S.K. Sinha

Aug 08, 2010
S.K. Sinha

S.K. Sinha

Powers that won’t let the police be

Institutions of governance like the judiciary, the bureaucracy, the police and the Army created during the British era stood by us through the very unsettled first decade and more after Independence.

Selective secularism

Today, we have a larger English-speaking population in the US followed by India than in Britain. American English has features different from Queen’s English. Not only are its spellings and intonation different, it lays less emphasis on grammar and has injected new words and idioms. India has followed suit but not in spellings.

The headlines said it all. The Man Booker International Prize had been awarded to Lydia Davis, the American author. But most Indian newspapers in English announced it as “U.R. Ananthamurthy loses out on Man Booker”. You could almost hear the collective sigh of millions of disappointed Indians.

Today, India’s prime actors who are making a bid for international visibility — in roles, major or minor — are amassing reams of publicity and flashbulb attention from the paparazzi. Amitabh Bachchan, despite a brief part in The Great Gatsby, stirred up news headlines and tumult at the extravaganza’s premiere in New York, and then on the Cannes Film Festival’s red carpet. Irrfan Khan and Tabu have received an unconditional thumbs-up from the Oscar-celebrated Ang Lee after Life of Pi, Anil Kapoor is a known factor in international enclaves after Slumdog Millionaire, a cameo in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, as well as the TV series 24.

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