Roles that are cast in stone
In urban India some imagine that caste demarcations have become history. We need to only check the caste identity of those employed to clean the toilets in our offices and homes to recognise how wrong they are.
Through a caravan, darkly
The harrowing journey of our caravan of love laid bare a country both divided and devoid of compassion. People are compelled to live with fear and hate, and a hostile state, as normalised elements of everyday living.
Let’s Talk About Hate | Lynching could become a national epidemic: Harsh Mander
I worry that, if allowed to go unchecked, lynching could become a national epidemic. More and more people feel emboldened to join or incite mobs. There is an enabling climate for hate speech and violence that is fostered by a majoritarian social climate.
Jharkhand hunger death: A girl died crying for food. Her family is now accused of shaming India
In October, Koili Devi lost her young daughter to creeping hunger. Life gave her no chance to grieve – this was only the beginning of her long nightmare. The state administration, even at its highest levels, stigmatised her for bringing shame to her village and the nation with her claim that her daughter had died of starvation.
In Uttar Pradesh, Dalits and Muslims must endure caste hatred, state bloodletting, denial of justice
On September 11, Karwan e Mohabbat regrouped in Tilak Vihar, Delhi, where widows of the 1984 Sikh massacre were settled more than three decades ago, and set off to its next destination. We reached Kandla in Uttar Pradesh’s Shamli district past midnight.
Junaid, my son
I did not know him when he lived. But in his death, in the way he died, I mourn him like a son.
His dreams were unfamiliar to my agnostic world.
Job creation in high-growth India should be a top priority
Employment in the formal sector has fallen since 1997. More and more people are being pushed into either lowest-end self-employment; or the most unprotected and casualised wage employment.
S.D. Burman, the Man Who Gave Hindi Film Music Its Grammar
If you are the kind of person whose soul stirs and blood quickens if you hear even stray wafts of old Hindi film music somewhere around you, then this is the book for you.
Hashimpura: 31 years after custodial massacre of Muslims by men in uniform, justice is incomplete
Uzma was born on the terrifying night when her father was shot dead on the banks of a canal by paramilitary soldiers, about 50-odd km from Delhi. This was in the summer of 1987.
India owes Ankit Saxena’s father a debt of gratitude for refusing to communalise his son’s murder
By affirming that he bore Muslims no ill will, Yashpal Saxena, whose only son Ankit Saxena was murdered by the family of the Muslim girl he loved, demolished one of the most widely used rationalisations for communal hatred.