One such library is run by the Ambedkar Students Association of Punjab University. Ambedkar too is a noticeable presence on posters at the site, along with heroes from Sikh history and peasant leaders. While the protest opposes the farm laws themselves, it…
In collaboration with maraa, The Polis Project launched Profiles of Dissent — a new series centered on remarkable voices of dissent and courage in India and their personal and political histories, as a way to reclaim our public spaces. These are prominent writers,…
On January 30, several Dalit and progressive organisations, academics and intellectuals will come together in Pune to raise their voices against neo Peshwai, fascist, Brahmanical and patriarchal forces By Elgar Parishad|January 16, 2021 The purpose behind organising the Elgar Parishad this year…
I wish I knew the just way to countering the violence of the archive. When I cut into the onion’s history, should I learn from my father’s generation and look away swiftly, “pare away”, discard my tears, deny them a being? Or,…
Appeal: I am Somnath Waghmare (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somnath_Waghmare) , a documentary filmmaker and a Ph.D scholar at TISS Mumbai. I have also worked as a contract employee at FTII, Pune. I am associated with the progressive social movement in Maharashtra. My documentary films explore…
Eggs have been denied to children as part of the mid day meals in schools for several years. Described as the ‘menstrual discharge’ of the hen, eggs are labelled as ‘sinful’, ‘violent’, and agitating the senses, with egg eaters deserving to be…
The mistress of the house gets up before dawn, arranges portions of food prepared for Gasi Parab on a banana leaf and takes it to the bank of the ponds or to the tomb of the ancestors and offers it to a…
Via Sabrang India| October 24, 2020 International Solidarity for Academic Freedom (InSAF India) and the Global Diaspora Alliance express solidarity, demand release of academics, artists, writers, activists jailed under UAPASabrangindia24 Oct 2020 “Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base…
Promoting the idea of religious harmony over religious freedom allows the Hindutva forces to realise their dream of a monolith Hindu society. Trump’s endorsement of Modi’s ideas only adds to it Written by Pallikonda Manikanta| Hyderabad |November 11, 2020 Namaste Trump –…
Written by Abhijeet Suryawanshi|Nagpur|November 10, 2021 Caste within itself functions as a society where everything right from an attire the group uses to the dialect they speak is distinct. Yes, dialect too. The caste group in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra named Powar…
by Aatika Singh| November 8, 2020 I am plenty sure one must have heard of aloe-vera galore these days. It’s the one solution for all problems that every industry is peddling to the customer with much gusto. No doubt Cleopatra used it…
In this powerful piece, Tarjanee Parmar evokes kitchen as Dalit women’s space of resistance and food as their weapon Written by Tarjanee Parmar| Canada| November 5, 2020 I see my naani (maternal grandmother) getting emotional every time she thinks of her younger…
Media Department, Welfare Party of India, Kerala State Committee|Thiruvananthapuram|November 5, 2020 The hunger strike organized by Welfare Party Kerala state committee, in front of the state Secretariat block, demanded the government to immediately publish community wise data of government servants in various…
Written by Afeef Ahmed | Delhi| October 20, 2020 N.I.A has arrested Prof. Hany Babu M.T, a well-known linguist and anti-caste activist, in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence on January 1st, 2018, accusing him of Maoist connections. Hany Babu’s is the…
Written by Dr. Ajay Sekher| Kerela| Oct 8, 2020Via: Countercurrents.org We are going through one of the most dismal times in the history of post-independence India. Anyone who resists, anyone who speaks for the greater common good, for truth and justice, is…
Elgar Parishad case: The Pune police arrested activists claiming that the event was organised as part of alleged Maoist activity and the accused were its members. Via Indian Express| October 9, 2020 The National Investigation Agency (NIA) Friday filed a supplementary chargesheet…
The much-acclaimed short film creates an opportunity for conversations around racial attitudes and cultural misappropriation of political movements Written by D.Jennifer| Delhi| September 30, 2020 If the cityscape hides its casteist visage in its modern appearances, in its cafés, living rooms, sophisticated…
Press Release| September 29, 2020 On 18 August 2020, Bahujan journalist Prashant Kanojia was arrested by Uttar Pradesh police. He isbeing held in custody over a tweet he had forwarded, which he had immediately deleted uponlearning that it contained fake news. This…
