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: AYODHYA VERDICT: MAJORITARIANISM MEETS THE MARKET
Vinod Mubayi
In retrospect, the 2010 Allahabad High Court judgment on Ayodhya, despite its tortured logic, flawed reasoning and reliance on faith as a basis for resolution of legal claims, may come to be viewed in future as upholding a semblance of justice compared to what the Supreme Court ruled almost a decade later. Read more…
SAVARKAR
Kannan Srinivasan
Given that Savarkar’s portrait in Parliament is ritually garlanded, that Prime Minister Modi and the entire Sangh Parivar hold him in such reverence, clearly he is of great relevance today. I discuss Savarkar’s decision to turn from nationalist patriot terrorist to anti Muslim; his pathological focus on Muslims as the outsiders inside, who were foreign to India and must therefore be driven out or even as his hero Hitler had to the Jews, exterminated; the question of whether this could be called fascism. I conclude by seeing in Hindutva representation in the Congress Party. Read more…
“A LITTLE BRIEF AUTHORITY”: CHIEF JUSTICE RANJAN GOGOI AND THE RISE OF THE EXECUTIVE COURT
Gautam Bhatia
Ranjan Gogoi is no longer the Chief Justice of India.
There is much to write about today. But this post will follow precedent (unlike some of the major judgments delivered during the ex-Chief Justice’s tenure) and – like last year – focus on the law. Read more…
NOW THAT TITLE SUIT IS RESOLVED, CAN WE TALK ABOUT BABRI MASJID DEMOLITION CASE?
Mahtab Alam
On April 17 2017, in an extraordinary order concerning the Babri Masjid demolition case, the Supreme Court of India directed a sessions court in Lucknow to hold daily hearings and deliver a judgment within two years. Read more…
AYODHYA JUDGEMENT UNJUST: AN ASSAULT ON THE SECULAR FABRIC OF THE CONSTITUTION
National Association for Peoples’ Movements
13th Nov, 2019: The National Alliance of People’s Movements condemns the ‘unanimous’ verdict by the 5-judge Bench of the Supreme Court in the Ayodhya matter. The judgement, instead of holding accountable before law all those who criminally demolished the 450 year old Babri Masjid has rewarded the violators. The judgement legitimizes majoritarianism and mobocracy and strikes at the very secular fabric of our Constitution. Full of contradictions, the verdict only pays sermons to the values of equality and fraternity, but ends up violating these very principles in its relief. Read more…
INDIA: INTIMATIONS OF AN ENDING
Arundhati Roy
While protest reverberates on the streets of Chile, Catalonia, Britain, France, Iraq, Lebanon, and Hong Kong, and a new generation rages against what has been done to their planet, I hope you will forgive me for speaking about a place where the street has been taken over by something quite different. Read more…
SRI LANKAN CRITICS FEAR A CRACKDOWN IS UNDERWAY, AND SOME FLEE
Maria Abi-Habib and Sameer Yasir
Fears of a potential crackdown on critics of the newly returned Rajapaksa political dynasty in Sri Lanka are rising just days after the election, as officials and journalists who investigated the Rajapaksas for human rights abuses and corruption began trying to flee the country, officials said. Read more…
EDITORIAL: KASHMIR – THREE MONTHS LATER
Editors
For the vast majority of the people of Kashmir, the agony continues with no end in sight. Dribs and drabs of the reduction of oppressive measures, like restoration of landline telephones that few people have, treated by the credulous Indian media as restoration of normalcy, cut little ice with the local populace; they are akin to the rolls of toilet paper that Trump tossed out to hungry and ailing Puerto Ricans in the aftermath of hurricane Maria. For many of the thousands arrested and even those subsequently released, their plight is becoming truly Orwellian. Read more…
TERM MOB LYNCHING COMES FROM BIBLE, SAYS MOHAN BHAGWAT
Vidya (India Today)
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Chief Mohan Bhagwat on Tuesday said that some incidents of violence such as lynchings were actually being branded to defame India, Hindu society and create fear among some communities. Read more…
HOW HATE WORKS
Rakesh Shukla
Commenting on the performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Gujarat State Assembly elections in December 2017, where the incumbent party had barely managed a majority, journalist Revati Laul writes in her book The Anatomy of Hate, “In Gujarat, it seemed as if there was no more room for the hate to grow.” In the context of the massive victory for the BJP in the 2019 general elections – in Gujarat alone, the BJP won all 26 parliamentary seats – it is ironic to read Laul’s assessment – that they had gone “as far as they could”. Read more…
EU MPS IN KASHMIR – A DIPLOMATIC BLUNDER?
Seema Mustafa
NEW DELHI: Kashmir has indeed become a Pandora’s box that either the only very stupid or the very callous could open. And follow the decision not with acts of wisdom but the very opposite as is evident in the much touted visit of 23 European Union Parliamentarians to the Valley. That too after Indian MPs have not been allowed to take a step outside of the Srinagar airport, and requests by American Senators for such permission has been turned down. Not to speak of the United Nations and the foreign media. Read more…
IN PAKISTAN, FISHING VILLAGES ARE LOSING THEIR LIVELIHOODS AS THE INDUS DRIES UP
Akhtar Hafeez
The province of Sindh is grappling with an acute water shortage, a crisis which the government hopes to address through the construction of more dams along the Indus river. While fundraising for these megastructures continues in Pakistan, fisherman and delta communities along the river fear the worst, as they are transported back to 1991 when the Water Apportionment Accord between the country’s four provinces was inked – and when the fate of the fishing community was sealed. Read more…
SRI LANKA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: PAST IN THE PRESENT
R.K. Radhakrishnan
There were quite a few visitors at the world’s emptiest airport, the Chinese-built Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, just over 200 kilometres south of Colombo, on October 12, just like every other day. No scheduled commercial aircraft has operated from the airport for the past three years. The visitors, all local Sinhalese Sri Lankans, were there to experience the airport, built at a cost of over $200 million. Read more…
MANDATE FOR A STRONG OPPOSITION
EPW Editorial on Elections in Maharashtra and Haryana
Arrogance of power can be undermined by the reassertion of social contradictions.
