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: KILLING AUTHORS, AND BEEF EATERS
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
Culture wars in the illiberal atmosphere of Modi’s India have taken a turn for the violent. First, we had the targeted murders of rationalists by religious extremists. Eminent thinkers like MM Kalburgi, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare were murdered with impunity by Hindutva goons. Prof Kalburgi’s murder was not even condemned initially by the Sahitya Akademi, an institution that had once conferred on him one of India’s top literary honors. Read more…
THREE MURDERS AND A LYNCHING
Ram Puniyani
Laws of nature cannot be applied to human society so directly. Still sometimes these have been used to explain-justify social catastrophes, “When a big tree falls. Earth shakes (in the aftermath of anti-Sikh massacre 1984), ‘every action has equal and opposite reaction’ (during Gujarat carnage of 2002) are too well known. Read more…
FROM BABRI TO DADRI: STOP PLAYING WITH LIVES AND RIGHTS OF MINORITIES
Dr. Noorjehan Safia Niaz
Bharatiya Muslim MahilaAndolan [BMMA] along with Bharat BachaoAndolan, Police Reforms Watch, VidyarthiBharti, Phule-AmbedkarManch and JagrutKamgaarManch is organizing a press conference to protest against the increasing low scale harassment of Muslim youth in Mumbai and the increasing intolerance towards the Muslim community. Given below are a few instances that have happened in the last one week. Read more…
EIGHT THINGS NEPALIS DISLIKE ABOUT INDIAN INTERFERENCE
The ‘unofficial blockade’ imposed by India against Nepal expressing its discontent over the newly adopted constitution in Nepal has sparked anti- India sentiments in Nepal. Read more…
CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR
Keki Daruwala
[The eminent poet is the latest to add his voice to the rising chorus of protests against the silence of the country’s premium literary body on the murder of professor MM Kalburgi]. Read more…
INDIA’S ATTACK ON FREE SPEECH
Sonia Faleiro
London — In today’s India, secular liberals face a challenge: how to stay alive.
In August, 77-year-old scholar M. M. Kalburgi, an outspoken critic of Hindu idol worship, was gunned down on his own doorstep. In February, the communist leader Govind Pansare was killed near Mumbai. And in 2013, the activist Narendra Dabholkar was murdered for campaigning against religious superstitions. Read more…
PAKISTAN – LAW AND LAWYERS
THE law in Pakistan is sometimes far from safe in the hands of lawyers.
A section of the country’s legal fraternity — notwithstanding a number of courageous and upright individuals within its midst — has evolved into a formidable pressure group and many of its members have, time and again, thought nothing of flouting even fundamental rights to achieve their objectives. Read more…
HINDUTVA FASCISTS AND BARBARIC ZIONISTS ARE NATURAL PARTNERS!
Anand Singh
Last year, when Israel was carrying out one of the most barbaric genocides of this century by bombarding the Gaza strip, justice-loving people across the world, including India, were out on streets to protest. But it was the same time, when frenzied triumphalism of Hindutva fascists was at its peak in the corridors of power. Now more than a year has elapsed since the Hindutva fascists came to power in India under the leadership of Narendra Modi. As expected, the BJP government has made it clear through its conduct in the last one year that Hindutva fascists and Zionists are the ideological kins. To strengthen this bonhomie, Narendra Modi has announced his visit to Israel. As a gesture of friendship, Modi government has thrice abstained from voting in United Nations in the last three months, instead of voting against Israel. Read more…
BOMBING OF AFGHAN HOSPITAL IS A WAR CRIME
Kathy Kelly
Before the 2003 Shock and Awe bombing in Iraq, a group of activists living in Baghdad would regularly go to city sites that were crucial for maintaining health and well-being in Baghdad, such as hospitals, electrical facilities, water purification plants, and schools, and string large vinyl banners between the trees outside these buildings which read: “To Bomb This Site Would Be A War Crime.” We encouraged people in U.S. cities to do the same, trying to build empathy for people trapped in Iraq, anticipating a terrible aerial bombing. Read more…
GENDER EQUALITY SHOULD GUIDE THE PROCESS OF REFORMING FAMILY LAWS AND NOT NATIONAL INTEGRATION
Irfan Engineer
Supreme Court of India has yet again asked the Union Government to file affidavit and state whether it intended to bring Uniform Civil Code (UCC for brevity). In the Shah Bano Judgment (Shah Bano v. Mohammad Ahmed Khan, 1985) the Supreme Court observed “It is a matter of regret that Article 44 of the Constitution has remained a dead letter”. In Sarla Mudgal v. Union of India (1995), similar observations were made. Though the Supreme Court takes on the role of a reformer assuming lack of courage in the political class, it is only the legislature that can bring in the UCC. Read more…
ROMILA THAPAR’S LECTURE ON SECULARISM IN MUMBAI OCT. 26, 2015
Prof. Romila Thapar’s Lecture on Secularism in Mumbai, under the auspices of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, in memory of the Centre’s founder, late Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, was a resounding success. Read more…
REPORT OF DR. ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER MEMORIAL PUBLIC LECTURE
The Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer Memorial public lecture was organized by the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) and delivered by eminent historian Romila Thapar on 26th October 2015 at KC College Auditorium in Mumbai. The lecture was chaired by prominent academician, Prof. Jairus Banaji. This lecture on the topic of “Indian Society and the Secular” was delivered by Romila Thapar also at Jamia Milia Islamia University at Delhi in August 2015. Read more…
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