Written by Pravin Prakash| Luxembourg | September 26, 2020 “Anything that causes the Negro to aspire to rise above the plow handle, the cook pot – in a word the functions of a servant — will be the worst thing on earth…
Written by Rimjhim| Mumbai| September 26, 2020 Growing up in Patwatoli, a tiny hamlet of Manpur in Bihar’s Gaya district, I would watch the members of my family spend hours every day at the loom. As members of Patwa, a traditional weaving…
Transcription| September 11, 2020 “Thank you the organisers of this event, this is a very important issue concerning the human rights issue in this country, there is a great damage done to the human rights. It about four professors, people from Dalit…
Transcription | September 11, 2020 I know Hany Babu personally. I remember in 2012 and 2013, there was an issue of the Delhi University that one was regarding five years integrated course, sorry it was four years, I think Nirmita ji is…
Charter of Demands and Recommendations for the The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation (Amendment) Bill, 2020 Written by Pragya Akhilesh|New Delhi|September 17, 2020 Although we know that this is not the first time a Bill on the practice…
Part I of III: Objectives Resolution for the The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation (Amendment) Bill, 2020 In this Monsoon Session of Parliament the government is introducing The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation (Amendment)…
Touted as progressive by many, the New Education Policy is stacked against the marginalised Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi communities and reinstates casteism in the education system Written by Prateek Gautam| Maharastra| September 14, 2020 On July 29, 2020, the Union Cabinet approved…
Via The Free Press Journal| By Staff Reporter| Hany Babu was arrested in the Bhima-Koregaon case In a webinar attended by leaders from across political parties including the Congress, DMK, CPI(M), party leaders condemned Delhi University Professor, Hany Babu’s arrest and incarceration. They…
via Maktoob Media | written by Haneena PA| September 13, 2020 One month after the associate professor in the University of Delhi’s English department and noted anti-caste activist Hany Babu MT was arrested by NIA in the Bhima Koregaon case, Dalit Camera organised a…
he spoke about a strange thing about the constitution that constitution gives us many rights but there are certain rights which are available to all as all human beings and there are certain rights which are available only to citizens and what he was trying to suggest that it looks as if those rights which seem to be available only to citizens are the ones which evoke public protests and he saw a certain kind of play of privilege and power in that very configuration
A filmmaking student and member of the Santhal community speaks up on the blatant casteism of his childhood and the more subtle avatar of it that he faces today. Written by Soumya Mandi|Kolkata|September 11, 2020 In the wake of the vile casteist…
TNN | Updated: Aug 30, 2020 MUMBAI: In an online event organised by People’s Union for Civil Liberties to commemorate two years since initial arrests were made in the Elgar Parishad case, activist and advocate Prashant Bhushan on Saturday said voices of…
Via the Indian Express They were arrested by Pune police claiming their involvement in the violence which took place against Dalits gathered at Bhima Koregaon on January 1, 2018. By: Express News Service | Mumbai | August 30, 2020 The event, organised by People’s Union…
via Mumbai Mirror By Shruti Ganapatye | Sep 8, 2020 Arbitrary rules at Taloja jail denying accused the basics they are entitled to, families say; officials blame Covid and busted scanner. Arbitrary rules at Taloja jail are preventing activists accused in the…
From Concerned Citizens To The Honorable Chairperson National Commission for Scheduled Tribes New Delhi Dear Sir Sub: Online harassment and caste violence against Dr. Maroona Murmu Dr. Maroona Murmu is an Associate Professor of the Department of History, Jadavpur University. In the…
A tussle between the Centre and Amritsar’s Guru Nanak Dev University over transfer of scholarship funds has left SC students struggling to pay up the fee from their pocket or drop out of college Written by Fateh Veer Singh Guram| Ludhiana |September…
What the Black Panther taught us about American Imperialism Written by Noel Mariam George |Kerala| September 8th, 2020 Chadwick Boseman’s death left the world shell shocked. The ‘invincible’ Black Panther himself had died. In the early days of the movie’s promotion, Boseman was…
Brahmanism is not [just] about Brahmins: A critique of essentialist positions on Caste Statement by Dalit Camera|September 6, 2020 In a news18 article titled “Arundhati Roy Says ‘Brahminism Not About Brahmins’, Anti-caste Scholars Want to Know What it’s About”, Roy was critiqued…