The results of the assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana have punctured the myth of the invincibility of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Inflated claims made by its leaders regarding the huge number of seats have fallen flat as its tally has come down from the 2014 assembly results, and forming the government on its own has been reduced to a pipe dream. Read more…
HARD TIMES HAVE PAKISTANI HINDUS LOOKING TO INDIA, WHERE SOME FIND ONLY DISAPPOINTMENT
Maria Abi-Habib
JODHPUR, India — By the time an angry Muslim mob stormed the local Hindu school and ransacked an adjacent temple a few weeks ago, many members of Pakistan’s dwindling Hindu minority had already been wondering whether it was worth trying to stay in a country where they felt increasingly unsafe. Read more…
INDIAN ECONOMY HEADING TOWARDS DISASTER, ABHIJIT BANERJEE SAID DAYS BEFORE WINNING NOBEL
Remya Nair
New Delhi: India is “barreling down” the path to disaster with its decision to cut taxes for the rich and making unnecessary public investments that could “explode government debt”, economist Abhijit Banerjee said, days before being awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. Read more…
NUCLEAR DANGERS OF THE NAVAL KIND
Zia Mian, M V Ramana And A H Nayyar
In 2019, a new set of nuclear dangers emerged for Southasia. The growing danger was underscored during the military crisis between India and Pakistan in February 2019, when India put one or more of its nuclear submarines on “operational deployment mode.” During the crisis, the Pakistani Navy claimed to intercept an Indian submarine. No one has confirmed if this interception involved an Indian submarine carrying nuclear weapons. With India and Pakistan on an accelerated programme of acquiring and developing nuclear submarines, Southasia needs to pay urgent attention to the risks of nuclear accidents at sea. Read more…
EDITORIAL: LOCKDOWN DRAGS ON IN J&K
Vinod Mubayi
At the time of writing (September 25), Jammu & Kashmir remains in a locked down condition. There is no internet or mobile phone service over most of the state, there is an unending curfew for many inhabitants of major towns like Srinagar, the schools are largely closed, and thousands of political and business leaders in jail for no reason apart from the whims of the central government, i.e. the wishes of Prime Minister Modi, Home Minister Shah, and National Security Adviser Doval, and the repressive security apparatus at their control. J&K, especially the Valley, is beginning to resemble a vast open-air jail on the lines of Gaza. Read more…
THOUSANDS PROTESTED OUTSIDE UNGA IN NEW YORK DURING NARENDRA MODI’S SPEECH
Though Modi has visited the United States six times since 2014, this is the first time his presence in the US has been met with such vociferous protests. Read more…
WHY WE, AS HINDU AMERICANS, ARE OPPOSED TO MODI’S UNDECLARED EMERGENCY
Raju Rajagopal and Sunita Viswanath
“Democracy, beloved husband of Truth, loving father of Liberty, brother of Faith, Hope and Justice, expired on June 26.” – Times of India classified advertisement, inserted surreptitiously just as the 1975 Emergency went into effect. Read more…
WOMEN’S VOICE: FACT FINDING REPORT ON KASHMIR
[Kindly note. To protect the identity of the people we met, all names in the Report have been changed. We have not named the villages we visited for the very same reason] Read more…
INDIA, PAKISTAN, KASHMIR: TAKING THE WAR OPTION OFF THE TABLE
Zia Mian, Abdul H. Nayyar, Sandeep Pandey, M. V. Ramana
On September 27, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan will address the United Nations General Assembly in New York. This appearance will come at a time of great concern about the increasingly hostile relationship between their two countries. Read more…
JNUTA STRONGLY CONDEMNS HARASSMENT OF DR HANY BABU
JNUTA strongly condemns the illegal raid conducted by Pune Police at the Noida residence of Dr Hany Babu of the English Department, University of Delhi on September 10, 2019, allegedly in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case. Read more…
THE SCRAPPING OF ARTICLES 370 AND 35A – THE STAND OF THE RADICAL SOCIALISTS GROUP
We, the Radical Socialists Group, resolutely and unequivocally oppose and condemn the effective abrogation of the fundamental meaning and purpose of Article 370 and the overturning of Article 35A. This was carried out through anti-democratic, unconstitutional legal manoeuvrings and accompanied by the deliberate armed intimidation of the people of Kashmir. What has taken place is dishonest and a fraud on both the letter and spirit of the relevant Constitutional provisions. Read more…
BOOK REVIEW: NARRATING AN EPIC LIFE
Venu Madhav Govindu
Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914–1948 by Ramachandra Guha, Gurgaon: Penguin Allen Lane, 2018; pp xx + 1129, ? 999.
