off storm in Parliament.
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1800s Kolkata is key to Modi’s Act East policy. It needs imagination, not just bureaucracy

+TFP Praveen Swami -
A globalised India is a project of imagination. It must model itself after 19th century Kolkata, as it seeks to integrate with the economic powerhouses to its East.
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George Mallory’s Everest climb was no macho heroism—It was rooted in racism, war, tragedy

+TFP Praveen Swami -
In 1999, Mallory’s mummified body was retrieved from the ice, with signs of injuries suggesting he was killed in a fall. The body of his climbing partner Sandy Irvine was never found.
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The spy who sold out Subhas Chandra Bose—he worked with Britain, Germany, USSR, Japan, Italy

Praveen Swami -
The collapse of the Japanese in Burma and the death of Bose, brought the curtain down on Talwar’s incredible career—one that had seen him work for 3 Axis intelligence services & 2 Allied ones.
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This is why Nehru-Liaquat Pact failed. Its ghost haunted Indian politics for decades

+TFP Apoorva Mandhani -
It was either war or exchange of population—and Nehru wanted neither. So he devised a third option.
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Indian politicians hit the jackpot with 1957 TISCO case. It set the tone for political funding

+TFP Apoorva Mandhani -
Electoral bonds have done what past innovations in party funding couldn’t — they have sprung the issue of party funding onto the national stage.
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Rabinder Singh spy scandal exposed R&AW’s ugly sides. But India hasn’t learned from its mistakes

+TFP Praveen Swami -
Vishal Bhardwaj's Khufiya touches on the penetration of R&AW. The reel-world denouement, though, was quite different from the real-world ending.
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1967 was the year politics changed. Modi wants to go back to the simpler times before that

Vandana Menon -
Apart from One Nation, One Election, there is a strong similarity between 1967 and 2023—a dominant party at the helm, and a politics that’s bringing oddballs of opposition together.
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Duties, duties, duties. Modi is going back to the Indira Gandhi Emergency era

+TFP Vandana Menon -
Speaking in the Old Parliament for the last time, PM Modi said the Central Hall of Parliament inspires us to fulfil our duties. Earlier, he had changed Amrit Kaal to Kartavya Kaal.
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Opinion

Hasina’s was a trial in absentia, but not a trial without justice

Faisal Mahmud -
The Sheikh Hasina trial represents an inflection point in the struggle to place citizens above rulers and prevent the next massacre.

Not just Nehru, even Hindutva stems from Macaulay legacy

India has a geopolitical trilemma with Afghanistan. It’s not a good vs evil choice

Economy

At Charcha 2025: Local entrepreneurship, not just big IT, will drive next wave of distributed AI work

Mrinalini Dhyani -
While global corporations setting up GCCs in India continue to express confidence in availability of skilled AI engineers, the panel argued that India’s real challenge lies elsewhere.

Defence

Can’t stay behind tech curve anymore, must catch up—Vice Chief of Navy Staff ahead of Swavlamban 2025

Tejas Bhatotia -
New Delhi: Noting that India cannot afford to stay behind the technology curve when it comes to war-fighting, Vice Chief of the Naval Staff...

National Interest

INDIA has a Congress-sized hole. And the fix begins with a little humility

Shekhar Gupta -
Without a Congress revival, there can be no challenge to the BJP pan-nationally. Modi’s party is growing, and almost entirely at the cost of the Congress.

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