Society & Culture
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. The representation of the Pasmandas in the State remains dismal. The issue of giving them a share...
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 architecture beneath him remains intact. His caste location still supplies inherited legitimacy, networks, educational access, social confidence,...
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 caste transgression, of loving across rigid social boundaries, but as the outcome of his own limitations, write...
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...
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,...
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;...
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...
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