Pinak Banik Continued from here. Prof. Habib advances, saying, “a concept of India, politically independent, is already present in 1857. But was it sufficient?”, “something more was needed to turn India from a ‘country’ into a ‘nation’.Two stages seem to me to be very important for such conversion. First of all, there had to …
Who are we dissenting for?
Nilesh Kumar Recent controversy over the issue of sloganeering by a few Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students has brought to light the role of the university in the wider arena of knowledge production that shapes the politics of society and its path of evolution. Make no mistake, as a former student of the university, …
Building the Idea of India: Conserving Brahmanism and the Brahmanical State?
Pinak Banik (This is a three part essay dissecting the much celebrated ‘idea of india’ from an anti-caste perspective, attempting to lay bare the machinations of the Brahminical knowledge producers) Many of us have recently come across a haphazard, yet systematic procession of essays, articles, reports, lectures, coverage, debates broadcast on electronic and print …
Why Dalit History Matters
Pardeep Attri If you want to destroy a society, destroy its History and the society will get destroyed automatically – Dr. Ambedkar Nobody till now has questioned winners; neither will anyone in the future ask them, how have they won? Fiction is “generally accepted falsehood” or “non factual literature”, whereas the History is “systematic …
Beyond the Fairy Tales of India
Braj Ranjan Mani There is little awareness about a more or less institutionalised arrangement of normalising, if not glorifying, the oppressive past from which the privileged continue to derive profit and pleasure. Invented histories, myth-making, and armoury of stereotypes merge to create convenient narratives and myths which masquerade as the history of India. The …
Remembering Jhalkari Bai, Dalit Hero of 1857 War against British
Upendra Sonpimple The war of 1857 was a rebellion against British colonial rule. The peculiarity of this confrontation consisted of the coming together of all sections of society, with the objective of freedom from the East India Company and their exploitation of the country. The event has left a deep imprint in the history …
The Rise of BJP: Bitter Fruits of Fertile Brahminical Soil
Nidhin Sowjanya The 16th Lok Sabha elections have culminated in something that anyone who looks closely at the history and functioning of this Brahminical Hindu nation could have easily expected. These elections announced the victory, however incomplete, of the right wing Hindutva party- BJP. The sheer number of seats (282 on its own) and …
The Question of Identity
Rajinder Barpagga It is an absolute pleasure to dedicate this article to the memory of honourable Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar (14 April 1891- 6 December 1956), revivalist of Buddhism in India, the first law minister of independent India and the chief architect of Indian constitution drafting committee. He had made the biggest contribution in …
The Brahmean Machine: Distorting Revolt into Surrender
Shakyamuni Chandal A veritable danger lurks over the whole corpus of knowledge and practices developed as a result of Dalit existence, assertion and its resistance to Brahminism; in short, the entire Dalit episteme: from the teachings of Buddha, Ajiwakas, Siddhas, Naths, Bauls, south Indian revolutionaries like Akkamahadevi, Basavanna, Chenna Basavanna, Kinnari Bommayya, Siddharama, Allamaprabhu …