Bobby Kunhu On, 9th October, 2022 at the inauguration of M. Rasheed Foundation – founded in the memory of M. Rasheed, a freedom fighter, journalist, writer and one of the founders of Trotskyism in India – Dr. Raees Mohammed, Founder of Dalit Camera and the Nilgiris Sanitation Workers Union was the first recipient of the …
De-Casteing Love: Pa Ranjith’s ‘Natchathiram Nagargiradhu’
Jitendra Suna Separation of love and Indian cinema is an impossible task. On one hand, our society abhors love; on the other hand, Indian cinema exploits the conditions of lovelessness that exist in our society. A critical study of 2013 on the judgement of various rape cases in seven district courts of Delhi by Rukmini …
Do Brahmins hit and run?
Kuffir Do Brahmins hit and run? Meaning: do Brahmins cause motor accidents and run away? Two recent events say they do. The first event is a film, a work of fiction; the other a real incident which has become stranger than fiction. That’s what triggered these thoughts on accidents. The first narrative refers to the …
Panchayat: Rural Dalit In Savarna Fantasy
Neeraj Bunkar The idea of the village has always been depicted through the eyes of the oppressor. Bollywood curated this in the visual culture and now ‘Over the Top’ (OTT) platforms are playing this role. A recently released web series, Panchayat, adds to this vision and imagination of the village. If you give it a …
IITs’ Conception of Diversity Ignores Caste
Pranav Jeevan P IITs have a severe underrepresentation of women. The Brahminical mindset that women are somehow lower and are incapable of doing mathematics and engineering compared to men is being used as a reason to explain this low representation. Recently, a new scheme was implemented to increase the number of women in IITs by …
Why do Upper Castes deny the existence of Caste?
Yashwantrao Phule One of the many eccentricities upper caste peers possess is to obstinately deny the existence of caste. This has critically pernicious effects. Baseless arguments are put forth claiming caste to be an evil of the past. Recently, the futile efforts of a few professors to oppose the inclusion of caste as a protected …
Pavsacha Nibandha: A tale of irony on the rains
JS Vinay The Marathi short film Pavsacha Nibandh, literally meaning essay on/of the rain was released on Zee5, an OTT platform in the month of July. It is directed by Nagraj Manjule, who is known for his successful films with strong and assertive themes like Fandry and Sairat. To begin with, I am not a …
Caste and Disease
Dr Prerna There are many ways in which we can understand social maladies like caste system. Drawing an analogy with the biological concept of disease and components associated with it is one such way. What is the concept of disease? According to the Oxford English dictionary: ‘Disease is a condition of the body or some …
Personal, Social, Political – A Few Memories
Rajesh Chavda When I graduated from Columbia Law School with an LLM degree, immediately after the graduation ceremony, still wearing the graduation robe and hat, I was walking with one of my classmates to his room to change, as his hostel was closer to the law school than mine. As we were walking, we met …