Sree Govind Bharatvaraj From Non-Brahmin Politics to Ambedkarite Buddhism: Reading Blue Star Jayakumar’s Blue Star makes a critique of the non-Brahmin politics and insists Ambedkarite Buddhism as a notion to unite Dalits and intermediate castes in the Tamil state. Neelam Production (film Company of Pa. Ranjith) has released its recent film, Blue Star (2024), directed …
‘Chak De! India’ and Women’s Hockey
Khakhlari Recently the Indian women’s field hockey team made headlines as they qualified for the Olympic semi-finals for the first time in Tokyo. Quite predictably and not without fair reason, Chak De! India started trending. In the fervor of the win, jubilant fans drew parallels between the team and the movie. Shah Rukh Khan …
Cricket, Nationalism and Virat Kohli’s Remark
Vinod Kumar The recent remark of Virat Kohli in response to a cricket loving fan to “leave India” has sparked a debate, and it must be seen as a matter of concern. It is important to take his remark seriously for the purpose of analyzing cricket and the nation. There is a need to …
Castes of Cricket in India
Rajesh Komath This short write-up is motivated by the recent discussions in social media on the demand for reservations in Indian cricket team, put forward by the Union Minister for Social Justice Shri. Ramdas Athawale. The Minister’s thrust of the demand was that the national cricket body BCCI should provide reservations to SC and …
Cricket: False Populism and Imposed Nationalism
Kshirod Nag It certainly gives pleasure to see symbols as inspiring tools to motivate the generations to come. Contextually, we can take a look at the initiative taken by the state to confer the ‘Bharat Ratna’ on Sachin Tendulkar as one such symbol. It was felt necessary to honour a person who, undoubtedly, captured …
Some ‘Non-Meritorious’ Reflections: Reservation Policy and Its Side Effects
Anoop Kumar (This article was first published in INSIGHT in its November 2004 issue on ‘Reservations’. Anoop Kumar is one of the founder-members of the magazine) 1. Why India continuously gets outwitted by Pakistan in diplomacy at various international fora? Can any of the readers guess? No? Let me explain to you. It is because …
Attacks on Dalits in Kalappatti
Findings of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Team that visited Kalapatti village, Tamil Nadu, in May 2004 1. Caste Discrimination and Untouchability practices Kalapatti is a village which is located in the Coimbatore district under the Kovilpalayam police station limits. It is 14 km from the Coimbatore-Avinashi road. This village consists of nearly 2000 families …