Scary at the top?

Succession (Miniseries, 2018-23)

S1-4, 39 episodes. 

I was given the impression that I had been living under a rock for not having heard of a miniseries called 'Succession'. I was also made to believe that 'it was so good', as if missing it meant I had lost my purpose in life. My compulsion to watch this built up, and sitting through all forty episodes (because one has to finish what he starts and never take a back foot), my conclusion is this. One can still have a full life, giving this one a miss. 

Something that could be summarised in a season is dragged out over four, to keep viewers intrigued by the lives of the rich and famous, especially when it comes to someone as cutthroat and controversial as Rupert Murdoch. The media mogul who made his mark in the late 20th century had always been in the limelight for all the wrong reasons. 

His company was at the centre of a massive phone-tapping controversy in 2011, which led to major payouts and the closure of one of his UK papers. He is also believed to have wielded substantial political influence in the UK, the US, and Australia, swaying public opinion and magnifying or burying news. 

Towards the later stages of his life, the Murdochs had to deal with a taunting succession issue. While Murdoch Sr did not want to relinquish control of the business to any of his kids, whom he thought were not worthy of the top chair, the children were competing to outdo one another to capture their father's attention.

The miniseries is a dramatisation of what could have happened behind closed doors during the later years of the media empire. Logan Ray, the toxic, foul-mouthed patriarchal figure who mirrors Murdoch's character, is a very sick man. Despite his ailing condition, he is adamant about clinging to the helm. He is connivingly undermining his children and making them fight among themselves to undermine their confidence. 

Even though Rupert Murdoch is alive in real life at 94, the filmmakers decided to kill him and make the adult children fight for control of the empire.

If viewers do not mind being bombarded with 35 hours or more of profanity-laced script, cussing and character-hurling abuses at each other, giving graphic descriptions of bizarre acts of loving and self-gratification, coitus and what a perverted mind would perform on his reproductive anatomy, be my guest and watch this miniseries.

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A language war!

Parasakthi (Tamil, 2026)

Director: Sudha Kongara

https://letterboxd.com/film/parasakthi-2026/watch/

2026 is an election year for Tamil Nadu. The year started with a bang with two Tamil movies with explosive political themes. The highly anticipated Vijay of the newly minted party TVK, and his alleged last film, Jana Nayagan, is stuck with the censors for unknown reasons. Some insiders reckon that the dialogue is highly spiced with political innuendo or outright condemnation of his opponents, such as the DMK and the BJP.

The second movie, which did not pose a threat to Vijay’s heavyweight, not surprisingly, was cleared easily. This movie, starring Sivakarthikeyan, the game show host who found fame through sheer grit, is a historical drama based on the 1965 riots in Tamil Nadu against the imposition of Hindi as the national language. This film turned out to be a propaganda movie through and through, putting DMK and their former leaders as the sole defenders of the Tamil language. As DMK controls the whole of Kollywood, movies are and have been the mouthpiece of the ruling class. By controlling movie distribution, production and theatres, they maintain cultural and political dominance in Tamil Nadu. Through this movie, the ruling party hopes to present a false narrative to new voters, the Gen Zs, that only DMK can keep the Tamil language 'alive'.

DMK and its predecessor, DK, have been thriving on the same ‘divide and rule’ policy that the British employed to quell Indian resistance. DMK makes the Northerners their bogeyman. They subscribe to the now-defunct Aryan Invasion theory and create an aura that the Hindi-speaking people from North India are out to wipe out the Tamil language and culture. Within the state, they also accuse Brahmins of usurping others' opportunities with their perceived oppression of the rest of Tamil Nadu with Brahminical ideologies. 

The scenario for the 2026 state election is like this. With the spate of BJP wins in recent state elections, increasing the BJP’s popularity and the entry of actor Joseph Vijay into politics, are making DMK stakwart Stalin feel hot under his tall collar. His party has promised to eradicate Sanathana Dharma, but continues to be seen performing poojas for blessings. 

Recently, the perennial issue of teaching Hindi in schools resurfaced. DMK, the self-appointed defender of the Tamil language, had categorically put their foot down to deny compulsory teaching of Hindi in government schools. 

With the same rebel yell that they shrieked in 1965, DMK is entering the latest elections, and this movie lays the groundwork of their campaign.