Ever since he came to dominate Indian public life a century ago, M K Gandhi has been a source of endless interest and fascination. He played a fundamental role in India’s freedom movement, and in turn, enabled the demise of the idea of empire. Read more…
TALL CLAIMS OF INDIA’S ‘GREAT CIVILISATION’ ARE HUMBUG
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Two kids, who happened to be born in the Valmiki community, became victims of a deep rooted caste hatred which the caste Hindus have been nurturing since centuries. What was the fault of these kids? That they were Dalits, and that, too, of the community which is ‘supposed’ to keep the street, houses, ‘clean’. A community which has kept India clean, and carried the dirt of the caste Hindus for centuries, is not allowed to live a life with dignity. Most of the Valmiki bastis are out of sight for India’s politicians and officials. Not even the activists go to their place. Read more…
KASHMIR SWITCHED OFF
Basharat Ali, Iqbal Sonaullah And Mudasir Amin
It is the afternoon of 15 August 2019. We sit numb in our rented apartment in Delhi. While mainstream Indian media busies itself digging the wounds of Kashmir, barely any news has been allowed to escape the mountains since 5 August 2019. Read more…
RSS AGENDA, MAJORITARIANISM AND MODI’S FOOLS – PERFECT RECIPE FOR A CREEPING FASCISM
Vinod Mubayi
Modi, Shah and the rest of the BJP have made no secret of their desire to implement the RSS agenda after winning a second term by a large majority in the national elections last May. The main components of the RSS agenda include: a Uniform Civil Code, construction of a grand temple to Lord Ram at the site of the Babri mosque, destroyed by Hindutva vigilantes in 1992, in the town of Ayodhya, and the abolition of Article 370 of the Indian constitution that conferred a special status on the state of Jammu and Kashmir when it acceded to India. Progress is being made on fulfilling this agenda after six years of BJP rule. Read more…
MONTREALERS PROTEST ON 15TH AUGUST
Over 50 people, Montrealers of Indian origin along with friends and supporters gathered at Norman Bethune Square to mark this 73rd anniversary of India’s Independence in the darkest days of the country since 1947. Read more…
AMIT SHAH’S ‘HISTORY’
A.G. Noorani
The Sangh Parivar’s hatred of Jawaharlal Nehru is perfectly understandable. At the Partition of India he stood by Gandhi and bravely fought back the rising surge of hate fostered by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). The RSS supremo M.S. Golwalkar’s plans to exterminate Muslims were detected, as the Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh, Rajeshwar Dayal, revealed in his memoirs, A Life in Our Time. Had he been arrested, as Dayal suggested, Gandhi’s life would have been spared. Read more…
ACCIDENTS, INJURIES, PANIC: SUDDEN NRC NOTICES PUSH ASSAMESE TO BRINK OF DESPERATION
Gaurav Das
Inside the surgical ward of the state-run Gauhati Medical College Hospital (GMCH), Kabeluddin Rahman was sitting with his four-year-old daughter Kulsum on his lap. Visible on Kulsum’s small face were patches of bitumen, a material used for repairing roads. Read more…
THE SILENCE IS THE LOUDEST SOUND
Arundhati Roy
As India celebrates her 73rd year of independence from British rule, ragged children thread their way through traffic in Delhi, selling outsized national flags and souvenirs that say, “Mera Bharat Mahan.” My India is Great. Quite honestly, it’s hard to feel that way right now, because it looks very much as though our government has gone rogue. Read more…
KASHMIR: MODI’S DRACONIAN MEASURES WILL BE FOUGHT BY THE WORKING CLASS OF THE ENTIRE REGION
Adam Pal
Draconian measures by the Modi government regarding Kashmir have sent shockwaves across the whole region. On 5 August, the 70-year status of the disputed Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir was revoked by a presidential order. The existing constitutional arrangement was also revoked suddenly without any democratic process. Read more…
SPECIAL EDITION ON KASHMIR
WILL THE SUPREME COURT ALLOW BJP’S CONSTITUTIONAL COUP D’ETAT IN J&K TO STAND?
Editors
The INSAF Bulletin is published typically at the beginning of the month, but given the unrest in Kashmir that has blindsided many of us and represents a huge challenge to Indian democracy as well as prospects for peace in South Asia, we felt it appropriate to bring out a special issue on the topic. The articles in this bulletin pertain exclusively to the Kashmir problem, which was triggered by a unilateral and undemocratic action by the BJP government announced in Parliament by Home Minister Amit Shah on August 5, 2019. These actions included stripping Jammu and Kashmir of statehood, cutting internet communication, mobile and landline telephones across the state, abolishing article 370 that granted protection to Kashmiris, ratcheting up police and paramilitary forces in the region and arresting a wide swath of elected politicians who represented the population. Read more…
CONSTITUTION TORN TO SHREDS AS RSS INDULGES ARTICLE 370 FANTASY IN KASHMIR
Siddharth Varadarajan
Not only has Amit Shah stripped Article 370 of its essence, he has abolished the entire state as well, replacing it with two ‘Bantustans’ in which key decisions on issues like law and order and land will be taken from New Delhi. Read more…
AND KASHMIRIS SHALL IMMEDIATELY CEASE TO EXIST
Mohamad Junaid
The Indian government’s measures to bring Kashmir under direct rule by New Delhi attempts to erase the Kashmiri political identity and will inflame an already simmering resistance. Read more…
LAWS OF OCCUPATION
Asad Rahim Khan
“WHEN I think of India, I think of many things,” Jawaharlal Nehru wrote once. “Of … some mountain valley in Kashmir in the spring, covered with new flowers, and with a brook bubbling and gurgling through it.” In words that take on a new meaning today, Nehru concluded, “We make and preserve the pictures of our choice.” It suited India’s first prime minister, a Kashmiri Pandit, to preserve that picture, even if it meant occupation. Read more…
J&K SPECIAL STATUS: HOW THE MODI GOVERNMENT USED ARTICLE 370 TO KILL ARTICLE 370
Sruthisagar Yamunan
Scrapping Article 370 of the Indian Constitution was an election promise of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Article grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir, which basically meant laws enacted by Parliament could not be enforced in the state without the approval of its government. Read more…
ARTICLE 370 OF THE CONSTITUTION: A GENESIS
Jai Shankar Agarwala
A brief history of why Article 370 of the Constitution was framed in a certain manner and the importance of the text of the Article from the viewpoint of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Read more…
INDIA REVOKES KASHMIR’S SPECIAL STATUS, RAISING FEARS OF UNREST
Jeffrey Gettleman and Sameer Yasir
NEW DELHI — The Indian government said on Monday that it was revoking a constitutional provision that had for decades given a unique degree of autonomy to Kashmir, a disputed mountainous region along the India-Pakistan border. Read more…
WHAT IS ARTICLE 370, AND WHY DOES IT MATTER IN KASHMIR?
Vindu Goel
Kashmir, a mountainous valley that borders Pakistan and India, has been a center of conflict between the two nuclear-armed countries since the 1947 partition of British India. Read more…
INDIA REVOKES OCCUPIED KASHMIR’S SPECIAL AUTONOMY THROUGH RUSHED PRESIDENTIAL DECREE
(Unsigned report from Dawn)
With an indefinite security lockdown in Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK) and elected representatives under house arrest, India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stripped Kashmiris of the special autonomy they had for seven decades through a rushed presidential order on Monday. Read more…
BJP WANTS TO REVOKE ARTICLE 370, IRONICALLY SARDAR PATEL WAS ITS ARCHITECT
Srinath Raghavan
Until late 1947, Patel was open to Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan if Pakistanis would tell Nizam of Hyderabad to join India. Read more…
CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE A TERRORIST!
G. Sampath
I’ve spent the last few weeks reading about life in prison. I must say it’s time well spent. Advance preparation always helps. Tomorrow I could be carted off to jail. So could you. Read more…
THE ARTICLE 370 AMENDMENTS: KEY LEGAL ISSUES
Gautam Bhatia
In this post, I will attempt to break down the constitutional changes to Article 370, and highlight some key legal issues surrounding them. In essence, to understand what has happened today, there are three important documents. Read more…
KASHMIR: MODI’S ‘BANGLADESH MOMENT’?
