Founding Editor: Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Editors: Vinod Mubayi (New York) and Raza Mir (New Jersey).
Editorial Board: Ram Puniyani and Irfan Engineer (Mumbai); Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islamabad); Dolores Chew (Montreal); Vamsi Vakulabharanam (Amherst); Ajay Bhardwaj (Vancouver).
Circulation/website: Feroz Mehdi (On behalf of Alternatives, Montreal).
EDITORIAL: SOUTH ASIA AT THE PERPETUAL CROSSROADS
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
The current issue of the INSAF Bulletin highlights issues across the South Asian spectrum, from the elections in Sri Lanka to the constitutional crisis in Nepal, and from the investigation of Sabeen Mahmud’s murder in Pakistan to the targeting of secular bloggers in Afghanistan. In India, the Bihar elections and growing inequality highlight the wobbly support for Narendra Modi. We also include a detailed and appreciative obituary of Praful Bidwai, highlighting his role as an activist in the nuclear debates. Read more…
CHATRAPATI SHIVAJI MAHARAJ: TO EACH ONES’ OWN!
Ram Puniyani
Some concerned citizens have filed a Public Interest Litigation (August 17 2015) to stop the highest award of Maharashtra Government, Maharashtra Bhushan to Babasaheb Purandare. Purandare is known for his work ‘Raja Shivaji Chatrapati’ and the play ‘Jaanata Raja’ (wise king) his is not the first time that such a controversy around Purandare has come up. Read more…
IS INEQUALITY IN INDIA HERE TO STAY?
Vamsi Vakulabharanam
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to narrow the gap between Indian elites and the rest of the population.
India has experienced a significant economic growth spurt in recent decades. After seeing annual growth of 3 percent in the years after independence in 1947, the rate began to double, reaching a rate of around 6 percent per year after 1980. However, the distribution of growth proceeds has been very uneven across different constituents of the Indian population. Read more…
BOOK WITHDRAWAL GAME
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/gujarat-pulls-books-with-anti-hindu-ambedkar-remarks/
Gujarat withdraws books with ‘anti-Hindu’ Ambedkar remarks – See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/gujarat-pulls-books-with-anti-hindu-ambedkar-remarks/#sthash.WHMtTVgC.dpuf Read more…
A CONSISTENT, PRINCIPLED AND KNOWLEDGEABLE CRITIC: PRAFUL BIDWAI ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND ENERGY
M. V. Ramana
For about four decades, the late Praful Bidwai, no stranger to the readers of this journal, has written prodigiously on various aspects of nuclear weapons and energy. Even for someone as widely published as Praful, the sheer volume of his output is noteworthy. One could classify his writings into four categories: critiques of nuclear energy, dangers associated with nuclear weapons, nuclear diplomacy (pertaining both to weapons and energy), and chronicles of people’s resistance movements. These are not watertight compartments and many articles might be classified in more than one category; others may not quite fit in any. Read more…
SALUTING COURAGE: MEMORIAL FOR VASANT RAJAB
Ram Puniyani
Gujarat violence (2002) was horrific. In this, after the burning of train in Godhra in which 58 innocents died, the same tragedy was made the pretext to launch the massive violence in which over one thousand people perished. In the aftermath of that I got many occasions to visit different parts of Gujarat and also to come to know about two legendary youth who had laid down their life to protect the people when the communal violence was going on in Ahmadabad in July 1946. These two young men, Vasant Rao Hegishte and Rajab Ali Lakhani, close friends and workers of Congress Seva Dal, came to the streets to stop the killings. Vasant Rao trying to protect Muslims and Rajab Ali stood firm to save the Hindus. Both were done to death by the mobs. Read more…
WHY ARE THEY HOUNDING TEESTA SETALVAD NOW?
K.P. Sasi
The first time I met Javed Anand was in the early eighties. I met him since my close friend Paul Kurien used to admire the significance of his work. Javed used to be part of a documentation centre at that time. Paul Kurien who was a brilliant mind is a deep memory even now for many common friends. I found Javed as a deeply reflective person, who is extremely focused in his work, warm and compassionate. Read more…
2.87 MILLION INDIANS HAVE NO FAITH, CENSUS REVEALS FOR FIRST TIME
Sivakumar B
CHENNAI: India has 2.87 million people who have no faith in any religion — 0.24% of the country’s population of 1.21 billion — according to the 2011 census, which was the first to include a ‘non-faith’ category. The figure includes atheists, rationalists as well as those not interested in any religion but believe in some ‘unknown’ force. Read more…
BANGLADESH ISLAMISTS THREATENED BY SECULAR BLOGGERS ?- MINORITIES HIT AS GOVT WOOS ISLAMISTS
Imran H Sarker
Bangladesh is being roiled by gruesome murders targeting its secular blogger ommunity. Imran H Sarker is spokesperson for Bangladesh’s Shahbag movement which demanded maximum puni hment for 1971’s war criminals. Speaking with Rudroneel Ghosh, Sarker discussed why bloggers are being killed, the knowing apathy of political parties ? and how this inks to attacks on religious minorities. Read more…
THE BATTLE FOR SRI LANKA: BETWEEN A COMMUNAL / MAJORITARIAN VIEW VERSUS A MULTI-ETHNIC, PLURAL AND DEMOCRATIC VISION
Jayadeva Uyangoda
Putinization Has Been Stopped but Sri Lanka Needs a New Ideological Project.
The possibility of the Rajapaksa-led opposition using Sinhalese communalism to unsettle and undermine the new government of moderates is actually very real. Read more…
THE BATTLE FOR BIHAR: THE RELEASE OF RELIGIOUS CENSUS FIGURES BETRAYS THE BJP’S NERVOUSNESS
Anita Katyal
The party does not seem to be sure of its Modi magic working by itself and is likely to use the census data to fuel fear of a Muslim upsurge to consolidate its Hindu vote. Read more…
SABEEN MAHMUD: ANATOMY OF A MURDER
Naziha Syed Ali and| Fahim Zaman
It was a 9mm gun, probably a Stoeger. Before Saad Aziz got this “samaan” through an associate, by his own admission, he had already plotted a murder. On the evening of Friday, April 24, 2015, he met four other young men, all well-educated like him, somewhere on Karachi’s Tariq Road to finalise and carry out the plot. As dusk deepened into night, they set off towards Defence Housing Society Phase II Extension on three motorcycles. Their destination: a café-cum-communal space – The Second Floor or T2F – where an event, Unsilencing Balochistan: take two, was under way. Their target: Sabeen Mahmud, 40, the founder and director of T2F. Read more…
NEPAL’S CONSTITUTIONAL POLITICS: IT’S TIME TO DROP THE ARROGANCE
Prashant Jha
Even as the Indian foreign policy establishment has been busy with the Sri Lankan elections and the NSA level talks with Pakistan, trouble has broken out right across the open border in Nepal. Protests for a particular form of federal demarcation have turned violent in the western district of Kailali, and several people have been killed – among them 6 policemen and 3 civilians. Unofficial reports put the figure at over 20. If the higher figures turn out to be correct, the state has not faced this scale of violence ever since the civil war ended in 2006. Read more…
YAKUB MEMON’S HANGING AND THE MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE
Vinod Mubayi
The midnight vigil at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi failed. The 2.30 a.m. wake up call for justice addressed to the Chief Justice of India by eminent lawyers like Indira Jaising and civil society organizations failed.The Indian justice system, which Memon trusted enough to return to the country with his family, was shown to be a complete fraud. Read more…
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