Resistance to the introduction of Hindi into the Tamil Nadu school system has persisted for the longest time, even when the region was under the Madras Presidency. In 1937, under British rule in India, the Indian National Congress ruled this region, led by Rajaji. Congress, in preparation for self-rule, was toyying the idea of Hindi as the National language. The issue came up again just before Independence and again when the Constitution was drafted in 1950. Nehru promised Tamil Nadu that a grace period of fifteen years would be given before Hindi was made the official language. 

EV Ramaswamy, revered by DMK as the champion of Tamil, is also affectionately known as 'Periyar' (the Elder) and is anything but a bastion of the Tamil language. He had once condemned the language as barbaric¹, and it is not compatible as a modern lingua franca or for scientific purposes. 

It is ironic that in the 1930s and throughout the 1960s, the Dravida Party was hell-bent on opposing the Indian Congress Party over the language issue. Now, it has joined forces with Congress and is opposing the Central Government led by the BJP. Regardless of which party is in power, the DMK will oppose the Central Government. Remember, in the years before Partition, the Dravidian Party wanted to accede to Pakistan? And EV Ramasamy declared 15th August 1947 as a day of mourning.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianHistory/comments/1qcmlrf/1
965_tamil_student_protest_against_hindi/

This movie tries to retell events that led to the 1965 Hindi imposition riots. Nehru died in 1964, as the deadline to make Hindi the official language of the country approached. University students, instigated by Annadurai and Karunanithi, initiated demonstrations in multiple cities. The story tells a romanticised version of a docile elder brother who tries to save his young brother from harm. The elder brother has a violent past that resurfaces as a vengeful IPS officer who wants to squash the Tamil rebellion once and for all. In the midst of all this, a few figures from the past are shown, painting a DMK-friendly picture of them saving the Tamil language and its culture from being overrun by enemies from the North.

Historians and people who lived through the 1960s vehemently oppose the movie's alternative history of what actually transpired during that time. Others, including the Youth Congress group, are 'up in arms' about the negative portrayal of their former leaders. They scream for the film's banning.

(P.S. In the modern world, people are expected to learn as much as they can, including all the languages of the world. Alternatively, use Google Translate! Also, language is not everything, as seen in the later years. Andhra Pradesh, which was created along linguistic lines, was divided into Andhra Pradesh and Telangana because of economic imbalances.)

1. https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/nirmala-sitharaman-says-periyar-dismissed-tamil-as-a-language-his-was-a-push-for-reform/cid/2088564#goog_rewarded

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Christmas that Almost Disappeared!

https://borderlessjournal.com/2026/01/14/christmas-that-almost-disappeared/

Charles Dickens was flying high by 1842. His books, Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, and periodicals were selling like hot cakes on both sides of the Atlantic. With so many fans over in America, he decided to pay them a visit. What he saw in the second-largest fan base upset him for two reasons. 

Firstly, there was the issue of royalty. Publishers in America were printing his work left, right and centre. He received none of the returns due to him. Secondly, he was upset with the level of racism and their cavalier attitude towards slavery, even amongst the northern states.

https://borderlessjournal.com/2026/01/14/christmas-that-almost-disappeared/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

All so Messi?

https://borderlessjournal.com/2026/01/14/all-so-messi/

Lionel Messi in Kolkata. From Public Domain

With the amount of information I am bombarded with daily, I often wonder, as one usually does, how all these changes will change society. Are we all going to be empowered, aware, and demanding what is due to us? Will our minds be so open that we can accept that there is more than one way to skin a cat? On the contrary, will we become more aware of the many ways we can be taken for a ride, and so paranoid that we cannot even breathe a breath of fresh air? What if it is contaminated with toxic effluents?

Three recent video clips steered my mind towards this end.

https://borderlessjournal.com/2026/01/14/all-so-messi/

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Sports unify?

Bison (Tamil, 2025)

Written & Directed: Mari Selvaraj

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15097358/

We have always been told that sports unite people. When Hitler was selling the idea of Aryan supremacy to the world, the Universe tried to shoot him down. It cryptically was telling him that his eugenics was bunkum. A Black American named Jesse James won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics to embarrass the Führer. 

When apartheid ended, Nelson Mandela believed that rugby and sports were the surest way to reconcile the fractured nation. He hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa. The ‘Springbok’ emblem, once viewed as an oppressive symbol of the white minority, suddenly became a source of national pride and joy. 

