SECULARISM, DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

INSAF Bulletin 281 September 2025
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: DECLINE AND FALL OF DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD’S OLDEST AND LARGEST “DEMOCRACIES”

Vinod Mubayi

The precipitous decline of routine democratic functioning in both the U.S. and India, exemplified by free and fair elections, adherence to the rule of law, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of the press, and a viable political opposition allowed to function without harassment, has become a matter of frequent comment in the media in both countries in recent months. Trump’s daily attacks on any and every conceivable opposition have become commonplace, as have the cries of protest from those affected or afflicted by his actions. Here is one from a small NGO: “With the stroke of a pen, Donald Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum instructing the Department of Justice to target the one tool we rely on to organize, resist, and win. It’s an open declaration of war on small-dollar donors, on activists, on our right to resist.” This is eerily similar to the Modi regime’s use of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) a few years ago to attack and drive out of existence several human rights NGOs in India that used to get donations from foreign donors.

MILITANT CENTRISM IN BANGLADESH AFTER THE UPRISINGS

Nijjor Manush

Despite its ostensibly revolutionary origins, Bangladesh’s student-led party finds itself in questionable company in the new political landscape. What does its trajectory tell us about “post ideological” politics?

THE MIRAGE OF ‘STABILISED’ CAPITALISM

Prabhat Patnaik

Microfinance, which was supposed to be an antidote to mass poverty within capitalism, has become an instrument of pushing people, including women, deeper into poverty.

WHAT DO YOU FEAR THE FAR RIGHT WILL DO THAT YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE?

Vijay Prashad

On 12 August, Samar Abu Elouf, who won the 2025 World Press Photo of the Year, posted on her Instagram account that her son’s close friend Sami Shukour had been killed while he ‘went to look for flour to feed himself and his family’.

TURNING BACK THE CLOCK: THE SPECIAL INTENSIVE REVISION (SIR) THREATENS A CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN ADVANCING VOTING RIGHTS

Sagar

BR Ambedkar rose to speak during the second sitting of the First Round Table Conference’s franchise subcommittee, at St James’s Palace in London on 22 December 1930. Comprising 36 members, including Indian politicians, colonial officers and British legislators, the subcommittee was meant to determine who would be allowed to vote under a new constitution for India.

M M KALBURGI’S LIFE AND LEGACY IN THE CROSSHAIRS OF HISTORY

Srikar Raghavan

If you happen to be familiar with even some of the Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi’s output – his collected works round out to 27,000 pages and 68 kilograms – it might not surprise you that this piece begins from the 12th century and gets into a fair bit of mediaeval history. These historical times (and the troubles taken to recreate them) form the backdrop against which Kalburgi’s own life unfolded.

INDIA WAS THE ECONOMIC ALTERNATIVE TO CHINA. TRUMP ENDED THAT

Alex Travelli and Hari Kumar

President Trump’s 50 percent tariffs landed like a declaration of economic war on India, undercutting enormous investments made by American companies to hedge their dependency on China.

PAKISTAN: AGRICULTURAL LOSS

Dawn Editorial

THE current wave of floods has ravaged vast tracts of farmland across the plains of central Punjab

THE SUN IS SETTING ON THE MODI-SHAH DUO

Anand K. Sahay

Hegemony ensues when other actors in the system seek to emulate the hegemony-wielder. However, tracing the path of the BJP regime under its current stewards is likely to invite odium instead of bringing approbation to a political party.

HOW TM KRISHNA TURNED EMPEROR ASHOKA’S ‘ENVIRONMENTAL’ MESSAGES INTO MUSIC

Nayanjot Lahiri & TM Krishna

Historian Nayanjot Lahiri and the musician discuss their collaboration to reimagine Ashoka’s words through a contemporary prism.

ECHOES OF GHADAR: A DIASPORA’S PIONEERING ROLE IN INDIA’S FREEDOM STRUGGLE

Zafar Iqbal, Ph.D.

The Ghadar Party, founded in 1913 in San Francisco, California, played a trailblazing role in India’s struggle for independence, long before the Indian National Congress formally adopted the goal of complete freedom. Formed primarily by Punjabi immigrants, especially Sikhs, alongside other Indian communities, the Ghadar Party was the first organized movement among the Indian diaspora to advocate for armed revolution against British colonial rule.

