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Kapil Komireddi
@kapskom
Writer. Author of "Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India", published in May 2019. I speak solely for myself here.
kapilkomireddi.comJoined February 2011
Kapil Komireddi’s Tweets
On India's 75th anniversary of independence reminds of the country's best heritage - and newest dangers in his "Malevolent Republic"
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Amrullah Saleh, the last Vice President and last legitimate President of Afghanistan, told me the extraordinary story of his flight to Panjshir as Kabul fell on this day last year.
dailymail.co.uk/debate/article
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Happy Independence Day to India . Jai Hind. August 15 is auspicious for India & a bitter coincidence for Afgs who mourn the creepy occupation of their country by the Pak backed Talib militias.This should be fixed & it will. This black dot will be removed from our calendar.
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Happy Independence Day to all.
Jai Hind! 🇮🇳
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Salman Rushdie trapped by alliance of implacably regressive and insufferably progressive, writes the irrepressible theprint.in/opinion/salman via
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'Salman Rushdie trapped by alliance of implacably regressive and insufferably progressive'
Brilliant, provocative take from Kapil Komireddi …
#ThePrintOpinion
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As recalls, the murder campaign against Rushdie didn't start with Iran - and was enabled by many around the world who regarded themselves as "progressive."
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Salman Rushdie trapped by the alliance of the "implacably regressive and insufferably progressive" for the last 30 years -- at his scathing best
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“The knife that Matar plunged into Rushdie’s neck and abdomen had been sharpened over three decades by an alliance of the implacably regressive and the insufferably progressive”
In
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A 1990 Pakistani film depicted Salman Rushdie as a satanic agent of Jews and Hindus out to destroy Islam. He's so evil that he has to be killed by flying Korans. The British refused to certify the film. Rushdie intervened and got the film cleared.
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Rushdie, whose Satanic Verses continues to be on the list of contraband items in India, wrote this about his motherland: “India, my too-muchness, my everything at once, my mother, my father, my first great truth”
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Salman Rushdie did not insult anybody. A great many reactionaries worked extremely hard to feel insulted. And for three decades their murderous rage was rationalised and justified by an embarrassingly large number of literary and political luminaries.
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Realised today that the #HarGharTiranga campaign is not just about putting the Indian flag up, but also buying the flag from govt agencies, municipality etc. This brand of patriotism is causing loss to weavers, vendors, vulnerable groups that used to make flags to sell on Aug15
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The prime minister demanded a garish spectacle. His minions are wrecking lives to deliver it. #IndiaAt75
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Get pics of houses not hoisting tricolour: Uttarakhand BJP chief toi.in/ld2LKa
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I saw #LaalSinghChaddha last night. It is a simple story,spectacularly told. A tale of unconditional love & almost irrational obstinacy in always doing the good thing.
Aamir Khan will make you laugh and cry, supported by an extraordinary cast.
Go join his marathon run.
⭐️ 4/5
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One more thing: by subtly affirming so much that is being threatened with extinction in Modi’s New India, Aamir Khan demonstrates that he is one of the few titans of Indian cinema (Kamal Haasan is another) with a spine.
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“Laal Singh Chadhdha”, with all its flaws, is a more soulful tribute to the goodness, beauty, and multiplicity of India than anything staged by our mythomaniacal event planner from Gujarat.
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"Naipaul’s blunt assessment of India’s pre-colonial history was followed by an injunction that has conveniently been overlooked: 'The past has to be seen to be dead; or the past will kill.'"
My tribute to VS Naipaul, who died on this day four years ago.
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Months from now, I fear we are likely to see flags repurposed as kitchen towels and cleaning rags. And then the birth of a new phenomenon: celebratory videos of regime thugs beating up defenceless people for desecrating the flag.
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Narendra Modi's infantile addiction to spectacle is breeding contempt for the national flag. By forcing the poorest Indians to cough up cash for the flag when they turn up to collect their rations, Modi is turning the tricolour into a symbol of oppression.
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Narendra Modi's infantile addiction to spectacle is breeding contempt for the national flag. By forcing the poorest Indians to cough up cash for the flag when they turn up to collect their rations, Modi is turning the tricolour into a symbol of oppression.
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It’ll be interesting to see how many promoters and preachers of the virtues of “western values” condemn this Russophobic variant of Trump’s Muslim ban?