We are also aware that sports transcend all borders. It is a level playing field that puts aside politics, colour and creed, so they say. Quite early in life, I realised this was not true. If this were true, the world would not have boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The neutrality of sports went out of the window when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan a year earlier. 

Increasingly, whenever there is an India-Pakistan cricket match, there is a meltdown. The losing team would claim that the refereeing was biased. It ends up in fistfights or, sometimes, in something more sinister. 

In the Malaysian football scene, the governing body found it easier and more cost-effective to import fading professional footballers, give them fake identities and create fake family trees to secure citizenship than to invest in local talent. The disease of favouritism and discrimination in Malaysian sport is not something unheard of. It started with the authorities wanting to cash in on the public craze for football (and badminton, too).

In the 70s, when Malaysia was a football force to be reckoned with, we churned out player after player of high calibre. The players were amateurs, of different ethnicities, whose sole pride was to lay for the nation. When the state began meddling under the guise of advancing sports science, the rot set in. The ugly disease of favouritism and racial preference crept in. By the 1990s, the earlier 1970s teams, with varying ethnicities, came to be represented by a predominantly one race; talent no longer being the determinant for selection, but rather fulfilling politicians' agendas. 

During the British Raj, colonial subjects, awed by their master’s gentlemanly game of cricket, began playing it too. Unfortunately, they could only do so amongst themselves. The colonial masters thought that playing with the natives was not acceptable. It ended up with cricket teams formed along racial and religious lines. There were the European clubs for the whites, the Parsis, the Hindus, the Muslims and the rest. The interesting thing about the last group is that it is open to non-white Christians and those from the lower caste. The groups compete in the Pentangular Tournament. 

In the early 20th century, India had a legendary cricketer named Palwankar Baloo. He is considered the greatest cricketer in Indian history. Playing for the Hindu side, he helped them to defeat the European side. He toured England in 1911 and showed great performances there. Between 1910 and 1920, there was a great campaign to make him India's captain, but the efforts were thwarted by the Dalit caste system.

The movie 'Bison' is a sports drama about a boy from a kabaddi family who is obsessed with becoming a kabaddi player. His father, a former player, knows the hurdles and brickbats he faces to reach the next level. He is hellbent on keeping his son away from the game. Along the way, there are gangsters, clashes and overt discrimination of the boy because of the low caste he is from.

Kabaddi is an ancient Vedic self-defence and survival sport that started in India some 4,000 years ago. It is said that Krishna and Gautama Buddha also played this game in their childhood. Persians were also reported to have played it 2,000 years ago. In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, kabaddi was showcased on the sidelines as an exhibition sport. It has not yet become a regular feature of the Olympics, but it is an event in the Asian Games.

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A family matter that brought down a government!

Haq (Right, Hindi, 2025)

Director: Suparn Verma

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36642456/

This story is based on the trial that led to the collapse of a government. It was not the sole reason for the Congress’ defeat; however, it was the nidus for other developments and the subsequent rise of the BJP to power. 

In short, the story is about a Muslim homemaker whose lawyer husband secretly marries a second wife without her consent after 14 years of marriage. She is told to the ‘good wife’ to accept her husband’s new wife. Born to a scholar father, who taught her all the teachings of the Quran, she knows it is improper. She leaves her matrimonial home. Initially, the husband gave a measly amount, but it later stopped. She and her father filed a case at the local courts. 

As the case was in progress, the husband professed the triple talaq to dissolve their marriage with a substantial amount of payment. In the husband's mind, the dissolution of the marriage, with the handing over of a lump sum, absolves him of any responsibility.

What was initially supposed to be a family dispute soon came to be pictured as a threat to the Islamic way of life. It came to be viewed as a conflict with Islamic laws governing marriage and inheritance. In the court's view, monetary support to an aggrieved ex-spouse from her former husband of sufficient means under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) should be available to all Indian citizens, irrespective of religion.

The film ends as a happy tale of perseverance and women's empowerment, with the wife promised increased alimony, but in real life, the case did not end there.

It created a lot of unease among the conservative Muslims. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board viewed the Supreme Court's decision as a threat to their existence in India. They thought these things were agreed upon at Partition and at the inception of India's Constitution.

Two lingering questions were whether triple talaq recited at one single instance is acceptable, and whether the husband's financial responsibility extended beyond the cooling period (iddat).