EDITORIAL: MORE COUNTRIES OPPOSE THE INTENSIFYING GENOCIDE IN GAZA BUT THE INDIAN GOVT IS SHAMEFULLY SILENT WHILE ZIONISTS AND HINDUTVA SUPPORTERS TARGET MAMDANI IN NEW YORK

Vinod Mubayi

The destruction of Palestinian life in Gaza has reached such a level that denial of its extent or brutality or evasion of its proper name has become well-nigh impossible – even inside Israel. One of the consciences of Israeli journalism, Gideon Levy, wrote the following in the July 30 edition of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:

CITIZENS FOR THE CONSTITUTION (CFTC) STATEMENT ON RECENT INCIDENTS OF HARASSMENT AND TARGETING OF RELIGIOUS MINORITIES

Citizens for the Constitution (CFTC) strongly condemns the arrest and continued judicial custody of two Catholic nuns from Kerala, Sister Preety Mary and Sister Vandana Francis, along with Sukaman Mandavi, by the Chhattisgarh Police in Durg on 25th July. The trio has been falsely accused of “forcible conversion” and human trafficking involving three women from Narayanpur. An FIR has been filed against them under provisions of the Chhattisgarh Religious Freedom Act and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, reportedly based on a tip-off by a Bajrang Dal member—a Hindu right-wing organization.

WHO CLEANS, WHO DIES, WHO CELEBRATES? CASTE POLITICS BEHIND ‘CLEAN INDIA’

Noor Mahvish

While Rs 1200 crore was spent on Swachh Bharat advertisements, Dalit workers continue to clean human waste with bare hands — and often die doing so. Manual scavenging remains a caste-imposed, deadly occupation masked by state neglect and public apathy. This is not development — it’s a democracy burying its most dehumanised citizens beneath the promise of cleanliness.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC BENEFIT FROM GENOCIDE OF PALESTINIANS

Vijay Prashad , Ubai al-Aboudi

The recent report by UN rapporteur revealed the web of global corporations that prop up and profit from Israel’s genocidal policies against the Palestinian people.

ASIM MUNIR’S PROMOTION TO FIELD MARSHAL SIGNALS AN AUTHORITARIAN PAKISTAN

Salman Rafi Sheikh

IN MAY THIS YEAR, Pakistan and India engaged in armed hostilities for four days after the Pahalgam attack – the most serious crisis between the two nuclear-armed neighbours in decades. As the conflict ended with de-escalation, without a decisive outcome, both sides claimed victory before their respective national and political constituencies. In Pakistan, the internal perception of a decisive victory over India in the brief, intense and symbolically important exchange of hostilities has triggered deeper entrenchment of its military in national affairs.

MODI GOVERNMENT DOES NOT HAVE ANY FOREIGN POLICY

Radhakanta Barik

The rise of right-wing politics all over the world has been encouraged by the USAID, be it Egypt or India. The way they sponsored the ANA movement (the July 2025 revolt that dethroned the Hassina government) in Bangladesh, and the coming of the BJP in 2014 explains the attack on the Minorities, Dalits, farmers and the working class. The USAID’s (United States Agency for International Development) saas-bahu politics in India is well known.

VS ACHUTHANANDAN: A LIFE FORGED IN STRUGGLE

MB Santhosh

This essay was written by Thiruvananthapuram-based senior journalist MB Santhosh, who shared a close bond with veteran Communist leader VS Achuthanandan. It was translated from Malayalam by Vandana Mohandas.

OMINOUS IMPULSES IN THE JUDICIARY

People’s Democracy Editorial

THE country was stunned by the remarks of two Bombay High Court judges. Justices Ravindra Ghuge and Gautam Ankhad, in a display of self-styled wisdom, delivered an astonishing rebuke while dismissing a petition filed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which sought permission to protest the genocide in Gaza perpetrated by Israel. From the Bench of the Bombay High Court, they asked the petitioner to “show patriotism for the citizens of our own country first.”

THE BIHAR MODEL

Sagar

THE CENSUS TOWN OF SABOUR, on the outskirts of Bhagalpur, was first connected by rail to the colonial capital, Calcutta, in 1861. Five years later, the first train between Howrah and Delhi—the precursor of the Kalka Mail—passed through here. The East Indian Railway Company, however, began constructing what came to be known as the Grand Chord, which, when completed in 1906, shortened the distance between the two metropolises by almost two hundred kilometres.

