Newswallah: Long Reads Edition

By HEATHER TIMMONS

Descendants of former colonial subjects in Asia (and Africa) “can only be bewildered by the righteous nostalgia for imperialism that has recently seized many prominent Anglo-American politicians and opinion-makers, who continue to see Asia through the narrow perspective of western interests, leaving unexamined and unimagined the collective experiences of Asian peoples,” Pankaj Mishra writes in Friday's Books section of the British newspaper The Guardian.

The article appears as Mr. Mishra's newest book, “From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia,” is being released. He writes that “overt violence and terror is only a small part of the story of European domination of Asia and Africa, which includes the slow-motion slaughter of tens of million in famines caused by unfettered experiments in free trade â€" and plain callousness (Indians, after all, would go on breeding “like rab bits”, Winston Churchill argued when asked to send relief during the Bengal famine of 1943-44).”

Western  “neo-imperialists,” Mr. Mishra says, now look as “reliable as the peddlers of fake Viagra,” but still find customers.  Surely not for long, he seems to think, writing that “we have edged closer to the cosmopolitan future the first generation of modern Asian thinkers, writers and leaders dreamed of â€" in which people from different parts of the world meet as equals.”

In a post on the Kafila blog titled “Death and the Factory,”  Shuddhabrata Sengupta examines the reaction to the  recent violence at the Maruti Suzuki factory compared to other incidents in which workers, not managers, were killed. In 2009, for example, at the Lakhani Shoe Factory in Faridabad, Haryana, workers “were struck by a ball of fire, which engulfed them before they could run to save their lives,” Mr. Sengupta writes.

“We h ave heard a lot about one fire in Manesar in the past few days. Why have we heard so little about another fire in Faridabad over the last three years?” he asks.

“Death does not come to the factory riding only bullets and the lethal blows of police lathis,” Mr. Sengupta writes. “It comes casually, with the accident, or in solitude, with suicide. Across the world, there is a growing incidence of workplace deaths.”

In “What is his gameplan?,” Rana Ayyub of Tehelka examines the future role of Sharad Pawar, the president of the Nationalist Congress Party and a recent thorn in the side of the ruling Congress. “The next general election could result in a hung parliament and a weak Congress and BJP - and offer Pawar his last shot at becoming the prime minister,” the article says.  “It's a prize he has coveted since Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991.”

But no one actually knows what will happen, Ms. Ayyub concludes. “There can be only thre e possible options after the 2014 election - a Congress-led government, a BJP-led government and a Third Front government. Typical of Pawar, he can stay relevant in all three situations.”