In the city of Sambhal, the future of India is being rehearsed in plain sight. Three-quarters of the city’s 300,000 residents are Muslim. Yet today, many say they live as if under occupation — their public religious life curtailed, their protests criminalized, their grief surveilled. The spark was a legal challenge to the 16th-century Shahi Jama Masjid , a mosque that Hindu nationalists claim was built over a sacred Hindu site. After a court-ordered archaeological survey, tensions exploded. Police fired tear gas and live rounds. Families say at least five people were killed. Hundreds were booked. Thousands were listed as “unnamed accused,” a legal cloud that can expand at will. Internet shut down. City sealed. Dissent crushed. Sambhal is not an anomaly. It is a method. The Ideological Spine: Hindutva and the RSS To understand Sambhal, one must understand the ideological infrastructure behind it. The (RSS), founded in 1925, promotes Hindutva — the idea that India is fun...
In a world where identity is weaponized and religion is drafted into political armies, the sight of an ultra-Orthodox rabbi standing beside Palestinian flags unsettles nearly everyone. Yet there stands — black coat, beard, sidelocks — calmly declaring something that scrambles modern assumptions: “ Judaism is not Zionism.” For him, this is not rebellion . It is obedience . Affiliated with , a small and highly controversial Haredi sect, Rabbi Beck represents a theological current that predates modern nationalism. His argument is not secular. It is not progressive. It is not post-modern. It is ancient . And that is precisely the point. The Interview That Disturbs Categories In one widely circulated long-form interview, the exchange unfolds with almost disarming simplicity. Interviewer: Rabbi Beck, how can you oppose Israel as a Jewish rabbi? Rabbi Beck: Judaism and Zionism are two completely different things. Judaism is a religion. Zionism is a political movement founded little more ...