Satya Sagar
If any confirmation was needed Narendra Modi is determined to cast himself as a carbon copy of Indira Gandhi- albeit one with a venomous, communal edge – you need not look further than his latest Kashmir gamble. Read more…
CURRENT PARADIGM SHIFT IN J&K IS IN TUNE WITH THE STEADY CENTRALISATION OF THE STATE SINCE 2014
Christophe Jaffrelot |
The two trends — obliteration of cultural differences and state centralisation — that are well illustrated by the way J&K has been dealt with, may impact policies vis-à-vis other states and other domains. For instance, Hindi may be promoted at the expense of linguistic diversity more decisively. Read more…
AUGUST 7: NATIONAL PROTEST DAY AGAINST ABROGATION OF ARTICLE 370
Sabrangindia
Move an “assault on India’s Constitution, democracy and federalism” Read more…
EDITORIAL: INDIA ON THE EVE OF 73rd YEAR OF INDEPENDENCE
Vinod Mubayi
On the eve of its 73rd birthday, India offers glimpses of a society repudiating the promise made at its birth of a secular state with freedom and liberty for all that respected the ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity of the country. While the formal trappings of constitutional democracy exist, majoritarian politics based largely on a nakedly political use of religious identity is hollowing out the core elements of democracy; the pace has accelerated after the April-May 2019 election led to a second term for Modi and the BJP with an enhanced majority in Parliament. Read more…
BUDGET: MORE OF THE DISMAL SAME
The most obvious exogenous element that could have been introduced to break out of this pro-cyclicality is a wealth tax, at least on the billionaires of the country, whose wealth is estimated at present to be around Rs 560 lakh crore. Read more…
ONE BUFFALO, THAT’S ALL IT TAKES TO MAKE US BUTCHERS OF FELLOW CITIZENS
Dev Raj
Police say: In the early hours of Friday, July 19, three men from Paigambarpur village — Naushad Qureshi, 40, Raju Nat, 40, and Videsh Nat, 20 — were lynched in Pithauri Nandlal Tola, 10km away, in Saran district, 95km northwest of Patna. Read more…
A NEW CAST — BY ELEVATING D RAJA TO THE POST OF GENERAL SECRETARY, CPI MAKES HISTORY
The elevation of D Raja to General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI) is a historic step. Raja is not only a well-known national communist leader but also a Dalit leader who rose to the status of a seasoned communist, theoretician and inspirational figure. Ever since the pro and anti-Mandal movements changed the course of Indian politics, Raja has been the only communist leader from within the left parties to negotiate between Dalit-Bahujans and communists as a authentic voice. Read more…
FROM ACHHUT KANYA IN 1936 TO ARTICLE 15, HOW INDIAN CINEMA HAS DEALT WITH CASTE
Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit (1939) is a rendition of a poem on racism in a time when lynching of Black men was common in America. More recently, rapper Kanye West used it in his album Yeezus (2013), the haunting lyrics speaking of strung-up bodies of Blacks lynched for acting above or outside their station and breaking the harsh code of the times: Southern trees bear a strange fruit/Blood on the leaves and blood at the root/Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze/Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Read more…
MOB LYNCHING AND THE INDIAN STATE
Irfan Engineer
Please see video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcr8QTPM9Io&feature=youtu.be
ARUNDHATI ROY ON INDIA’S ELECTIONS: “A MOCKERY OF WHAT DEMOCRACY IS SUPPOSED TO BE”
Interview by Samuel Earle in The New Republic
“In India,” Arundhati Roy wrote in 2002, “if you are a butcher or a genocidist who happens to be a politician, you have every reason to be optimistic.” Roy was referring to Narendra Modi, the then-chief minister of Gujarat who had been implicated in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the state that killed at least 1,000 people. Read more…
ARUN KUMAR ROY: AN INDOMITABLE MARXIST IDEOLOGUE WHO BEACONED THE JHARKHAND MOVEMENT
21st July brought a big shocker to the Indian politics at whole and Indian Left in particular in the form of the loss of a veteran communist leader, Arun Kumar Roy alias A.K.Roy and famously known as “Rai Da” among the masses of Jharkhand. His reminiscence in the minds of millions is imbibed firstly as someone who throttled the fight against oppressors who tried capturing rights of the people of Jharkhand. Read more…
LETTER FROM KARACHI: FOR A PLACE IN THE SHADE
Kevin Shi
In Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, the sun is an ever-present force, sometimes making it hard to even be outside. Every summer, the city suffers from heat waves causing dozens if not hundreds of deaths each year. Residents and medical personnel recall shocking scenes during the heat wave of 2015, when temperatures rose beyond 45ºC and over 1300 people died as a result. The city’s biggest morgue had to turn away bodies and cemeteries ran out of space to bury the dead. Read more…
50 PEOPLE DIED CLEANING SEWERS IN THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF 2019
Data collated by the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK) reveals that at least 50 persons have died cleaning sewers in the first six months of 2019 alone. Read more…
INDIA: 49 INTELLECTUALS WRITE TO PM MODI, CONDEMNS LYNCHING OF MINORITIES
Telesur
“About 90% of those attacks were reported after May 2014 when your government assumed power nationally,” the signatories wrote. Read more…
MIYAH POETRY: HOW DO BESIEGED COMMUNITIES RESPOND?
