404. Reaching for the Stars
BIC TALKS
What does it take to dream beyond your time—and make those dreams real? Vikram Sarabhai, founder of India’s space programme, imagined communication satellites that would educate people when even a modest rocket launch seemed audacious. He envisioned agricultural complexes powered by atomic energy, sea water turned drinkable, and a modern India fuelled by science and creativity. But Sarabhai was more than a scientist—he co-founded the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, the National Institute of Design, the dance academy Darpana, and India’s first textile research cooperative,...
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403. Gandhi and Savarkar
BIC TALKS
Between Gandhi and Savarkar lies the story of India’s unresolved future. The future of India has long been caught between two irreconcilable visions. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar were not just men, but embodiments of two enduring ideologies: Hind Swaraj and Hindutva. Their contest was never merely personal; it was a struggle over what India could, and should, become. Partition was one gash on the body of the nation, its scars still visible. Can India afford new wounds? To even attempt an answer, we must return to the old antagonisms – between communities, yes,...
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402. Rabia's Journey | ராபியாவின் பயணம்
BIC TALKS
At its heart, The Dark Hours of the Night is a story about girlhood under constraint, about how adolescence, desire, and freedom are shaped and stifled within the walls of a conservative household. Rabia’s journey, woven together with the lives of her friends and cousins, illuminates the subtle negotiations, unspoken rebellions, and fragile solidarities that mark women’s coming-of-age in a patriarchal world. The novel opens a conversation about the everyday intimacies of restriction and resistance: the ache of thwarted desire, the bonds of friendship, the weight of silence, and...
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401. Played and Missed
BIC TALKS
Before the spotlights, who kept the women’s game alive? In 2017, India’s women cricketers came heartbreakingly close to a World Cup win at Lord’s. That match lit a fire, changing how the country saw its women athletes, and laying the foundation for today’s Women’s Premier League – the first women’s sports league to turn profitable even before a single ball was bowled. It’s the first time since that iconic evening at Lord’s that the Women’s World Cup is set to be hosted in India. This session will celebrate those forgotten days when world cups in India were played in front...
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400. Lessons for Democracy
BIC TALKS
What happens when institutions bend, freedoms collapse, and silence rules? India once knew. Five decades may have passed, but the Emergency remains a stark reminder of how swiftly freedoms can be curtailed. In those 21 months, prisons filled, the press was silenced, and democratic institutions bent under the weight of authoritarian rule. The questions it leaves behind are urgent: what does this episode tell us about the fragility of democracy, and what echoes of it persist today? A new volume gathers reflections from scholars, writers, historians, journalists, and activists to probe this...
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399. Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood (Masterclass: 3 of 3)
BIC TALKS
The Masterclass Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood: India’s Encounters with Languages explores three defining moments in India’s linguistic journey: the arrival of Sanskrit, Persian, and English. Each language came from beyond India’s borders, gained a foothold, and extended its influence across diverse cultures, communities, and tongues. Their dominance shaped not only communication but also identity, politics, and thought. Thus, becoming inseparable from the larger story of India itself. These lectures will trace how each language consolidated its power, how resistance took form,...
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398. Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood (Masterclass: 2 of 3)
BIC TALKS
The Masterclass Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood: India’s Encounters with Languages explores three defining moments in India’s linguistic journey: the arrival of Sanskrit, Persian, and English. Each language came from beyond India’s borders, gained a foothold, and extended its influence across diverse cultures, communities, and tongues. Their dominance shaped not only communication but also identity, politics, and thought. Thus, becoming inseparable from the larger story of India itself. These lectures will trace how each language consolidated its power, how resistance took form,...
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397. Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood (Masterclass: 1 of 3)
BIC TALKS
The Masterclass Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood: India’s Encounters with Languages explores three defining moments in India’s linguistic journey: the arrival of Sanskrit, Persian, and English. Each language came from beyond India’s borders, gained a foothold, and extended its influence across diverse cultures, communities, and tongues. Their dominance shaped not only communication but also identity, politics, and thought. Thus, becoming inseparable from the larger story of India itself. These lectures will trace how each language consolidated its power, how resistance took form,...
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396. Sama, Dana, Danda, Bheda: Friends, Rivals, or Just Trading Partners?
BIC TALKS
Trust is thin, history is long, and the consequences? Unforgiving. India and China share a long border and a longer shadow. Security risks and market hopes pull in opposite directions. In a world of shifting power, India must choose with care. This evening explores that choice through the ancient philosophical and logical Indian discipline of Purva Paksha. Each speaker first presents the other’s case, fully and fairly, before offering their own. The aim isn’t to score points, but rather, to see clearly: where trust frayed, where interests align, and where wisdom might guide policy....
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395. Reading the City Reading Ourselves
BIC TALKS
Sundar Sarukkai’s second novel published recently titled Water Days is a reflective look at the changes in his home city, Bangalore, how everyday life gets formed and what happens to the city insidiously and quietly. He explores migration and the changing social fabric, patriarchy, language, linguistic conflicts, power, and who gets to belong in the melting pot that is Bangalore. Water Days is not just a novel about a city; it is a novel about what it means to belong when everything around you is changing. Sarukkai does not romanticise Bangalore, but he listens carefully to...
info_outlineBetween Gandhi and Savarkar lies the story of India’s unresolved future.
The future of India has long been caught between two irreconcilable visions. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar were not just men, but embodiments of two enduring ideologies: Hind Swaraj and Hindutva. Their contest was never merely personal; it was a struggle over what India could, and should, become.
Partition was one gash on the body of the nation, its scars still visible. Can India afford new wounds? To even attempt an answer, we must return to the old antagonisms – between communities, yes, but also within Hindu society itself. Few rivalries have been as sharp, or as consequential, as that between Gandhi and Savarkar.
Based on his new book, Hindutva and Hind Swaraj, this talk reflects on the unresolved gulf between Gandhi and Savarkar. Not as history, but as a question that remains open: can such differences ever be bridged, or are they the fault lines of India’s future?
In this episode of BIC Talks, Makarand R Paranjape delivers a talk. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Sep 2025.
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