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: 100 YEARS OF THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
The so-called “October Revolution” of 1917 actually dates to November 7, getting its name because November 7 was designated October 25 in the Old Style Calendar. So this issue of INSAF is the closest to the centenary celebration. One of India’s leading commentators on the left has written an important article, reproduced below, that summarizes the impact of the Bolshevik revolution on India and the current status of the left in Indian politics. Read more…
AFTER ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, WHERE DOES THE LEFT STAND ?
Sumanta Banerjee
The history of the 1917 Russian Revolution and its aftermath, can be divided into four phases: Read more…
THE REPUBLIC OF COWARDICE
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
The controversy over the film Padmavati once again reminded us that the fragility of our identities, the layers of resentment that constitute our sense of self, the emboldening of the most lumpen elements in our society, intellectual confusions over the law, and the sheer lack of constitutional courage in most of our politicians make India increasingly unfit for liberty. Read more…
WHY ABBA MUST GO
Reetika Khera
Aadhaar-based Biometric Authentication does nothing in the battle against graft — there are better alternatives. Read more…
INDIAN MEDIA FACING PERSECUTION AND CONTROL
Pushkar Raj
The filing of a criminal defamation suit of 1 billion rupees (US$15.3 million) against news portal The Wire for publishing a story about the accumulation of wealth by the son of the president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a revelation of how the Indian media are battling for credibility and survival. Read more…
THE REVOLUTION AND RUSSIAN IMPERIALISM
Rohini Hensman
Unlike Western imperialism, which colonised overseas territories, the Tsarist empire expanded by annexing adjacent territories from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea in the south, from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. Read more…
THE QAU STRIKE EXPLAINED
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Quaid-e-Azam University has finally reopened although student attendance is low and university buses are anchored off campus to avoid being damaged once again by protesters. The days ahead are uncertain. Read more…
WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THE CRISIS OF THE LEFT IN INDIA?
Roshan Kishore
The Communist Part of India (Marxist)’s atrophy in West Bengal has dealt a body blow to the Left’s influence in Indian politics. If the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, is to make a comeback, it will have to regain its lost hegemony in West Bengal. Read more…
STORIES OF A RAJPUT QUEEN
Harbans Mukhia
The Mewar royal descendant Vishwajeet Singh’s recent differentiation, in a newspaper article, between history and fiction with regard to the film Padmavati, came as a refreshing surprise. I recount here the historical facts and the popular versions of the story. Read more…
GAINED IN TRANSLATION: THE REMNANTS OF A RAGA
Manglesh Dabral
When I arrived in Delhi, I suddenly felt that I have been banished from a raga. When I saw the last tree of my village diminishing away, the absence of that raga made its home within me. Read more…
ECONOMY: DEMONETISATION – A YEAR AFTER: A SURGICAL PLUNDER
Pritam Singh
Demonetisation, hyped as an economic policy of ‘surgical strike’ against black money and terrorism, can be viewed with hindsight as more of ‘carpet bombing’ on Indian people especially those in the informal economy. Read more…
BANKING ON BAILOUT: RECAPITALISATION WILL INCREASE GOVERNMENT’S FISCAL DEFICIT
Pritam Singh
THE NDA government has spun a narrative that seems to have dazzled some observers that this government is now, after demonetisation and GST fiascos, embarking on bold economic growth measures. Read more…
AYODHYA DISPUTE: SUPREMACY OF CONSTITUTION OR FAITH?
Irfan Engineer
Babri Masjid is once again in news. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has taken an initiative to bring all stake holders for negotiating an out of court settlement. Apparently the initiative is in his personal capacity. However, Sri Sri Ravi Sahnkar is well connected with the BJP leaders. Read more…
LABOUR’S LOST AGENCY: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LABOUR MOVEMENT IN SRI LANKA?
Balasingham Skanthakumar
Early each morning at the main bus stands of the Biyagama and Katunayake export processing zones near Colombo’s international airport, a few thousand men mill around. Their purpose is not travel but to meet the ‘brokers’ or representatives of recruitment agents, who hire on the spot based on ‘orders’ for workers received from factory human-resource managers. Read more…
EDITORIAL: MODI’S “ACCHHE DIN” SEEM TO BE TURNING SOUR
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
Modi and BJP’s triumphal march across the Indian political landscape for the last three and a half years now seems to be slowing down if not going into reverse. Those who believe in the promise of the Indian Constitution for a secular and democratic polity can now afford to breathe just a tad more freely as the poisonous hot air balloon of the regime appears to have begun to deflate a little. As the poet Faiz said once: “Roshan kahin bahar ke imkan hue to hain.” (Some possibilities of spring seem to be emerging.) Read more…
WHY ISN’T NARENDRA MODI TALKING ABOUT THE ‘GUJARAT MODEL’ ANYMORE?
Swati Chaturvedi
Narendra Modi, as three-time Gujarat chief minister, won the Bharatiya Janata Party an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha on the basis of his “vikas” (development) track record and the mega publicised “Gujarat model”. Isn’t it perplexing, then, that Modi, who by no means can be described as modest, is not fighting the Gujarat elections on that same record? Read more…
MISSION 350 OR NON-MISSION 200?
