Recommendations on Reforming Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP) / Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) — National Advisory Council [The Working Group of the National Advisory Council (NAC) on Dalit Issues have prepared a set of Draft Recommendations to be considered by the National Advisory Council on the reform of the Scheduled Caste Sub Plan. These Draft Recommendations are …
Caste in India
Gail Omvedt [Written in the year 2008] (A Reply to the Hindu Council of UK essay on “The Caste System”) * I owe thanks to Michael Witzel for his note citing Vedic references on caste and his careful reading of an earlier version of this essay. Introduction The essay submitted by the Hindu Council of …
Janeu, The Cat’s Cradle
Gopal Guru (First published in Outlook magazine in March 2009) Brahmins are fashioning new political rhetoric from old stereotypes Let me begin this piece with a dramatic question: what are Brahmins doing in political parties? Let me make it even more dramatic: what are they doing in non-Brahmin, Dalit or Dalit-led parties? If these questions …
Janlokpal bill: a brahmanic and patriarchal script (part 2)
Anu Ramdas Continued from here Myth making traditions are uncannily similar in wars and movements of the dominant classes, even before the enemy has been clearly identified, weapons get fashioned. That the JLB is a weapon against the national ‘enemy’ is very clear. But who is this enemy? In other words, who are the …
Janlokpal bill: a brahmanic and patriarchal script
Anu Ramdas The Jan Lokpal bill is under 35 pages. The creators of this document successfully manufactured a ‘revolution’ out of this. The corporate media sold it as such, and some academics called it a ‘movement’. Media and academia largely did not comment on the contents of the document. Their preoccupation was with the …
Manusmruti Dahan Din
Dr. K. Jamanadas Today is Christmas, 25th of December. It is celebrated all over the Christian world as the birth of Jesus Christ. But for the whole world of Dalits, it is an important day as “Manu Smruti Dahan Din”, as it was on this day in 1927 that Manusmruti was publicly burned by …
I, E.V. Ramaswamy
[On the occasion of Periyar‘s death anniversary (24th December), we remember him through some select quotes from his speeches and writings– Round Table India] ‘I, E.V. Ramaswamy, have taken upon myself the task of reforming Dravidian Society so that it shall be comparable to other societies of the world, in esteem and enlightenment, and I …
Lokpal: Salient features of the Lokpal bill
NEW DELHI: The following are the salient features of the proposed anti-graft Lokpal bill introduced by the government in the Lok Sabha on Thursday: LOKPAL AND ITS ROLE The bill proposes to establish autonomous and independent institutions called Lokpal at the central level and and Lokayukta for states. These shall have powers of superintendence and …
What does Dr.Ambedkar say about the Bhagvat Gita?
Kuffir As the court in the Siberian town of Tomsk deliberates on whether the Bhagvat Gita is ‘extremist’ literature, the Indian government and parliament seem to have forgotten their own sanctimonious injunction of ‘non-inteference in the internal affairs of other countries’ (used traditionally to defend such obnoxious pratices as ‘untouchability’ and ‘caste discrimination’) to …