It is not enough It’s two years since India decriminalised Section 377 but we are a long way from treating trans people as equals Written by Shauna James |Delhi |September 6, 2020 What started the debacle was a crime story. About a…
On 3 September, 2020 Dr. Murmu posted that examinations during the pandemic are a bad idea. She claimed that the loss of one year is nothing compared to the loss of life. To this post, a woman called Paromita Ghosh, a student…
A scavenger remains a scavenger as far as s/he is in Hinduism, irrespective of whether he continues to do the work of scavenging or not. And, when the scavenger converted to Buddhism, s/he only changed their God but the understanding of purity…
The Ghazipur landfill is going to surpass the height of the Taj Mahal in 2020. In the last 2-3 years the private companies have started to acquire the waste even without tenders because the waste has suddenly become valuable but the problem…
Two Muslim youth from Kerala were subjected to brutal custodial torture, communal slurs Report by Ashfaque EJ|Kochi|September 1, 2020 In the latest case of police brutality, Kerala police has refused to act on a complaint filed by the father of an 18-year-old…
An estimated 16 lakh migrant workers risked everything they had to make a trudge back home to Bihar during the lockdown. Those who have not yet returned to the cities are facing the wrath of the floods This is the third and…
The lack of understanding and categorising sanitation workers into one concrete system has further increased India’s sanitation crisis. The sanitation workers need to be classified and categorised within different value chains in combination with a study of existing legal framework, socio-economic analysis,…
In addition to the floods and COVID-19, Assam’s Mising tribe is dealing with yet another crisis after a bout of swine fever killed a majority the state’s pig population This story is the second of the three-part series by Dalit Camera, which…
Release on August 25, 2020 It has been more than one month since Sharjeel Usmani, National secretary of Fraternity Movement and Anti-CAA Activist imprisoned in Aligarh Jail. He was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police from his house in Azamgarh on 8th…
Honoured as Kerala’s Beloved Army for their rescue operations in 2018, Chellanam residents struggle to stay afloat amid the ongoing pandemic and floods this year By Ashfaque EJ| Kerala|August 24 As the floods ravaged Kerala in 2018, Shaji Thayil, along with a…
Militants, professeurs, étudiants… Ils sont de plus en plus nombreux derrière les verrous de la plus grande démocratie du monde. Pour faire taire les dissidents, la loi antiterroriste UAPA permet d’incarcérer sans procès ni perspective de libération. Son utilisation a explosé sous…
There is an urgent need to reclaim the anti-caste philosophy of Sikh religion, which was founded on the principles of egalitarianism and equality among all By Kamalpreet Kaur|Hyderabad|August 21 It was on the day of Baisakhi in 1936 that Bhaskaran from Kerela converted to Sikhism. For the…
Is it possible to overcome all sorts of sectarianism, come together as dialogic teachers, and remind the state of the need for a dialogue with the creative dissenters? By Prof. Avijit Pathak via NEW LEAM |Delhi|21 August To transform the world, to…
By Pragya Akhilesh|Delhi| 19th August On the morning of August 13, the Bhalswa landfill in North Delhi collapsed after overnight rain. The Bhalswa landfill is the second biggest open dumping ground in Delhi after the one in Ghazipur in East Delhi. In…
Via MAKTOOB STAFF|Delhi| August 16 “Birthday wishes Hany Sir. It pains me to write a birthday wish this way. I hope you are safe there. I hope you come out of this, back to your family and friends, back to the University,…
Not just Jeyaraj and Bennix, a 40% rise in cases of violence against Christian groups across the country during the lockdown period, says report By Nikita Chatterje|Bangalore| August 17, 2020 A report by the international non-governmental organisation Persecution Relief reveals that there was a spike in…
Ekta Sonawane writes about why she cannot celebrate Independence Day like many of her fellow citizens, and her everyday fight to overthrow oppressive powers that dominate her existence (The essay is followed by a poem Ekta has penned on the idea of…
As not only an intuitive health advocate and yogi, but also a spiritual teacher that spent many years of my life spreading wisdom and awareness, it is of my greatest concern that many people unfortunately believe that animal food is bad for…
By Fateh Veer Singh Guram|12th August|Delhi The Delhi Police on Wednesday detained seven students of the Delhi University who were protesting against the arrest of Professor Hany Babu MT. The protest march was taken out by a group of 30 students, with…
