Society & Culture
Gadia Lohars: Still on the move, diminishing returns and no place to call home
The market for the products of Gadia Lohars is shrinking. Mechanization of farming has caused the demand for their hand-made implements to plummet. Savage price rise is only adding to their problems. Obviously, they need...
Behold, the Light of the world!
This Christmas season, may we look beyond the twinkling lights and decorations, to the Light of the world who has entered our dark world to transform individuals, families, whole communities and indeed nations, writes Dr...
Kant, Phule and Ambedkar, and the need for a collective struggle for the right to reason
In societies that are unequal not incidentally but structurally, the issue is not simply 'immaturity', as Kant poses, but being deprived of a social environment that allows maturity. This is where Kant’s imagination falls short...
Sohrai: An Adivasi festival that celebrates oneness with nature and coexistence with cattle
‘Sohrai’ means ‘appreciating and caressing’. The festival is about caressing cattle, pampering them and expressing gratitude towards them; it is about the relationship between humans and cattle – in which cattle aren't tools but members...
A day at Ekwari – the village of Rameshwar Ahir, Ram Naresh Ram and Jagdish Master
Rameshwar Ahir’s son Bihari Yadav said that even after his father’s martyrdom, violence continued in the village. Feudal...
Dasain festival: A dance performance to preserve a collective memory of grief is on the wane
Dasain is not merely a festival of the Santhals; it is a collective memory of the entire indigenous...
‘Homebound’: A rare attempt to zoom in on the suffering of the historically oppressed
Through this excellent adaptation of a real-life story by journalist Basharat Peer published in the New York Times,...
Jharkhand child marriage crisis: Challenges and a glimmer of hope
Child marriage in Jharkhand is not a ‘tribal issue’ but a developmental crisis shaped by intersecting vulnerabilities. Tribal...
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