My years-long interfaith discussions with my dear childhood brothers, AK and FM,  have taught me this. The Prophet preached that one should not make any decisions in a fit of anger. Hence, avoiding triple talaq makes more sense. There must be a cooling period before the third talaq is recited and in the presence of others. There is also the concept of sustenance (nafkah) for their dependent children. 

https://www.bollywoodshaadis.com/articles/do-you-know-the-background-
story-of-haq-starring-emraan-hashmi-and-yami-gautam-68723

That is where the film differs from the actual trial it was supposed to be based on: the 1985 Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano case, a maintenance lawsuit. Shah Bano was 62 when she was divorced, so nafkah for children did not arise. The filmmakers decided to make their heroine 35 years younger with young kids. I guess the story of a grieving postmenopausal divorcee would not sell in India. They also must have incorporated another Supreme Court case (Shayara Bano v. Union of India, 2017), which declared instant triple talaq unconstitutional.

What made the 1985 case interesting is what happened afterwards. Apprehensive about the orthodox Muslim clergy's discontent, the Congress government overturned the decision. It was viewed by the majority as minority appeasement and as indicating that the Rajeev Gandhi government was no longer secular. BJP and other Hindu politicians jumped on the bandwagon to demand the construction of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. The roar of the dissidents grew louder, and together with the lingering Bofors scandal, the Indian Congress Party lost the election for a second time in 1989.

The Shayara Bano case in 2017 declared triple talaq in one sitting to be unconstitutional and ruled it violates the fundamental rights of Muslim women.

In Malaysia, the utterance of talaq outside the confines of the syariah courts is a serious offence. Triple talaq by short messaging service (SMS) is also illegal. The Ulamaks, however, disagree with this. It is said that many Islamic schools of jurisprudence, like the Hanafi, approve of it and consider it valid. It was even accepted by Caliph Umar as a final and irrevocable divorce.

As it stands, triple talaq is illegal in India and most Muslim countries, too. Indian Mulsim women groups are welcoming of the Supreme Court’s judgments about the triple talaq, but not the clerics. 

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A quick timeline...

India After Gandhi - The History Of The World's Largest Democracy (2016)
Author: Ramachandra Guha 
(Updated and Expanded) 10th Anniversary version

My knowledge of Indian history is limited to what I was taught in school, which only covered up to the time when MK Gandhi was assassinated in 1948. Since then, for someone from Malaysia, it was patchy, relying on whatever few articles and newsreels managed to reach us. 

This book helps to bridge that gap. It provides a detailed account of the critical events that took place after Nehru’s ‘tryst with destiny’ speech up to circa 2014, when a milestone event emerged. It mainly describes the political landscape and major events during that period. 

All these were penned by one of India’s eminent contemporary historians, Ramachandra Guha. Historically, Indian history throughout the 20th century, both before and after independence, was crafted by left-leaning historians under the influence of the Congress leadership. These historians are said to elevate the Imperial rulers, attempt to gloss over their mistakes, and depict colonial masters as saviours of the nation. On the other side of the rink are the bad boys, as determined as the British and other imperial powers, the members of the Hindutva movements. Guha is classified as a centrist liberal historian. The challenge with such a stance is that he will be criticised by both the left and the right.

The British did not have much hope for India’s future when they left. They predicted that the union would balkanise within ten years along ethnic, religious or linguistic lines. Anyway, towards the latter part of the 20th century, India became too expensive and rebellious to administer. The natives had wised up. The British had to leave to cut their losses. 

While celebrations continue in Delhi with pomp and splendour, chaos reigned in Calcutta at best. The exchange of people between the newly formed Pakistan and India did not proceed in an orderly manner. People were unaware of where the actual demarcation line was. 

From the get-go, India had to confront border skirmishes and the opposition of many princely states to joining the union. In Kashmir, with a Hindu ruler and a Muslim majority, Pakistan wanted Kashmir to cut itself away from India and join Pakistan. Maharajah Hari Singh wished to remain independent, but when Pakistani soldiers disguised as herdsmen infiltrated Kashmir to cause trouble, he abdicated to Jamu and sought assistance from India. 

Instead of deploying troops to take control of the situation, as his team advised, Nehru, in his great wisdom, believed the United Nations should intervene. The consequences of this quick, arguably mistaken decision are still apparent today. 

