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A Few Good Men: India’s hidden male feminists

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In The Good Men of India, New York Times contributor, Lavanya Sankaran, appears to have discovered a whole new way to generalize across class and gender:

the Common Indian Male, a category that deserves taxonomic recognition: committed, concerned, cautious; intellectually curious, linguistically witty; socially gregarious, endearingly awkward; quick to laugh, slow to anger

This Common Indian Male (CAM) is quite different from other Indian males you may have encountered, who are:

feral men, untethered from their distant villages, divorced from family and social structure, fighting poverty, exhausted, denied access to regular female companionship, adrift on powerful tides of alcohol and violent pornography, newly exposed to the smart young women of the cities, with their glistening jobs and clothes and casual independence — and not able to respond to any of it in a safe, civilized manner.

Fortunately, Ms Sankaran, spends little time with such impoverished men who wash up on the shores of her city from their “distant villages”. Ms Sankaran tends to hang out on planes “typical of budget air travel”. The men here are far more tolerable:

every other row seemed larded with these women and their babies. But those stuffy Indian businessmen — men of middle management, dodging bottles and diaper bags and carelessly flung toys — they didn’t grumble. Instead, up and down the plane, I saw them helping. Holding babies so that mothers could eat. Burping infants and entertaining toddlers. Not because they knew these women, but because being concerned and engaged was their normal mode of social behavior

Let’s pause for a music break that shows the many faces of the Common Indian Male:

 

Continue reading A Few Good Men: India’s hidden male feminists →

Bad ideas, Culture, Ecology/Environment, Empire/ Imperialism, Identities, Politics

A Night at the Pow Wow: Jay Desai

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This is a guest post by JAY DESAI

 

As I approached the brown fields at the foothills of the rugged San Bernardino Mountains, the rhythm of the foot- stomping grew into a crescendo. I was visiting the annual pow wow of the San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians.  Thousands of Natives from many of the 500 or so Indian nations of North America had gathered for three days of dance, song and celebration of their rich heritage. Above us, the autumn California sun had turned the barren high peaks into a shade of angry red at dusk. As the night fell, the enthusiasm of the dancers grew to match the vibrant colors of their traditional outfits and headdresses. My young niece, visiting from India, asked me if the dancers wore these dresses in their everyday lives and if yes, why she never saw them during her long travels through this vast country. She asked me if they were Americans. Continue reading A Night at the Pow Wow: Jay Desai →

Countryside, Culture, Law, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Violence/Conflict

पड़ोसी और अजनबी

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पड़ोसी कब पड़ोसी न रह कर अजनबी बन जाता है ? या वह हमेशा ही एक अजनबी रहता है जिस पर मौक़ा मिलते ही हमला करने में ज़रा हिचक नहीं होती ? हम अपना पड़ोस चुनते कैसे हैं? क्या पड़ोस मात्र एक भौगोलिक अवधारणा है? क्या जो भौगोलिक दृष्टि से हमारे करीब है, वही हमारा पड़ोसी होगा? पड़ोस चुनना क्या हमारे बस में नहीं? क्या पड़ोस कुछ–कुछ धर्म या भारतीय जाति की तरह है जिसके साथ जीवन भर जीने को हम बाध्य हैं? क्या पड़ोस का अर्थ हमेशा आत्मीयता ही है? क्या पड़ोस का मतलब एक दूसरे का ख़याल रखना,आड़े वक्त एक दूसरे के काम आना ही है? या यह रिश्ता अक्सर उदासीनता का होता है , जिसमें हमें दरअसल अपने पड़ोसी में दिलचस्पी नहीं होती? क्या इस उदासीनता के हिंसा में बदल जाने के लिए कोई भी कारण काफी हो सकता है? यह प्रश्न जितना शहर के सन्दर्भ में प्रासंगिक है उतना ही भारतीय गाँव के सन्दर्भ में भी पूछे जाने योग्य है. एक बार फिर, मुज़फ्फरनगर के गाँव में हुई हिंसा के बाद, पड़ोस के मायने पर बात करना ज़रूरी हो उठा है. Continue reading पड़ोसी और अजनबी →

Countryside, Ecology/Environment, Law, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Right watch

Laxmanpur Bathe, Then and Now: Monobina Gupta

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Guest post by MONOBINA GUPTA

I remember a chill running down my spine that early afternoon in 1998. I was standing at Laxmanpur Bathe – the site of a cold-blooded massacre a year ago. Then a reporter with The Telegraph, I was touring Bihar, reporting on the 1998 general elections, less than two years after the United Front government came to power. Bihar was then firmly under the thumb of the redoubtable Lalu Prasad. Tensions between the Maoist Coordination Committee (MCC) and the Ranvir Sena, a private army of upper caste landlords, were running high. Every reporter visiting the area had been advised by the district magistrates concerned not to travel after sundown. Newspapers in Delhi were full of stories about Bihar’s lawlessness, extortions and abductions even in broad daylight.

