When will we, the truly despised cockroaches, create a viral campaign?
Every decade produces brilliant Dalitbahujan voices who critique power with precision and then watch power ignore them, not because the critique was wrong, but because critique without organization is a letter that was never sent, writes Adeeb Haider
When will we, the truly despised cockroaches, create a viral campaign?
Every decade produces brilliant Dalitbahujan voices who critique power with precision and then watch power ignore them, not because the critique was wrong, but...
CJI’s ‘cockroach’ comment reveals a new version of Supreme Court’s pre-existing attitude
It can be said without an iota of hesitation that in terms of social background, the present CJI belongs to the establishment and, as...
Rajasthan: RSS workers grab temple, Dalit priest seeks Mohan Bhagwat’s intervention
“You say that Hindu community is one, you talk about harmony between castes and you say you are against caste-based discrimination. The RSS has...
Unmissable irony: Celebrate the killing of Adivasis’ ancestors and then hold an Adivasi cultural gathering
Almost all of their festivals – whether it is Holi, Dusshera or Diwali – celebrate the killing of Adivasis. The gods whom they revere...
West Bengal elections: Adivasi women representation and Hindu imperialist politics
On the one hand, Adivasi women have enthusiastically joined the electoral process, sending out a strong message that they want to enter the field...
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...
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...
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...
‘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 of his films, camera in hand,...
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...
Revisiting Meera and Raidas: Who was Girdhar Nagar?
Meera shedding social inhibitions was not about quitting royal life and embracing a spartan existence; it was about a widow being drawn to a...
Virendra Yadav’s struggles in the ‘progressive’ camp
Virendra Yadav’s heart was riddled with barbs hurled by his ‘own’ people. But he kept fighting for secular-progressive ideas. He could have easily immersed...
Virendra Yadav was an incisive intellectual with a vision for social justice
Virendra Yadav’s biggest contribution is the inculcation of a sense of moral-social accountability in Hindi criticism. Through his writings, he tried to establish that...
Seminal role of Dalit-OBCs in development of language and literature
Scripts were invented by painters and sculptors, and not scholars. Not only in India but in civilizations the world over, paintings and sculptures predated...
‘Sahitya Akademi has brought itself honour by honouring Sanjeev’
In his more than a dozen novels, Sanjeev has depicted the reality of the post-Independence Indian society. The issues and topics that he has...
Shabbir Ahmed Ansari: Harbinger of Pasmanda consciousness
Shabbir Ahmed Ansari’s life shows that social reform is not only about sloganeering. It is also about making use of constitutional and legal provisions...
Phule’s Sarvajanik Satyadharma in times of religious hatred
What is surprising is that references to how Phule saw Islam and Christianity are totally missing from the discourse even as communalism in general...
Discovering Babasaheb’s lost speeches in the West
At the time of the Round Table Conferences, Dr Ambedkar had become a sought-after speaker in the UK, the US and Canada, as a...
Jotirao Phule’s ideology and literature
Phule challenged the traditional concept of literature. For him, literature was not only about aesthetics. It was a tool for ushering in social justice....
How Kanshi Ram’s slogans became the gospel for the masses
It is time we revived these slogans in our political spheres, in our social spaces and university corridors and connected with villages, bastis and...