Ram Puniyani
A FIR was registered against 10 Assamese poets (July 10, 2019). These poets mostly Muslims; have been pioneers and are leading lights of what has come to be known as Miyah Poetry. One sample, by the initiator of this trend; Hafiz Ahmed goes like this: Read more…
MAN AND THE MOVEMENT – RAJA DHALE’S WORDS AND WORK STIRRED SLEEPING SOULS, GAVE EXPRESSION TO SIMMERING DALIT ANGER
Raja Dhale died on July 16 in Mumbai due to a heart attack, his family reported. He was 78 years old. Read more…
MY FRIEND, FIROZ ASHRAF
Vrijendra
In the late evening of June 8, 2019, Firoz Ashraf died in a freak accident outside his home in Jogeshwari when he was crossing the road. It is more than a month since he died, and many memorial meetings have been held to mourn his death, to celebrate his life, to remember him and to try to find out who will and how would fit in the large void he has left behind in so many, especially, young lives of so many Muslim girls for whom he was, to use an old but apt cliché, a saviour! In the last one month, I have also thought about him more than ever. Read more…
BITING MY TONGUE: WHAT HINDI KEEPS HIDDEN
Sagar
I was born into Hindi, and brought up in it. It was the language of my parents and siblings, my cousins and friends, all our neighbours in the Dalit ghetto in the small town in Bihar where I spent my childhood. It is still the only language I use with them. I studied for ten years in a Hindi-medium school that followed the curriculum of the Bihar state board. Read more…
EDITORIAL: HECKLING IN PARLIAMENT, LYNCHINGS IN THE STREETS: INDIA’S NEW GOVERNMENT HITS THE GROUND RUNNING
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
On the 19th of June 2019, India’s 17th parliament was sworn in by the speaker of the Lok Sabha. Muslims and Dalit leaders who took the oath were taunted incessantly by members of the ruling BJP in a naked act of intimidation. Troubled times could not have been announced more presciently. Read more…
HOW THE NATIONALISM OF INDIA’S ANTI-COLONIAL STRUGGLE DIFFERS FROM HINDUTVA AND WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
Prabhat Patnaik
The concept of nationalism that informed India’s anti-colonial struggle was a unique and unprecedented idea. There were at least three ways in which it was the very opposite of the concept of nationalism developed in Europe in the wake of the Westphalian peace treaties in the 17th century. Read more…
POPULISM PLUS
Partha Chatterjee
The Narendra Modi triumph has been built on two projects: one, the representation of Modi as the unquestioned populist leader who could be trusted to defend the nation’s security, and two, the long-term project of a nationalism defined by the Hindu majority. Read more…
WHAT DID INDIA REALLY VOTE FOR?
Vamsi Vakulabharanam and Sripad Motiram
The recently concluded election produced a puzzling outcome. During the tenure of the National Democratic Alliance government (NDA-II), the Indian economy significantly under-performed, heightening the distress of millions of farmers, raising unemployment and increasing the insecurity of workers in the informal sector. Read more…
MODI WON POWER, NOT THE BATTLE OF IDEAS
Amartya Sen
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has led his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to a major victory in the country’s general elections, winning more than 300 of the 543 parliamentary seats and five more years to run the country. Read more…
MOB LYNCHING AND THE INDIAN STATE
Irfan Engineer
Please see video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcr8QTPM9Io&feature=youtu.be Read more…
THE SPECTRE OF FOREIGNNESS
Harsh Mander
Extending the concept of foreigners tribunals from Assam to rest of India will result in an upheaval that will stir memories of Partition. Read more…
OF MANGOES, MOSQUES AND MUSLIMS : A TALE OF UNCHEYGAON, MY VILLAGE
Syed Areesh Ahmad
Politics is writ large on the landscape of Uncheygaon whether people talk about it or not. It is there in the graveyards that the Akhilesh government built, or the toilets, the izzat ghars, that the Modi government constructed. But I sensed that there has been a general apathy regarding politics in the muslim community of the village since the rise of Modi. Read more…
AUTHORITIES MUST ENSURE SAFETY OF DR. PUNIYANI, WHO HAS BEEN A STRONG SECULAR VOICE AND CRUSADER FOR COMMUNAL HARMONY
Courtesy SACW
Civil Society strongly condemns the criminal intimidation and threats made to noted scholar and ant-communalism activist Dr. Ram Puniyani and demand speedy and thorough investigation into the crime. Read more…
TO SANJIV BHATT, A MAN WHO DISPLAYED THE HIGHEST COURAGE
Harsh Mander
Dear Sanjiv,
I don’t know whether you will get to read this letter, and if so when. Possibly your indomitable life partner Shweta Bhatt will carry a copy to you when she goes next to meet you in prison. But she has, at this moment, so much to fight and cope with, she may well forget the trivial matter of this letter. Read more…
BOOK REVIEW: LABOUR IN THE INDIAN ECONOMY
Jayan Jose Thomas
Labour and Development: Essays in Honour of Professor T S Papola edited by K P Kannan, Rajendra P Mamgain and Preet Rustagi, New Delhi: Academic Foundation, 2017; pp 722, ? 1,495 (hardcover). Read more…
EDITORIAL: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
Vinod Mubayi
In the wake of the recently concluded 2019 elections India has been dubbed a “majoritarian democracy”. In the near future, it is very likely that more emphasis will be placed on “majoritarian” and less on democracy. The essence of Indian democracy so far has consisted of adherence, no matter how flawed in practice, to the liberal, secular Indian constitution with its promise of equal rights for all, including minorities. Read more…
LET NOT TRUTHS REMAIN TONGUELESS
Badri Raina
Athens feared the cloutless Socrates,
Because he said what he had to say;
He drank the hemlock cheerfully,
And Athens is known by him today. Read more…
VIJAYI MODI? YES. VIJAYI BHARAT? NOT ON YOUR LIFE
Siddharth Varadarajan
The election results show Modi has overcome his poor track record in office, but the fact that he has done so with a heady cocktail of communalism and nationalism, obscene amounts of money, unstinting media support and pliant institutions is bad news for Indian democracy. Read more…
THE NEW INDIAN ELECTION: FREE BUT NOT FAIR
Mukulika Banerjee
This 2019 national election in India is nothing like the one before it in 2014. There is something fundamentally different about it, even though it is superficially familiar. The vocabulary is the same, but the grammar has changed. Read more…
ECHOES OF PAKISTAN IN INDIAN POLLS
Pervez Hoodbhoy
It was once common wisdom that India had succeeded in developing a viable form of Westminster-style parliamentary democracy whereas Pakistan had failed. Pakistan has indeed suffered a succession of military governments interspersed with periods of nominally civilian rule; as such, it is not a model worthy of emulation. But the rise of Hindutva politics has taken away the starkness of earlier comparisons. Read more…
DEMOCRACY AS MAJORITARIANISM
Subhash Gatade
Subhash Gatade’s Hinduta’s Second Coming deals with the question of normalisation of majoritarianism which India is currently witnessing. The book is divided into three sections. Read more…
