BJP’s poll promise of Bharat Ratna for Savarkar, who inspired a wide spectrum of fanatic individuals and violent organisations, shows the moral vacuousness of the Hindutva project “The curious fact is that as we move into the 21st century, historians have become central to politics. We historians are the monopoly suppliers of the past. The … Continue reading Savarkar, India’s ’Ratna’ of a Different Kind! →
Periyar : Image – Courtesy velivada.com क्या अभिव्यक्ति की स्वतंत्रता का अधिकार महज आस्थावानों के लिए ही लागू होता है ? कभी कभी साधारण से प्रश्न का उत्तर पाने के लिए भी अदालती हस्तक्षेप की जरूरत पड़ती है। मद्रास उच्च न्यायालय की – न्यायमूर्ति एस मनिकुमार और सुब्रहमण्यम प्रसाद की – द्विसदस्यीय डिवीजन बेंच को … Continue reading ‘ईश्वर नहीं है’ कहने का अधिकार →
Academics focus on secularism when secularisation can save the day. Image Courtesy : NDTV A simple query sometimes occasions judicial intervention: Does the right to freedom of expression apply merely to believers? On September 6, the Madras High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation filed by M Deivanayagam raising such a question. The petitioner wanted … Continue reading There is no God And You Can Say so →
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. The word lynching conjures up images of a dark period in the history of the United States of America. Between 1877 and 1950, white supremacist gangs … Continue reading Lynchistan →
The Final NRC published today has excluded a whopping 19.06 lakh persons in Assam. The NRC process had shifted the burden of proof of citizenship on to the entire population of Assam, with people undergoing deep travails over the past four years to get their names included. In a poor country like ours and in … Continue reading Exclusion of 19 Lakh People Shows the Irrationality of #NRC Exercise: Joint Forum Against NRC →
A brief history of books, resistance, the police and politicians. It is humanly impossible for even the most learned judge to have read every book referred to in their court. For a brief while this week, the judge conducting the trial of activist Vernon Gonsalves, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon incident of 2018, became … Continue reading Books About Wars in Your Country →
Guest post by KAUSHAL BODWAL In August 2018, it came to my knowledge that a few of my pictures wearing sarees were circulating in my extended family’s WhatsApp group. Phone calls from home regarding my “obscene” behaviour were followed by a shift in the entire conversation towards my having some illness that needed to be … Continue reading Queerness as disease – a continuing narrative in 21st century India: Kaushal Bodwal →
The ethic that dehumanises dalits continues 72 years after the country’s Independence. What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is … Continue reading A Crime of ‘Pure’Indifference →
The German acceptance for stolpersteine plaques helps them honour victims of Nazism. One wonders if it will ever be possible to take up similar projects in this part of South Asia. Hier Wohnte Bernhard Marx JB 1897 Deportiert 20.07.1942 Minsk Ermordet 24.07.1942 ‘Here lived Bernhard Marx Year of Birth 1897 Deported 20.07.1942 Minsk Assassinated 24.07.1942’ … Continue reading Will India Remember Dadri’s Akhlaq, as Germany Recalls Victims of Nazi Barbarism? →
Stephan Kinsella joins us today to discuss the concept of law without the state. Is law and order possible without a state? What would that look like? And just what is “the law,” anyway? Find out more in this fascinating conversation on law, history, philosophy and anarchy.