Then, the princely states had to be coaxed into staying within the coalition. The Nizam of Hyderabad gave India the runaround. Their situation was the opposite of Kashmir — a Muslim monarch and a Hindu majority. The Nizam was reluctant to hand over his wealth to India. Just a few years earlier, the Nizam was crowned the wealthiest man on Earth. He was adamant about either remaining independent or forging a close relationship with Pakistan. The problem was that Hyderabad was a landlocked state. The Islamic fanatics among the ruling class, the Razakkers, went on a killing spree to usurp lands from peasants. At that time, the Communists were also attempting to expand their influence. 

Vallabhai Patel, during Nehru’s absence in the UK, took the bold step of deploying his tanks to annex Hyderabad in a police action codenamed Operation Polo. The Nizam abdicated to Pakistan. It was not called a military action to avoid it being seen as an invasion of a sovereign nation. 

The Portuguese aimed to retain Goa as a Portuguese colony. However, the Goans did not share their sentiments. This prompted India to invade Goa and annex it through Operation Vijay.

 

The states in the North East region also experienced their own resurgence. Conflicts between tribes over land rights and reservations persisted. These conflicts continue in various forms even today. 

 

China and India were not on the best of terms after the Chinese Communist Party took control of China. The writing was on the wall that China posed a threat to India’s sovereignty. Despite the albatross around India's neck, Nehru thought it was wise not to strengthen defence within its borders. China had been encroaching into Tibet. In Nehru's view, after achieving independence through satyagraha (passive resistance), maintaining a large army was inappropriate. Nehru promoted the idea that China was a friend. The slogan of the early 1960s was 'Chinni Chinni Bhai Bhai' (Chinese and Indians are brothers). The Chinese later backstabbed India by attacking and taking over Aksai Chin, west of Nepal.

It was a wake-up call for India. They strengthened their military with help from the Soviet Union. In 1965, Pakistan, supported by the USA, provoked India by claiming a barren piece of land in Gujarat. Through Operation Gibraltar, they infiltrated Kashmir. India, following its humiliating 1962 encounter with China, quickly defeated Pakistan in 22 days, gaining confidence.

States in India underwent division along linguistic and administrative lines. Punjab was divided to form Haryana. Bombay was separated from Maharashtra. Himachal Pradesh was established. Telangana broke away from Andhra Pradesh. Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar, and Uttarakhand from Uttar Pradesh. Earlier, the Madras Presidency was divided into Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. Andhra Pradesh attempted to claim Madras as its capital but had to relinquish it.

MK Gandhi once described India's heart as residing in its villages. Farming was the primary livelihood for the majority. Nehru promoted industrialisation, machinery, and the expansion of higher education to help the country progress towards modernity. IITs were established to support this goal. The Soviet Union provided assistance. On the international stage, Nehru, with his Fabian ideology, advocated for the Non-Aligned Movement, which aimed to remain independent of either side of the Iron Curtain. The US was quite agitated when he was seen as influential in the 1955 Bandung Conference, where China participated and its premier, Zhou Enlai, attended.

Nehru died in 1964 and was briefly succeeded by Lal Bahadur Shastri. He was beloved by the public and considered a hero of the common man. His rallying cry, 'Jai Jawan Jai Kisan' (Hail the Soldier, Hail the Farmer), boosted the nation's morale during India's 1965 war with Pakistan. He mysteriously returned in a body bag after signing a peace treaty in Tashkent to end the conflict.

Indira Gandhi was quickly promoted to the position. Throughout, she had been mentored by Nehru for the role. As with Shastri, Indira’s appointment was supported by a committee led by Kamaraj, a Congress leader. 

One of Indira Gandhi’s legacies must surely be when West Pakistan attacked East Pakistan after Mujibur Rahman’s party won the 1971 elections. Somehow, West Pakistan thought it was not appropriate for them to be governed by dark-skinned Bengalis. They sent in the army, and East Pakistan turned to India for help. 

In a swift and decisive 13-day war, India's security forces compelled West Pakistan to surrender unconditionally. India concluded the conflict before the arrival of US naval ships to support the West Pakistani forces. 

 

On Buddha Purnima, 18th May 1974, India became the sixth nation with nuclear capability, joining the USA, UK, USSR, France, and China, when it tested its nuclear bomb in Pokhran. The operation was named the Smiling Buddha. 