Sunil Sharan
It was all going swimmingly well. 2019 all locked up with 350 seats. Until the economy tanked. Read more…
CHANGING POLITICAL WEATHER: BJP GETS THE CHILLS
Mitali Saran
The weather in Delhi is finally turning, as is public opinion in India. The bluster and gloating is gone. Three and a half years into the Modi government, those who never liked the BJP are furious and openly derisive. Read more…
SECTARIANISM SUPPRESSING DEMOCRATIC RIGHT OF EXPRESSION
Ram Puniyani
Freedom of expression has been the core value which accompanied the struggle for India’s Independence. Read more…
PAKISTAN’S EDUCATED JIHADI’S
Muhammad Suleman
The recent trend in Pakistan is of the gradual penetration of radicalization and religious violent extremism into academic institutions. Traditionally, there were the madaris (religious seminaries) that played a vibrant role in breeding the jihadists and promoting religious violent extremism and terrorism in the society. Read more…
INDIA BECOMING DANGEROUS FOR INTELLECTUALS, SOCIAL ACTIVISTS
Pushkar Raj
When journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead in front of her house early last month, quite a few writers and social activists in India must have felt a chill down their spines as the country steadily becomes a dangerous place for intellectuals. Read more…
ON HIS BIRTH ANNIVERSARY, KARWAN-E-MOHABBAT MAKES FINAL STOP AT GANDHI’S BIRTHPLACE
Mari Marcel Thek Aekara
Porbandar: It’s a bit surreal, staying in a small, rather seedy, very dirty little hotel surrounded by members of the Sangh Parivar. Around mid-day, the president of India, with Amit Shah, will do the usual – start the honours for commemorating Gandhi Jayanti in Porbandar. Read more…
#I-AM-GAURI’ EVENT IN MUMBAI
Anand Patwardhan
October 5 marks one month after the murder of the journalist, rationalist and anti-communal activist, Gauri Lankesh. In the last four years, three other rationalists, Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, Comrade Pansare and Dr. M.M Kalburgi were gunned down in an almost identical manner. Read more…
INDIAN CHILDREN SUFFER FROM INFANT STARVATION AND HUNGER
Sabrangindia Staff
While other countries have improved, we have not. This fall to 100th place (of 119) on the hunger index is registered for India at a time when the 2017 Global Hunger Index (GHI) shows long term progress in reducing hunger in the world. Read more…
EDITORIAL: SOUTH ASIA IN THE SPOTLIGHT (OR CROSSHAIRS)
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
The murder of Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru on September 5 by motorcycle riding terrorists brought the emergence of Indian fascism into the spotlight in a most chilling fashion, highlighting the utter vulnerability of all activists who dare to oppose Hindutva. Lankesh was a fearless journalist who wielded her pen to oppose and expose the criminalization of political and cultural life under the current rulers of the country. Read more…
OBSERVE OCTOBER 2 AS A PROTEST DAY: AN APPEAL
Forum against the killing of Gauri Lankesh
Dear Concerned and Conscious Citizens,
The assassination of journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh has evidently rung a strong alarm. Though the chain of resolve to condemn and resist the dastardly act exhibited across the nation is encouraging, much more needs to be done to counter the terror acts and save the precious dissident democratic spaces from the onslaught of fascist forces. Read more…
MESSAGE FROM TEESTA SETALVAD ON HER DETENTION AT VARANASI
Dear Friends All,
This is a detailed communication to formally update you on the unfortunate situation as I arrived in Banaras yesterday. The CISF personnel received me at the airport. (Security provided as per orders of the Hon SC). Read more…
INDIA’S STUDENTS FACE BRUNT OF BJP WRATH AS RESISTANCE GATHERS PACE IN VARSITIES
The Citizen Editorial
The very first action by the Modi government when it came to power was against students in Jawaharlal Nehru University where the full might of the state was evident in trying to crack the Left bastion, and arrest and jail student leaders. Read more…
I KNOW WHO IS BEHIND MY DEATH: A PAKISTANI JOURNALIST’S REACTON TO GAURI LANKESH’S MURDER
Hamid Mir
Gauri Lankesh received three bullets in her body and died. I got seven bullets, but survived. I know I’m really lucky to be alive. Gauri’s terrible death made me search for other similarities — perhaps, I want her friends and family, my readers, anyone, someone, to know that I understand the pain and the grief and the anger, all twisted into one emotion, that follows when Death comes calling. Read more…
PAKISTAN: BACKDOOR ELECTORAL MAINSTREAMING OUTFITS CONNECTED WITH HATE-BASED POLITICS – IS THAT THE FUTURE?
Editorial, Dawn, September 20, 2017
In the long term, the by-election result may be remembered most for the candidates who finished third and fourth. Read more…
THE ROHINGYA GENOCIDE AND INADEQUATE RESPONSE FROM BANGLADESH
Taj Hashmi
I believe “genocide” is the right word to describe the ongoing mass killing, rape, and expropriation of Rohingyas in Mayanmar. Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) first used the expression in 1943, to denote the mass killings, rapes, torture, extortions, and marginalization of Jews and others in Axis-occupied Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. Read more…
HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER AMAL CLOONEY URGES SRI LANKAN AUTHORITIES TO ENSURE SAFETY OF FORMER MALDIVES PRESIDENT NASHEED
Sunday Times, Sri Lanka, 14 September 2017
Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney is urging Sri Lankan authorities to respect the rights and ensure the safety of her client and former President of the Maldives Mohammed Nasheed should he set foot in the country. Read more…
IT’S LONELY ON THE GROUND: RTI ACT NEEDS TO BE PROTECTED
Christophe Jaffrelot , Basim U Nissa
In April, the government of India proposed amendments to the RTI Act, one of the most empowering pieces of legislation inherited from the UPA era. The most controversial amendment pertained to Rule 12. It would allow the withdrawal of an application in case of the applicant’s death, making the job of those who file RTIs even more risky. Read more…
TRIPLE TALAQ: CRITICAL OF GOVT, MUSLIM LAW BOARD WILL NOT FILE REVIEW
Abantika Ghosh, Milind Ghatwai
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) executive committee meeting on Sunday did not discuss filing a review petition against the Supreme Court order holding instant triple talaq illegal. Sources said during informal discussions it was felt that a review plea may throw open more religious practices like polygamy to judicial scrutiny. Read more…
REREADING DAS KAPITAL IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Vamsi Vakulabharanam
Marx’s Capital (three volumes) offers a unified framework to make sense of some of the most troubling issues facing humanity today, in particular, rising economic inequality, deepening economic instability, and growing unsustainability of human–nature interactions, signifying a looming planetary crisis. To the extent that the text throws light on capitalism in the abstract that transcends the unique features of the English or European context, it offers us various insights and critiques about how to understand and intervene in societies beyond Europe. Read more…
MARXISM AND NATIONALISM – NATION AND NATIONALISM
Achin Vanaik
In the broad social sciences as well as in the discourse on politics, there is no consensus on how we should understand the nation – what its origins are, or on its meaning and value. By contrast there is widespread acceptance that nationalism – whether understood as doctrine, ideology, sentiment, identity or movement – is a modern phenomenon. Read more…
EDITORIAL: PAKISTAN-INDIA RELATIONS AT 70: A DISPIRITING PICTURE
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
Two inspiring speeches were made in mid-August 1947. On August 11, Jinnah outlined his hopes for a non-sectarian Pakistan when he said “You are free to go to your temples; you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. Read more…
EDITORIAL: ANOTHER YEAR OF MODI AND BJP: HAVE THE “ACCHHE DIN” ARRIVED?