EDITORIAL: ON THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DECLARED EMERGENCY AN UNDECLARED EMERGENCY HAS NOW EMERGED

Vinod Mubayi

Over the last month, the ruling BJP regime seems to be trying hard to reawaken memories on its 50th anniversary of the Emergency imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in June 1975. It is obvious that this is being done to denigrate and discredit the Congress Party, India’s largest opposition party, in general and, in particular, Rahul Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s grandson. There is little doubt that the 1975 Emergency that stretched 21 months from June 1975 to March 1977 was a politically fraught era when thousands of opponents of Mrs. Gandhi’s Congress (I) government were jailed for daring to protest. It is also significant that the founding editor of Insaf Bulletin, late Dr. Daya Varma, was one among several Indians in North America who happened to come together in Montreal in June 1975 to create the progressive organization IPANA (Indian Peoples Association in North America) that opposed the Emergency and exposed its undemocratic character.

DARK SHADOWS OF EMERGENCY!

Subhash Gatade

25th June 2025 happened to be the fiftieth year of the internal emergency imposed by the then Indira Gandhi regime. Much has changed during all these years but till date we are still far away from a balanced review of that period.

ECONOMISTS IN PRAISE OF SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR FRANCESCA ALBANESE’S REPORT TO THE UNITED NATIONS: ‘FROM ECONOMY OF OCCUPATION TO ECONOMY OF GENOCIDE’

History teaches us that economic interests have been key drivers and enablers of colonial enterprises and often of the genocides they perpetrated. The corporate sector has been intrinsic to colonialism since its inception, with corporations historically contributing to the violence against, the exploitation, and ultimately the dispossession, of Indigenous people and lands, a mode of domination known as racial colonial capitalism. Israel’s colonisation of the occupied Palestinian territories is no exception.

ROOTS OF THE PARACHINAR CONFLICT

Sibth ul Hassan Turi

On November 21, 2024, a Turi tribe convoy under security forces protection was ambushed in Baggan area in Lower Kurram killing more than forty people. Since then, the Tal-Parachinar Road which connects the district with the rest of Pakistan has been blocked for the Turi tribe. This attack continued the episodic violent conflicts over the land that have resurfaced after the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) merger with the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in 2018.

WHY A GENERAL STRIKE ON JULY 9, 2025?

Subodh Varma

A historic and unprecedented protest action is going to take place in India on July 9, 2025. It is expected to be one of the biggest strikes in history, with crores of workers, employees and informal sector workers joining hands with farmers and agricultural labourers across the country to stop work and come out on the streets.

‘NURTURING HOPE IN PRISON A RISKY BUSINESS’: UMAR KHALID WRITES FROM TIHAR JAIL

Umar Khalid

A book I finished recently is Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The House of the Dead. It is a fictional account but one based on his real experiences of imprisonment in Tsarist Russia sometime in the mid 19th century.

COMMON STATEMENT BY COMMUNISTS IN IRAN AND ISRAEL PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU’S ATTACK ON IRAN

Originally published by The Communist Party of Israel on June 18, 2025

Communists in Iran and Israel strongly condemn Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attack on Iran and President Donald Trump’s backing for it.

THE RSS DOES NOT EXIST: MAPPING THE HIDDEN STRUCTURE OF AN UNACCOUNTABLE ORGANISATION

Amrita Singh

THE FOOTBRIDGE OVER Desh Bandhu Gupta Road in Delhi’s Jhandewalan is typically dirty and dusty, with the staircase on one end often littered with plastic plates, food and tattered clothes. To use it at night, one has to be careful not to stumble over the homeless people who sometimes sleep at its base. Upon climbing the stairs, a massive tower comes into view—bright lights shine through a row of windows in each of the building’s 12 floors. All buildings in Jhandewalan, no matter how tall, are dimmed at night, but not this one.

