The students of Lady Shri Ram College for Women—a large number of them filling the area outside auditorium, the corridor, the entire staircase and many even outside under the sun—started the protest not because we are against the Women’s Reservation Bill, but because the video of the Principal of the college was posted on the BJP4India official Instagram page. As a college that touts that it is apolitical and does not allow students to organise political events, the students found this extremely hypocritical. In the 15 minutes of the claimed “transparent dialogue” that happened yesterday, we were told by the Principal that she recorded the video for the Ministry of Women and Child Development and that it was posted on the BJP4India page without her consent. On further questions about if she contacted the page regarding it being posted without her consent, she said, “No”. Continue reading Principal’s endorsement of Women’s Reservation Bill on a party platform unacceptable: Statement by LSR students→
Theme :India in the World – Mostly Through Lens of Iran War
Speaker : Ravi Sinha
Abstract : The unipolar world that came into existence at the end of the Cold War is on the way out and a new world order, potentially a multipolar one, is in the offing. This epochal change, as evidenced in the miraculous rise of China and the re-emergence of Russia on the world stage, appears to have gained acceleration with the war in West Asia in which the Iranian nation has handed an astonishingly courageous response to the aggressors. A broad framework to understand this epochal transition was presented in a study group by Comrade Ravi Sinha
Part 1 of this video contains the basic presentation followed by further elaboration of the argument in the Q/A session in Part 2. New Socialist Initiative (NSI)
(जनवादी लेखक संघ, दिल्ली के 10 वें राज्य सम्मेलन (4 अप्रैल 2026) में प्रस्तुत वक्तव्य का संशोधित एवं विस्तारित रूप, सम्मेलन के विचार सत्र का फोकस था : हमारा समयऔरलेखककीभूमिका)
प्रस्तावना
हम एक नाजु़क वक्त़ से गुजर रहे हैं।
कोई भी प्रबुद्ध व्यक्ति – जो न्याय, अमन और बराबरी की चाहत रखता हो, समूची मानवता को तरक्की के रास्ते पर ले जाना चाहता हो, यह दावा नहीं कर सकता कि उनमें से किसी ने भी इस बात का तसव्वुर भी किया होगा कि 21 वीं सदी की तीसरी दहाई में हम ऐसे दौर से रूबरू होंगे।
एक ऐसा दौर जहां हम और वे की सियासत उरूज पर दिख रही है, आबादी के अच्छे खासे हिस्से को अमनुष्य घोषित करना, दीमक, कीड़ों, मकौड़ों की श्रेणी में शुमार करना एक सम्मानित उद्यम में रूपांतरित हुआ है। नागरिक शुद्धता की कवायदों के जरिए – अवांछितों को, अधर्मियों को, असहमतों को -गणतंत्र के दायरों से भी बाहर सरहद पार मुल्कों के बियाबान में ढकेल देने की मुहिमों पर इन्साफ के रखवाले कहे गए संस्थानों से भी मुहर लग रही है।
इस खत़रनाक समय को अलग-अलग ढंग से परिभाषित किया जा रहा है।
कोई कहता है कि यह ऐसा दौर है जब यह प्रतीत हो रहा है कि समूचा समाज एक उन्मादी खुशी के साथ एक गर्त में जा रहा है और उसे इस बात का कोई इल्म भी नहीं है।
The landscape of disability rights in India underwent a seismic shift on December 27, 2015, not through a legislative amendment or a landmark judicial decree, but via a radio broadcast. During his Mann Ki Baat program, Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggested that the term viklang be replaced with divyang. While ostensibly a move to alter societal mindsets and reduce stigma, this nomenclature shift signaled a profound reorientation of the state’s relationship with its disabled citizenry. This declaration of “divinity” arrived a full year before the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPWD) Act of 2016 was actually passed, effectively setting a paternalistic tone for the rights-based framework that followed.