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
Prime Minister Modi made many promises of “acchhe din” (good days) after gaining power but all he has shown so far is an acumen for keeping his political opposition divided and winning elections, gaining “acchhe din” no doubt for himself and his cohorts. Read more…
RANA AYYUB SPEAKS IN MONTREAL – THE DIASPORA HAS A VERY IMPORTANT ROLE FOR INDIA TODAY
Dolores Chew
As part of her Canadian tour the famed and very courageous award-winning journalist and author Rana Ayyub (Gujarat Files: anatomy of a cover up) came to Montreal. Read more…
RANA AYYUB IN VANCOUVER: SOLIDARITY WITH “NOT IN MY NAME”
Chin Banerjee
In an expression of solidarity with the movement of protest against mob lynchings in India organized under the banner of “NOT IN MY NAME,” the recently formed, “Indians Abroad for Plural India” organized a talk by visiting journalist, Rana Ayyub, in Vancouver on August 27. Read more…
INDIA: STATEMENT OF WOMEN’S GROUPS & CONCERNED INDIVIDUALS ON THE SUPREME COURT JUDGEMENT ON TRIPLE TALAQ
22 AUGUST 2017
We wholeheartedly welcome the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter of Triple Talaq brought before it by a number of Muslim women and Muslim women’s rights groups. In arguing that the practice of Triple Talaq is both un-Quranic and Un-Constitutional, it is an important departure from earlier judgments on all women’s rights, because it is based on the tenets of equality, dignity and secularism as enshrined in the Constitution. Read more…
INDIA: SECULAR CIVIL CODE – WITH TRIPLE TALAQ STRUCK DOWN, IT’S TIME TO REFORM OTHER UNJUST FAITH-BASED LAWS
Girish Shahane
The Supreme Court’s divided judgement on instant divorce is a tiny step in the right direction. Read more…
TRIPLE TALAQ VERDICT, GENDER JUSTICE AND RSS COMBINE
L.S. Herdenia
The BJP and Sangh Parivar are celebrating Talaq judgment of Supreme Court and claiming credit for liberating Muslim women from the male dominated Muslim society. But there is no evidence that they took any initiative for empowering Hindu women. On the contrary they took every possible step to stall a major initiative taken by our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and our first law minister Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. Read more…
RIGHT TO PRIVACY: A BRAKE ON GOVERNMENT
Indira Jaising
Supreme Court has ruled that the right to privacy is a fundamental right of every citizen of the country. The landmark verdict was in response to many petitions filed in courts questioning the validity of a government scheme to assign a unique biometric identity card to every individual. Read more…
AN EPIC BATTLE HAS BEEN WON IN THE FIGHT FOR PRIVACY IN INDIA, BUT THE WAR ISN’T OVER
Devjyot Ghoshal
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is an agency of the Government of India responsible for implementing the envisioned AADHAR a unique identification project in India. Read more…
DERA VIOLENCE: HOW BJP FUNDED & PROMOTED THE MONSTER CALLED RAM RAHIM SINGH
Aditya Menon, Anurag Dey
BJP is to blame for Dera violence. Haryana leaders gave Rs 1 cr (10 million) to #RamRahimSingh. Modi & Shah wooed him At the root of Dera violence in Punjab & Haryana lies BJP-RSS nexus with #RamRahimSingh. Read more…
HINDUTVA RULE & ANARCHY ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
Shamsul Islam
Is it a coincidence that wherever we have BJP governments mobs rule/destroy unhindered? Go on the rampage? Read more…
GORAKHPUR TRAGEDY: ALLEGATIONS AGAINST KAFEEL AHMED FALSE, REVEAL HINDUTVA BRIGADE’S BIGOTRY
Sandipan Sharma
His name is Kafeel Ahmed Khan. So, how could he have been a hero? Read more…
INDIA: COL. PUROHIT – ARYAVARTA’S SOLDIER, NOT A MERE MOLE
Press release by JTSA (Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association)
The Malegaon accused Col. Purohit has been granted bail by the Supreme Court. We know that bail in terror cases, especially those involving bomb blasts, is rare, if not altogether impossible to secure. Read more…
INTERVIEW WITH THE DALIT LEADER JIGNESH MEVANI
Ilangovan Rajasekaran
In mid July 2016, a video of a few Dalit youths being beaten and paraded by a mob for skinning a dead cow in Una in Gujarat went viral and triggered a mass movement for Dalit assertion that probably had few parallels in the history of modern India. Read more…
INDIA: DISTORTION OF TRUTH AND THE UNDERMINING OF DEMOCRACY UNDER REIGN OF HINDUTVA
Ananya Vajpeyi
Between sophistry and silence
Can the ongoing devaluation of language and undermining of democracy be reversed?
The outgoing Vice President, M. Hamid Ansari, was subjected to one of the strangest send-offs in Parliament in the history of independent India. Read more…
HARASSMENT OF PROF. NIVEDITA MENON BY JNU ADMINISTRATION
(Posted by Ayesha Kidwai . president, JNUTA in Facebook)
We, the undersigned women’s rights groups, activists and academics, are shocked to learn that the JNU administration has adopted a biased and mala fide procedure to institute an enquiry against Professor Nivedita Menon, eminent academic and well-known feminist who is Chairperson of the Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Thought at the School of International Studies, JNU. Read more…
EDITORIAL: OPPORTUNISM POLITICS IN INDIA
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
Political developments in Bihar, where the BJP has managed to fracture an opposition coalition, have been brought into acute focus the problem of envisaging a replacement for BJP and Modi from among the current political parties. Read more…
APPEASEMENT OF MINORITIES IS A MYTH
Ram Puniyani
The turmoil in Kashmir has worsened since the killing of Burhan Wani in an encounter last year (2016). The ceaseless protests, the handling of protests leading to deaths and blinding of many in Kashmir is very disturbing. Read more…
LOSING THE MIDDLE: MODI’S BJP MAY BE ALIENATING THE VYAPARI AS IT COURTS BIG CAPITAL AND THE UNDERCLASS
Harish Damodaran
Under Narendra Modi, the BJP has probably metamorphosed into a party more favourably disposed towards Big Capital in general. Read more…
YOU CAN’T PREACH SELF-RESPECT TO EMPTY STOMACHS’: INTERVIEW WITH THE DALIT LEADER JIGNESH MEVANI
Ilangovan Rajasekaran
In mid July 2016, a video of a few Dalit youths being beaten and paraded by a mob for skinning a dead cow in Una in Gujarat went viral and triggered a mass movement for Dalit assertion that probably had few parallels in the history of modern India. Read more…
PAINT THE UNITED COLOURS OF INDIA
Happymon Jacob
The Sangh Parivar’s saffron agenda must not dictate the country’s foreign policy Read more…
THE FFQ (FEDERATION OF QUEBEC WOMEN) DENOUNCES THE REMARKS OF THE PREMIER OF QUEBEC!