EDITORIAL: ENDLESS HOSTILITY, ENDLESS CONFLICT: THE CHICKENS OF THE TWO-NATION THEORY HAVE COME HOME TO ROOST AND NOW THREATEN CATASTROPHE

Vinod Mubayi

It is useful to recall what some supporters of the Partition of British India on the eve of its occurrence said about its essentially benign nature. The separation or division based on the religious identity of the vast majority of its inhabitants, viz. Hindus and Muslims who became the two nations in this discourse, was likened to a family quarrel in which two brothers and their families who lived in the same house were bickering with each other. Give each of them their own separate home and the quarrels will eventually dissipate and disappear. Well, that was then. Rarely can a prediction have been so spectacularly off the mark. For not only did the quarrels not disappear, instead they grew and grew and with both “brothers” now having acquired nuclear weapons they threaten to consume their descendants.

SYED ADIL HUSSAIN SHAH, NOT TERRORISTS, REPRESENT THE SPIRIT OF J&K

Sandeep Pandey

Sanjeev Kumar is a school teacher. He and his wife Rashmi lived with their only son, thirteen-and-a-half-year-old Vihan, in Poonch. In the early hours of 7 May around 2-2:30 am there was lightout, TV had started airing scenes of shelling. Vihan started shivering and had to be given medicine. He went to sleep but at 4:45 am another blast woke him up half an hour later. Operation Sindoor was in full swing. He started sending messages to his friends.

THE KASHMIRIS CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE: THOSE IN THE DISPUTED REGION BEAR THE COST OF THE INDIA-PAKISTAN CONFLICT

Fahad Shah

POONCH, Jammu and Kashmir—In the early hours of May 7, 12-year-old twins Zain Ali and Urwa Fatima cowered in their family home as the walls around them shook amid heavy shelling. The Pakistan Army had unleashed an intense round of artillery fire nearby, hours after Indian warplanes struck nine locations across the border.

STOP FORCIBLE DAM ACTIVITY AND MILITARIZATION IN SIANG VALLEY – SAFEGUARD ECOLOGY & UPHOLD INDIGENOUS PEOPLE’S RIGHTS: SOLIDARITY WITH ARUNACHAL’S INDIGENOUS FARMERS

Aditya Nigam

Following is a statement of All India Solidarity with Siang Indigenous Farmers’ Forum, endorsed by 43 organizations and fifty individuals.

THE SARAJEVO DECLARATION OF THE GAZA TRIBUNAL

We, the members of the Gaza Tribunal, having gathered in Sarajevo from 26 to 29 May 2025, declare our collective moral outrage at the continuing genocide in Palestine, our solidarity with the people of Palestine, and our commitment to working with partners across global civil society to end the genocide and to ensure accountability for perpetrators and enablers, redress for victims and survivors, the building of a more just international order, and a free Palestine.

82ND MARTYRDOM ANNIVERSARY [MAY 14] OF ALLAH BAKHSH

Shamsul Islam

Great betrayal of the heritage of a martyr who sacrificed his life for all-inclusive India

It really needs a serious academic investigation that why a powerful mass based anti-two nation political movement led by Allah Bakhsh among Indian Muslims got pushed to oblivion. It suited the British masters and both Hindu and Muslim nationalists.

THE POLITICAL ERASURE OF INDIAN MUSLIMS

Harsh Mander

More Muslims live in India than in any other country in the world barring Indonesia and Pakistan. Yet, for the first time since India’s independence, its Muslims have been rendered electorally dispensable and therefore politically irrelevant. The Hindu Right has dispossessed India’s Muslims of meaningful political participation and fair representation while altering electoral politics to cast Muslims as a political liability.

CASE REGISTERED AGAINST NAGPUR ACTIVISTS FOR SINGING FAIZ’S POEM “HUM DEKHENGE”

Progressive Artists’ League

When the mountains of tyranny and cruelty

Will fly like cotton

Under the feet of the oppressed

This earth will shake with a thunder

And over the heads of the people of power

When lightning will crackle fiercely

We shall see

Certainly, we too shall see

We shall see!

VERMILLION LINES: OPERATION SINDOOR AND THE DELUSION OF DETERRENCE

Sushant Singh

SOMETIME ON 7 MAY, Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai, India’s director general of military operations, called his Pakistani counterpart, Major General Kashif Abdullah. At 1.05 am, India had launched Operation Sindoor—airstrikes targeting what the Narendra Modi government described as “terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed.”