I had read details of that deadly night in the newspapers; and then of the sudden trips made by VIP cavalcades to the village in the aftermath of the bloodbath. The massacre had pitched the forgotten hamlet of Dalits into the glaring spotlight. Crowds of politicians and media descended on the spot, even as the grief stricken survivors were struggling with the shock of the attack and the terrible loss of their loved ones. Continue reading Laxmanpur Bathe, Then and Now: Monobina Gupta →

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भारत की बालविवाह उन्मूलन के प्रति प्रतिबद्धता पर प्रश्नचिन्ह ? : किशोर

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Guest Post by Kishor Jha

 

पिछले दिनों भारत ने संयुक्त राष्ट्र मानव अधिकार कौंसिल द्वारा बाल विवाह और जबरन विवाह के खिलाफ पेश किये गए प्रस्ताव का सह प्रायोजक बनने से इनकार कर दिया.यह प्रस्ताव संयुक्त राष्ट्र संघ में अपने किस्म का पहला वैश्विक प्रस्ताव था जिसमे बाल विवाह, कम आयु में विवाह और जबरन विवाह के पूर्णतः उन्मूलन और इसे 2015 के बाद अंतर्राष्ट्रीय विकास के अजेंडे में लाने की बात कही गयी थी. 

गनीमत यह है कि ये प्रस्ताव सर्वसहमति से पास हों गया और भारत के इसका विरोध करने की नौबत नहीं आई जैसा कि कुछ अख़बारों ने लिखा था. लेकिन फिर भी ऐसे प्रस्ताव का सह प्रायोजन ना करना भारत की बाल विवाह के खिलाफ मुहीम पर कई प्रश्न खड़े करता है जिसका जवाब उसको देना होगा.

भारत दुनिया भर में बाल विवाह की राजधानी की तौर पर जाना जाता है. दुनिया भर में हुए 6 करोड बाल विवाहों में से 40% बाल विवाह हिंदुस्तान में हैं यानेकि 2.4 करोड़ बाल विवाह हमारे देश में हुए है जो संख्या के हिसाब से दुनिया भर में सबसे अधिक हैं भारत में 20 से 24 वर्ष आयुवर्ग की महिलाओं के बीच हुए सर्वे के नतीजो के अनुसार 46% महिलाओं की शादी 18 वर्ष की उम्र से पहले कर दी गयी थी और 18% की 15 वर्ष से पहले. Continue reading भारत की बालविवाह उन्मूलन के प्रति प्रतिबद्धता पर प्रश्नचिन्ह ? : किशोर →

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The Paradoxes of a More Tolerant World : Vishesh Agarwal

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Countryside, Excavation, Government, Law, Media politics, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Nobody Killed the 58 People Who Died in Laxmanpur Bathe on 1 December 1997: Dipankar Bhattacharya

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Guest Post by Dipankar Bhattacharya

Predictably enough, the Patna High Court has acquitted all the 26 persons convicted by the trial court in the Laxmanpur-Bathe massacre case. This is the fourth successive instance of wholesale acquittal of convicts by the Patna High Court in cases of massacre of the oppressed rural poor in Bihar. Once again eye witness accounts have been dismissed as being not fully credible and convicts granted acquittal on ‘benefit of doubt’. The judges could not however disprove the fact that 58 people had been killed and post-mortems done, and hence they asked the trial court to calculate the compensation payable to the nearest kin of the victims as per relevant provisions the Motor Vehicles Act on the basis of the minimum wage prevalent in the area at the time of the massacre. They of course did not forget to add that any ex gratia paid after the massacre should be deducted from the amount of compensation!