Montreal, June 26, 2017 – The Fédération des Femmes du Québec (FFQ) is outraged and deeply distressed by the remarks made by Premier Philippe Couillard on June 22 : “Islam cannot be dissociated from the acts committed in its name “. Read more…
CERAS (MONTREAL) RESOLUTION ON CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS
CERAS forwarded a resolution passed at its AGM in June, concerning the current situation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, to Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh High Commissioner to Canada for urgent action. Read more…
DINA NATH BATRA AGAIN: HE WANTS TAGORE, URDU WORDS OFF SCHOOL TEXTS
Along with five pages of recommendations, the Nyas, headed by Dina Nath Batra, a former head of Vidya Bharati, the education wing of the RSS, has attached pages from several NCERT textbooks, with the portions that it wants removed marked and underlined. Read more…
CERAS STATEMENT ON ATTACK ON HINDU PILGRIMS IN KASHMIR
CERAS condemns the fatal attack on Hindu pilgrims on their way to Amarnath, one of the most revered Hindu shrines, during this pilgrimage season. Read more…
BANGLADESH: COLOUR WITHIN THE LINES
Abak Hussain
What makes a portrait offensive? Why is a ruling party religious affairs secretary so concerned about a child’s artwork? Read more…
DISSECTING HINDUTVA: A CONVERSATION WITH JYOTIRMAYA SHARMA
Nagothu Naresh Kumar
It’s a good time to be a populist. Across the world, populism has made significant strides. Sanctimonious populism coupled with ironclad convictions seems to be the staple diet of contemporary politics. Read more…
PAKISTAN’S JIRGAS: BUYING PEACE AT THE EXPENSE OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS?
Ayesha Khan
Why are foreign donors so enthusiastic about alternative dispute mechanisms when they deliver second class justice for women? Read more…
EDITORIAL 1: MODI’S INDIA: LYNCH MOB NATION
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
Of all the fanciful descriptors, such as “world’s fastest growing economy,” that Modi and the BJP have bestowed on India in the three years of their rule, the one history is most likely to record during their tenure is “Lynch Mob Nation.” Read more…
EDITORIAL 2: SEDITION NATION
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
Cricket has a passionate following in South Asia. All four major countries, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and now Bangladesh have good teams and a strong base. But India-Pakistan rivalry in cricket is in a sphere of its own reflecting no doubt the larger context in which it occurs. Read more…
FORTY TWO YEARS AFTER THE EMERGENCY, INDIA’S DEMOCRACY IS ONCE AGAIN IN DANGER
Prem Shankar Jha
As I write, the country is once again remembering the ‘Emergency’ which was imposed upon India by Mrs Indira Gandhi’s government on June 25, 1975 and lifted 21 months later, on March 21, 1977. Those of us who experienced the censorship, the near-shutdown of public debate and the subtle but all-pervasive atmosphere of terror that prevailed during those two years will never forget it. Read more…
LOCAL TRAIN PASSENGERS TURN INTO A MOB TO ATTACK 3 MUSLIM BOYS, ONE KILLED
The Citizen Bureau
NEW DELHI: It was to have been a happy occasion. Young Muslim boys, studying at a madarsa in Surat, Gujarat had come home to their village in Haryana for Eid. Three brothers along with a young friend had gone to Delhi for Eid shopping and caught the local train to Ballabgarh, just on the border, where their village Khatoli was. Read more…
‘I WAS SCARED’
Anis Sheikh Babu Mansuri, 25, was working at his tailoring machine at around 9 pm on Sunday, June 18, night after breaking his Ramzan fast when a police jeep pulled up outside his house. A police officer asked him to step outside. Mansuri, wearing only his nightclothes of a tee-shirt and shorts, complied. The police immediately seized him. Read more…
THE POLITICS OF RELIGIOUS HATEMONGERING IN INDIA
Jeff Kingston
The irresistible urge to mix politics and religion usually comes at the expense of secularism, tolerance and vulnerable minorities. Read more…
PEACE NOW AND FOREVER BETWEEN PAKISTAN AND INDIA CAMPAIGN FROM 1ST JULY 2017 TO 15 AUGUST 2017
India and Pakistan have seen too many conflicts and the loss of many valuable lives. Unfortunately, this situation continues as the ruling classes in India and Pakistan are keen on keeping this tension alive to justify spending more and more on defence at the cost of the poor and poverty reduction programmes. Read more…
KOVIND, DALIT POLITICS AND HINDU NATIONALISM
Ram Puniyani
By nominating Ramnath Kovind as the Presidential candidate, BJP has tried to play the politics of tokenism to the hilt. Mr. Kovind is a dalit from UP. While many names were doing round from BJP parivar, finally they settled down for a person who is dalit in name and Hindu nationalist in ideology. Read more…
INDIA: 2017 PRAFUL BIDWAI MEMORIAL AWARD
New Delhi: The Praful Bidwai Memorial Award for 2017 goes to the Maharashtra-based Andhashradha Nirmulan Samiti (MANS, Maharashtra Blind Faith Eradication Committee). Read more…
#NOTINMYNAME PROTESTS: A CONVERGENCE OF POETICS AND POLITICS AT JANTAR MANTAR
Kartik Maini
There are many ways to remember a protest. Although fundamentally ephemeral, a protest leaves its assembly with memories, vocabularies, and visions of alternative politics. Read more…
#NOTINMYNAME PROTESTS: THOUSANDS HIT THE STREETS AGAINST MOB LYNCHINGS
Express Web Desk
Why I support #NotInMyName: My daughter is Shahana. And I will stand like a wall if that name bothers you. At Jantar Mantar: Not in my name, I came here to break the silence#NotInMyName: Twitterati all across cities post pictures of the protest and express solidarity. Read more…
MESSAGE FROM NOTED DOCUMENTARY FILM DIRECTOR ANAND PATWARDHAN
Nafrat ke Khilaaf Insaaniyat Ki Awaaz ! (Humanity’s Voice Against Hate)
Demonstration in Mumbai on 3rd July, 4 pm, Kotwal garden (opposite Plaza cinema, Dadar West) Read more…
On behalf of INSAF Bulletin we strongly endorse the struggle of IIT-Madras students to eat the foods of their choice and strongly condemn the physical attack on them by right-wing Hindutva supporters that led to a severe injury to R. Sooraj. We urge IIT management to expel the attackers and prosecute them to the full extent of the law.
Vinod Mubayi, Raza Mir – Editors, Insaf Bulletin.