EDITORIAL: JAMMU & KASHMIR KILLINGS: A DEPRESSING TALE WITH NO END IN SIGHT

Vinod Mubayi

The dastardly killing of 26 innocent men, 24 tourists from India (one Christian and the rest Hindus), 1 from Nepal (also Hindu) and 1 Kashmiri Muslim pony owner who worked in the tourist industry, by a group of terrorists on April 22 near the town of Pahalgam in the Kashmir Valley has been met with universal condemnation. The killings took place in the picturesque meadow of Baisaran a few miles beyond Pahalgam that was crowded with several hundred tourists. Why there were no army or police or other security personnel there on April 22 when the Kashmir Valley is filled with hundreds of thousands of military and paramilitary troops has not been explained by the authorities. It is useful to recall that after J&K statehood was abolished in August 2019, the control of all security personnel, including local police, is in the hands of the Central government in Delhi.

PEACE IN SOUTH ASIA — CERAS STATEMENT

CERAS (Centre sur l’asie du sud) condemns in unequivocal terms the killing of 26 civilians in Pahalgam, Kashmir on 22nd April 2025. While there are still a lot of unknowns, the attack in an already febrile environment was bound to escalate tensions. If that was their objective, the perpetrators have succeeded.

SAVARKAR AS A FREEDOM FIGHTER: SUPREME COURT HONOURABLE JUSTICES DIPANKAR DATTA & MANMOHAN REWRITE HISTORY OF INDIAN FREEDOM STRUGGLE!

Shamsul Islam

According to press reports a Supreme Court bench consisting of Justice Dipankar Datta [to retire in February 2030] and Justice Manmohan [to retire in 2027] temporarily paused legal proceedings against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi initiated by a Lucknow court concerning his defamatory remarks about Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966) on April 25, 2025. Rahul was charged with offences under Section 153A (promoting enmity) and 505 (public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). While granting stay the bench recorded that Rahul had a “good point in law” which would entitle him to an order of stay on the summons.

ENTRENCHING COMMUNAL VIOLENCE, DISCRIMINATION AND EXCLUSION THROUGH STRUCTURES IN INDIA 2024

Irfan Engineer, Neha Dabhade, Mithila Raut

Introduction:

In 2024, as in previous years, communal violence has persisted in the form of structural violence, embedded within the legal and institutional framework of the state. Structural violence, as conceptualized by Johan Galtung, refers to systematic inequalities and injustices that are institutionalized within legal, political, and social structures, thereby disproportionately affecting marginalized communities. In this context, discriminatory legislation, selective implementation of existing laws, and state directives have played a crucial role in perpetuating structural violence.

SAMYUKT KISAN MORCHA PRESS RELEASE 21ST APRIL, 2025, NEW DELHI

Media Cell, Samyukt Kisan Morcha

SKM supports All India General Strike of Workers on 20th May – Farmers will hold Tehsil Level Massive Protests
Calls upon Farmers to Burn Effigies of Donald Trump, JD Vance, Narendra Modi on 21-23 April against Imposition of Unfair Trade Terms on India*
SKM strongly condemns AAP led State Govt. of Punjab for unleashing repression on protesting farmers
Farmers will Intensify Struggle against Dumping US Agricultural Produces; Imposition of Corporate Controlled Marketing Policy
SKM will Hold 10 Mahapanchayats in Bihar to Appeal People to Punish the Anti- Farmer BJP in the coming State Assembly Elections*

KAPIL MISHRA, UMAR KHALID, AND THE UNEQUAL WEIGHT OF JUSTICE

Saurav Das

More than five years after communal riots tore through North East Delhi, a special court finally ordered a deeper investigation into BJP leader Kapil Mishra’s alleged role in a riot-related incident.

WHY TARIFF PARLEYS WITH US WILL HURT INDIAN FARMERS

Prabhat Patnaik

Elementary textbooks in economics invariably begin with a completely mythical concept: the concept of “perfect competition”, which is different from the concept of “free competition” that the classical economists and Marx had used.

FAILED NARRATIVE

Dawn Editorial

INDIA’S BJP-led government had apparently thought that it could exploit the Pahalgam tragedy to internationally isolate Pakistan, blaming this country for the atrocity without a whit of evidence.

