Society & Culture
When Jotirao Phule came to Dayanand Saraswati’s rescue
Inviting Dayanand to Pune and helping him expand his footprint in Maharashtra was a pragmatic move on the part of Ranade and other Brahmin reformers. They were not enamoured of Dayanand’s Veda-centric spiritualism but they...
Vijay Varma plays his part in Nagraj Manjule’s realistic portrait of 1960s-70s Bombay
‘Matka King’ is a confident, character-first swing by a director in the process of expanding his range. It celebrates the intoxicating dream of upward mobility while unflinchingly tracing its human cost, writes Neeraj Bunkar
Bastar’s aspirational Adivasi schoolchildren have few viable futures
This contradiction lies beneath the language of ‘mainstreaming’. State institutions encourage young people to become disciplined, aspirational, and future-oriented, even while the opportunities available to them remain narrow and precarious, writes Sahib Singh Tulsi
Sarhul: Reverence for nature informs this Adivasi farming festival
At a time when the world is obsessed with “Paris Accord” and “carbon footprint”, the philosophy underlying Sarhul offers a simple yet infallible solution to the environmental crisis facing humanity. “Nature worship” doesn’t only mean...
‘Gail and Bharat’: An intimate portrait of solidarity with the public
There is an informal feel to Somnath Waghmare’s filmmaking that is worth noting. Waghmare himself appears in several...
Casteism among Muslims and the battle for rights
This book ‘Pasmanda Jan Andolan 1998’ becomes even more relevant in the context of the current sociopolitical scenario....
Privilege with a bruise: What Manu Joseph gets wrong about dark skin and caste
An upper-caste man with dark skin like Laxman Sivaramakrishnan may experience symbolic downgrading in certain interactions. Yet the...
Savarna sympathy, Dalit erasure: A critique of cinematic morality in Telugu film ‘Dacoit’
By the time viewers leave the theatre, the Dalit protagonist’s fate does not register as the consequence of...
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