EDITORIAL: VIGILANTES AND THE RULE OF LAW IN SOUTH ASIA
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
One of the defining features of authoritarianism, the phase that often precedes Fascism, is the replacement of the rule of the law by the rule of the individual or the dominant group. This feature is often accompanied by the demonization of minority groups, as a means of asserting cultural superiority and deflecting attention from other social problems such as growing inequality and the siphoning of public wealth into private hands. Read more…
KASHMIR: HARD CHOICES ONLY
Pervez Hoodbhoy
I RECENTLY received an extraordinary email from a troubled young Kashmiri in Srinagar. Days before the Indian authorities turned off the internet, Saif (not his real name) had watched on YouTube the 45-minute video documentary Crossing the Lines — Kashmir, Pakistan, India that I had helped make in 2004 and mostly agreed with its non-partisan narrative. A nationalist boy turned stone thrower, Saif is outraged by the brutality of Indian occupation. He is fortunate, he says. His 14-year-old second cousin lost his left eye to pellets. Read more…
SANSAD HAILS THE FIGHT-BACK AGAINST OPPRESSION OF DALITS
South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy, (SANSAD) hails the formation of the Bhim Army in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, as the instrument of fight-back against persistent caste discrimination and the recent spate of violence against Dalits. Read more…
A NATION OF VIGILANTES – LYNCH MOB REPUBLIC
Mukul Kesavan
These three years have seen the State fuse with the street to create a vigilante nation. If India’s first national movement was a mobilization against foreign rulers, the new nationalism, the principal style of which is vigilantism, is directed at the enemy within. Read more…
OVER TO THE VIGILANTE
Christophe Jaffrelot
Vigilantes hit the headlines every other day in “new India”. But this phenomenon is not that new and exists elsewhere as well. It gained momentum under previous union governments, especially in BJP-ruled states. As a result, the Bajrang Dal’s cultural policing of a “deviant” artist like M.F. Husain forced him to leave the country. Read more…
INDIA: A BLEAK OUTLOOK – THE ROAD TO MOB RULE IN UTTAR PRADESH
Ramachandra Guha
In March 1946, a three-man ‘Cabinet Mission’ arrived from England to seek to transfer power from British to Indian hands. They invited Mahatma Gandhi to come from Sevagram to meet them. Gandhi’s old patron and disciple, G.D. Birla, wanted to host him at his capacious house in the heart of New Delhi. But Gandhi decided to stay in the Bhangi (sweepers’) colony instead. Birla now hastened to install electricity and provide fresh water to the humble home which his Master had chosen to grace. Read more…
‘NAXALBARI’: FIFTY YEARS LATER
Pritam Singh
Today, May 25, will commemorate 50 years of the Maoist uprising of Naxalbari in West Bengal. In March, 1967, a decision was taken in Naxalbari to carry out an armed rebellion for the rights of peasants and workers. This isolated revolt led to a movement that has lasted half a century. Read more…
A VIGILANTE MOB, A COLLUSIVE STATE
Khaled Ahmed
The Pakhtun culture of Pakistan lives under the concept of “tarboor”, the “cousin from the father’s side” who is supposed to kill you one day. What Pakistan and India are doing to their people, while also getting ready to hurt each other, is the disease Freud called “narcissism of the closely related”. Read more…
SUPREME TEST: AADHAAR-RELATED CASES COULD TELL US WHETHER OUR JURISPRUDENCE IS FIT FOR AN AGE OF TECHNOLOGY
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
It will also be a test case for whether the checks and balances of our constitutional scheme stand, or whether they will get blown away at the slightest whiff of executive power. Read more…
ANCHOR JIHAD IS LIKE WWF, BUT THE DAMAGE IS REAL
Aakar Patel
Something unusual happened in America this week. More people watched liberal MSNBC and centrist CNN than they did conservative Fox News. This is unusual because the norm is that the conservative media dominates ratings for news, whether radio or TV. Read more…
BANGLADESH ORDERS STATUE OF WOMAN AT SUPREME COURT PUT BACK UP
Julfikar Ali Manik
DHAKA, Bangladesh — Two days after the authorities in Bangladesh gave in to pressure from Islamist groups and ordered the removal of a statue from the country’s Supreme Court, they flip-flopped on Sunday, ordering that the statue be put back up, albeit in a less prominent location. Read more…
LOSING THE PLOT: WHAT BHANGOR FARMERS’ STIR SAYS ABOUT MAMATA’S LAND POLICY
Sulagna Sengupta
How the times change. The Trinamool Congress took power on the back of its agitation against the previous Left Front regime’s “atrocities” on farmers. Now, Mamata Banerjee’s party is on the receiving end of the farmers’ anger. Read more…
MUSLIM WOMEN IN INDIA CHALLENGE ‘INSTANT DIVORCE’ LAW
Geeta Anand
MUMBAI — When Neeha Khan’s husband entered her parents’ house in eastern Mumbai last February, he carried a letter that contained a word, repeated three times, that can instantly change the course of a Muslim woman’s life in India. Read more…
HOW INDIA IS KILLING THE COUNTRY”S LARGEST ECONOMY OF THE POOR
Richard Mahapatra
New restriction on cattle slaughter will severely cripple the livestock economy which is bigger than crop economy; poor farmers shifted to livestock in face of uncertain rain and dwindling income. Read more…
EDITORIAL: RIGHT TURN AHEAD
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
The news continues to be bleak for progressive activists the world over, especially in India. Murderous attacks on minorities and the marginalized by savage mobs, calling themselves “gau-rakshaks” (cow protectors) continue unabated. The police, instructed by ruling BJP politicians, look the other way or harass and arrest the victims as happened in the case of the dairy farmer Pehlu Khan, lynched by a Hindutva mob in Alwar, for the “crime” of transporting a milch cow he had legally purchased. Read more…
ETHICS IS THE ANSWER
Anand Patwardhan
With fiery orange hidden under a newfound tricolor, Narendra Modi’s rise to power saw a mushrooming of the RSS and affiliates like the ABVP. Pseudo “nationalism” invaded every campus. Read more…
THE CONSPIRACY BEHIND BABRI MOSQUE DEMOLITION
Ram Puniyani
After the long wait, the Supreme Court Chief Justice J.S. Khehar opined that long pending dispute of Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid should be settled out of court. (March 2017) He even offered to mediate himself in the matter. Read more…
DELHI POLICE FAIL TO IDENTIFY MEN WHO BEAT UP BUFFALO TRADERS, BUT BOOK VICTIMS FOR ANIMAL CRUELTY
Abhishek Dey
“My friends pleaded for mercy. They kept screaming that they were transporting buffaloes and not cows. All this fell on deaf ears.” Read more…
HOW THE SP AND BSP HELPED ADITYANATH GET AWAY WITH HIS HATE SPEECHES
Shahnawaz Alam
If a political figure finds general acceptance as a ‘firebrand’ leader in a country like India, it only reveals the flaws in our democratic system. Read more…
GAINED IN TRANSLATION: LIFE LESSONS FOR MY STUDENTS
Perumal Murugan
I am a teacher in a government college, where 90 per cent of my students are first-generation learners. These are students, who during their school days, juggle classroom work with jobs that involve some form of physical labour. Read more…
SINKING VALLEY
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
It is an unmistakable sign of the corrosion of Indian democracy that an odd combination of illusions and nauseating bravado is being spun in Delhi around the grim political situation in Kashmir. Read more…
WHERE ARE INDIA’S DISSENTING HINDUS?