A SAVAGE SUMMER, A MERCILESS DROUGHT
Harsh Mander
After a long, harrowing drought, you wait with aching, desperate hope for the monsoon rains. You expect it will quench your parched arid fields, it will heal your land, feed your starving cattle, your skinny children, and restore them all to life. But when its time comes, you stare at the sky and find that there are no rain clouds, only a pitiless burning sun. You slowly realise with foreboding that there will be no life-giving rain, that you need to brace and fortify yourself, to endure an even longer, more savage summer, and a merciless drought. Read more…
WHY THE BJP’S HINDUTVA EXPERIMENT FAILED IN KERALA
Anoop Sadanandan
This election cycle, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kerala followed the standard protocol to replicate the Hindutva experiment that had catalysed the party’s rapid rise in the north. By the book, the party pivoted its campaign on a temple issue. Read more…
A COLLECTIVE MADNESS: WHAT MODI’S VICTORY SAYS ABOUT TODAY’S INDIA
Namit Arora
In Varanasi recently, I took an auto-rickshaw from Godowlia to Assi Ghat. Like everyone else in town, the driver and I began talking politics. The 2019 general election was a week away and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seeking reelection from Varanasi. The driver was an ardent Modi fan and would hear no criticism of him. Read more…
EXPLAINING NARENDRA MODI’S GLOBAL IMAGE VICTORY
Arjun Appadorai
It is highly likely that Narendra Modi will be handed another term as prime minister on May 23, even if the Bharatiya Janata Party takes a few losses here and there. If, by some unlikely chance, he loses, he has already established a global presence as a bold, imaginative and popular leader, a tribute to the democratic voice of India’s people. Read more…
MORE THAN EVMS, IT IS ‘THE HINDU MIND’ WHICH HAS BEEN EFFECTIVELY RIGGED
Apoorvanand
Modi has become confident that the Hindu mind has been vulgarised and become so spiritually hollow that even a crudity like his Kedarnath yatra can pass off as a religious expedition. Read more…
BOOK REVIEW: MAKING ECONOMICS MORE ACCESSIBLE
Rahul De
Economics of Real-Life: A New Exposition by C T Kurien, New Delhi: Academic Foundation, 2018; pp 249, ? 995 (hardcover). Read more…
INSAF Bulletin strongly condemns the suicide bombings in Sri Lanka that took the lives of hundreds of innocent people, mainly Christians celebrating Easter and offers its sincere condolences to the families of the victims.
EDITORIAL: ELECTION CHICANERY, AND INDO-PAK PEACE – SOME REFLECTIONS
Vinod Mubayi
Two phases of the more than month long Indian elections are over with several still to come before the results are finally declared late next month. Read more…
BEYOND ELECTORAL BONDS
EPW Editorial
Electoral reforms should look beyond “anonymity of donors” to make a real difference. Read more…
OPINION: ON BALAKOT AND AFTER, REAL MYSTERY IS HOW THE INDIAN RESPONSE HAS BEEN TOUTED AS A TRIUMPH
Girish Shahane
We desperately need details countering the international narrative that is building steadily claiming that the Balakot mission was a failure. Read more…
THE CONTINUING CRUCIFIXION OF AMARTYA SEN
Santosh Paul
An article has surfaced under the title ‘Strange Saga of Amartya Sen and the Rothschilds’ by the author Arvind Kumar. The title is obviously meant to conjure up the latent anti-Semitic sentiment against a time tested goblin – the Jewish global financial conspiracy. This harangue is published in an online newspaper called Sunday Guardian. Read more…
THE MASSACRE THAT LED TO THE END OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE
Gyan Prakash
The events at Jallianwala Bagh, in the Indian city of Amritsar, marked the beginning of the resistance against colonial governance. Read more…
THE GOVERNANCE DASHBOARD: THE BJP REGIME AND ITS PROMISES
Vamsi Vakulabharanam and Sripad Motiram
The current regime has failed to deliver on its promises of development and clean government. Read more…
THE TRUE STATE OF DEVELOPMENT
Rahul Menon
A Quantum Leap in the Wrong Direction? edited by Rohit Azad, Shouvik Chakraborty, Srinivasan Ramani and Dipa Sinha, Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2019; pp 315, 495. Read more…
PAKISTAN TO RELEASE 360 INDIAN PRISONERS AS TENSIONS EASE
Syed Raza Hassan
KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistan will release 360 Indian prisoners this month, the foreign office said on Friday, as the nuclear-armed neighbours scale back from a confrontation that prompted world powers to urge restraint. Read more…
IN DETAIL: ACCESS TO FACILITIES FOR WOMEN EXPERIENCING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Shireen J Jejeebhoy and K G Santhya
In India, 29% of women aged 15–49 have experienced marital violence. Although crisis centres, known as helplines, exist to support those who experience violence, little is known about the experiences of women who use these services. Read more…
EDITORIAL: MAJORITARIANISM – MALADY OF OUR TIME
Vinod Mubayi
The recent release of all the accused Hindutva terrorists by Indian courts in the Samjhauta Express bombing case that killed 68 persons including 44 Pakistani citizens, following the fizzling out of similar prosecutions in the bombings of Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid or Malegaon’s Idgah shows quite convincingly that under its present political dispensation, India is unable (or unwilling) to procure justice for the victims of violent acts when these are committed by actors owing allegiance to Hindutva ideals. Read more…
ATTACK ON PROFESSOR RAM PUNIYANI
Editors’ Note: The noted secular humanist Dr Ram Puniyani, who is also a contributing editor of Insaf Bulletin, was harassed at his residence in Mumbai on March 9 by three men claiming to be from the CID. The statement below protesting this treatment and the suspicious circumstances in which it occurred while asking the Mumbai police to investigate it, was signed by many eminent Indians. Insaf Bulletin adds its voice to theirs. Read more…
APPEAL TO NON-BJP OPPOSITION PARTIES REGARDING 2019 ELECTIONS
The coming 2019 may prove to be a watershed in India’s political history, as were the 1977 elections forty-two years ago. In 1977, elections were held after a declared Emergency, during which the Constitution was suspended, political activity disallowed and opposition leaders and activists imprisoned. The success of non-Congress parties in those elections strengthened the electoral system in Indian democracy. Since then all ruling parties losing elections have demitted office gracefully, rather than attempting to subvert the popular mandate. Read more…
IN UTTAR PRADESH, LAW IS MISUSED TO TARGET MINORITIES
Christophe Jaffrelot, Syed H A Rizvi
Patterns of communal violence are changing in Uttar Pradesh. As Sudha Pai and Sajjan Kumar had shown in Everyday Communalism: Riots in Contemporary Uttar Pradesh (OUP, 2018) after the 2004 BJP defeat, which former prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, partly attributed to the 2002 Gujarat riots, the Hindutva forces have opted for a new modus operandi. Read more…
WHO ARE THE FREE RIDERS OF INDIAN DEMOCRACY?