LONG READ: ADANI’S MILLIONS IN MAURITIUS

Nileena MS

SOMETIME IN THE MIDDLE OF 2018, a team from the Central Bureau of Investigation touched down at the airport near Port Louis, the picturesque capital of the Indian Ocean tax haven of Mauritius. It had a straightforward task at hand. Over the past four years, the CBI had been investigating one of India’s most carefully-documented defence corruption cases.

EDITORIAL: THE FASCIST ASSAULT ON KNOWLEDGE INSTITUTIONS IN THE US INCLUDES GESTAPO-STYLE RAIDS

Vinod Mubayi

All fascist and proto-fascist regimes begin with an attack on knowledge and on the institutions whose raison d’etre is to develop, nurture, and advance knowledge. The Trump administration’s assault on leading US universities and, in particular, their students and faculty who happen to oppose US government policies and use the rights granted under the First Amendment to express their views falls squarely in this tradition. The U.S. government, both under Biden and more so under Trump, is the main supporter of Israel and the supplier of most of its bombs and other military hardware.

AMBIGUITY OF A LEGACY

Ranabir Samaddar

The problem of a legacy is that while it can be broken down to measurable parts and is usually broken down in that manner, to grasp the problematic of legacy it necessary to recompose these parts into an organic, systematic, and logical overview. The idea of legacy is of course proprietorial. We think of legacy papers, valuation, and finally and most importantly, the time.

SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE IN INDIA 2024: STEPS TOWARDS SAFFRON STATE

Irfan Engineer, Neha Dabhade, Mithila Raut

In 2024, symbolic violence in India was notably expressed through efforts to progressively cleanse India of its Islamic and Christian influences. They intend to assert the dominance of upper caste Hindu culture. India’s heritage and cultural legacy is rich and diverse, shaped by centuries of syncretism that has manifested in its monuments, architecture, rituals, festivals, music, art, and literature.

SAMYUKT KISAN MORCHA (SKM) PRESS RELEASE – 15TH MARCH 2025

SKM strongly condemns the dastardly act of up police in covering 189 mosques with tarpaulin on the occasion of holi celebrations

STRIVING TO PROMOTE DEMOCRACY: VALUES OF CONSTITUTION

Ram Puniyani

The V Dem observations about India as reported in The Hindu points out “Noting that almost all components of democracy were getting worse in more countries than they were getting better, the report singled out freedom of expression, clean elections, and freedom of association/civil society as the three worst affected components in autocratising countries.”

THE US GOVERNMENT HAS SENT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY A RANSOM NOTE

Sheldon Pollock

Like a mob boss, the government threatens to cut off two of the university’s fingers: academic freedom and faculty governance

EMPURAAN: WHY A FILM THAT CRITIQUES POWER CHOSE TO CUT ITSELF SHORT

C.S. Venkiteswaran

The controversies surrounding the film L2: Empuraan have been raging for the past few weeks, polarising film lovers, Mohanlal fans, and political parties.

THE GAZA APOCALYPSE AND INDIA’S GUILT

Harsh Mander

Among the Narendra Modi regime’s gravest moral and political transgressions is its support of Israel’s genocidal war and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in Gaza

EDITORIAL: WILL AIR POLLUTION AND CLIMATE CHANGE MAKE SOUTH ASIA UNINHABITABLE?

Vinod Mubayi

Gar Firdaus bar ru-e-zamin ast

Hamin asto hamin asto hamin ast

[If there is a paradise on earth/It is this, it is this, it is this!]

This verse is commonly believed to have been written in praise of the scenic beauty of the vale of Kashmir but a recent book [Rana Safvi’s “Shahjahanabad”] presents credible evidence that these lines refer instead to the city of Delhi and, likely, date back to Amir Khusro. If that is indeed the case, one can gauge how far this city has fallen from its earlier image by citing just one fact: Delhi’s air pollution. In fact, Delhi has gained international notoriety for being the world’s most polluted major city. A few decades ago, this position was occupied by Beijing, but while that city has managed to improve its air quality considerably, Delhi shows no signs of doing so anytime soon.

THE HIDDEN COSTS OF BHUTAN’S GELEPHUG ‘MINDFULNESS CITY’: A PEOPLE DISPLACED AND A CALL FOR JUSTICE

Suraj Budathoki

By addressing the grievances of its displaced citizens, Bhutan can set an example for the world, demonstrating that progress and morality are not mutually exclusive.