Harsh Mander
As anti-Muslim rhetoric festers, the Hindu majority continues to fail to raise its voice against the BJP’s toxic politics of hate. Read more…
AN INTERVIEW WITH ANAND PATWARDHAN
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
For over 40 years Anand Patwardhan’s documentary films have stood for freedom of expression. He faced censorship on numerous occasions, took the government to court, and won each time. Read more…
KANDHAMAL: WHITHER JUSTICE FOR VIOLENCE VICTIMS
Ram Puniyani
Book Review: Kandhalmal: Introspection for Initiative for Justice 2007-2015, Vrinda Grover and Saumya Uma, Media House and United Christian Forum, Delhi 2017 Read more…
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH REPORT ON ATTACKS ON STUDENTS, TEACHERS, AND SCHOOLS IN PAKISTAN
Attacks by the Taliban and other militant groups are having a devastating impact on education in Pakistan, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released a day before the Second International Conference on Safe Schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina. … Read more…
I, MIGRANT
Kamila Shamsie
One London night, a few weeks after Brexit, something happened as I was walking to a bus stop that had never happened in the 9 years since I’d moved to the UK: a man (white, young, Londoner by his accent) shouted abuse at me and followed up with ‘Go back where you came from’. Read more…
EDITORIAL: UP ELECTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
After the big win in UP and his appointment of Yogi Adityanath as UP Chief Minister, Modi has clearly decided that there is no need any more to sheath the iron fist of Hindutva inside the proverbial velvet glove of “inclusive development” i.e. “sabka saath, sabka vikas.” Rather, he has calculated that the need is to consolidate the vote bank of Hindutva by intensifying the communal agenda. The Yogi’s entire past is testimony to this strategy. His frequent foul-mouthed diatribes and threats of violence against religious minorities, mainly Muslims but also Christians, are known to all. Hence Modi’s embrace of him gives a clear signal not only to the Muslims but also to the “seculars” as well as the Yadavs of the Samajwadi Party and the Dalits who voted for Mayawati. The arson and panicked shutdown of slaughterhouses in the first week of the new regime offers a clear demonstration of the new reality. No doubt Modi and Yogi will keep on mouthing the development for all slogan whenever it suits them to do so. It is a costless exercise aimed at the many Indian “liberals” who continue to justify and valorize Modi as “vikas purush”. Read more…
HISTORY AND NATURE OF THE AYODHYA DISPUTE
Irfan Engineer
In a surprise development, the Supreme Court on 21st March 2017 urged the rival parties in the Ram Janamabhoomi – Babri Masjid (RJBM) case to negotiate and resolve the dispute in a spirit of give and take. The Chief Justice of India offered himself to be a mediator should both the parties agreed. The observations came on application of Subramanian Swamy seeking urgent hearing of the appeal against the order of Allahabad High Court dated 30th September 2010 in the RJBM title suit. Subramanian Swamy, a BJP leader, has no locus standi in the case and he is not a party in the Appeal. Yet the Supreme Court exercised its discretion and even asked the BJP leader to talk to all parties to the case and bring them to negotiating table. Read more…
SPINNING THE YOGI – VANGUARD AND FRINGE
Mukul Kesavan
The zombification of right-wing publicists in contemporary India is a small but significant part of our intellectual history. When the Bharatiya Janata Party’s turn at the top comes to an end and the bruised republic shuffles back to the centre, historians of this political moment will explain why Right-leaning commentators chose to make a Hindu-supremacist turn seem respectable and how they committed intellectual suicide to join the shambling ranks of the living dead. Read more…
THE YOGI AND THE MAGIC OF NUMBERS
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Will India’s democrats let majoritarianism plant the seeds of counter-democracy? Read more…
CONDEMN CONVICTION AND SENTENCING OF MARUTI WORKERS!
PUDR
The Sessions Court in Gurgaon today announced the quantum of sentence for 31 workers convicted by it on 10th March in the State of Haryana Vs. Jiyalal and Others case. Thirteen union leaders have been awarded life imprisonment, four others five years imprisonment and remaining 14 sentence as already undergone. Read more…
A LEAF FROM THE ILLUSTRIOUS LIFE OF THE CM DESIGNATE OF UTTAR PRADESH
Apoorvanand
What happened in the eastern Uttar Pradesh town was not a conflict but violence unleashed by MP Yogi Adityanath and his henchmen. Read more…
KANSAS VICTIM WAS INDIAN, BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT
Jaya Saxena,
On the 22nd of February, a white man in Kansas yelled “Get out of my country” before shooting at two Indian men in a bar. He killed one, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, and injured Kuchibhotla’s friend, Alok Madasani, as well as bystander Ian Grillot, who tried to intervene. It’s a tragic story that lies at the intersection of violence, immigration, racism, and politics. It also highlights the importance of how we talk about immigrants and victims of color. Read more…
GOD VERSUS GOD
Dr Ayesha Siddiqa
Sindh has long shown warning signs of becoming an ideological battleground. Read more…
NO TALKING IN THE HINDU RASHTRA – LESSONS FROM THE DISRUPTIONS AT DELHI’S RAMJAS COLLEGE
Ananya Vajpeyi
What does the Hindu Right fear the most? Is it who talks? Or is it what is talked about? Read more…
BANGLADESH: THE BLOOD ON OUR CLOTHES
Shehzad M Arifeen,
Are we ready to pay attention to the workers?
