Shivani Waldekar On 25th May 2020, George Floyd, an unarmed Black man was murdered in police custody in Minneapolis, USA. A video showing a white police officer kneeling on his neck for almost nine minutes while he was pinned to the floor went viral. Following this, large anti-racism protests took place with many white …
Serious Men – Not so Serious about Dalit Realities
Neeraj Bunkar The recently released ‘Serious Men’ is an Indian Hindi language comedy drama film directed by Sudhir Mishra. The film is based on a book of the same name by Manu Joseph. This movie revolves around the issue of child genius scams. Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Ayyan Mani) plays a migrant Tamil Dalit man who lives …
Michael Creighton’s New Delhi Love Songs: An imminent classic?
Chanchal Kumar What makes great literature? Or, to be more precise, great poetry? Mark Yakich, the American poet believes, “Reading a good poem doesnt give you something to talk about. It silences you. Reading a great poem pushes further. It prepares you for the silence that perplexes us all: death.” I share this idea. …
Dhammachakra Pravartan Day: The Psychological Impact of Conversion
Dhamma Darshan Nigam At the historical Yeola conference, in Nasik district, on 13th October 1935, Dr. Ambedkar exhorted the Depressed Classes to leave Hinduism and embrace another religion. He declared: ‘I was born as a Hindu but I will not die as a Hindu’. And finally on 14th and 15th October 1956 Ambedkar …
Old is Gold
Shell Shield (This poem has been penned based on urban life settings browsed over from newspapers, heard on corporate floors and in hostels) His storyHe loved her, and she used himShe demanded – this, that and what notHe gave her all, and debt piledIn the end, she leftHe had no thread to tie her …
Human Liberation Day: Live talks organised by Ambedkar International Center
We are all aware of India’s recent socio-political developments (NRC/CAA, COVID 19, Hathras, etc.) and their unfavorable impact on minorities and oppressed communities. However, it is difficult to grasp how these seemingly disparate incidents are all connected and explain, in a way, their origins. It is interesting to note that Dr. Ambedkar had predicted …
Manu Joseph’s Serious Men: A tale of two brahmins
Chanchal Kumar Manu Joseph’s award-winning debut novel has been lauded for breaking away from the norm in its depiction of the dalit male character as an intelligent but cunning person. In the words of the author, Ayyan Mani is an “exceptional” individual who is “a freak, in a way” (Joseph 2010). While historically, dalits …
Silence!
Abhilasha Bharti I woke up in the middle of the night and here I’m writing this. Writing because I realized that I haven’t slept in the first place, and was half-awake thinking, analyzing many things. To name a few, for now: people, thought processes, society, etc. Yet, the topic which was overpowering everything else …
This is not another Nirbhaya
Harshali Nagrale India recorded an average of 87 rape cases every day in 2019 and 4,05,861 cases of crimes against women during the year – a rise of over seven per cent from 2018. Out of the total 32,033 reported rape cases in the year, 11 per cent were from the Dalit community (NCRB,2019). …