Death threats, penalty, physical violence, abuse, safai karmacharis in India face it all. The power structure of social groups makes the sanitation crisis a caste-designated forced labour, which prevents them from leaving this work. The depth of this crisis cannot be understood…
Labour leader G Gomati, who has been fighting for the rights for the landless Dalits and tribals, who form a chunk of the workforce on the Kerala tea plantations, says the Pettumudi landslide should not be viewed in isolation but one that…
Via PTI & News18 India| 7th August Aspecial court here on Friday remanded Delhi University (DU) associate professor Hany Babu, arrested in connection with the Elgar Parishad case, in judicial custody till August 21. Hany Babu Musaliyarveettil Tharayil, 54, associate professor at…
Arunachal Pradesh’s Adi community has revived the Pator tradition, which has parallels with the lockdown and social distancing practices introduced to battle coronavirus. But painting these two systems with the same brush would undermine the traditional aspects of Pator that are deeply meaningful…
When I was an MA student, the Delhi University professor taught me how linguistic purism operates and is intrinsically connected to the construction and maintenance of a national identity. Via The Wire/By Jyotirmoy Talukdar|29th July I was eight when my grandmother died….
Via India Today|30th July A special court here on Wednesday remanded associate professor Hany Babu of Delhi University (DU), who was arrested in connection with the Bhima Koregaon Elgar Parishad case, in NIA custody till August 4. Hany Babu Musaliyarveettil Tharayil, 54,…
By Deba Ranjan (General Secretary, GASS, Odisha)/VS Krishna (HRF AP&TS Coordination Committee member)|30th July| Visakhapatnam The Ganatantrik Adhikar Surakhya Sangatan (GASS, Odisha) and Human Rights Forum (HRF, AP&Telangan) strongly deplore the arrest in Mumbai of Prof. Hany Babu Musaliyarveettil Tharayil by…
Mr. Tharoor, like most of the mainstream media in India, seems to be unaware of the arguments that are currently being made in opposition to the FYUP. The issue is no more confined to course structure or syllabi. Via The Hindu|Written by…
This piece is an attempt to decipher the sudden public outrage caused by events like the derecognition of the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle as opposed to caste atrocities or discrimination. The claim made is that the public outrage is generated only when…
Among the various struggles that the universities and higher edu- cation scene in India witnessed in the past few years was a move- ment called ‘Occupy UGC’ echoing the ‘occupy movements’ initiated with the ‘Occupy Wall Street programme’ – fundamentally, a protest…
The imperfective aspect marker –unnu licenses a situation argument, which is the characteristic property of an episodic predicate. The generic reading of the –unnu construction is derived when the situation argument is bound by an extensional quantifying operator. The imperfective reading is…
A close look at how university administrations are misinterpreting the laws and rules regarding obc reservation in central educational institutes to deny admission to eligible candidates. Such “surplus” seats are then quickly converted to general category seats. From the available evidence, it…
If the adoption of the Mandal Commission Report by the VP Singh Government (often referred to as Mandal I) brought the spectre of caste into upper-caste discourses, as upper- caste locations suddenly became locations of disentitlement in terms of public employment, the…
The law of sedition – the notorious section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) – has been the center of attraction these days, with opinions ranging from that of the abolitionists reiterating their stand for its repeal; and the non-abolitions’ camp…
Via The Free Press Journal, by Bhavna Uchil|Picture Credits: Siddhesh Gautam|1st August Delhi academics say that Hany Babu, recently arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for Maoist links in the Elgar Parishad – Bhima Koregaon case has been targeted for his…
By Dr.S.K.Sagar, Chairman, Social Democratic Teachers’ Front|6th August Social Democratic Teachers’ Front (SDTF) condemns in strongest terms the illegal arrest of Dr.Hany Babu, an Associate Professor in the Department of English, University of Delhi.Dr. Hany Babu is a reputed scholar in the…
I would like to address the issue of citizenship and rights in the light of the struggles and debates that have been going on in our midst. Citizenship in a modern democratic state is based on the principle of equality, which is…
Written by Hany Babu M.T.|July 20, 2018
The Indian language policy is informed by a pull towards unilingual identity, inspired by the European model of nation state that is predicated on the homogeneity of its people. Language hegemony works at two tiers in India—at the state and the centre….
