For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Sudha K. F. Walter Benjamin, the famous Marxist critic, in an essay on Franz Kafka wrote that there is “plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope—but not for us”. Benjamin, a Jew, took his own life fleeing from the Nazis, when he lost all hope of survival, by swallowing a handful of morphine …
Hany Babu M.T. A massive recruitment exercise is just about to get under way at the University of Delhi. The University has recently advertized for 665 teaching positions with the break up as follows: Professor: 99, Associate Professor: 206, and Assistant Professor: 360. This round of recruitment, however, raises a grave concern with respect …
(From ‘Religious Riddles‘ in Part I of the book ‘Riddles in Hinduism‘ by Babasaheb Dr. B. R. Ambedkar) India is a congeries of communities. There are in it Parsis, Christians, Mohammedans and Hindus. The basis of these communities is not racial. It is of course religious. This is a superficial view. What is interesting to …
Eramangalathu Chitralekha On October 21st I was attacked again. This time they rounded up and beat my husband Sreeskanth because now they are scared to touch me. Sreeskanth has been living a life of social exclusion for a long time now. His relatives have abandoned him, his friends don’t talk to him, except very …
Violence against women in India – A review of the popular mythologies and their implications for VAW Cynthia Stephen India’s reputation as a destination for spiritual seekers seems to have faded in recent years. Reputed worldwide to the be the land of the oldest living civilisation, with a rich culture, living tradition, and a …
Suicide of Uttam Mondal and Arrest of Shuma Mondal: The Dalit Protest in Nonadanga Georgy Kuruvilla Roy (For Dalit Camera Through Un-Touchable Eyes) It’s a given that if a casteist government is at the helm of affairs, Dalits are bound to suffer the most, and if they were to protest this casteism, they would …
Rupesh Kumar Sometime back my friend Ajith posed a couple of questions about my documentary “Don’t be our fathers” in his article (Dalitizing cinema : A critique of Rupesh Kumar’s ‘Don’t be our fathers‘) on Round Table India. The nature of that text by itself needs a separate analysis. But for now, I shall …
The Scheduled Castes And The Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 No. 33 of 1989 [11th September, 1989] An Act to prevent the commission of offences of atrocities against the members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, to provide for Special Courts for the trial of such offences and for the …
Challapalli Swaroopa Rani (Published in EPW in 1998) It has taken a long time for dalit women to overcome their oppression as women, as dalits and put to creative use the gains of social and literary movements. There are of course common issues that bind dalit men and women, like untouchability and caste oppression. …