By invoking “divinity” to describe physical or sensory impairments, the discourse moved disability from a hard-won, rights-based framework into a deified, body-focused model that prioritizes symbolic elevation over material accessibility. As disability activist Nidhi Goyal has argued, this is merely a new way to tell the disabled they are “not normal”—moving them from “abnormal” to “supernormal,” but never simply equal. It is generally accepted that to be disabled is to be “disabled by society,” yet the divyang narrative replaces this political recognition with an abject surrender to divinity that reflects a forced consent of the disabled to their own marginalization. Continue reading Deified Bodies, Diminished Rights – A Critical Anatomy of the ‘Divyang’ Discourse: Viraj Kafle→
[The essay below is based on a presentation at a recent workshop on Theory from the Global South and a part of a longer work. Some of its claims are therefore, necessarily tentative. – AN]
Gaza, December 2024, Courtesy Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor
What is happening to Gaza/Palestine today is a horrible genocide, the likes of which has rarely been seen. Yet, it must be asserted that not exceptional or unique – but entirely of a piece with the history of the colonial expansion of the West over five centuries. Gaza reveals, in a flash, the long-erased histories of settler colonialism and genocides; it reminds us that that history is very much part of our living present. Gaza strips the mask of “civilization” donned by the “enlightened West” that has long portrayed us in the global South as lesser, uncivilized beings worthy of being enslaved, used as cannon fodder and ultimately, exterminated. That was what we saw in the unrepentant colonizer’s speech by US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference. But in stripping off the masks of “civilization” from their faces, Gaza shows up how repeatedly, over and over again, the same script has been played, regardless who was in power in the Axis of Evil countries of Europe, UK and the US.
But more importantly, Gaza forces us to retell the whole story of the past five centuries by setting aside the received mythologies of “the political” and of “Enlightenment”. Gaza demands that we put at the centre of our narrative, not states and nations but those millions of dispossessed by settler colonialism, driven to death in imperialist wars and thrown around from one part of the world to another as “stateless” people, “refugees” and “minorities”. Even though, in the interim, Palestine must have its own sovereign state to survive in this world of armed state, Gaza/Palestine demands a complete overturning of the very possibility of a repetition of another Gaza/Palestine ever again. It demands of us that we dismantle the entire theoretical edifice undergirding dominant narratives; it demands that we start telling the story from the vantage point of the people at the receiving end of that hallowed thing called “modernity” – that most people in the global South experienced as coloniality and what has been called “war capitalism” by historian Sven Beckert – which I will discuss below. Continue reading Theory After Gaza: Decolonizing the Political→
In The Federal’s ‘RSS at 100’ series, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay speaks with Subhash Gatade, author of Godse’s Children and Modinama, about the deeper social roots of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Gatade argues that the RSS must be understood not just through Hindu-Muslim politics, but through the caste churn in Maharashtra, the challenge posed by Jyotiba Phule’s anti-caste movement, and the predominance of Brahmin leadership within the organisation. The discussion also examines Savarkar’s influence, Golwalkar’s ideology, the RSS-Hindu Mahasabha relationship, and the strategic shift towards ‘inclusive Hindutva’ in later decades.
Contemporary India is something of a conundrum for most political theorists. What is it? How does it hang together? What do people believe in? Given the large canvas, I’d like to focus here on one small aspect of belief in Hinduism and Hindutva today. Towards this objective, I’ll take up a somewhat old pronouncement by the foremost BJP leader and prime minister, in 2014, during a conference of doctors and other professionals that there must have been plastic surgeons in ancient India who attached an elephant’s head on a human body and created Ganesha. And, that Karna’s extra uterine birth suggested that there was a knowledge of the science of genetics during that period. The scientific community and those adept at history were appalled, rolling their eyes in dismay at the confusion between true history and mythology. Is such a response, i.e., a scorn or embarrassment about the unscientificity of the claim regarding the existence of these ancient sciences/events, adequate to the statement made? Did the prime minister actually believe this? What is it that is being said by Hindutva politicians, ideologues and thinkers when such pronouncements are made, or for example, that vedic mathematics was the progenitor of mathematics as a discipline? And what about the rewriting of history books to valorize the Hindu past, erasing a “dark medieval period” and denigrating Muslim “invaders”? Continue reading Belief in contemporary India: an essay in the constitutive imagination: R Srivatsan→
The ZeTo campaign organisers responded to Althea’s concerns expressed in an earlier post. We are delighted by and thankful for their willingness to dialogue, for we do believe that such an exchange of views is absolutely necessary for common ground to evolve on this issue, precisely because our readings of the political and social present in Kerala, are different.
