Anshul Kumar “The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization” This is a popular quote which is attributed to Sigmund Freud but as per Freud Museum’s website, it is a quote by the neurologist Hughlings Jackson.1 But why am I writing about hurling abuse as the basis …
Performative Allyship and Performing Caste
Kavya Harshitha Jidugu “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” — Lilla Watson Caste is deeply rooted in the Savarna psyche and is an insidious phenomenon; whether enacted in conservative contexts …
Manusmriti: A Threat to Constitutional Values and Social Justice
Ashutosh Singh Boddh (Vidrohi) Recently there was a news that, Delhi University’s Faculty of Law was planning to introduce the Manusmriti, the ancient Sanskrit & Casteist text, in its undergraduate programme under the paper called Jurisprudence (Legal Method), prompting a certain section of faculty members in the varsity to raise concern over the move. In …
Manusmriti in DU
Jatin Mathur Recently Delhi University received proposal from the Faculty of Law suggesting to include readings from Manusmriti with The Manubhasya of Medhatithi by Ganganath Jha and commentary of Manusmriti – Smritichandrika by T Kristnasawmi Iyer. The two suggested texts and the amendment have been rejected by the University. The revisions pertained to the courses, …
Scent of an old woman
Umar Nizar Furthermore, it is a commonplace that mistakes or errors are part of the learning process and thus essential to creativity: as Jung remarked, “anyone who takes the sure road is as good as dead’, or as Hélène Cixous puts it: ‘our mistakes are our leaps in the night. Error is not lie; it …
Can Spivak listen? Reflections on the Spivak-Kumar Fracas
Anshul Kumar …It was about: when the subaltern speaks there is not enough infrastructure for people to recognize it as resistant speech. That’s what it means. – Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, (In Conversation: Speaking to Spivak, February 05, 2011 06:50 pm | Updated December 04, 2021 10:49 pm IST ) Ever since I have uploaded the …
What an year at University of Oxford taught me about South Asians
Sumeet Samos In October 2021, I joined the MSc in Modern South Asian Studies programme at the University of Oxford. Before leaving for Oxford, I did not know what to expect in the programme as well as in the university life. However, I had heard of Professor Rosalind O’ Hanlon and David Gellner working in …
Critiquing GC Spivak’s ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’
Chanchal Kumar Anybody who has tried reading ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ will accede to the fact that it is a text rooted in the academic discourse. Perhaps that’s the reason why the ideas propounded therein are still considered to be unchallenged, or at least impossible to ignore. I am undertaking the task to bust …
Necessity of representation: a Tribal woman vice chancellor in India
Swapnil Dhanraj When was the last time India celebrated a success story of a woman coming from a Tribal community in Indian academia? If we think about the manner in which Indian education system has dealt with the issues of Dalits, Tribals and other marginalised communities, it appears that those issues have been represented and …