I did not come to the village to do research. I came to farm for the market—and to do it without breaking the village’s social and ecological ledger. I returned as a nephew and a neighbour. For six years I have lived inside this world of muddy fields, failed pumps, anxious harvests, and commonsense wisdom passed across haat stalls. Six years on, I am only now seeing a glimmer of hope for a workable path.
Photograph by Bonojit Hussain of his own farm
What I write here is not sociology in the professional sense, but a testimony from within the living contradictions. My focus is on the choices and constraints of the khilonjiya peasant household—native, often subsistence-oriented communities whose economic logic is deeply tied to ecological and social reproduction. This is a distinct reality from the highly commercialized production systems found in some other parts of the state.
[ Atranslation of the statement from the Kerala Feminist Forum is appended to ours. Both are translated by Gayatri Devi, a member of Althea.]
The way political parties and mainstream media in Kerala have framed the public discussion on the complaints against Rahul Mankoottathil comes as a real shock to anyone who sees Malayali women as citizens with equal rights and equal dignity, and to those who are committed to the welfare of children.
How saffron forces weaponise ignorance and stigmatise intellectauls
Silence gives consent
[Qui tacet consentire videtur – In Latin]
“Intellectual terrorists” are “more dangerous than cross-border terrorists”
These were the pearls of wisdom of the then Human Resource Development minister, who was addressing a conference of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (December 19, 2001). Murli Manohar Joshi had even asked the ‘nationalist youths’ to counter ‘both types of terrorism effectively.’
…It would be 25 years soon since these objectionable remarks were targeted at India’s topmost historians, scholars, public intellectuals, even provoking followers to deal with them effectively’ like the way they deal with ‘cross border terrorists.’
Later commenting on these controversial remarks, the legendary historian Romila Thapar had famously said: ‘And then the government fell. But the books continued!”
Time for Thought Police?
As everybody can see, there is a sea change in the situation since the past more than a decade in this part of South Asia…
…..The target of attacks has now become broader, more expansive and more unpredictable. It is no longer restricted to ‘leftist’ ‘progressive’ writers, historians.
The recent move to ban 25 books on Kashmir history at a single go ‘for propagating false narrative and secessionism‘ — written by a spectrum of national and international scholars — which even do not share a similar world view, books which had been in circulation for years, even decades together is a case in point.
I will share what I have learned about the process of transforming complex systems, the changes necessary in ideologies, and in the way in which public policies are being made, for India to progress towards its vision of poorna swaraj. The following points indicate an outline of the argument I plan to make in the talk:
• Global governance has broken down. The world is in disorder.
• India is strategically vulnerable. It is a long way off from its ‘tryst with destiny’ of poorna swaraj.
• India must become much more self-reliant, and less dependent on the US and China to protect its strategic autonomy. It must find its own democratic path to strengthen its society and economy. The US (and the West) cannot provide a blueprint.
• Development and progress are processes of learning.
• Nations are complex ‘self-adaptive’ systems.
• Power and wealth in a system accumulate by a process of cumulative causation.
• The process of change must be democratic for new ideas to emerge.
I have explained such ideas in my book, Reimagining India’s Economy: The Road to a More Equitable Society,published this year, and in some previous books.
About the Speaker:
Arun Maira is an eminent author, a strategic thinker and a former member of the Planning Commission of India. He had joined the Commission at the invitation of then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh himself. Mr. Maira has had a distinguished career as an enlightened business leader and management consultant. He worked as Executive Director on the Board of Tata Motors and later as the Chairman of Boston Consulting Group. He has authored many books including Transforming Systems: Why the World Needs an Ethical Toolkit; Transforming Capitalism: Improving the World for Everyone; Redesigning the Aeroplane While Flying: Reforming Institutions; Shaping the Future: A Guide for Systems leaders; and most recently, Reimagining India’s Economy: The Road to a More Equitable Society, published in June 2025.
As the ongoing livestreamed genocide in Gaza reaches its most despicable and horrendous phase of killing masses people through forced starvation, I am posting here a piece that I wrote for the art journal Art Deal last year. It was also delivered as a talk in a discussion organized by the All India Students’ Association (AISA) in JNU in September 2024.I am publishing it here with some minor additions/ changes.
Israelis watch the bombing of Gaza in picnic mode outside a town called Sderot, in 2014, nine years before October 7, 2023. Image courtesy Menahem Kahana, Agence France-Presse.
‘Israel told U.S. officials in 2008 it would keep Gaza’s economy “on the brink of collapse” while avoiding a humanitarian crisis, according to U.S. diplomatic cables published by a Norwegian daily on Wednesday.
Three cables cited by the Aftenposten newspaper, which has said it has all 250,000 U.S. cables leaked to WikiLeaks, showed that Israel kept the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv briefed on its internationally criticized blockade of the Gaza Strip.’
– Reuters, 5 January, 2011, Jerusalem.
I
No, it did not begin on 7 October 2023. Notwithstanding all the gaslighting by Israel and its guardians and arms-suppliers in the USA and Europe, the evidence says something else. The US cables leaked to Wikileaks show that not only had Israel been carrying out its genocidal activities for a very long time, its sponsors in the USA knew everything all along.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 