For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Rahul Bhalerao Continued from here. Coming back to the justifications given by the supporters of Gita, one finds that they are merely based on a few ambiguous individual verses scattered around the Gita. They certainly lack the holistic understanding and message that Gita preaches; let alone the interpretations that have evolved in practice since the …
Rahul Bhalerao Recent controversies, both local and international, have sparked a series of discussions and debates in media and social networks about the Hindu holy book Bhagvad Gita. When the Karnataka Education minister decided to saffronize the education system by proposing Gita teachings to be made compulsory, the left, liberal and secular voices attacked …
Desecration of Ambedkar statues: Truth is the first casualty (Part II) Continued from here. In this concluding part on the issue of desecration of Dr Ambedkar’s statues in Andhra Pradesh, G Jhansi, of Dalit Sthree Sakthi, maps for us the morphing forms of atrocities on dalit assertions. In her analytical narrative of the complex caste …
Truth, they say, is the first casualty in any war. Was it a caste war which triggered the series of desecrations of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s statues in Andhra Pradesh, starting with the destruction of four statues in Amalapuram on the night of 22nd January? Was it the result of inter-group rivalry among State Congress leaders? Was …
Cynthia Stephen (Book Review) [Debrahmanising History : Dominance and Resistance in Indian Society By Braj Ranjan Mani, Manohar, New Delhi, 2005, pp.456, Rs 895 (Hb), Rs 395 (Pb), ISBN 81-7304-640-9 (Hb) ISBN 81-7304-648-4 (Pb)] In recent years, Indian Historiography has had its share of controversies. The ‘saffron’ rewriting of the history textbooks and the stoppage of the publication …
G K Vankar It is difficult to say when first Gujarati Dalit writing came into existence. But undoubtedly the publication of Aakrosh, a poetry journal of Dalit Panthers, on 14th April, 1978, was an important milestone. The anti-reservation agitations in Gujarat in 1981 and 1985 generated intense awareness about dalit rights and led to a …
Khalid Anis Ansari Continued from here. [IV] 4.5% Sub-Quota for OBCs within Minorities: The ‘Political’ Dimension The approach that merely concentrates on government jobs and seats in higher educational institutions is indeed a very savarna (upper caste) view of reservation policy. From the perspective of upper caste discourse, which has little appreciation for dignity of …
Khalid Anis Ansari Continued from here. [III] 4.5% Sub-Quota for OBCs within Minorities: The ‘policy’ and ‘technical’ dimensions Let me state right at the outset that the recent 4.5% sub-quota was not a demand raised by the pasmanda movement but rather is informed by the second recommendation of the Ranganath Mishra Report which is as …
Khalid Anis Ansari Continued from here. [II] The Muslim Quota Debate The recent lower caste movements within the non-Hindu religions like Islam, Christianity and Sikhism have foregrounded the presence of caste-based differentiation and discrimination within these communities in the public sphere. As far as the Muslims are concerned the caste cleavages within them were duly …