Via Round Table India|Written by Hany Babu M.T|July 17, 2012 The University of Delhi, which is the biggest central university of our country, ranked above all the other central universities, and situated in the urban space of the national capital, would, as…
The supporters of reservation in Delhi University, thus, find themselves in a quandary as they have a double burden on their shoulders. They need to justify their action of moving the Court to a general public, who by and large have been…
On 19 July 2018, UGC had issued a notice to all universities receiving government aid to defer recruitments till further notice. However, Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa, Bihar has recently completed recruitments to positions it had advertised in March. Shashi…
The university has been blatantly unjust to OBC students seeking admission. It is asking these students to submit up-to-date documents at short notice. Several student organizations, including the Delhi University Students’ Union, have opposed this move. Via Forward Press|Written by Nawal Kishore…
The UGC order of “keeping the department/subject as a unit for all levels of teachers” while advertising for teaching positions in central universities, the use of high cut-off marks in university entrance exams, and the move to grant autonomy to select institutions…
Information obtained through RTI applications reveals that more than 55% of the seats reserved for OBCs have not been filled by OBCs in 31 constituent colleges of Delhi University Via Forward Press|Written FP Desk|August 26, 2016 The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in…
Via Scroll.in|29th July,2020| The writer said that the Centre’s action was fuelled due to the ‘alternative narrative to Hindu fascism’ that these people represent. Author Arundhati Roy on Wednesday criticised the government’s “relentless and ongoing incarceration of activists, academics and lawyers” in…
Via Frontline Defenders|5th August|New Delhi On 28 July 2020, human rights defender Hany Babu was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Mumbai. He is now the twelfth accused arrested for his alleged involvement in the violence that broke-out at Bhima…
Via Maadhyamam/Pic Credit: Siddhesh Gautam| 5th August|Kerela, Thrissur 1000 cultural activists would fast under the banner of the Thrissur District Committee of the Purogamana Kala Sahitya Sangham (Pu.Ka.Sa. – Progressive Association of Art and Literature) on Thursday demanding that the life of…
UHTA’s note for release of Prof. Hany Babu|5th August In line with FEDCUTA’s campaign to secure the release of Prof. Hany Babu, UHTA condemns the arbitrary arrest of Prof. Hany Babu at Mumbai by National Investigation Agency in connection with the Bhima…
Via The Hindu| 4th august| A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Tuesday extended the NIA custody for Professor Hany Babu till August 7 as an accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence. Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Prakash Shetty representing the NIA…
Replication of article in Countercurrents.org|Written by Dr. Abhay Kumar|2nd Aug, 2020 The media – particularly Hindi newspapers – has taken a blinkered view to the arrest of Delhi University Professor Hany Babu Musaliyarveettil Tharayil by National Investigative Agency (NIA) on Tuesday, July…
Replication of article by Countercurrents.org|1st Aug: We, the undersigned former and current students of Prof Hany Babu M.T., condemn his arrest by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday and stand in firm solidarity with him. Prof. Babu is a noted academic, a…
Replication of The Wire’s article|1st Aug The Delhi University professor has been arrested by the NIA in the Bhima Koregaon case. New Delhi: More than 2,000 scholars and activists have extended support to Delhi University professor Hany Babu, who was arrested by the National…
International Labour Network of Solidarity & Struggle|August 3, 2020 The member organizations of the International Labor Network of Solidarity and Struggle support the call of Indian academics and anti-caste activists for the release of Dr. Hany Babu. On 28 July 2020, after…
The NIA had arrested Hany Babu for allegedly propagating ‘Naxal activities and Maoist ideology’ and being a ‘co-conspirator’ in the Elgar Parishad case. Written by Alisha Rahaman Sarkar| July 03, 2020 A day after a 10-member National Investigative Agency (NIA) team conducted raids at…
Replication of his tweet: Hany Babu is a prisoner of conscience in Modi’s new India! Please sign this statement in support of his release: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSckxGxqrnsbYPtBSujnf6YQmaoifgaZKe_5XqnCg-6TvLVa4Q/viewform… #ReleaseHanyBabu #FreeHanyBabu Twitter link here: https://twitter.com/jigneshmevani80/status/1290201301909790720