EPW Editorial
The NDA’s refusal to engage in argumentative politics results in the violation of democratic norms. Read more…
BANGLADESH: INNOCENT UNTIL FOUND PROTESTING
Sushmita S Preetha
In December 2018 and January 2019, workers from Bangladesh’s ready-made garment (RMG) industry went on spontaneous mass protests and strikes around major industrial belts in Dhaka. They were agitating against what they deemed insufficient wage increases, announced by a government-appointed wage board in September 2018, that would go into effect three months later. Garment-factory owners and the Bangladesh government responded with a tried and tested strategy: repression and attack. Read more…
LEFT-LIBERALS DON’T REALLY UNDERSTAND RIGHT-WING POPULISM – AND HAVE NO EFFECTIVE WAY TO COUNTER IT
Ajaz Ashraf
Populism succeeds because of a nation’s social psychology, which the left-liberal rarely takes into account. Read more…
INDIA, PAKISTAN BEGIN TALKS ON KARTARPUR CORRIDOR AMID CHILL OVER PULWAMA ATTACK
PTI
Attari (Amritsar): A meeting between officials of India and Pakistan to finalise the modalities for setting up of a corridor linking the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in the Pakistani town of Kartarpur with Gurdaspur district in Punjab commenced here on Thursday, officials said. Read more…
PAKISTAN: AURAT MARCH AND ITS DISCONTENTS
Neelum Hussain
Mainstream Pakistan is shocked by the slogans of Aurat March. A nation that is characterised by its free use of sexual abuse that not only targets women with explicit reference to their sexual body parts, but does so with impunity, is shocked by women’s demand for bodily integrity and safety. Read more…
BOOK REVIEW: CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM, AND THE TRANSITION FROM ONE TO THE OTHER
Rohini Hensman
Socialism and Commodity Production: Essay in Marx Revival by Paresh Chattopadhyay, Leiden, and Boston: Brill, 2018. Read more…
EDITORIAL: PULWAMA POSTURINGS
Vinod Mubayi
In a time of hyper-nationalism, reason and rational thinking go out the window to be replaced by chest thumping, calls for surgical strikes and revenge. The Pulwama episode reveals these features in gory detail. Indian TV anchors screaming like demented hyenas smelling blood if a guest dares to offer the mildest critique of the Government’s policies in Kashmir. Lynch mobs roaming the streets in many states outside Kashmir threatening and intimidating students of Kashmiri origin and forcing them out of their schools, colleges and hostels. Read more…
PEACE NOT WAR — HIGH ALERT/ YOUR PARTICIPATION IS URGENTLY NEEDED!
The following is the text of a petition urging for peace. It is followed by the links that may be used to sign on. Read more…
PULWAMA AND AFTER
Venkitesh Ramakrishnan
“If we are to defeat terrorism, it is our duty, and indeed our interest, to try to understand this deadly phenomenon, and carefully to examine what works, and what does not, in fighting it,” said Kofi Annan, Nobel Peace laureate and Secretary General at the time of the United Nations, at “Fighting Terrorism for Humanity: A Conference on the Roots of Evil” on September 22, 2003. Read more…
COVERING UP THE RAFALE TRAIL
EPW Editorial
In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha general election, the Rafale issue has galvanised the opposition parties, which are seeking to force Anil Ambani and the government to take responsibility for the irregularities surrounding the deal. On the other hand, spokespersons of the government are making every effort to disentangle it from these irregularities. However, recent revelations have embroiled the government further in the controversy, which reeks of corruption and malfeasance. Read more…
DECLARATION: MAHARASHTRA STATE CONVENTION OF WORKERS: DEFEAT THE ANTI-WORKER MODI GOVERNMENT
The Kamgar Sangathana Samyukta Kruti Samiti, Maharashtra, is holding today the Maharashtra State Convention of Workers in continuation of the chain of its consistent agitation programmes – three day mahapadav at Delhi on 9th-10th-11th November , 2017 , January 6th 2018 Nashik convention and campaign, and the historic two day All India Strike on 8th, 9th January 2019. Read more…
WE NEED UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME AS JOBS SHRINK
Aakar Patel
The government’s announcement of a scheme to give small farmers Rs 6,000 cash per year is seen as a brilliant move that will reap political benefit in May. The scheme, announced in the budget, comes after two other developments. First, a report that the government has suppressed which says that unemployment is at its highest in more than 45 years. Second, that the Congress president Rahul Gandhi is talking of a minimum income guarantee. Read more…
LAW VERSUS FAITH, FEMALE ACTIVISTS VERSUS MALE DEVOTEES AND OTHER STRANGE CREATURES AT SABARIMALA
Nivedita Menon
The three images below teach us how society is transformed – by the courage and determination of the oppressed and marginalized; by tears of rage, and by stony cold resistance in the face of violent retaliation by entrenched power. It is not that these pioneers were fearless, but that they acted despite their fear. Read more…
INDIAN AUTHORITIES FAILED TO STOP ‘COW VIGILANTE’ VIOLENCE: REPORT
Helen Regan and Swati Gupta
Cow vigilante crimes in India have been ignored or covered up by the authorities, according to a new report. Read more…
EDITORIAL: CLASSISM, CASTEISM, SEMI-FASCISM AND THE POLITICAL USE OF RELIGION
Vinod Mubayi
Classism
At its inception, Modi’s regime bragged about the Gujarat model of economic development that, in its view, would transform the Indian economy. Mesmerized by the advertising glitz of the BJP, supported to the hilt financially by all the leading lights of Indian capitalism, the Ambanis and the Adanis, the Indian middle class succumbed to Modi’s rhetoric and rewarded his party with an unprecedented victory in the national elections. Read more…
‘I AM DEVASTATED BY THE PROSPECT OF IMMINENT ARREST’
Anand Teltumbde
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to quash the first information report filed by the Pune Police against civil rights activist and respected author Anand Teltumbde in connection with the violence at Bhima Koregaon on January 1, 2018. Read more…
WHO’S AFRAID OF ANAND TELTUMBDE?
