On Saturday, I joined several thousand students, teachers and political leaders outside the office of the Vice Chancellor of Jawaharlal University in Delhi, to protest the arrest of the JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar, and the presence of the police on the campus.
India has transformed spectacularly in innumerable ways in the last two decades. One of the least noted changes is in the way the country — governments, the press and people — respond to drought and food scarcities.
Like millions across the land, I mourn inconsolably the passing of a young man who dreamed of the stars, yet despaired of our world enough to take his young life. After writing a few words of fire, of yearning and pain, in the hostel room of a friend, he quietly hanged himself to death.