July 28th 2020 The Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) condemns the arrest of Professor Hany Babu MT at Mumbai by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with the Bhima Koregaon-Elgaar Parishad case. Despite the surging cases of COVID-19 in both Delhi…
By Collective|July The statement has been brought out by anti-caste scholars and activists, it reads as following: On 28 July 2020, The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested Dr. Hany Babu, Associate Professor at the Department of English in the University of Delhi,…
When he made a debut two years ago with the single Ladai seekh le, rapper Sumeet Samos made his politics clear. He was speaking up for his community and the everyday struggles of Dalits. In the time since, Samos, who lives between…
Written by Fateh Veer Singh Guram|2nd August| New Delhi The National Investigation Agency and the Delhi Police in the early hours of Sunday morning conducted a raid at Professor Jenny Rowena’s house, a teacher of English at Delhi University’s Miranda House. Agents…
Written By Mohammed Kamran|New Delhi|30th July On July 18, India recorded its highest foreign exchange reserve rates, due to the benevolent and also quite malevolent courtesy of US-India Business council, to which Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, quite like an opportunist,…
She is 20 years old and has been married for the last 7 years. She is a mother to a two year old baby as well. During her stay at her in laws’ place, she was often stigmatised as a witch by them. Citing the same reason, her husband, a labourer drove her…
In Shahdara, Seema has opened a small parlor in the Valmiki Basti. She says, “I have seen the men of my neighbourhood die doing this. They have slowly vanished in the sewer one after the other. One goes and the other follows….
One of the most astounding examples of RSS helping create an ideological shift through its educational policies in a region, is its work done in Bengal’s famous Naxal cradle , the Naxalbari. Schools like Sarada Vidyamandir, in Naxalbari are examples of RSS’s ideological expansion in places historically known for radical leftist movements ….
Written by Anwesha Sarkar|Kolkata|July 16, 2020 How often we watch cooking shows, food travel shows, food videos and follow culinary culture related hashtags? Or put up photos of our meals, food we cook ourselves, images of eating alone or dining together? Reactions…
Last month, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued the prominent American tech multinational, Cisco Systems, for caste discrimination against an employee of Dalit Indian origin. In the light of what is being viewed as a landmark move, we interviewed Sujatha…
Press Note from Vara Vara Rao’s Family|Hyderabad| July 12, 2020 We, the family members of Varavara Rao, world-renowned Telugu revolutionary poet and public intellectual, who is incarcerated in Navi Mumbai’s Taloja Jail, are very much worried about his deteriorating health. His health…
“They called our men and said “If you don’t start sending your women to clean our toilets, we will beat them up. We will beat you up.” They said, “We will not let you live in peace.” We were afraid.” Threats such…
A film by Somnath Waghmare, Rahul J Bhise and Pranjali Kureel following the vandalism of Rajgruha, memorial and home of Babasaheb Ambedkar on July 7, 2020. The makers used footage that Waghmare had shot for his film Chaityabhoomi, (December 2019). Made by…
Interview by Ria De|Kolkata|July 7, 2020
Interview by Ria De|Kolkata|July 6, 2020
We wrote to Samprati to confirm if she had been aware that Arko is a non-urban Dalit student from the Rajbangshi community, whose father is a policy agent and mother a homemaker. Written by Ria De|Kolkata|July 5, 2020 On 27th June Arko…
The existing literature in India on Dalit conversion is mainly located around the discourses of social mobility in which the notion of social mobility is kept as the reference point of most of the conversion studies. This study is based on our field work in a small village of Tamilnadu- Meenakshipuram, where a large number of villagers converted into Islam in February 1981. This paper tries to view conversion as a method of complete separation from the ‘Social’ in Hindu social order through considering oneself as a ‘liberated body’. Here, we intend to locate the communitarian existence of converted bodies and its socio-political dynamics through the direct narrations of the converted people. Theology itself is understood through the narrations of the converted people and their interpretations of the sacred texts.
