Explain It Clearly

  A Weekend Column by Manish Kumar History occasionally invents new technology. It almost never invents new ambition. Napoleon understood that. LinkedIn monetised it. Long before executives collected endorsements from colleagues, emperors collected endorsements from history. The language has changed remarkably over two centuries. The instinct has displayed no such enthusiasm for innovation. Napoleon never updated a profile. He simply updated Europe. The resemblance is less ridiculous than it first appears. Napoleon spent much of his life collecting precisely the things ambitious professionals continue collecting today—titles, influence, powerful acquaintances, public recognition and carefully managed reputations. LinkedIn merely arranged them into convenient boxes with blue buttons and profile photographs. Human beings have always enjoyed introducing themselves. Civilizations merely keep redesigning the introduction. History remembers names long after it forge...

  History occasionally tells jokes so elaborate that they require nearly a century before anyone understands the punchline. America gave the world two unforgettable Donalds. The first wore a sailor's shirt, possessed an astonishingly short temper and spent his life proving that catastrophe could be entertaining if accompanied by sufficient determination and unusual vocal techniques. The second wears a red tie, displays a similarly energetic relationship with controversy and discovered that modern politics rewarded visibility almost as generously as victory. The resemblance ends there. Yet somewhere between those two Donalds lies one of the most revealing stories America has ever told about itself. It tells the story of a nation that became so extraordinarily good at creating unforgettable characters that, one day, it quietly invited one into the White House. Most civilizations exported ideas. Greece exported philosophy. Rome exported law. Britain exported parliamentary governme...

  History occasionally tells jokes that even comedians would reject as unbelievable. It took one comedian to laugh at dictators. It took another to lead a nation resisting one. Charlie Chaplin spent his life pretending to be someone else. Volodymyr Zelensky spent part of his pretending to be President of Ukraine. History, with its peculiar sense of humour, decided that the second performance should become permanent. Between those two men lies a century that quietly changed the relationship between laughter and power. Once, comedians stood outside politics. Today, one of them stands at its centre. That is not merely the story of one man. It is the story of our age. Charlie Chaplin never commanded an army. He never negotiated a peace treaty. He never wore a military uniform. Yet few artists challenged tyranny with greater confidence. His weapon was laughter. It is difficult to imagine today, but there was a time when making people laugh at a dictator was itself an act of resi...

  As the world debates ceasefires, reconstruction and governance, a more fundamental question has quietly slipped into the background: What political future are all these arrangements actually designed to achieve? Are Western Governments Trying to Solve Gaza Without Solving Palestine? Can Gaza be rebuilt before anyone agrees what political future it is is being rebuilt for? Can a territory be governed before there is agreement over the sovereignty under which it will ultimately exist? Can international donors finance reconstruction without first deciding what political order their money is meant to sustain? Can a technocratic administration acquire legitimacy if the political question it is meant to administer remains unresolved? If security arrangements succeed in preventing another war, will they make resolving the Palestinian question more urgent—or less? And if Gaza can be stabilised without resolving Palestine, what incentive remains to resolve Palestine at all? These ques...

  India sees E20 as a step towards energy security, lower oil imports and cleaner mobility. So why are most South Asian countries moving far more cautiously? Every few months, South Asia rediscovers one of its favourite policy clichés. India adopts a new strategy, a neighbouring country hesitates, and the debate quickly becomes a referendum on who is right. The latest example is E20 petrol. If India believes ethanol blending is the future, why haven't its neighbours rushed to follow? It is an irresistible headline. It is also the wrong debate. The assumption behind it is deceptively simple: countries facing similar challenges should arrive at similar solutions. India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka all import petroleum. They all worry about volatile oil prices. They all understand that cleaner transport and greater energy security will shape the decades ahead. If the destination is broadly the same, shouldn't the route be too? That is where the argument begins to unrav...