Prison Literature: Constraint and Creativity

by Samir Chopra The American philosopher Ivan Soll attributed "great sociological and psychological insight" to Hegel’s remarks that "the frustration of the freedom of action results in the search of a type of freedom immune to such frustration," that "where the capacity for abstract thoughts exists, freedom, outwardly thwarted, is sought in thought."[1] The perspicuity…

‘Passing for Pakistani’ and the Two-Nation Theory

by Samir Chopra I often ‘pass for Pakistani.’ In my Brooklyn, New York City zip code 11218, once supposedly the most ethnically diverse in the US, assuming another subcontinental identity, and especially that of Pakistan’s, is not an insuperable task—for someone like me, of Indian origin. I speak highly colloquial ‘street-level’ Urdu and Hindustani fluently,…

Conservatives, Immigrants, and the Romantic Imagination

by Samir Chopra Once upon a time in America’s not-too-distant past, immigrants of the first and second generations were reckoned a safe vote for the Republican Party’s brand of conservatism. It was not just immigrants with log-sized chips on their shoulders from communist countries—Russia, Hungary, Poland, Cuba, for instance—who were willing and enthusiastic consumers of…

SN Balagangadhara and Rajiv Malhotra on Reversing the Gaze

by Samir Chopra On 12 February 2014, Penguin India announced it was withdrawing and destroying—in India—all published copies of historian Wendy Doniger's The Hindus: An Alternative History (2009). Penguin's decision came after reaching an out-of-court settlement with Shiksha Bachao Andolan, which, in 2011, had filed a legal complaint objecting to sections of Doniger's book. Amidst…