The recent statement issued by members of the Althea Feminist Friendship Collective on the forthcoming Zero Tolerance (ZeTo) campaign in Kerala[1] deserves a serious and thoughtful response. I hope it will not be taken as a hostile document. Far from that, it is, in many ways, an anxious one – anxious about the state, about punitive excess, about the global history of ‘zero tolerance’ policies and campaigns, and about the risk of reinforcing authoritarian or brahminical patriarchies in the name of justice.
Those anxieties are not frivolous. Feminist history teaches us to be wary of state power. Yet feminist history also teaches us that structures do not shift without public contestation, moral clarity, and organised political pressure.
As a cis male articulating within feminist and progressive left traditions, I do so with caution. I am conscious that feminism is not my intellectual inheritance to define. It is a movement and epistemology built by women and gender minorities through struggle, often against men like me. Yet it is precisely because feminism is not merely identity but political practice that it demands engagement across genders, including critical engagement. Continue reading Zero Tolerance, Democratic Responsibility, and the Question of Feminist Praxis: MJ Vijayan→
Althea supports DrAsha Achy Joseph’s efforts to oppose the shielding of powerful men so that they may get away with the most egregious sexual violence and harassment.
However, we are wary of the implications of ‘zero tolerance’, given its ambiguous global history. Zero tolerance is not the same as “ending gender-based violence.” It can very quickly devolve into a superficial checkbox for institutions that sounds good on paper and in theory.
[We bring for our readers, this essay by Sohul Ahmed, which details the context and background of the recently held Bangladesh election. Though a cacophony of voices from the Right to the Left in India had already pronounced their shared judgement of an “Islamic takeover” of Bangladesh via the July Uprising, what this essay details the extremely significant political process through which the July Charter was formulated, signed on to by 33 parties, and how the most orderly and peaceful election was held in the country just two weeks ago. This article rebuts the general impression created by this Right-Left propaganda in India that supreme chaos reigns in Bangladesh. Since this article was written, a new government has been formed with a Hindu and a Chakma-Buddhist face each, in the cabinet. The main Islamic party has been trounced in the elections. So much for all the doomsday prophesies about post-July Bangladesh. That does not mean everything is fine – and Ahmed explains the complications that still exist. – AN]
Bangladesh elections, representational image, courtesy Reuters/ BBC
Bangladesh stands at a crucial juncture in its political transition following the July Uprising. The country witnessed its national election almost one and a half years after the ousting of Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic regime – an election widely regarded as one of the most consequential moments in the country’s political history. Our characterization of this election as “crucial” or even “historic” has deep roots in Bangladesh’s recent electoral experience. Continue reading Bangladesh in Transition – Understanding Election in the Aftermath of the July Uprising : Sohul Ahmed→
[निम्नलिखित बयान साठ से ज़्यादा ऐसे संगठनों और कार्यकर्ताओं की तरफ़ से 15 फरवरी को जारी किया गया है जिनका मनरेगा के कार्यान्वयन से संबंध रहा है। ]
हम, नीचे दस्तखत करने वाले एक्टिविस्ट्स, जो भारत के कोने-कोने में मनरेगा मजदूरों के साथ काम करते हैं, महात्मा गांधी राष्ट्रीय ग्रामीण रोजगार गारंटी अधिनियम (मनरेगा) को खत्म करने की कड़ी निंदा करते हैं, जो माँग पर मिलने वाला ‘काम के अधिकार‘ का प्रोग्राम था। हमारा मानना है कि:
– मनरेगा महाराष्ट्र की रोजगार गारंटी योजना से सीख लेकर भारी समर्थन और बातचीत के बाद शुरू किया गया था।
