BJP can’t ignore new zeal in Dalit resistance against caste violence
“Is there a problem if we are good-looking?” a young Dalit man, who was thrashed by Rajput men of his village for sporting a moustache, asks a reporter.
Under the Rubble of the Fallen Mosque Lay the Idea of India Itself
Some events leave a permanent mark on the history of a people. For many in my generation, one such moment of iconic suffering was the felling by a frenzied mob of a medieval mosque on December 6, 1992.
Usman Ansari, like Mohammad Akhlaq
I took Usman Ansari’s one good hand in mine and said that I had come with the message of sharing his pain. I sought his forgiveness, on behalf of all of us.
Why the Hashimpura massacre of 42 Muslim men in 1987 is relevant in the polarised UP of today
In India, we have accustomed ourselves to erasing from public memory horrendous injustices and moving on. Moving on without healing, without remorse, without even elementary justice. Moving on as though nothing happened.
Who killed Sohrabuddin? Debate around judge’s death puts focus back on murders by Gujarat police
On November 26, 2005, a man in his thirties named Sohrabuddin Sheikh was gunned down by a team of the Gujarat police. The police claimed that Sheikh was an operative of the Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist organisation and that he was, along with Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency, planning a high-profile assassination of a senior leader in Gujarat
What growth? The GDP numbers don’t account for the first-hand accounts of pain and suffering
The latest salvo from the Centre on the shock and awe demonetisation excercise is that the move did not have an adverse impact on India’s buoyant economic growth story. This is contrary to the pessimistic expectations of economists, statisticians and bankers the world over – and not just those from the Left – that the sudden withdrawal of 86% of the currency in circulation before November 8 would cripple the country’s economy.
What a tribunal that blamed a man sleeping on the road for his death should know about homelessness
Close to 10 years after a reversing dumper truck ran over and crushed a 35-year-old sleeping on a Mumbai road in November 2007, a motor accident claims tribunal last month held that the victim was equally to blame for the accident. It held that the deceased was also “negligent” as he dangerously chose to sleep on the corner of the road.
The woman who lost 25 members of her family in the 2002 riots and went on to help other widows
Farzan Biwi, 22, who lost her husband during communal violence 2 months ago and since living in a relief camp, kisses her 15 days old baby in Ahmedabad, 16 May 2002. Farzan’s baby is among the 45 babies born in this camp since its opening following the sectarial violence in which nearly 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, have died.
The taming of Kashmir is seen to be essential for the establishment of a Hindu Rashtra
It is impossible to comprehend the policy of New Delhi to Kashmir without recognising that for people on both sides of the ideological divide in India, Kashmir has a supreme symbolic importance well beyond just the land and its people.
The soldier in his uniform is not India’s only true patriot – there are heroes everywhere
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.