Thought

Dismantling ‘Dalit’ with a Poisonous PIL

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Anand Teltumbde Will the removal of the “forward” scheduled castes from the list of SC reservations benefit the “backward” SCs? Recently a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed in the Supreme Court for excluding some five to 10 named castes and tribes from the list of the scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs) for the reason that they had …

Features

Indigenous technology of climate prediction among a Tamil Dalit community

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by Thamburaj Dharmaraj Valluvar community is referred extensively in ancient Tamil literature as ‘masters of astronomical calculations as well as predictions based on that’.  The author of the renowned classical Tamil text ‘Thirukkural’, Thiruvalluvar, is believed to be the offspring of this community.  Though it has valid literary and historical evidences of being a literate …

Thought

Playing village card

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Chandra Bhan Prasad How many Anna supporters are ready to live by his code? A leader’s actions or opinions are measured by his vision which he has acquired over a period of time. So, in a way the actions are context specific. We all know that same thing can have different meanings depending upon the …

Features

A Journey to Kundeshwar

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Ravindra Kumar Goliya  One must be wondering at the title: what is this place, why the journey? What is special about this place? Kundeshwar is a small village in Tikamgarh district in a backward area of Bundelkhand in Madhya Pradesh. It is special because of a boy named Bal Mukund Bharti who was the first …

Thought

Brahmanic Marxism

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Gail Omvedt [An excerpt from the chapter Navayana Buddhism and the Modern Age from her book Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and Caste] Apart from Gandhi, another strongly seductive opponent to the fascination for Buddhism emerged in the 1930s. This was Marxism, which was increasingly gathering strength as an ideology among the younger and militant …