Lunch with BS: Ashis Nandy explains how nationalism can be restrictive

Discomfort over dissent is nothing new. Every government since Independence has been uncomfortable with it

It’s not often, I muse, as I wait for Ashis Nandy at Indian Accent at Delhi’s The Lodhi Hotel on a hot summer afternoon, that I get to have lunch with someone who has inspired a Facebook page demanding his arrest. One of India’s foremost public intellectuals, Nandy’s writings on colonial identity, nationalism, modernity and violence have been remarkable as much for their intellectual brilliance as they’ve been for their divergence from prevalent positions. As I leaf through The Intimate Enemy (1983), and the recent festschrift edited by Ramin Jahanbegloo and Ananya Vajpeyi, Ashis Nandy: A Life in Dissent (2018)