In what is paraded as nationalism – indeed, the only true nationalism – in the bitterly divided times we inhabit, one trademark, one essential badge of patriotism is reverence for the soldier.
A rising tide of hate is surging through India, of toxic speech and attacks on religious minorities, mostly Muslims. A permissive environment that tacitly or openly encourages hate speech and assaults is actively, even aggressively, fostered by the majoritarian anti-minority ideology of the country’s political leadership.
India is in danger of mutating into a republic of both hate and fear. Each feeds on the other. All those who defend the idea of India as a humane, pluralist, rational and inclusive society are also bullied into fear and silence by mobs, online and on the streets.
Some commentators expected that the Union Budget 2017-’18 would craft a sharp departure from earlier budgets of this government. This it would do to mitigate the immense suffering of millions of casual workers, farmers and small traders caused by the “shock and awe” of the astoundingly
The investigations by senior police officers Satish Varma and Rajnish Rai led ultimately to the charge-sheeting and arrest of the then Home Minister of Gujarat and several senior police officers involved in the ‘purported encounter’ killing of 19-year-old Ishrat Jahan
A broken slab of marble, soiled surgical gloves cast off by police investigators, and sniffing dogs mark the spot in Rajgarh, in Rajsamund district of Rajasthan, where Shambhulal Regar hacked, attempted to decapitate and then set fire to Afrazul Khan, a resident of Malda district in West Bengal, on December 6.
An 11-year-old child Santoshi dies in a remote village in Jharkhand. Her mother testifies to reporters that no one in her household had eaten a meal for a full eight days before her daughter died. There was not a grain in their mud house.
India, as we know it, is being unmade with every passing day. In this bewilderingly changing land, hatred and bigotry are fast becoming the new normal. Hate-mongering is led powerfully and charismatically from the top – a kind of “command bigotry” – and Muslims are fast being reduced to second class citizens.
Within the span of one month, in two commuter trains in two opposite corners of the planet, men acted out their hate against young teenaged children. In both compartments, knives flashed, blood flowed, and people died, only because of the fury of prejudice.
Despite protracted and valiant struggles for women’s rights as workers, the workplace as much as the home remains unequal, unjust and unsafe for the large majority of women. Women the world over work harder and longer on an average than men, yet they are paid a fraction of what men receive.