Society & Culture
‘Dabba Cartel’: Amid drug trafficking, an exciting entanglement of class and gender questions
The women coming together to run a drug business disguised as a ‘dabba’ service has us wondering whether the old doctrine of class struggle premised on inevitable antagonism between classes has been turned on its...
A multifaceted approach needed to end witch-hunting in Jharkhand and other states
There is a pressing need for a comprehensive national law that criminalizes witch-hunting and ensures strict penalties for perpetrators. Providing communities with proper healthcare services could significantly reduce the influence of ojhas and bring down...
‘Girls Will Be Girls’ is a poetic journey through adolescence
Director Shuchi Talati’s decision to employ a predominantly female crew results in a perspective that feels authentically feminine without being performatively so, writes Neeraj Bunkar
Pro-upper-caste bias warps Left’s sense of history
Remaining in denial about the caste system obfuscates the identity of its victims and leads us to forget their struggles. It also creates a bias towards dominant groups in how you look at the past...
Looking back at Indian cinema in 2024 through an anti-caste lens
Together, ‘Thangalaan’, ‘Kottukkaali (The Adamant Girl)’, ‘Blue Star’ and ‘Vaazhai’ signify a transformative moment in Tamil cinema, using...
‘Vaazhai’: Love, compassion and resilience amid the harshness of Dalit life
Vaazhai is a testament to how personal experience can shape a filmmaker’s narrative arc, with Mari Selvaraj’s socially...
RSS and the question of caste
On the one hand, they celebrate the Constitution Day and pay obeisance to the Constitution of India. On...
When a film has a Dalit protagonist named Vedaa and defends the Vedas
This film exemplifies the Gandhian ‘upper caste’ saviour gaze, in which the Dalit characters, particularly women like Vedaa,...
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