Fair Observer Q2 Update: Heat, Highlights and More
Dear Friend of Fair Observer,
I started writing this on July 8, my mother’s birthday. As I get older, my appreciation for my mother has increased exponentially. I cannot say that I had the maturity to appreciate her when I was younger. My mother has a temper; I was hot-headed, and we clashed a wee bit too much.
Even now and then, we still clash, sometimes utterly unnecessarily. We are both strong personalities and can be mule-headed. Per an old saying, two swords cannot inhabit the same scabbard, and I suppose we clashed when we were younger for that reason. That said, I now value my mother’s virtues far more than her shortcomings. Human beings are invariably complicated and highly imperfect. My mother and I are no exceptions. At this stage in my life, I am beginning to accept the imperfection of our human condition.
On my mother’s birthday, I have to give her credit for me starting and running Fair Observer. I have often mentioned how my father gave me four children’s history books: Indian and British, American and Soviet. This made me realize very early that all of history in some ways was mythology. I owe a great deal to my mother too. Her love of literature and gift for the gab gave me the ability to write and speak somewhat well. My mother comes from a business and political family but never let that get to her head. She has always carried herself with both humility and ferocity, two traits I have come to admire in greater measure over the years.
Atul and his mother, Sudha, visiting Paris in 2008.
In a society defined by class and caste, my mother is one of the shining exceptions. In India, politicians and senior bureaucrats tend to have drivers and even gun-toting bodyguards who ferry them around all day and often till late at night. These lesser mortals are largely forgotten when sahibs, the word for your bosses or rather masters, do the rounds. To this day, my mother will walk out to the cars of the waiting sahibs to serve drivers and/or bodyguards tea and snacks when sahibs call on my parents. When I am back in India, drivers, policemen, soldiers and the Indian version of les sans culottes speak in dulcet tones about her warmth and hospitality. They often also tell me that my mother is the most eloquent, incisive and wise woman they have met in their life.
There is another trait of my mother’s that I deeply respect. No one I know works harder than her. Even in her 70s, she will work all night from time to time. When she was a young mother, she worked very hard to raise my brother and me and take care of my father. In fact, when I was a very young baby, my father had a major accident in Goa. At one point, he feared that he would not survive. My mother carried me in her arms, took a bus to the hospital and cared for him until he thankfully got better. My father is now in his 80s and is still bright as a button, and my mother deserves a great degree of credit for his good health.
It is easy to forget now that things were quite tough in India a few decades ago. My father would be posted to a new part of the country every two–three years, and we would have to move lock, stock and barrel. Sometimes, the places we stayed initially would not even have a water supply. Tankers would come around to deliver water. My mother would fill buckets as tankers stopped on the road and carry them to fill drums in front of what the military used to call our temporary accommodation. I now realize how hard my mother worked then for all of us.
Even today, my mother kills herself cooking for guests. My French friend Michel Ragnvald Maellberg sings paeans to my mother’s cooking long after he has left India. The Swiss diplomat Simon Sevan Schäfer is a vegetarian and an explorer par excellence who speaks Hindi, has learned Sanskrit and gone on to travel the length and breadth of India. He too venerates my mother’s cooking. So do local boys like Colonel Hitesh Bhatnagar and top cop Kamal Nayan Choubey.
The attribute that I value most about my mother is that she speaks truth to power. When most of the country, including the likes of film star Amitabh Bachchan and billionaire Anil Ambani, were sycophantic to her brother, she had the courage to tell this charismatic politician when he was in the wrong. Suffice to say, neither he nor many others in power appreciate this attribute of my mother. She is punchy, unrelenting and searingly honest. India would be a different country if there were more people like my mother.
As a founder, I have made many mistakes, but the one thing almost everyone who knows me will tell you is that I work bloody hard and I speak truth to power. I learned both these things from my mother and try my best to inculcate these attributes in our young editors.
These are ugly times when people threaten to sue us and often do worse. A while ago, we had to take down pieces because the Taliban threatened to kill the parents of one of our authors. We have been accused of being in the pay of Zionists as well as the Iranian regime. Google Gemini and ChatGPT are reducing visitors to our website. In the words of Bob Dylan: The Times They Are A-Changin’. In my words: The Times They Are A-Challengin’.
In these times, we act per my mother’s advice with dignity, honesty and courage. Please find in the following pages what we have done in the second quarter of 2026. We very much look forward to hearing from you on how we can face these challenging times and keep the flag flying for independent journalism.
With best wishes for the summer,
Atul Singh
Founder, CEO & Editor-in-Chief
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