GAZA AND THE DEATH OF MORAL POLITICS

Saba Naqvi

From Mumbai to Gaza, profit now outweighs human rights in modern political decision-making.

‘I WANT INDIA AND PAKISTAN TO MAKE PEACE IN MY LIFETIME’ – ZEHRA NIGAH

Beena Sarwar

“It’s the girls that give me hope,” says the celebrated poet and writer Zehra Nigah.

She leads a quiet life at her home in Karachi, without a mobile phone or email. Yet those who seek her are able to find her. Besides the school and college students who look to her for guidance, there are advertising companies looking for classy jingles. And there are organisers of literary festivals wanting to invite her.

MIXED MEMORIES OF A TRAIN JOURNEY PACKED WITH RETURNING KUMBH DEVOTEES

Aafreen Hussain

The reserved compartments were non-existent, as was the TT. But the devotees, cramped in the coach, had stories to tell.

HOW THE WHO LEAVES POOR COUNTRIES EXPOSED TO DANGEROUS INDIAN DRUGS

Vidya Krishnan, Arshu John

Deadly Indian cough syrups in The Gambia and beyond point to shocking disparities in drug regulation for the world’s rich and poor, with the World Health Organisation failing to protect vulnerable countries.

[LONG READ]: MODI’S MESSENGER: S JAISHANKAR AS THE VOICE OF INDIA’S HINDU NATIONALIST FOREIGN POLICY

Eram Agha

WHEN THE FOREIGN SECRETARY, Sujatha Singh, got a call from the external-affairs minister’s office in January 2015, she knew something was up. Sushma Swaraj wanted to set up a meeting for 2 pm on 28 January but would not say what the meeting was about. This was unusual and enough to make Singh wary. When she went in, she tried to keep up appearances and began briefing the minister about the next day’s plan. But, before long, Swaraj conveyed the disappointing news. Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted to replace her as foreign secretary, with Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. She would not serve a full two-year term, which was to end in six months.

EDITORIAL: AMERICAN “EXCEPTIONALISM” AND TRUMP’S FASCISM

Vinod Mubayi

Many US Presidents, including President Obama, have celebrated America as an “exceptional” country and voiced many paeans to its exceptionalism. They meant this in a wholly positive sense of course, although it is difficult not to regard the United States at its founding as exceptional in a very different sense: its hypocrisy. The US founding fathers managed to integrate the soaring rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence and the Rights of Man with its complete negation in the practice of a formal system of slavery in many of the colonies along with the ongoing execution of a brutal genocide of the native American population. Now that we have Donald Trump as president, who promised to be a dictator on Day 1 of his second term, an exceptional American form of fascist government appears to be emerging.

ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION IN HERITAGE MUMBAI

Vidyadhar Date

[Eight of world’s ten most polluted major cities are in India. The distorted model of urban development that has prevailed in India over the last few decades due to the corrupt nexus between the builder lobby, politicians, and the bureaucracy is especially pronounced in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India’s financial capital, where environmental issues are frequently trumped by the power of money.

THE SITUATION OF THE ROHINGYA IN SRI LANKA

Arianne Brideau

Since the escalation of the conflict by a military takeover in February 2021, more than 1.3 million refugees and asylum seekers from Myanmar are hosted in other countries around the world. The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic group that has lived in Myanmar, previously known as Burma, for centuries. Myanmar is predominantly Buddhist, and the Rohingya have faced persecution due to their religious and ethnic identity.

INDIA’S BULLDOZER RAJ: OVER 1,50,000 HOMES RAZED, 7,38,000 LEFT HOMELESS IN TWO YEARS

Anuj Behal

On June 19, in a massive eviction drive in Lucknow’s Akbarnagar, the State government demolished around 1,800 structures, including 1,169 houses and 101 commercial establishments. The BJP government plans to develop this area into the Kukrail Riverfront, transforming it into an ecotourism hub. Many residents have lived there for decades, with some claiming that they had been living there even before the development authority was formed.

ANALYZING PAKISTAN’S GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Danish Khan

How budgets constrain inclusive development in South Asia

INDIA BUDGET 2025-26: INCOME TAX CHANGES WON’T SOLVE ECONOMIC CRISIS

Subodh Varma

The government is trying to hide behind IT handouts to a section of the middle class, ignoring low incomes of workers and farmers.