Another indelible event in Indira Gandhi’s leadership is the declaration of the National Emergency in 1975. After being guilty of electoral malpractice for using government machinery in her 1971 elections, the Allahabad Court declared the election invalid. This would automatically disqualify her from appointment and prevent her from holding any political post for 6 years. As the public cries grew louder, Indira Gandhi declared an Emergency. Hundreds of opposition leaders, social activists, student leaders, and journalists were arrested under the MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act), which allows detention without trial. Prominent leaders arrested included JP Narayan, a key icon of the post-Emergency era; Morarji Desai, who became Prime Minister in 1977; LK Advani, later a deputy Prime Minister; Atal B. Vajpayee; and the rebellious George Fernandez. The radio, TV, print media, and cinema were placed under strict government control. 

The Emergency period saw Indira Gandhi preparing her son, Sanjay, in an attempt to ensure dynastic continuity. He was granted extra-constitutional powers to undertake tasks not approved by the cabinet. He gained considerable notoriety through his unsavoury activities. He attempted to promote forced sterilisation and oversaw slum demolitions. There was an effort to mass-produce India’s affordable people’s car, the Maruti, which did not succeed at the time but was revived much later.

When the Emergency was lifted and elections took place, Indra was defeated. A fragile coalition was formed. The Emergency period, in a way, demonstrated to Indians that there is life after the Congress Party. In fact, this period also saw the splitting of the Congress.

The following years saw a few landmark events. The first non-Congress coalition did not remain in power for long. Due to internal conflicts, the government collapsed. Indira Gandhi returned as Prime Minister in 1981. Sadly, her dynastic ambitions of passing her realm to Sanjay Gandhi were shattered when he was killed in a plane crash.

1984 was another sad year when Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguard just months after she ordered Operation Blue Star. In that operation, the Indian Army entered the Golden Temple in Amritsar to suppress arms-wielding Sikh extremists. Rajiv Gandhi, Indira's other son, was promoted to fill the gap. The 1984 elections saw Congress winning a large majority due to Indira's assassination. Rajiv Gandhi became the youngest Prime Minister at 40.

His premiership was marred by a few controversies. First, there was the Bofors scandal, India's disastrous meddling in the Sri Lankan issue with their ethnic Tamils, the Bhopal tragedy, and Shah Bano's Supreme Court decision on her divorce maintenance settlement. He lost the 1989 elections.

For the second time, a non-Congress coalition formed the government under the leadership of VP Singh. Singh's tenure marked the beginning of the Ram Mandir-Babri Masjid controversy in Ayodhya. The Mandal Commission, established in 1979 to identify socially or educationally backward classes, had its recommendations implemented in 1990. 27% of government jobs were reserved for backward castes. The Mandal-Mandir issue was not well-received by the citizens and contributed to the coalition's loss in the subsequent election.

1991 was a tragic year for the Nehru dynasty. A suicide bomber from Sri Lanka's LTTE detonated an RDX explosive while Rajiv Gandhi was campaigning in Tamil Nadu. The 1991 elections resulted in Narasimha Rao becoming the Congress' Prime Minister. Rajiv's widow, Sonia Gandhi, was disqualified due to her Italian origin.

The 1996 elections resulted in a hung parliament with no clear majority. The previous Congress government was plagued by the 1992 Bombay stock market scandal. Kashmir experienced renewed violence in 1995. The BJP was invited to form the government. Atal Bihari Vajpayee failed to secure enough support and had to relinquish the premiership after thirteen days. Following a series of appointments, resignations, and splits within parties, the 1998 elections were called. Once again, the results were hung, but Vajpayee became Prime Minister again.

 

The following year, Vajpayee lost a vote of confidence when the AIADMK withdrew its support. Vajpayee had refused to dismantle the Tamil Nadu government led by Karunanidhi. The 1999 elections took place after the Kargil War. With that morale-boosting victory in Kargil and Sonia Gandhi, an Italian by birth, on the opposition side, the BJP won.

There was a surprising leadership change in Congress in 2004. Manmohan Singh led the country for two terms until 2014, after which the BJP, under Narendra Modi's mentorship from Gujarat, has held power to date.

 

India, with its complexities, never fails to fascinate. It is a place to learn about humanity, the evil that men do, a treasure trove of knowledge, and a bottomless pit filled with mysteries of a bygone era. 

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