We are reproducing an article written by SOHUL AHMED on the eve of the Bangladesh elections, earlier published in Bengali in Prothom Alo, Dhaka. The English version was published in Ahmed’s Substack, yesterday, 12 February. A researcher on genocide and democratic politics, Sohul Ahmed is already familiar to Kafila readers. We publish this piece here because it helps us understand the current elections as but a moment in the larger process of transformation unleashed by the July Uprising of 2024. An important reason for publishing this piece here is because Bangladesh’s difficult struggle for democratic transition holds significant lessons for us – in our struggles in the times to come. – AN
Image courtesy Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters
After fifteen years of autocratic rule, Bangladesh is re-entering an electoral phase. This election is significant for two primary reasons: first, it reactivates a stagnant electoral process and initiates a transition toward a competitive system; and second, it seeks to establish a sustainable political settlement that institutionalizes this process.
The upcoming election serves as both a national vote and a referendum. Far more than a simple contest for power, it is a fight to reclaim the essential democratic entry points lost over the past fifteen years. By functioning as a referendum, this process seeks a mandate for the structural reforms and political settlements necessary to build a truly democratic foundation for the country. Continue reading Bangladesh Beyond the Ballot – The Struggle Begins Now: Sohul Ahmed→
It is a common sight to see professors today wandering through the corridors of our premier universities with a look of quiet desperation, but they should instead be offering prayers of thanks to the students who never show up. We have reached a peak of administrative efficiency where the traditional classroom, built to house a modest forty souls, is now legally mandated to accommodate sixty or even eighty. This logistical miracle, where two bodies are expected to occupy the space of one, is only possible because of the profound civic duty exercised by the truant. By choosing the comfort of their beds over the cramped benches of the lecture hall, these absent students prevent a literal stampede. They are the only thing standing between a smooth seminar and a public health crisis.
धर्मान्ध लोग – जो हंसना भूल गए हैं, रोना भूल गए हैं, और करूणा भूल गए हैं – ऐसे ‘इन्सान’ हैं जो एटम बम से भी ज्यादा ख़तरनाक हैं
– पी लंकेश के काॅलम ‘कहां मैं भूल न जाउं’ से
(पेज 6, ‘आर एस एस – काया और माया’ से)
…कन्नड भाषा के अग्रणी साहित्यकार एवं सामाजिक कार्यकर्ता देवनूर महादेव की हिन्दी में प्रकाशित ताज़ा किताब ‘राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ – काया और माया’ ( आर एस एस – आलू मत्तू अगला ‘ नाम से मूल कन्नड़ में प्रकाशित किताब का हिंदी अनुवाद है ) इस मामले में एक नया पत्थर गाड़ती प्रतीत होती है। जैसा कि सभी जानते हैं वर्ष 2022 में मूल कन्नड में प्रकाशित इस किताब ने हाल के समय में बिक्री का रेर्कार्ड कायम किया है, वह न केवल कन्नड, तेलूगू, मराठी, अंग्रेजी, हिन्दी में प्रकाशित हुई है बल्कि इस किताब को काॅपीराइट से मुक्त करके और लोगों को प्रकाशन की छूट देकर संघ के असली स्वरूप को जन-जन तक पहुंचाने में किताब ने वितरण के मामले में और किताब या संघ के बारे में चर्चा होने के मामले में एक किस्म का मील का प्रत्थर कायम किया है। कन्नड़ और तेलुगु में इसकी एक लाख से भी अधिक प्रतियां बिकी हैं और अन्य जुबानों में दसियों हज़ार से अधिक प्रतियां।
ध्यान रहे कि जिस बेबाकी से देवनूर महादेव ने संघ के बारे में लिखा है, उतनी साफगोई बहुत कम लोग दिखा पाते है। किताब की भूमिका ही इस बात को उजागर करती है, आप लिखते हैं :
‘.. आर एस एस इस देश को कहां ले जाने की कोशिश कर रहा है ? इस संगठन के बारे में आम धारणा और इस संगठन के असली चाल-चरित्र के बीच फर्क क्या है ? इस सवालों पर जनमानस को जागृत करने’ / पेज 23-24/ के लिए यह किताब लिखी गयी है। भारतीय लोककथाओं में चर्चित मायावी की कथा के बहाने जिसकी जान सात समुंदर पार किसी तोते में समायी होती है, जो बहुरूपिया है और मानवलोक में तरह तरह की ज्यादतियां करता है और उसका कोई कुछ बिगाड़ नहीं पाता क्योंकि जान ‘तोते के रूप में गुफा में सुरक्षित है’ वह संघ की असलियत जानने और उजागर करने के लिए ‘आर एस एस के अतीत के बदबूदार कुएं में ’ ( पेज 23) झांकने के लिए निकले हैं और दिखाई दिए ‘भयावह दृश्य ‘ / (पेज 24 ) का एक अंश किताब के रूप में सामने ला रहे हैं ।.. [ Read the full review here :https://janchowk.com/review-of-rss-kaya-aur-maya-hindutva-supremacism-a-stinking-well-of-the-past/]
