For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Gail Omvedt THE DRIVE for women’s political power had its beginnings in the rural areas. Even in 1975, when we had the first major feminist rally, a “Samyukta Stri-Mukti Sangarsh Parishad” in Pune, a group of rural women afterwards went back to their village and decided, with the help of some young male activists, to …
Gail Omvedt PR, acronym for proportional representation, is new to the majority of Indian feminists – but one that deserves thinking about, now that another session of the Lok Sabha has ended without any significant change on the issue of quota for women. As an editorial in a Women’s Studies network bulletin put out by …
Gail Omvedt (Probably written before the year 2000) “Millenniums” ring few cultural bells for Indians, not when time is envisioned in aeons, ‘kalpas’, endlessly recurring and unimaginably immense cycles… And so, in a society just being touched by the marvels of the information age, the “Y2K” problem is seen in quite mundane terms. IT’S official: …
Gail Omvedt Islam is a religion of egalitarianism and brotherhood. After the defeat of Buddhism, it maintained these values in India for centuries. Not only did those who became Muslims benefit by escaping from caste restrictions, but Muslim rule also provided a social and political context for the growth of Bhakti movements. Within these, to …
Gail Omvedt “So many movements have failed. In Tamil Nadu there was a movement in the name of anti-Brahmanism under the leadership of Periyar. It attracted Dalits, but after 30 years of power, the Dalits understand that they are as badly-off – or worse-off – as they were under the Brahmans. Under Dravidian rule, …
Referring to a recent article “Congress, Dalits and elections” by Ms. Gail Omvedt in the Hindu, the Dalits need to think and take some hard decisions: Empowering of Dalit-Bahujans was started by Mahatma Phule in mid nineteenth century, furthered by his widow Sawitribai, later supported by Rajarshi Shahu in his state and lastly implemented by …
Gail Omvedt Today, as India faces the challenge of an unprecedented globalising world, with goods from Korean automobiles to Australian apples and Chinese toys coming into its markets, most of the marxists in the country are confronting it as a demon, trying to erect something like a “Great Wall” against the threat from without, …
A K Biswas (First published in ‘Mainstream Weekly’ in September 2010) Part I “If someone takes someone’s life (deliberately and not accidentally) then he forfeits the right to his life”. ~ John Stuart Mill The judgment delivered by a Division Bench in quadruple murders of members of the Bhotmange family, village Khairlanji, district Bhandara …
Anand Teltumbde Not even Manu, that much maligned protagonist of castes also could have imagined the infinite instrumental value castes would assume in governance of globalising India at the hands of the ruling classes. Poor Karl Marx had prophesied in 1845 that with the spread of railway network in India and consequent industrialisation the …