2021

by Mustafa Khan*
Terror came to India via the US and Russia. This willy-nilly precludes the phrase ‘thanks to’. What was there to thank anyone. This also includes the assassination of the magistrate of Nasik by the gun supplied by VD Savarkar. It happened in 1909 Arthur Jackson had earned name for his scholarship in Sanskrit, his scholarship in orientalism and praise by the ‘nationalist’ leaders of India then. But those who subscribed to Abhinav Bharat Society of Savarkaer were (…)

With an obliging police, the State is doing everything to control the media. Draconian laws are being employed to intimidate journalists not toeing the government’s line on what the media must say.
The Editors Guild of India, representing the major media organisations in the country in a statement in June 2021 said it was “shocked by the cavalier manner in which Uttar Pradesh Police is treating the mysterious death of TV journalist, Sulabh Srivastava, in Pratapgarh. Srivastava, who had (…)

by Gaganjot Kaur*
“I know a woman who hates domestic work, but she pretends that she likes it, because she has been taught that to be ‘good wife material’, she has to be — to use that Nigerian word — homely. And then she got married. And her husband’s family began to complain that she had changed. Actually, she had not changed. She just got tired of pretending to be what she was not.” —Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All be Feminists
A very prominent existentialist philosopher, (…)

Violence against women in Kerala is developing into bleaker and bizarre dimensions. In June 2021 alone, within forty eight hours, four young women killed themselves or were murdered by domestic violence related to dowry.
Last year, a young woman, Uthra, was killed by her husband who did the murder by procuring a snake with the help of a snake catcher and making it bite her. His first attempt failed because the snake was not as venomous as to kill the victim, but nobody suspected that the (…)

by Arpita Giri and Swati Singh*
Introduction
The onset of International Child Labour Day came as an oxymoron with the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it had on children. This is the first time in nearly two decades, the world has seen an increase in child labour. Millions of children were pushed into exploitative work conditions following the closure of the school, rising poverty and unemployment among the poor and vulnerable population. The situation became more alarming as many (…)

by Arun Srivastava
June 30, 2021
On June 26, the day the farmers’ movement entered into its 8th month of survival it heralded the birth of a new class of farmers which has the audacity to question the character of the governance, has been increasing its political space and has been striving to emerge as a new political power.
These three aspects are entrenched in the memorandum submitted by the farmer unions to the governors to be forwarded to the President of India being the (…)

by Sujit Chakraborty
INVESTIGATION
Pushed into a ‘punishment assignment’ by a terrible editor, who wanted the writer to get trapped in a sex racket, he found depths of humanism beyond anything anyone had seen or heard. A life-changing true story
It was a narrow, dark and steep staircase that rose straight up from a mirthless street. The uniformed policeman paused a bit after climbing those first thirty odd steps. I stood next to him. Then he turned left and started climbing a few more (…)

In recent years, a monolithic idea of India reigns supreme in the Statist discourse of nationalism. Anyone who contests the language of nationalism being promulgated by the Indian State may be branded as “anti-national”. This is not the idea of India preached by the great thinkers of our country.
Recently, our prime minister, Narendra Modi, quoted Rabindranath Tagore in his speech on the occasion of a cultural event in Kolkata — “India’s history is not what students study for (…)

Today, 1 July, is the centenary of the police firing in Dharwar during the movement for Non-violent Non-co-operation with the Colonial Government in India 100 years ago.
The firing started around 8.20 at night when non-co-operators were picketing market toddy and liquor shops. At least 42 bullets were fired, killing 3 and injuring around 39 persons.
The All India Congress Committee appointed an Inquiry Committee to inquire into the incident and fix responsibility for the casualties, (…)

by Jairus Banaji (via Facebook)
Shapurji Saklatvala (1874–1936), the first and one of only two Communist members of Britain’s parliament.
His grandfather was both related to and a business partner of Nusserwanji Tata, father of the famous Jamsetji Tata whose 182nd birth anniversary was recently commemorated by Ratan Tata. Saklatvala was born in Bombay and spent much of his youth in Jamsetji’s (J.N. Tata’s) home.
As late as 1926 Saklatvala felt his own father Dorabji and his immediate (…)