N. Balmurli
Dr. Anand Teltumbde has demonstrated tremendous courage in departing from the hero-worshipping style of approaching the historical personalities, which is so rampant and so universal in our country. Read more…
THE 10% RESERVATION IS A CYNICAL FRAUD ON THE CONSTITUTION
Partha Chatterjee
Barely two days after it sprang the Constitution (124th Amendment) Bill on an unsuspecting Indian nation, the government managed to get it passed, virtually unanimously, in both houses of parliament. Days later, it was signed into constitutional law. Read more…
THE MALIGN INCOMPETENCE OF THE BRITISH RULING CLASS
Pankaj Mishra
With Brexit, the chumocrats who drew borders from India to Ireland are getting a taste of their own medicine. Read more…
NEW SOCIALIST INITIATIVE’S (NSI) STATEMENT ON THE PEOPLE’S RESISTANCE AGAINST THE CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT BILL
New Socialist Initiative stands in solidarity with the people of Assam, Tripura and the other North Eastern states in their heroic struggle against the communally motivated Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB). It was only because of the resistance of the people that the government couldn’t table the Bill for voting in the Rajya Sabha after surreptitiously passing it in the Lok Sabha. Read more…
STATEMENT REFUTING FALSE ALLEGATIONS ON APSC AND IN SOLIDARITY WITH DR. ANAND TELTUMBDE
Karthik Navayan Battula
We pledge our strong support and solidarity to Prof. Anand Teltumbde who is facing an imminent threat of arrest in connection with the Bhima Koregaon incident on January 1, 2018, an event he has not even attended. Read more…
THE GROUND BENEATH OUR FEET HAS MOVED TO THE RIGHT
Nissim Mannathukkaren
Hate has become mainstream. This can only change when democracy is no longer equated with majoritarianism. Read more…
POLITICS OF CONTEMPT?
EPW Editorial
Members of the BJP have been losing their grip on the 2019 election as well as on their tongues. Read more…
PAKISTAN’S MISSING #METOO MOVEMENT
Hafsa Khawaja
As the #MeToo movement gathers momentum across various parts of the world, Pakistan remains largely unaffected by it. Far from making waves, the social-media-driven movement has hardly made ripples in the country. Read more…
OBITUARY: Mrinal Sen, One Of India’s Leading Directors, Dies At 95
Neil Genzlinger
Mrinal Sen, one of India’s leading filmmakers and a central figure in the movement known as parallel cinema, a socially conscious alternative to splashy Bollywood films, died on Dec. 30 at his home in Kolkata, India. He was 95. Read more…
EDITORIAL: INSAF TURNS 200
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
The results of the 5 state elections in India declared yesterday brought to mind a line from Faiz: “Roshan kahin bahar ke imkaan hue to hain” (Some possibilities of spring have emerged). Only possibilities, mind you. Bigger, sterner tests lie ahead. Read more…
ALARM BELLS FOR BJP: CONGRESS TAKES BIG STRIDES, MODI MAGIC WANING BUT STILL FORMIDABLE FOR 2019 POLLS
Nalin Mehta
In an election bookended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Congress “ki kaun si vidhwa hai” jibe on the one hand and Rahul Gandhi’s “chaukidar chor hai” slogan on the other, there are larger portents for the 2019 general election. Read more…
RAFALE CONTROVERSY: SUPREME COURT JUDGEMENT AMONGST WORST EVER?
Sukla Sen
Judgement Sparks Controversy
The judgement delivered by the Supreme Court on December 14th, has already attracted a hell lot of controversy. Read more…
ALTERNATIVE SECULAR GOVT TO BE FORMED AT CENTRE POST 2019 LOK SABHA POLLS: SITARAM YECHURY
PTI
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury Monday claimed that a secular, alternative government will be formed at the Centre after the general elections in 2019. Read more…
INDIA’S #METOO MOMENT
Laxmi Murthy
The recent wave of revelations about sexual harassment in the entertainment and news media industry in India, popularly called the #MeToo moment has made one thing clear: there’s a dearth of listening skills and empathy. There is anguish, there is pain, there is hurt and most of all, there is anger. The time has finally arrived to heed these voices, and with understanding. Read more…
LETTER FROM AMERICA: HINDUTVA IN CHICAGO
Slok Gyawali
Were it not for the statuette of a cow outside the adjoining Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse, it would be impossible to distinguish the Westin Hotel in Lombard from other high-rises across Chicago’s suburban sprawl. Read more…
SABARIMALA PROTEST
O B Roopesh
On 28 September 2018, the Supreme Court lifted the ban on women’s entry (between the ages of 10 and 50) to Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple in Kerala. Women’s entry was banned in 1991 by the Kerala High Court (S Mahendran v The Secretary, Travancore 1991). Read more…
INDEFINITE STRIKE BY BIHAR’S ASHA WORKERS IS ANOTHER REMINDER THAT THEY ARE OVERWORKED, UNDERPAID
Kavita Krishnan
Accredited Social Health Activists or ASHA workers in Bihar went on an indefinite strike from December 1 with a 12-point charter of demands. Bihar has 93,687 ASHA workers – the second highest contingent of the one million ASHA workers in India. Read more…
WHAT IS MISSING IN THE #METOO MOVEMENT?
Ditilekha Sharma
How can we talk about sexual harassment in the context of a sex-negative atmosphere where conversations around sex and sexuality are considered taboo? Read more…
PAKISTAN’S ‘GOOD’ AND ‘BAD’ FEMINISMS
Amna Chaudhry
Transgressing Boundaries, an art installation by Karachi-based artist Nisha Pinjani, depicts several women in various positions all tied together by their hair. A thick black braid grows out of each woman’s head and proceeds to get in every woman’s way. Read more…
INDIA’S DANGEROUS NEW CURRICULUM
Alex Traub
From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, the Mughal Empire did much to create modern-day India. It consolidated the country into a sovereign political unit, established a secular tradition in law and administration, and built monuments such as the Taj Mahal. Read more…
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