Continue reading Nobody Killed the 58 People Who Died in Laxmanpur Bathe on 1 December 1997: Dipankar Bhattacharya →

Everyday Life, Excavation, Frontiers, Government, Identities, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Violence/Conflict

A tale of two passports, the year 1979, and walking to India: Fawzia Naqvi

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Guest Post by Fawzia Naqvi

For the first time Pakistan’s elected President has completed his full five-year term and has willingly stepped down to transfer power to another elected President, a herculean achievement for a country with chronic dictatoritus.  The people of Pakistan must be congratulated for ensuring that democracy becomes an enduring grace and not just a good idea in some unforeseeable future.  So while there is earsplitting cacophony of debate and disagreement on virtually all issues, there is near unanimous political consensus that the army should remain in the barracks and that there should be peace with India. The time is now. And Pakistanis have accomplished this in an era when Pakistan is suffering its worst hellish nightmare of daily bombings and killings by terrorists, and a loss of over 40,000 of its own citizens in the last decade or so.  Pakistan teeters on the precipice of a very dark abyss, and has been inching ever closer to this dangerous edge for the last 34 years if not more. The first disturbing sign which I can remember was when the state institutionalized bigotry by officially declaring the Ahmadi community non-Muslim in 1974, opening up a hornets nest of discrimination, violence and unequal citizenship.  A tragic disaster, and fatal capitulation to right wing elements, by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. No one is really safe in today’s Pakistan but clearly those less safe, those hunted and killed are the Shias, the Christians, the Ahmadis and the Hindus. Those doing the killings have given insidiousness to the meaning of “the land of the pure.”

Continue reading A tale of two passports, the year 1979, and walking to India: Fawzia Naqvi →

Capitalism, Countryside, Ecology/Environment, Empire/ Imperialism, Movements

Indian Government needs to differentiate the real vs false solutions in agriculture this World Food Day : Neha Saigal

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This is a guest post by NEHA SAIGAL

 

It is well-recognized globally that hunger and malnutrition are serious issues, but even after years of failed attempts by world leaders to try and solve this complex problem there has been little change. In 2009 for the first time in history the population considered to be malnourished exceeded one billion people signalling the serious issue of food insecurity we are faced with. In an effort to bring this serious issue to the forefront, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations marks 16 October every year as ‘World Food Day’. Continue reading Indian Government needs to differentiate the real vs false solutions in agriculture this World Food Day : Neha Saigal →

Everyday Life, Government, Identities, Right watch

Voting with their feet – Religious conversion as a democratic right

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Voting with one’s feet:  to express one’s dissatisfaction with something by leaving, especially by walking away.

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More than 1 lakh Dalits and tribal Hindus converted to Buddhism in May 2007 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar’s conversion, in what is considered the largest mass conversion in the country

What business is it of any government if I want to convert from one religion to another? Why should I seek permission from, or inform the government that I intend to follow a different god or gods from the one/s I was taught to worship from birth? There is absolutely no justifiable basis for the various anti-conversion laws in India, every one of which should be struck down as anti-constitutional.

Recently, Godie Osuri commented on the paradox of anti-conversion legislations being named ‘Freedom of Religion’ Acts when in fact they entail religious unfreedom.  And so they do. The Gujarat government has ordered a probe into the mass conversions of Dalits to Buddhism at Dungarpur village in Junagadh district last Sunday (October 12, 2013). Why? Because under the state’s Freedom of Religion Act of 2003, it is mandatory for the organizers to have taken prior permission. Turns out that the organizers did in fact inform the authorities, who provided facilities such as an ambulance, microphone and so on. It is clear that this ‘probe’ is a belated and panic stricken response from the Gujarat government upon realizing how great the Dalit response was to the event.

Continue reading Voting with their feet – Religious conversion as a democratic right →

Bad ideas, Debates, Everyday Life, Government, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Courage is silent and Stoic – Tortured in Kashmir: Aditya Prakash

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Guest post by ADITYA PRAKASH

The following is a narrative of a torture victim I gathered during my time in Kashmir as a researcher. The person interviewed was tortured by the 2nd Dogra regiment of the Indian Army.

Where is your gun?

On the night of 28th October 1991, the 2nd Dogra Regiment of the Indian Army was conducting interrogations in Palhallan. Palhallan is a large village in the Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir.

People suspected of having links with terrorists were interrogated. The women and men were asked to come out of their homes. The women were asked to gather at the local dargah (shrine) and the men were lined up in the village school.

A major from the 2nd Dogra handpicked Manzoor Ahmad Naikoo to step forward. Others were also short listed for interrogation. Manzoor was taken inside the school and forced to strip. He was made to sit on a chair. His hands were fastened to his back.

