Utkarsh Mohod Agriculture’s contribution to the Indian economy plays a vital role in economic development and in keeping hunger of rural India at bay. Though secondary (Industry) sector is dominant in contemporary economic development of the country, around 65 per cent of people’s lives still depends on the primary sector (Agriculture). Agriculture’s share in …
Shyam Benegal’s ‘Samvidhaan’ and the erasure of Ambedkar
Sanket Garud Samvidhaan: The Making of the Constitution of India was a ten-part television mini-series based on the making of the Indian Constitution, directed by Shyam Benegal. The show premiered on 2 March 2014 on Rajya Sabha TV, with an episode scheduled to air every Sunday morning. The serial in its very first episode …
Madness Of Manuwad: Savitribai award for ‘author’ of Ambedkar’s writings
Atul Anand Recently, a New Delhi based Hindi ‘feminist’ magazine ‘Streekaal’ started an award in the name of a bahujan woman and India’s first woman teacher Savitribai Phule called ‘Savitri Bai Phule Ideologue Award’. On the 2nd of January this year, the eve of Savitribai Phule’s birth anniversary, the first ‘Savitri Bai Phule Ideologue …
Return to which home?
Gopal Guru On October 14, 1956, Babasaheb Ambedkar, along with several hundred thousand “untouchables”, embraced Buddhism. The moral and ethical strength of Ambedkar’s embrace of Buddhism lies in its cultural and intellectual capacity to sustain among the ex-untouchables a growing association with it. Conversion as a cultural-intellectual movement that took off in October 1956 …
Roy-Navayana on Savarkar’s path
Dhruwa R Introduction Gandhi is just an episode in Indian history and not an epoch maker…..it is the efforts taken on the part of the Congress party to keep celebrating Gandhi through various days, the artificial respirations given to keep Gandhi’s memory alive for the nation, otherwise Gandhi if left to the people would …
The battle against caste isn’t just some ideology, it’s our existence
Gaurav Somwanshi I have spent most of my twenty four years in Aurangabad. I studied in a convent school where my friends were a mixed group from all castes and communities.Though we never felt it back then, and it’s only in retrospect that I am saying this, but we were all growing up differently. …
Pandit Iyothee Thass and the Revival of Tamil Buddhism
Bala J We may say that great minds think alike when two scholars who lived in two different times and places reach a similar conclusion on the same problem. The traditionally educated nineteenth century Tamil scholar, Pandit Iyothee Thass as well as the twentieth century western educated intellectual from Maharashtra, Babasaheb Ambedkar, embraced Buddhism …
Atrocities go along with cultural violence in Maharashtra
Yogesh Maitreya Progressive, radical and democratic movements in Maharashtra, have been people’s movements essentially led by Shudra and ex-untouchable leaders. Mahatma Phule and Dr. Ambedkar were the major proponents who contributed profoundly to building up the consciousness of revolt among Dalits against the injustice of caste hierarchy, and especially the brutal practice of untouchability. …
Of Caste Massacres and Judicial Impunity: Bloodstains in Bathani Tola and Laxmanpur Bathe…
Anand Teltumbde (Text of the Third Comrade Naveen Babu Memorial Lecture, delivered by Anand Teltumbde) At the outset let me thank DSU for giving me this opportunity to pay my homage to comrade Yalavarthi Naveen Babu, who was martyred at the young age of 35 in Andhra Pradesh. I personally knew Naveen as a …