Written by Mohamed Shafeeq Karinkurayil|Manipal|July 3, 2020 When people do evil in Megha Majumdar’s A Burning (Penguin, 2020), it is not a banal act. It is rather a decision weighed against the cons; it costs the characters their sleeps and invades their reveries, it opens…
In the first conversion which happened in Kerala, a sizable proportion of the mass belonged to the Brahmin caste. Along with the Brahmins, the mass also included people from communities that were deemed to be the lower communities such as the Pulaya community. Despite the conversion to Christianity, caste-based identity politics continued to govern religious discourse. Upper Caste Christians had difficulty in accepting that their newly converted Christians counterparts were equal to them.
The lawsuit claimed that this is not an isolated incident and that a 2018 survey of South Asians in the US found that 67% of Dalits reported being treated unfairly at their American workplaces.
the petition by Maurya is not a territorial claim to the disputed property. It is a needed intervention that introduces nuance to the construct of a ‘civilisational conflict’ between Hindus (imagined as the inheritors of Bharat, with Ram as divine and sovereign…
Cisco spokeswoman Robyn Blum told Reuters that the company would “vigorously defend itself” and that Cisco is committed to an inclusive workplace for all and in compliance with all laws as well as its own policies.
Maurya follows a method of unconcealment of historical truth similar to the one developed by the Tamil Buddhist thinker Iyothee Thass. Thass was one of the earliest scholars who introduced a hermeneutic of suspicion, of meta-historical, Hindu civilisational reading of the subcontinent constructed by Orientalists. He insisted that a closer examination of many traditions (not all) codified as Hindu would reveal a Buddhist past.
Dalit Camera in conversation with political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot Interview by Raees Muhammed; Ria De; Sadique PK|India|June 30, 2020
On the day protests erupted across Tamil Nadu against the brutal custody killing of the father-son duo, another report from Uttar Pradesh revealed that seven policemen yesterday were deemed innocent in the Hapur custodial death case. In the incident that took place in October last year, the police torture was witnessed by the victim’s 11-year-son.
On May 27, an anti caste activist Arvind Bansod was found dead in suspicious conditions just minutes after he was beaten up by Hindu men belonging to the OBC ‘Kunbi’ community. Written by Prateek Gautam|Mumbai|June 28, 2020 It’s been four weeks since…
“They asked us where did we hide the Maoists. They took out the excess rice and curry, cooked for the morning, from the kitchen, and threw it outside. I swear upon my one-and-half-year-old granddaughter that nobody visited the place. But they didn’t…
Rohit R A few days ago, our social media had messages of solidarity for George Floyd. Hashtags calling for justice for him and various other people from the African-American community came up. There were large scale demonstrations across the world as well….
Dr. Sylvia Karpagam Public health is an art and a science -a fine thread that links social determinants of health with long term health outcomes, prevents disease before it occurs, anticipates epidemics and protects not just the rich and famous, but the poorest and most vulnerable. It draws threads…
It is not accidental that the outcastes habitat is always located next to the garbage dumping area or the sewer, especially if the outcastes in question are associated with sanitary labour. The municipalities recruit members of the outcastes from specific neighbourhoodsto remove the filth and dirt from the urban space. These outcastes enter the urban space only as a cleaner of the streets, colleges, schools etc.