‘Taaki main kuch na kar sakoon’

He was completely immobilized. The army personnel then asked him for his gun. Manzoor Ahmad said he had no gun. He tried to convince them that he was a shopkeeper and never owned a gun. Continue reading Courage is silent and Stoic – Tortured in Kashmir: Aditya Prakash →

Culture, Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life, Identities, Violence/Conflict

Dilemma of Indian Muslims After Partition: Yasmin Qureshi

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Guest post by YASMIN QURESHI. Excerpts from this essay were read at an event organized by the Partition Archives project in Berkeley earlier this year.

Abbu’s family, like many other Muslims in India was torn between staying in their ancestral land and going to the new country founded for Muslims. The call for Pakistan and the Muslim League movement was more prominent in the elite or educated classes. For Abbu’s family it was a distant idea and life outside Dilli was inconceivable. But the partition wave didn’t leave them untouched and a few family members including Abbu migrated to Lahore. Lahore was chosen because they had heard it was similar to Dilli. A year in Lahore was enough for them to realize their heart was still in Dilli. Ghalib ki galiyan, echoes of azaans from Jama Masjid, pigeons flying above their roofs and the aroma of korma brought them back to the home their father had built.

The conflict of choosing between the newly founded nation states of India and Pakistan divided many families. Some of Abbu’s relatives shuffled between the two for many years till they were forced to make a choice by the governments in the 1960s. His elder sister’s family and a few other nieces and nephews decided to become Pakistani citizens.

For Muslims that stayed in India, the next few decades were years of fear and subjugation. Communal violence, often organized and manufactured by political parties or the right wing Hindu organization, RSS throughout the 1960s in cities where Muslims were in large numbers was a threatening message to the Muslims that if they choose to stay here they would have to live as a silenced minority with a constant reminder they were guilty of dividing India. Continue reading Dilemma of Indian Muslims After Partition: Yasmin Qureshi →

Centre watch, Debates, Genders, Government, Identities, Law, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Securing Justice for Rape Survivors from Kashmir and Northeast is An International Human Rights Crisis: Ayesha Pervez

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Guest Post by AYESHA PERVEZ

The events preceding the recent death sentence awarded to the rapists of December 16th  Delhi gang rape case from 2012 have certainly broadened  the canvas of discourse on sexualized violence in India. Not only was the institutional sexism that pervades India’s criminal justice system been challenged, but also patriarchal values and norms that sanction and reinforce gender biases were openly questioned.  It was remarkable to watch the unprecedented outpouring from the Indian citizenry from all across  which resulted in the decision of the government to constitute a committee which had the mandate for recommending amendments to the Criminal Law. Recommendations by the Justice Verma Committee in early 2013, undoubtedly paved a way for much needed reform of laws and criminal justice practices relating to crimes of sexual violence. However, this was not true for all the survivors of sexual violence, particularly from the “disturbed” peripheral states of India. For the victims and survivors of sexualized violence from the conflict zones of India – Jammu and Kashmir and Northeast, the discourse ended uneventfully with a reserved/muted  submission of the Committee’s report to the government. Continue reading Securing Justice for Rape Survivors from Kashmir and Northeast is An International Human Rights Crisis: Ayesha Pervez →

Debates, Ecology/Environment, Genders, Identities, Language, Left watch

Jazeera in Delhi: Who Can Speak Against the Sand Mafia? : Bindu Menon M

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This is a guest post by BINDU MENON M

Jazeera V, who began her fight against sand mining mafia in Kerala one and a half years ago in the North Kerala coastal hamlet Neerozhukkumchal, is now on a sit-in, in front of the Kerala House near Jantar Mantar New Delhi.  She had first approached the village office, the local panchayat, police station, the district authorities and Kerala State government with the appeal to stop sand mining in the beach which grossly violated the Coastal Zone regulations. Ridiculed by the local media and intimidated and physically assaulted by the supporters of the sand mining mafia, she sat in front of Kerala State Secretariat for several weeks before moving to Delhi.  She demands that the central government should immediately take action against the gross violation of laws for protecting the coastal zones. Her struggle in front of the Kerala secretariat at Thiruvananthapuram for 68 days against the inaction of Kerala Government forced Chief Minister Oommen Chandy to invite her to his chamber for discussion. Although he assured her that he would take necessary actions against sand mining on the coast, he was reluctant to give her any written reply. She finally decided to shift her sit in from Kerala to Delhi in protest of Chief Minister’s callous attitude.

