Kshirod Nag I joined JNU as an M.A. student of Sociology in the year 2008. I didn’t have any idea about ‘caste’, ‘class’, ‘gender’ ‘social change’, ‘revolution’, ‘Ambekarism’, ‘Marxism’, ‘Maoism’ or any other ‘ISM’ for that matter, except Gandhism and Hinduism (as if in India, one has a birthright to know these two isms). …
Who killed Rohith Vemula?
Sujatha Surepally 26 years old Rohith Vemula, who wanted to reach the stars, become a science writer like Carl Sagan, is no more today. Perhaps he wanted to reach the stars, because his life had been oppressed, abused and separated his mind from his body. He may not have thought that he would make …
On intellectual arrogance and egoism
Kshirod Nag To engage with the ‘three responses’ by Nivedita Menon, Partha Chatterjee and Sudipto Kaviraj to Perry Anderson’s Indian Ideology (Verso, 2013) is quite an interesting exercise. Not exactly for any rich content or explanations by these ‘acclaimed’ intellectuals of our times, but more for the kind of approaches they have adopted to …
The Dilemma of an upwardly mobile, English speaking, Bengali Dalit woman
Drishadwati Bargi The rather long title could have been longer if it were to encapsulate the full range of the subjectivity of this scribe. It should have been “The dilemma of being an upwardly mobile, English speaking, Dalit Feminist and ideologue who is simultaneously a wannabe intellectual, a commodity fetishist and a person with …
Drama of Elections in UoH: Reflections on Student Politics
Jadumani Mahanand The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it ~ Karl Marx. Aristotle says ‘man is by nature a social and political animal’, which means one cannot live without these two kinds of institutions. That is to say, if an individual wants to live apart …
Political Philosophy of B.R. Ambedkar: A Critical Understanding (Part 2)
Dr. P. Kesava Kumar Continued from here. Assessing the Political Thought of Ambedkar About Ambedkar there are diverse opinions. Upper caste nationalists has tried to brand him as a ‘British agent’. For instance, Arun Shourie, the Hindu nationalist and the “intellectual hero” of the upper castes at the time of the anti-Mandal agitation and …
Political Philosophy of B.R. Ambedkar: A Critical Understanding
Dr. P. Kesava Kumar (This is the first part of the paper first published in International Research Journal of Social Sciences, Vol.1 No.2. Pp.193-210, 2008, Pondicherry University, Puducherry) Abstract The political philosophy of Ambedkar may help in renegotiating the crisis of western political theory in particular and leading the struggles of the masses in general. …
It’s Not Red Vs Blue
Anand Teltumbde Ambedkar was more about class than caste, but the Left won’t see it that way India is a land of paradoxes. But no paradox may be as consequential as the divergent histories of the Dalit and the Communist movements. Both were born around the same time, spoke for or against the same issues, …
Dr Ambedkar and the freedom struggle of Dalits
Gail Omvedt (An excerpt from her book ‘Ambedkar: Towards an Enlightened India’) Less than two months after the huge conversion ceremony, Bhimrao Ambedkar was dead, found on the morning of 6 December, slumped over the papers he had been working on late at night. His death was followed by outpouring of grief as great as …