Syamprasad KV Introduction The demise of Rohith Vemula and his poetic suicide note made history, and they continue to disturb our minds. As an Indian citizen, as a member of a Bahujan community, as a research student, I am obliged to express my deepest condolences over his demise and to protest against the university …
Merit hona mangta: An essay on the FTII strike
Nidhin Shobhana This essay is a response to the on-going strike in FTII against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the Chairman of the said Institute. I would contextualize the strike on a larger canvas called Brahmanism (not read as Hindutva1). In the essay I would make a modest effort to understand the term …
Academic Untouchability: The Dalit Woman Experience
Praveena Thaali The academic sphere is generally seen as a space for knowledge creation. However, it can be argued that there is Brahminical hegemony over knowledge which is knowingly or unknowingly reflected in the academia. What kind of knowledge is being produced and by whom? This issue has to be debated seriously. There are …
The dalit woman is a threat to the caste system: Chithralekha
Rupesh Kumar Chithralekha has been on strike for the last 100 days seeking justice for the attacks on her by CPM goons. The government and district authorities remain silent on Chithralekha’s vociferous questioning and demand for justice. From October 25th, 2014, Chithralekha and her husband Sreeshkant are sitting in protest in front of the …
No ghar, so no ghar wapsi
Kancha Ilaiah The Sangh Parivar is conducting the so-called “ghar wapsi” programmes all over the country. According to a newspaper report, about 8,000 people have been brought back to “ghar” from Christianity in newly formed Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The reconversion of some dalit Christians in Kerala is also widely reported. Nobody knows when …
Caste, CPI(M) and Chithralekha
Rakesh Ram S 26th December 2014. Today Chithralekha, the Dalit woman autodriver, entered the 64th day of her night and day dharna (to death) in front of the Kannur collectorate. She has been fighting the CPI(M)/DYFI/CITU in Kannur since 2005. Despite numerous protests and resultant promises from the government attacks continue to happen on Chithralekha, …
Down Town to Kiss of Love: Problems of ‘Public’ Reasoning
Ajith Kumar A S & K Ashraf Certain debates are constructed around the deceptive dialectics of progressive versus retrograde. The scheme of either/or motivates us to fall in line on the point of saying either an unequivocal yes or a categorical no. Fissures in the society and politics are sometimes rendered invisible through such …
Nilupu Samaram: Redefining Political Struggles in a Democracy
Rupesh Kumar The five month long Standing Struggle (‘Nilupu Samaram’) of the Adivasis of Kerala has just ended. The Adivasis protested by standing in front of the Kerala Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram all these months. The government has now agreed to the Adivasi demands and the movement is a historical success. This Adivasi Standing Struggle was …
Pitting Love against Love, the Hindu Moral Code on Sex and Sexuality
Hari Prasad “Students of social organization have been content with noting the difference between equality and inequality. None have realized that in addition to equality and inequality there is such a thing as graded inequality….. To make the thing concrete the Brahmanic law of marriage is full of inequity. The right of Brahmana to …