Continue reading Jazeera in Delhi: Who Can Speak Against the Sand Mafia? : Bindu Menon M →

Culture, Everyday Life, Feminism, Movements

Storm in a Calm IIT Campus Over a Sexual Harassment Case: Pronoy Rai

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Guest post by PRONOY RAI

The serene, picturesque campus of the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati has been witnessing some very noteworthy events in the recent past. According to reports in the popular media, a professor at the institute’s biotechnology department was accused of sending obscene text messages to his PhD student over her phone. Though the professor pleaded innocence, claiming that messages were sent from his sim card that was stolen, the local police found this hard to believe. The professor has also been accused of harassing the student during other instances on campus. Upon receiving the advice of the ‘Working Women’s Committee’ of the institute, the professor was recently suspended. This narrative constructs for us a simple, fair story of a just state-society system. A person breaks the law, and he is disciplined, as one would expect in a fair democratic society. If only that was the case.

The suspension of the professor was not immediately followed by the submission of the report, let alone the filing of complaint at the institute and with the local police. On August 13, Amingaon police in Assam arrested the professor for sending obscene text messages to a student. The arrest happened because the student had to file a FIR in order to request a telecom company to reveal the identity of the owner of the phone, from where the obscene messages being sent to her, were emanating. The delay in the inaction of the institute administration is unjustified, but perhaps not very inexplicable. Continue reading Storm in a Calm IIT Campus Over a Sexual Harassment Case: Pronoy Rai →

Bad ideas, Countryside, Law, Media politics, Violence/Conflict

The Nation did not want to know about Laxmanpur Bathe and that is why Sachin Tendulkar is ‘God’

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Searching for Laxmanpur Bathe in Times Now
‘No Results Found’ on Searching for Laxmanpur Bathe in Times Now on the night of Oct 12-13, 2013

In a country where the bloodthirsty rhetoric of ‘hang them, shoot them’, an ‘eye for an eye’ and ‘their heads for our heads’ is heard so regularly, and so loudly on prime time television, we were greeted by an odd and chilling silence in the course of this week. It wasn’t for a lack of noise, vendetta laced sound-bytes, storms in tea-cups, or of talking heads.

Continue reading The Nation did not want to know about Laxmanpur Bathe and that is why Sachin Tendulkar is ‘God’ →

Bad ideas, Politics, Right watch

India First and the BJP anti-conversion platform: Goldie Osuri

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Guest Post by GOLDIE OSURI

We seem to live in an age where paradoxes become parodic simplifications in the seemingly global race to support all manner of fascist majoritarian nationalisms. I recently saw a youtube video, where P.P. Hegde of the NaMo Brigade linked the meaning of Namo Namaha—the letting go of ego in meditation—to the image of a giant saffron-vested image of Narendra Modi.

Namo Namaha. Literally, not-me, not my ego-self. Linked to a giant PR machine promoting an individual, the face of Hindutva fascism, nothing but ego. The lack of an ironic sensibility in such campaigns is perhaps sadly characteristic of our time.

Similarly anti-conversion campaigns targeting Christians seem paradoxical and parodic in their demand for Acts of Religious Freedom which literally entail religious unfreedom. Recently, the BJP leader of Andhra Pradesh, Venkaiah Naidu stated that the ‘BJP will bring an anti-conversion law to ban religious conversions in the country if it is voted to power in 2014 General Elections’. 

Continue reading India First and the BJP anti-conversion platform: Goldie Osuri →

Bad ideas, Government, Images, Law, Media politics

Thejas Daily: A Newspaper’s Encounters with the Ruling Powers : N P Chekkutty

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This is a guest post by N P CHEKKUTTY

In normal circumstances, journalists are not people in the limelight– they are supposed to be the first witnesses to history in the making. Their role is as observers of incidents and purveyors of what goes on in the public sphere. And they discharge their duties as representatives of the citizens, generally enjoying the public confidence. That explains the key role of media in a democratic polity, as representatives of the various segments of people and as a forum where a dispassionate debate of public issues can take place. Like the Red Cross personnel on a war front, media-persons are expected to do their job without hindrance of harassment, keeping away from the sound and fury of public life.  Continue reading Thejas Daily: A Newspaper’s Encounters with the Ruling Powers : N P Chekkutty →

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डी डी कोसांबी पर भगवा हमला: कुलदीप कुमार

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Guest post by KULDEEP KUMAR

कुलदीप कुमार की यह पुस्तक समीक्षा समयांतर के अक्तूबर २०१३ अंक में छपी थी. इस विषय में चूँकि हमारी ख़ास दिलचस्पी है, लिहाज़ा, इसे हम यहाँ अपने पाठकों के लिए पेश कर रहे हैं.