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Stop issuing tourist visas to Russians. Visiting #Europe is a privilege, not a human right. Air travel from RU is shut down. It means while Schengen countries issue visas, neighbours to Russia carry the burden (FI, EE, LV – sole access points). Time to end tourism from Russia now
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Sir Vidia wishes everyone a delightful international cat day.
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Como under clouds
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By instructing his worshippers to pin 🇮🇳 to their social media profiles, the prime minister has ensured that the Indian flag remains associated in the digital world’s imagination with the most repellent trolls and cyberbullies.
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China accepts that Nancy Pelosi is in Taiwan.
Modi denies that Chinese army is in Ladakh.
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Macron just two days ago called Africans "hypocrites" for not signing up to his moral mission against Russia.
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Emmanuel #Macron has drawn criticism for courting Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince MbS who is accused of approving the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Macron said the war in Ukraine has "changed the equation."
Antonia Kerrigan has more 
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That's AN Wilson in his outstanding biography of Leo Tolstoy
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"You know that Russia has more soul than any other country—that its birch avenues, its snows, its ice, its summers are more glorious than the manifestations of nature in more benighted countries. There is only one drawback, which is that it is completely horrible to live there."
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Many Americans are under the impression that Russia is simply miserable, with no redeeming characteristic. They’re applying an ancestral knowledge of Stalinism, combined with memories of Yeltsin-era drunkenness and lawlessness—none of which you’ll recognize in the Russia of today
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'The 3 Indians on Ukraine’s blacklist are not Kremlin stooges, their views are just outdated'
Author Kapil Komireddi , writes
#ThePrintOpinion
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Ehsan Jafri—a poet, labour union activist, and the only Muslim ever elected to parliament from Ahmedabad—was one of the many millions of Muslims who risked everything for India at Partition. The founders of New India could not abide such a man.
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This para from @harsh_mander's excellent essay on Ehsan Jafri moved me so much.
Jafri actively *chose* an idea of India, just like so many Muslims *chose* to stay here at the time of partition.
Those of us who share that idea must keep fighting for it.
scroll.in/article/102835
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US envoy: "Had we stayed in Afg we wd have not been able to suport Ukraine against Russia" i.e. US conspired with lesser or prhps fake enemy to fight the big one.The depth of decption, lies & imorality of a covert policy surfacing day by day.That is why GHQ & HQN are in charge.
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A contractual worker at UP's Mathura Nagar Nigam was terminated after he was found carrying pictures of PM Narendra Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath among other dignitaries in his hand held garbage cart.
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The Guardian's Simon Tisdall, who a decade ago was saying that India was asking for "bombers to strike again" by rejecting peace talks with Pakistan, now decries the very notion of peace talks with Russia as a "shoddy sellout".
The limitless hypocrisy of our western preachers.
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The least India can do is reject America’s self-serving sermons. When Americans next land in India to fault its friendship with Russia or prate about “values”, Indians should show them a photo of Jamal Khashoggi and repeat what Kennedy said to Nehru: no lectures, please!
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If racist indifference to non-Europeans such as Yemenis, Iraqis, Afghans accounts for America’s addiction to endless war in Asia and its affection for despots in the region, Russophobia—an implacable fear and hatred of Russia—accounts for its refusal to engage the Kremlin.
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Virtually all liberal western legacy media—rather than challenge American stupidity—rationalise it. Between upbraiding and condescending, they even seek out western warmakers with Asian blood on their hands for their wisdom on war and peace, while censoring dissent.
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America finds MBS more agreeable than Putin in part because it believes the lives of Yemenis—being starved and blown up with western arms—to be less valuable than those of Europeans. American morality is shaped by what Orwell called "the unspoken clause—not counting ni***rs".
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How is MBS in any way better than Putin? Killing opponents? Waging war? Yes! Corrupt? YES! So if Biden can grovel before MBS, why can't he so much as consider unconditional talks with Putin—especially when the potential upshot of dialogue is stability in the developing world?
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The calamity in Sri Lanka has many causes: debilitating debt, China’s geopolitical ambitions, the pandemic, the turmoil in global food and fuel markets — and underlying it all are the hubris and recklessness of the Rajapaksa dynasty, wrote .
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