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The ABVP’s (Youth wing of the BJP) onslaught of terror and violence in Ramjas College, Delhi University should serve as an important reminder of the fundamentally anti-democratic nature of its parent organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and all its affiliates. We must not look at the (…)
In Gorakhpur, the power base of a firebrand monk, religious tension grows with Uttar Pradesh’s 40 million Muslims.
Pastor Ritesh Joshua had just called a tea break when he saw the men in the saffron scarves. More than a hundred, some wielding sticks, had massed outside his white stucco church (…)
Secular manifesto for change: Here’s how secularism must be reinvented to credibly challenge the Hindutva narrative
A Yogi Adityanath could not have been elevated to CM of the country’s largest state had there not been a complete hollowing out of secular values. For those of us who still have (…)
The central-government committee holds the activist ‘culpable for hatred-filled, disharmony-spreading, ill-will generating, enmity-creating explosive writings’.
The surgical strikes on Teesta Setalvad continue with the Bari report, and we should all be ashamed
Teesta Setalvad is under (…)
Capturing young minds by inflicting political ideology through textbooks.
History textbooks have often been at the centre of controversies, having had to carry the incredible burden of inculcating patriotism in students. Post independence, the project of nation-building all but spilled over (…)
In the current attack on Jawaharlal Nehru University one crucial aspect related to Indian mythology and its current interpretation came up to the fore. MHRD Minister Smriti Irani, while defending the actions of her government said that JNU is the den of anti national activities. Adding weight to (…)
Text of statement calling for People’s March in Defence of the Republic - 30 January 2016
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Call to All Secular Groups, People’s Movements People’s March in Defence of the Republic गणतंत्र की हिफाज़त में अवामी जुलूस
MANDI HOUSE TO JANTAR MANTAR [New Delhi]
Assemble at (…)
Indian liberalism makes a formidable claim: that the Republic is grounded in such a structurally elaborate and ideologically hegemonic liberal- democratic institutional framework that political forces of all hues are forced to consent to this framework, stake their claims and test out their (…)
An interview with one of India’s staunchest opponents of religious nationalism.
When India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power in last year’s elections , there was an abundance of media hype about the party’s purportedly huge mandate. Yet its 31 percent vote share was the lowest (…)
NEW DELHI : The celebration of Constitution day (November 26 2015) marked the revival of the debate, rather questioning of the concept of secularism, yet again. Rajnath Singh, the home minister repeated the arguments which the RSS parivar has been raising time and over again. He said that the (…)
It was in 1968 that the celebrated author Kamala Das wrote a short story titled ‘The Holy Cow’.
In that story, a hungry orphan boy managed to pick up a banana lying in a waste bin after shooing away a cow that had set its sights on the abandoned fruit. Soon, some sants appeared on the scene (…)
Killing a Rationalist: Silencing Reason
Ram Puniyani
September 9, 2015
The killing of Professor Maleeshappa Madhivallapa Kalburgi on 30th August 2015 came as a severe jolt to all those who are for an open, liberal society, who uphold the values of reason and are against blind faith. Prof. (…)
It is limiting to freeze the activist and her husband as the doughty fighters of secularism battling Hindutva, or the fearless defenders of pluralistic India.
From the time activist Teesta Setalvad took upon herself the onerous task of securing justice for the survivors of the 2002 Gujarat (…)
FROM THE ARCHIVE: How the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government was trying to ram through a Hindu sectarian agenda in culture and education in 1999.
(Praful Bidwai (1949-2015), a senior journalist and political commentator, passed away earlier this week on 23 June. Bidwai wrote extensively on (…)
On March 16th 2015, the Haryana Government unanimously passed Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan Bill with main opposition parties INLD and Congress supporting the Bill. The new bill passed by the Haryana Government bans cow slaughter and sale of beef and imposes a punishment of (…)
Perumal Murugan is an Indian author, scholar and literary chronicler who writes in Tamil. In January 2015, he announced that he is giving up writing after he came under attack for blasphemy from Hindutva and caste outfits for his novel “Madhurobhagan” which was first published in 2010 and (…)
Some commentators have deplored the conferment of India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, on Madan Mohan Malaviya, but many have welcomed its award to the Sangh Parivar’s first Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The latter include even Amartya Sen, himself a Bharat Ratna and Nobel (…)
The Sangh Parivar has made a habit out of raking up divisive issues which most people thought were settled at the time of Indian Independence or shortly thereafter. For instance, India adopted Parliamentary democracy in preference to the presidential system after much debate. But the unitarian, (…)
A hallmark of the Modi government’s first 200 days in office is the beginning of the Sangh Parivar’s Long March through the Institutions of the State, in particular bodies that deal with education and culture. The Parivar’s agenda is to influence their working to reflect its own specific brand (…)
Certain things stand out with clarity over the Khagragarh incident and its follow up. Two political parties, the TMC, ruling West Bengal, and the BJP, ruling at the Centre, are both bent on using it primarily, indeed almost entirely, for their party political agenda. And there is a real (…)
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