2022

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The assembly elections in five states, being held from February 10 to March 7, 2022, are bound to have an impact on both: the politics of power and the politics of ideology. The impact of these elections on the politics of power is being discussed more and more in political parties, mass media and citizens’ discourse. With the acceptance and permeation of neo-liberal economic policies, the narrative that has emerged on the political and intellectual stage of India, has almost eclipsed (…)

Introduction
The subject of labour reforms has been under debate over the last two decades in India. The dominant narrative is that there are too many labour laws and most of those are quite old and they are adversely affecting India’s employment potential. Liberalization of the economy started happening in 1991. In line with the changing scenario of a liberalizing economy, there was a growing demand to have broad-based labour reforms as part of the second-generation reform from the late (…)

In his recent polemical text titled ‘Reflections on Violence, Law and Humanitarianism”, carried in Critical Inquiry (Vol. 41, No. 2, 2015), the eminent anthropologist, Talal Asad has probed the genealogy of “humanitarianism” and located its embeddedness in the discourse of imperialism: “As word, concept, and practice, humanitarianism emerged in the nineteenth century with the consolidation of European nation states, the expansion of European colonial empires and the global development of (…)

[The below statement by Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy signed by some 150 concerned citizens was released on February 11, 2022] Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD)
PRESS STATEMENT
Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) strongly condemns the attempt by Hindutva forces and the BJP government of Karnataka to engulf college and school campuses in the already raging communal fire in the state.
The issue of whether Muslim girls should or should not be permitted to wear (…)

Date: 14.02.2022
Doctors call for resolution of conflict between Russia and Ukraine
Any escalation would lead to unprecedented humanitarian crisis - IDPD
Dear Madam/sir,
Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) has expressed grave concern at the tension between Russia and Ukraine which is continuously raising the fear of a war between the two countries. ‘As medical doctors we are much concerned about the humanitarian crisis which may ensue due to war between the two countries (…)

Here, published for the first time, is an extract from the renowned socialist cultural theorist Raymond Williams’s famous ‘When Was Modernism?’ lecture, delivered at the University of Bristol in March 1987, and taken from the newly published Culture and Politics: Class, Writing, Socialism – the first Williams book for more than three decades to include new material.
On the centenary of Raymond Williams’s birth, we’re delighted to publish an exclusive extract from his renowned lecture ‘When (…)

This year the world is celebrating hundred years of the formation of USSR or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The USSR left a deep impact on world history, including on Asia and on nation-formation here. The rise and dissolution of the USSR has serious lessons for the world history, for democracy and socialism in the 21st century. The word ‘soviet’ has a rich history, which shaped the history of Russian revolution.
Emergence of Soviets in Russian Revolution, 1905
Soviets have a long (…)

by Nandita Chaturvedi *
“An old world is dying, and a new one, kicking in the belly of its mother, time, announces that it is ready to be born. This birth will not be easy, and many of us are doomed to discover that we are exceedingly clumsy midwives. No matter, so long as we accept that our responsibility is to the newborn: the acceptance of responsibility contains the key to the necessarily evolving skill.”—James Baldwin, No Name in the Street
For the first time since the second world (…)

Tamil Migrants: A Demographic, Social and Economic Analysis by S. Irudaya Rajan, Bernard D’Sami; Samuel Asir Raj, P. Sivakumar
Orient BlackSwan 2021 Pages: 312; Price: Rs 1,095 ISBN: 9789354421266
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From the time of the imperial Cholas, Tamils have been migrating to distant shores for reasons of trade. Their destinations included Ceylon, Burma, Malaya, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. British colonial rule led to more migration, this time as men and women from the poorest (…)

Reviewed by Lisa Kirschenbaum *
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Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial, and Racial Questions
Oleksa Drachewych, Ian McKay, eds.
Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press
2020. 448 pp. $37.95 (paper)
ISBN 978-0-7735-5873-1.
Published on H-Diplo (November, 2020)
In 2017, centennial reevaluations of the October Revolution often emphasized the event’s lasting global impacts.[1] Left Transnationalism, published in 2019, coincides with (…)