According to sources, the entire Mumbai team of The Hindu has been laid off at less than a week’s notice. Eminent journalists including Aditya Anand, Ashish Rukhaiyar, Piyush Pandey, Tanvi Deshpande, Gautam Mengle, Ajit Mahale and Prashant Nakwe have been asked to…
A 10th standard student, Shibani Kumari committed suicide at Bali in West Bengal Thursday evening. She had not been able to attend online classes and was afraid of failing her exams. According to news reports, her parents had not been able to…
15 MPs have written to the Maharashtra Chief Minister demanding urgent medical attention for 81-year-old revolutionary writer and poet Varavara Rao, currently a UAPA Under trial at the Taloja Jail. 19 JUNE 2020 TO HON’BLE UDDHAV THACKERAY JI CHIEF MINISTER OF MAHARASHTRA…
Because this is what I call a “Caste Class” society, for the very reason that one’s caste status decides whether one can become an upper class/untouchable class or not. The right of the upper class/caste Hindus is to get unfree labour for their production and to keep their body and space away from ritual purity, while the untouchable class should provide only unfree labour and their only duty is to live for the Caste Hindu class and keep them away anything that would make them ritually impure.
Anwesha Sarkar Dalit students who come to universities do not walk an easy path, not to the on-campus classroom, not to the online classroom. College and university classes had been stopped in Bengal, as in the rest of India, at the onset…
This is a story of how the idea that I built brick by brick to this day has been standing alone all this while. It started somewhere in A10, Basheer Hostel of EFLU, but it had come out in an intervention in Bilaspur House toilet while shiting on the beautiful western commode revamping my memories of anti-caste movement and scavenging and found that I have reached a dead end. This was the first thing that changed my research and life completely. We have a situation in India that scavenging continues and we continue to write about the negligence of the state and civil society.
A group of Indians have sent an urgent appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur regarding Ms. Safoora Zargar. This group consists of Indian advocates and human rights activists living in India and Germany. The appeal highlights the danger five months pregnant…
“Axone” is a film cleverly disguised to address racial discrimination that the people of Northeast face in mainland Indian cities.
“It is highly unacceptable that no coercive action was used against the innocent students studying in the university as they beat the students without any interrogation as evident in the CCTV footage and I personally witnessed it in which I lost my left eye permanently. I want justice” Minhajuddin added.
Dr. Raees Muhammad in conversation with Suraj Yengde, author of Caste Matters
Spike Lee’s film Da 5 Bloods has released today on Netflix. It is the story of four black veterans of the US army who return to Vietnam to retrieve the body of their leader and the gold that they had left behind….
Dantewada Superintendent of Police Abhishek Pallava told PTI that police have arrested Vice President of BJP’s Dantewada district unit, Jagat Puri and Ramesh Usendi (32) for attempting to supply a tractor to Naxals. According to news reports, police had received information that…
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister invoked the National Security Act against 16 Muslim youth who are accused of attacking Dalits residents of Sikandarpur Aika village in Azamgarh district. The accused would gather at the village tube well and pass lewd comment on the…
A new media policy has been formulated for Jammu and Kashmir, which places dangerous curbs on media freedoms in the Union Territory. The UT government reserves unfettered powers for itself to define “fake”, “unethical” and “anti-national” news. The Depart of Public Relations…
An Atlanta police officer shot and killed a 27 year old Black man, Rayshard Brooks late on Friday night. The victim, Brooks was sleeping in his car in the drive through of a fast food chain, Wendy’s, which was blocking the wat…
Power conflicts reach its peak and manifests fully, as the dialogue revolves around marriage. Sruthi says, “I never imagined that ‘my family’ would say yes to an intercaste marriage”. This statement spites Arun, who feels she had insulted both his family and community. He understands it as an expression of ‘caste pride’ alive inside her.
Kamna Singh PASS THE GODDAMN MIC! I ended my last post with this statement and I am here to reassert this. The narratives of people from marginalized communities are consistently erased. People from Dalit castes have been deliberately silenced for generations and…
Recently, Haati Chai, a company, based out of the US and run by Stella Simona, of Bangladeshi origins has come under severe criticism on social media for selling a “Dalit ring” worth $ 2000 or approximately 1.5 lakhs in Indian currency Ria…
Four upper caste villagers have allegedly murdered 17 year old Dalit boy, Vikas Jatav at Domkhera village in Uttar Pradesh‘s Amroha district on the night of June 6. Vikas’ family have filed an FIR that Horam Chauhan and three others attacked Vikas…
The National Alliance of Peoples Movement has reported hundreds of people fleeing from their villages around the Baghjan area, rendered homeless during the Covid-19 pandemic. A massive fire broke out at the Oil India Limited oil well at Baghjan in Tinsukhia district…
