To start with...

I have been reading blogs for a little over a year now, fascinated by the medium and the writers it draws. I too write. And when I see books or blogs, there is a part of me that thinks: I should be writing, just like this.

There is another imperative at work. I am a political scientist by training and writing for the press is as much a sign of professional arrival in South Asia as writing for peer-reviewed journals is elsewhere. Or so it seems to me, when people prod me and say, why aren't you writing for the editorial pages of national newspapers? Now, there are lots of reasons why; many have to do with me and some have to do with the national newspapers! Those can wait to be aired in another space!

There is a via media in tone, style and approach between academic (or even consultancy) writing and creative (for want of a better term) writing that I do, and somewhere in that middle-space is the category comprising opinion-pieces and commentary. As I read newspapers, I lament the fact that good writing and thoughtful analysis rarely coexist (of course, there are exceptions!). My own risk-averse streak has kept me from negotiating this middle-ground. What if I am as bad? What if I can't write? What if I have nothing to say? What if I can't sound authoritative? What if, what if, what if?

Hence, this blog.

As a platform to attempt this negotiation.
As a way around the isolation of independent scholarship.
As a discipline.

It's just me. Seeking my voice.