THE GOOD DOCTOR HAD HIS PROBLEMS: WHAT WE CANNOT IGNORE ABOUT MANMOHAN SINGH

Hartosh Singh Bal

The death of Manmohan Singh in December 2024 prompted a reassessment of a man who had faced heavy criticism from his political opponents towards the end of his second term as prime minister. Much of this can be put down to the usual tendency people have of not wanting to speak ill of the dead, but some of it also seems genuine and heartfelt. Certainly, the events that Singh set in motion, first as finance minister and then as prime minister, marked some of the most consequential changes the Indian polity has seen since Jawaharlal Nehru’s tenure.

EDITORIAL: DEMOCRACY VS HYPOCRISY AND FALSEHOOD

Vinod Mubayi

While patriotism may be, as the venerable Dr Samuel Johnson once said, “the last refuge of the scoundrel”, nation states that consider themselves democracies are often accustomed to uttering fine sounding words like freedom and human rights. However, they often turn out to be more adept at hypocrisy and falsehood, with a yawning gap between their pronouncements and their actions. The world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy that never tire of proclaiming their democratic virtues to the rest of the countries of the world are masters of hypocritical practices as a brief survey of their history and recent practice illustrates. In both countries, an ecosystem consisting of the mainstream media, legislators, bureaucracy, think tanks, and corporate hierarchies maintains, justifies, and sometimes amplifies this hypocrisy.

REPORT OF COMMUNAL RIOTS IN INDIA IN THE YEAR 2024

CSSS Team

According to the Centre Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) monitoring of newspaper reports (Indian Express, Times of India, The Hindu, Shahafat, and Inquilab), 59 communal riots occurred in the year 2024, marking a sharp increase of 84% from 32 communal riots reported in the year 2023.

MISSING THE MARK: INVITING PM MODI TO A CHRISTMAS RECEPTION IGNORES THE PLIGHT OF PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS

THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT HAS BEEN SIGNED BY CLOSE TO 200 PEOPLE INCLUDING : Tushar Gandhi, Annie Raja, Father Cedric Prakash, John Dayal, Prakash Louis, Pamela Philipose, Brinelle D’souza, Aloysius Irudayam, Shabnam Hashmi, Lisa Pires, Minakshi Singh , Abha Bhaiya, and Vinod Pande.

THE REVIVAL OF SAARC AND THE LARGER QUESTION OF REGIONAL SOLIDARITY AND INTEGRATION

Dr. Saeed Ahmed Rid

“I am a big fan of the idea of SAARC. I keep harping on the issue. I want a summit of SAARC leaders even if it is only for a photo session because that will carry a strong message,” said Dr. Mohammad Yunus, leader of Bangladesh’s interim government, speaking to Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the sidelines of a summit in Cairo on Thursday, the D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation between eight Muslim-majority countries.

INDIA 2024 IS BHOPAL 1984++

Pankaj Sekhsaria

For reasons I cannot quite explain, there are two things I remember distinctly about 1984 even though I was only in my early teens then. The first is a visit to my grandmother’s in Calcutta (now Kolkata) for our annual Diwali sojourn. The annual, sometimes biannual, train journey across the breadth of the country from home in Poona (now Pune) to the city of a grandmother, many uncles and aunts, and even more cousins was fun for many reasons.

SHEIKH HASINA GOVERNMENT: A RECORD OF CORRUPTION AND OPPRESSION

Kallol Mustafa

Through a mass uprising of students and the public, the highly corrupt and oppressive autocratic rule under Sheikh Hasina came to an end on August 5. Understanding the political economy behind why Sheikh Hasina’s government, once elected with overwhelming public support, became deeply despised and rejected is crucial.

SITE OF DECEIT: HOW THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA FORTIFIES HINDUTVA HISTORY

Eram Agha

THE DELHI OFFICE of the Archaeological Survey of India was thrown into a frenzy on 21 July 2023. A district court in Varanasi had ordered the director general of the ASI to put together a team to carry out a “scientific investigation/ survey/ excavation” at the Gyanvapi Masjid site and submit a report in two weeks. Things had to move fast.

Top - Home

Archives

PAST YEARS

Related Links