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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Coastal Karnataka has been a laboratory for hate-mongering and communal violence for over a decade. Once celebrated for its communal amity, the region now constantly verges on the edge of hate violence.
The mystery surrounding the death of DK Ravi, the Karnataka cadre IAS officer who was found hanging in his home on March 16, underlines the perils to life and reputation faced by those whom fight corruption while pursuing their duties with conscience and integrity.
The epic, heroic legal battle fought by the barely lettered wife of a small Gujarati cattle trader has caught the imagination of many in the country. The judgement of the Bombay High Court on Thursday – which upheld the life sentence awarded to 11 men convicted by a lower court of raping her and killing 14 members of her family…
Karwan e Mohabbat is a tiny lamp lit in a tempest of hate. A small but audacious effort to offer a garland of empathy across many parts of our troubled land. Individuals, organisations and social movements are collaborating in this journey of atonement, solidarity, healing, conscience and justice with people living with hate violence.
From Assam, the Karwan e Mohabbat proceeded to Jharkhand, an impoverished forested region with a large tribal population bitterly divided along communal lines. The state has witnessed a rash of lynching attacks in recent years.