Two early-career teachers in private universities in India reflect on what has quietly transformed in their classrooms over the last few years, as they trace the rise of a new norm of ‘silence’. Their reflections ask what it means to teach in the intimate classroom space as it begins to mirror the shrinking democratic space and what forms of care, courage and pedagogy might keep the classroom thinking in these changing times.
I
In the last half a decade, i’ve felt my classroom in a private Indian university change in ways that are hard to capture through the usual metrics. The checklist is enviable: i retain full freedom to design courses, assign authors i want and structure electives around questions that matter to me. And yet, in one of the courses while teaching Margaret Canovan’s piece on ‘Two Faces of Democracy’, i realised what had changed. There is a subtle paradox: the formal freedoms of the private university remain in place, but the informal ecology of the classrooms has altered.
We are publishing this statement by the KURDISH WOMEN’S FOREIGN RELATIONS OFFICE in support of the valiant struggle of the Rojava Revolution to defend itself.
Rojava Revolutionaries, image courtesy ‘Women Defend Rojava’ (womendefendrojava.net)
The Syrian Interim Government under interim president al-Shaara, has declared war on the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and its achievements for women. Since 6 January, the situation in the region has been escalating. After militias of the so-called Syrian Interim Government launched a military attack on predominantly Kurdish neighbourhoods in Aleppo, forcing hundreds of thousands of residents to flee and committing brutal massacres, they turned their attacks towards northern and eastern Syria, surrounding them on all sides. Through a genocidal campaign of destruction against the Kurdish people – especially women – the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, a democratic project based on women’s liberation, grassroots democracy, ecology, and pluralism, is now under threat of destruction.
These attacks represent a massive escalation of systematic violence against women and their hard-won rights. Jihadist groups driven by a deeply misogynistic and patriarchal mindset are targeting, killing, kidnapping and subjecting women to sexual violence. In doing so, they are terrorising women as a means of destroying entire communities. In recent days, we have received horrific videos and reports from the region showing women’s bodies being deliberately desecrated by being thrown from houses and mutilated. Continue reading Support the Rojava Revolution, Condemn Syrian Interim Government’s and IS Offensive: Kurdish Women’s Foreign Relations Office→
A National Convention on Defending Universal Adult Franchise, convened by Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), took place at the Constitution Club, New Delhi, on 20 December, 2025. At this National Convention, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls being carried out by the Election Commission of India in different states of India was discussed. About two hundred persons, including many witnesses, attended the Convention and were part of the audience. We post below the report of the jury
Conclusion of the jury:
After hearing the testimonies, the jury is of the view that the revision of electoral rolls is being carried out hastily and sometimes carelessly. The possibility of mass disenfranchisement is, therefore, real and ominous. It is imperative for the process to be fair and accurate; all eligible voters must be duly registered and should be able to exercise their right to vote. To fulfil these basic requirements, the SIR process needs to be reconsidered and reworked, and until that is done, in the interim, it must be stopped.