कोसांबी: कल्पना से यथार्थ तक, लेखक भगवन सिंह, आर्यन बुक्स इंटरनेशनल; पृ. ४०१, मूल्य: रु ७९५/-

हड़प्पा सभ्यता और वैदिक सभ्यता को एक ही मानने वाले भगवान सिंह ने अंतर्राष्ट्रीय ख्याति के गणितज्ञ, विद्वत समाज में समादृत संस्कृतज्ञ एवं प्रसिद्ध मार्क्सवादी इतिहासकार दामोदर धर्मानंद कोसंबी पर एक पुस्तक लिखी है ‘कोसंबी: कल्पना से यथार्थ तक’। 401 पृष्ठों की इस पुस्तक को आर्यन बुक्स इन्टरनेशनल, पूजा अपार्टमेंट्स, 4 बी, अंसारी रोड, दरियागंज, नई दिल्ली-2 ने इसी वर्ष छापा है और इसका मूल्य 795 रु॰ है।

पुस्तक के ब्लर्ब में कहा गया है: “कोसंबी का नाम दुहराने वालों की कमी नही, उन्हें समझने का पहला प्रयत्न भगवान सिंह ने किया। वह कोसंबी के शिष्य हैं परंतु वैसे शिष्य जैसे ग्रीक परंपरा में पाए जाते थे।” इन दो वाक्यों में दो दावे किए गए हैं। पहला यह कि भगवान सिंह से पहले किसी ने भी कोसंबी को समझने का प्रयास नहीं किया, और दूसरा यह कि वह कोसंबी के शिष्य हैं, वैसे ही जैसे ग्रीक परंपरा में हुआ करते थे। कोसंबी के इस स्वघोषित शिष्य के अपने “गुरु” के बारे में क्या विचार हैं, यह जानना दिलचस्प होगा। भगवान सिंह कोसंबी के बारे में श्रद्धा से भरे अपने उद्गार कुछ यूं व्यक्त करते हैं: “…वह आत्मरति के शिकार थे, उन्हें अपने सिवाय किसी से प्रेम न था, न अपने देश से, न समाज से, न भाषा से, न परिवार से। उनका कुत्ता अवश्य अपवाद रहा हो सकता है। इसीलिए लोग उनसे डरते भले रहे हों, उन्हें कोई भी प्यार नहीं करता था। उनके अपने छात्र, पत्नी और बच्चे तक नहीं।” (पृ॰ 120) Continue reading डी डी कोसांबी पर भगवा हमला: कुलदीप कुमार →

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Communal Violence in Khirkiya, Harda, Madhya Pradesh: Report of a Fact Finding Team

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Khirkiya, district Harda, witnessed communal violence on 19th September when Muslim majority residents of the area came under direct attack by a frenzied mob of activists of Hindutva formations. The immediate pretext for the attack was the death of a cow in the area, which was blamed on the Muslims.

A seven member team comprising of activists, journalists visited the area on 27th September, met the victims there and also met representatives of district administration.According to it the spontaneous sounding violence was pre-planned and was aimed at terrorising the minority community.It is part of the larger fascist agenda of RSS-BJP and meant to polarise people on religious lines before the elections. It felt that if the administration had shown spine the ensuing violence could have been avoided. 

Read the full report here : http://nsi-delhi.blogspot.in/2013/10/blog-post_9550.html

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How Modi Views Untouchability: Dissecting the ‘Toilets First, Temples Later’ Debate

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Narendra Modi, would not have imagined that his exhortation that ‘toilets first, temples later’ at a Delhi conclave would not only generate a debate within the saffron fraternity but would also bring back focus on the pathetic situation of sanitation in his home state itself. And the ensuing discussion would also transcend to his controversial ideas about untouchability – the social-religious practice based on the logic of purity and pollution which has marginalised, terrorised and relegated a section of Indian society to a life marked by humiliation and indignity. Continue reading How Modi Views Untouchability: Dissecting the ‘Toilets First, Temples Later’ Debate →

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