As a species, years like 2016 notwithstanding, we have indeed come a long, long way. On January 21, the world witnessed the Women’s March — an awe-inspiring demonstration of women’s resistance and a testament to how far the feminist movement has come. Read more…
THE COMING BAN ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Zia Mian
PRINCETON – On March 27, the United Nations will start negotiations on an international treaty to ban nuclear weapons. It will be a milestone marking the beginning of the end of an age of existential peril for humanity. Read more…
PANCHAGAVYA “RESEARCH”: CRITICS ASSAIL INDIA’S ATTEMPT TO ‘VALIDATE’ FOLK REMEDY
Sanjay Kumar
According to Hindu tradition, Indian cows are not only sacred—they are also the source of a cure-all for everything from schizophrenia and autism to diabetes and cancer. Read more…
EDITORIAL: GUJARAT 15 YEARS LATER
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
The recent victory by the BJP in Maharashtra’s civic polls provides an unfortunate bookend to the commemoration of the fifteenth anniversary of the Gujarat pogrom. Maharashtra is of course adjacent to Gujarat, and has had its share of BJP-led assaults on a variety of minority communities, including Dalits and Muslims, but also women, secular activists and those protesting against pro-capitalist policies. Yet, the electoral calculus continues to favor the perpetrators of violence and intimidation. It is perhaps accurate to say that within the mainstream discourse in India, the role played by the BJP and in particular the current Prime Minister of India in the horrific massacre of a decade and a half ago, when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat, has been relegated to the past and is in danger of being forgotten. Read more…
DEMONETISING THE ECONOMY AGAINST THE WORKING CLASS
Gautam Mody
In the three hours between the time the Finance Minister completed his budget speech in parliament and the closing of stock markets, the two major stock market indices rose by two percentage points leaving little doubt who the Union Budget Statement 2017-18 (BS) was aimed at. Read more…
INVITATION BY RADICAL DESI (VANCOUVER)
Radical Desi invites everyone to come and join us for a rally in memory of the victims of Samjhauta Express blast that left 68 people dead on February 18, 2007. Most of the victims were Pakistani Muslims. Read more…
DU ON EDGE AFTER ATTACK ON STUDENTS
Delhi University’s North campus has come to resemble a battleground with glass bottles, stones and even lunch packets being hurled at students, as chants of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ ring through the air. Read more…
OUR RESOLVE WILL NOT FALTER, SAYS RAMJAS STUDENT WHO ORGANISED DISRUPTED SEMINAR
Anushka Baruah
‘The kind of azaadi we fight for must be clarified: we are looking for the freedom to inquire and innovate.’ Read more…
15 YEARS AFTER THE GUJARAT GENOCIDE – THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE CONTINUES
Dolores Chew
The genocide occurred in Gujarat, India, from the end of February 2002 and continued for two weeks. At least 2000 people were killed and many went missing. Many of those displaced during the violence have been unable to return to their former homes. While trials of the accused have gone ahead and sentences have been handed down the key individuals who orchestrated the genocide are still free. But the struggle for justice continues, with women at the forefront. Read more…
SOUTH ASIAN WOMEN’S COMMUNITY CENTRE (SAWCC) STATEMENT ON THE MASS SHOOTINGS IN QUEBEC MOSQUE ON SUNDAY 28TH JANUARY 2017
The South Asian Women’s Community Centre is shocked and stunned by the mass shooting resulting in deaths and serious injuries at a Quebec mosque on Sunday 28th January 2017. We offer our deepest condolences to the families of the victims and to the members of the Islamic Community Centre in Ste-Foy, Quebec. And we stand in solidarity with Muslim-identified Quebecers at this time. Read more…
OPEN FOR ME MY HEART: AN ANTI-RACIST FEMINIST QUEER MUSLIM RESPONSE TO SYSTEMIC XENOPHOBIA
Farha Najah
The following speech was spoken on January 30th, 2017 at a Vigil in response to the anti-Muslim murders in Sainte-Foy, Quebec. Read more…
IN PAKISTAN, TOLERANT ISLAMIC VOICES ARE BEING SILENCED
William Dalrymple
The Sehwan bombing is a result of the Saudi-funded fundamentalism that has taken a grip in the country Read more…
‘PREPLANNED INHUMAN COLLECTIVE VIOLENT ACT OF TERRORISM’: WHAT MODI GOT AWAY WITH IN THE GODHRA CASE
Manoj Mitta
On the 15th anniversary of the Godhra train burning, a recap of little-known anomalies in the case that changed the course of India’s history. Read more…
INDIA: UNION BUDGET 2017-18: INADEQUATE RESPONSE IN TIMES OF CRISIS
Arun Kumar
The Budget is an instrument of macroeconomic policy first and then anything else. If its aggregate figures are found wanting, its allocations and goals would also not be attained. In times of a shock to the economy, chances that the figures may be incorrect become greater. Assumptions underlying the preparation of the Budget have a high probability of being incorrect. Read more…
BANGLADESH’S CREEPING ISLAMISM
Anis Ahmed
DHAKA, Bangladesh — Every year on the first day of school, students across Bangladesh wait eagerly for their new textbooks. Many have few extravagances in their lives, and for them that day is as thrilling as Christmas morning in other countries. Read more…
THE DECLINING LEFT – BANGLADESH EXPECTS MORE
Mir Aftabuddin Ahmed
Suranjit Sengupta had been a stalwart of the Awami League for the last four decades or so. An articulate parliamentarian and a vociferous constitutionalist, Mr. Sengupta had been a robust voice in favour of socialist principles. Read more…
ROHINGYA INSURGENCY HERALDS WIDER WAR IN MYANMAR
Anthony Davis
The Harakah al Yaqin insurgent group, with leadership in Saudi Arabia and ties to Bangladeshi extremist groups, threatens to bring global jihad to Myanmar Read more…
EDITORIAL: GETTING READY FOR A YEAR OF STRUGGLE
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
On January 21, 2017, a day after Donald Trump ascended to the Presidency of the USA, women and men all over the world marched in a display of defiance that provided a spark of optimism in a year that had begun with a relentless barrage of bad news and apprehension for the vulnerable and their champions all over the world. The crowd in Washington DC, estimated at 1 million, easily dwarfed Trump’s stage-managed inaugural parade, and it was estimated that the participants at marches across the world numbered over 5 million. Read more…
2016: A YEAR OF OUTRAGEOUS LIES: FROM ECONOMIC GROWTH TO JOB CREATION TO DEMONETISATION
Mohan Guruswamy
On Thursday, I heard the spokesman for the Bharatiya Janata Party, Sambit Patra, blithely claim that when the National Democratic Alliance government of Atal Behari Vajpayee demitted office in 2004, gross domestic product was growing at 8.4%, and when the United Progressive Alliance regime under Manmohan Singh lost the elections in 2014, this growth was down to 4.8%. He made an attempt to wring some humour out of the reversal of growth figures, which would have been quite neat but for the fact that it is an outright lie. Read more…
ONE PERCENT OF INDIANS OWN 58% OF COUNTRY’S WEALTH: OXFAM INEQUALITY REPORT
Mridula Chari
Fifty-seven billionaires in India possess as much wealth as the poorest 70% of the country, according to a report on global inequality released on Monday by Oxfam, an international confederation of 18 non-governmental organisations. Read more…
PAKISTAN: ABDUCTING SOCIAL ACTIVISTS
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Had last week’s kidnappings of bloggers and social media activists happened in Balochistan, it would have been a non-event. But all five abductions happened in Punjab — and now the authorities are feeling some heat. Read more…
BANGLADESH: CONTROVERSIAL DRAFT LAW ALLOWING CHILD MARRIAGE IN “SPECIAL CASES” IS THE ROAD TO REGRESSION
Elita Karim