Jury members: Justice Madan Lokur (Retd.), Justice A.K. Patnaik (Retd.), Ms. Pamela Philipose, Dr. Jean Drèze, Prof. Nivedita Menon (Retd.)
The National Alliance for Climate and Environmental Justice (NACEJ) strongly condemns the raids, searches, and intimidation of climate activists Harjeet Singh and Sanjay Vashisht by Indian enforcement agencies.
Recent actions by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and allied agencies—reportedly based on alleged violations of foreign exchange regulations, vague claims of threats to “energy security,” and unsubstantiated intelligence inputs—have been carried out without transparency or disclosure of credible evidence. Public reporting indicates reliance on anonymous official briefings, rumoured intelligence reports, and speculative allegations, with officials unwilling to come on record. Continue reading Deal With the Problem, Not the Activists; Control Polluters, Not Those Demanding Accountability! – NACEJ→
India Under Modi: Shrinking Democracy, Growing Inequalities
Speaker:
Professor Atul Kohli
David K.E. Bruce Professor of International Affairs at Princeton University, USA
Sunday 25 th January, 2026
—————-
Abstract:
Modi’s rule in India is characterized by shrinking democracy and growing economic inequalities. The presentation will focus both on the rise of Modi and on Modi’s ruling record. The following points will be emphasized: growing economic inequalities under Congress governments after 1991 fractured the party’s voter base, paving the way for Modi’s rise; religious polarization and corporate power have grown simultaneously under Modi; India’s billionaires thrive amid the democratic decline; institutional checks have been eroded and the opposition has been fractured: the judiciary, media, and election bodies have failed to counter executive power; and there is little evidence to suggest a superior economic record in India after 2014: industrial growth has been sluggish, job creation minimal, and welfare spending flat.
About the Speaker: Professor Atul Kohli is a world-reknowned political scientist. He is the David K.E. Bruce Professor of International Affairs at Princeton University. His principal research interests are in the area of political economy of developing countries. He is the author of India Under Modi: Changing State and Society (with Kanta Murali), (2025); Greed and Guns: Imperial Origins of the Developing World, (2022); Imperialism and the Developing World: How Britain and the U.S. Shaped the Global Periphery (2020); Poverty amid Plenty in the New India (2012) (a Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2012 on Asia and the Pacific); State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery (2004) (winner of the Charles Levine Award (2005) of the International Political Science Association); Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability (1991); and The State and Poverty in India (1987). He has also edited or coedited ten volumes (most recently, Business and Politics in India, 2019; and States in the Developing World, 2017) and published some sixty articles. Through much of his scholarship he has emphasized the role of sovereign and effective states in the promotion of inclusive development.
I am very fond of the movies, especially Malayalam movies. Particularly, comedy films in Malayalam. I was born in a family in which humour was cherished. There are jokes from my childhood which still make me laugh — for example, the one told by my maternal uncle who was a medical student back then, fifty years ago. His best friend, also a medical student, was a chap who seemed to specialise in unfailingly failing in every single exam he appeared for. One day, my uncle visited his friend’s home — it was an old ancestral seat. In the yard of that stately home, a well-fed billy goat was grazing calmly. The friend’s father sat on the veranda of the house and gazed at the animal chewing at the jackfruit leaves and said, “We need to make a good biriyani out of this fellow, after my son passes his exam!” Apparently, the goat heard this; he lifted his head and offered a wry smile! When I recreate this scene in my mind years after I first heard it, I still burst out laughing.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 