Very recently, a law drafted by the Ministry for Women and Children’s Affairs stated that if a 16-year-old female gets married with the consent of her parents or the court for justified reasons or under special circumstances, she would not be considered underage or a minor. However, the authorities do not define what they mean by special circumstances. Read more…
INSIDE THE LIFE OF PAKISTAN’S FIRST FEMALE STRING THEORIST
Mahrukh Sarwar
Tasneem Zehra Husain, Pakistan’s first female string theorist at the mere age of 26, recently published her new book Only the Longest Threads, which fictionalises major breakthroughs in physics through the minds of the people who lived in those periods of discovery, reports the MIT Technology Review Pakistan. Read more…
WHY BOTH MODI AND TRUMP ARE TEXTBOOK POPULISTS
Amit Varma
As Donald Trump raised his tiny paw and took the presidential oath this Friday, I had just finished reading an outstanding book that, I thought, explained Trump as well as many other leaders on the world stage today. In ‘What is Populism?’ Jan-Werner Muller, a Princeton professor, lays out all the ingredients from which you can cook up a populist movement. I was struck by how closely our own prime minister, Narendra Modi, matched Muller’s definition. Consider the following characteristics that characterise populists, as defined by Muller. Read more…
INDIA: LAWLESS ON THE SHORE
Nirupama Subramanian
Protests are continuing in Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu for a “permanent solution” to the demand that Jallikattu be allowed even after the quick, synchronised surrender of the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government through the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Ordinance followed by a bill. The permanent solution that the protestors want is the removal of the bull from the list of animals restricted from performing and exhibition in Section 22 of the Act through a constitutional amendment. Read more…
DEMONETIZATION: A FRAUD ON THE PEOPLE
Lokayat
[This is a comprehensive, well-formatted report by Lokayat that provides a clear understanding of demonetization and its attendant injustices. The URL for the full report is below, we include the introduction here] Read more…
TEESTA SETALVAD HAS WRITTEN HER MEMOIR, AND IT’S EVERY BIT AS CHILLING AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE
Teesta Setalvad
I was born in a family of Gujaratis, of Gujarati lawyers to be precise. Gujarat was always a part of me, though we were proud migrants to Bombay. My great grandfather left his government job in Ahmedabad within four days of taking his post to study law in Bombay. My mother, who was related to my father prior to their marriage, had a paternal uncle in Ahmedabad, who was the Advocate General of Gujarat for twenty-six years. Once or twice a year, we would visit Ma’s mama and mami. Read more…
INTIMIDATION DIRECTED AT BELA BHATIA
Please endorse the statement.
We strongly condemn the brazen act of intimidation directed at Bela Bhatia at her house in Parpa village, Jagdalpur. Clearly, this middle of the night attack is aimed at making Bela abandon her human rights work in the area and quit Parpa. Read more…
INSAF wishes its readers a Happy 2017! Hang in there, comrades, the ride may get a bit rougher, but we will have one another!
EDITORIAL: CASHLESS SOCIETY AND CLUELESS PATRIOTISM
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
Narendra Modi’s recent acknowledgement that the aim of demonetization is to usher in a “cashless society” is a tacit admission of the fact that the goal is to greatly expand the fledgling financial product industry of credit cards, e-wallets, paytms and more and thus divert more resources from the pockets of the great masses of the poor to add to the fortunes of those atop this sector. For example, in every transaction of Re. 100, the aam aadmi will now have to lose Re. 2.50 or so paid as “transaction” fees to those who issue the plastic cards or their electronic equivalents. Considering that almost 90% of transactions in the Indian economy were carried out in cash, converting even a fraction to cashless forms is guaranteed to generate a bonanza for current and future cronies of Modi who stand to prosper from his risky diktat even as the masses suffer and the economy itself declines in the interim. This upward redistribution of resources, while shedding crocodile tears for the state of the poor, is the hallmark of Modi’s economic policies. Read more…
DEMONETIZATION: THE MOTHER OF ALL DISRUPTIONS
Jean Drèze
The tremendous power of the software industry in India may help explain why the disruptive effects of demonetisation are being taken lightly. Read more…
PRESS RELEASE: Kashmir Concerned Citizens’ Collective
SRINAGAR, December 16: The Concerned Citizens’ Collective team that visited Kashmir from 12 to 16 December 2016, expressed deep dismay to observe that the people of the Kashmir valley have been entirely abandoned by their central and state governments, in this time of their great suffering. The only face of government that the people of the Valley encounter is of a repressive security establishment, they declared. Read more…
‘CASHLESS? THAT’S A JOKE’
Bashaarat Masood, Kuwar Singh
Lanura, with a population of around 1,500, has only six shops — a chemist and five grocers. None of the shopkeepers has a card machine or has ever used Net banking. Read more…
PAKISTAN: UNION LEADERS LAMENT STRIPPING LABOUR ADVISER OF HIS POWERS
Leaders of trade unions and labour associations lamented on Tuesday that provincial labour adviser Saeed Ghani, on court orders, had been restrained by the government from exercising any executive authority in the affairs of the Sindh Employees’ Social Security Institution (SESSI). Read more…
BANK ‘GANDHIGIRI’, CASHLESS HARA-KIRI IN MARATHWADA
P. Sainath
A farmer in Nagur holds up an extract of his loan account from the credit cooperative society; further interest of 2-4 per cent gets added at the level of the societies. Read more…
PROMOTING ANTI-SCIENCE VIA TEXTBOOKS
Pervez Hoodbhoy
A biology textbook is normally expected to teach biology as science, meaning a scientifically based study of the structure, growth and origin of living things. But what if such a book instead says science must follow ideology and loudly denounces the core principles of biology, condemning these as wrong and irrational? Read more…
FAITH, DISSENT AND EXTREMISM: HOW BANGLADESH IS STRUGGLING TO STAY SECULAR
Samia Huq
The recent violent attacks on a Hindu temple in Bangladesh’s Netrokona district, and previous assaults on temples and homes in October in Brahmanbaria are a troubling illustration of Bangladesh’s struggle to protect two of its fundamental values: secularism and pluralism. Read more…
NEPAL: A COSTLY CONSTITUTION
Anurag Acharya
Crucial issues ignored in the debate over the constitution will create faultlines in Nepali politics once it’s passed. Read more…
PAKISTAN’S SECTARIAN CONUNDRUM
Umar Riaz
Samuel P. Huntington in his celebrated theory of the Clash of Civilisations declared in 1996 that the Islamic Civilisation has bloody borders and ‘bloody innards’. Sectarianism embodies those bloody innards within the body of Islam. Almost all current religious schools of thought and denominations are universal in theory and sectarian in practice. They might be exclusive or inclusive, but there is none which is not distinctive or not possessive of its group identity. In our country, the sectarian fault lines are too deep, fissures too vast and consensus on exclusion too solid. These sectarian faiths have political, social and violent capital at their disposal and they wield all three, or any one, depending upon the situation. Read more…
REAL CAPITALISM: TURBULENT AND ANTAGONISTIC, BUT NOT IMPERFECT
Michael Roberts
A review of Anwar Shaikh, Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises (Oxford University Press, 2016), £35.99 Read more…
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