For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Anu Ramdas “That which is not destroyed when the upadhis of time, space, and causation are destroyed, is Brahman, the immortal Reality.*” The foundational belief system of the Brahmins as per their own foundational texts is unapologetically supremacist. When confronted, one expects the present day brahmin with stakes in rational thought to readily agree …
Yogesh Maitreya 6th December every year means a lot to Dalits all over the world, many of whom have converted to Buddhism as well. Some of them are also a part of the Indian diaspora abroad and are forming a struggle against caste from their host countries. This day has significant importance in their …
Sinthujan Varatharajah When I wrote my piece for Round Table India, “Politicising the personal: Who am I, Who are ‘we’ as people?”, I wasn’t really sure what the repercussions will be of coming out as an inter-caste/Dalit to the outside. Of course I expected personal attacks and libel, which indeed followed in all predictable …
Sinthujan Varatharajah Few diasporans will today come to talk about how caste practices in regards to marriage respond to larger political dynamics and power relations. Endogamy, as the most common marriage practice amongst Hindus, necessarily leads to social exclusion and discrimination. Marriage is traditionally assumed to be the foundation of a political institution, the family. …
Sinthujan Varatharajah He sat down in the crammed living room of a flat in a low-income suburb in Toronto, Canada. Every weekend he would travel to the other end of the city to enter the 12th floor of a high rise complex in the immigrant area. He would arrive at 11 AM and sit …
Thenmozhi Soundararajan “A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself.” — Malcolm X Story. Story. Story is the shortest distance between two people. This piece of wisdom has stayed …
— Jason Keith Fernandes A couple of days ago, an interview, of the part-time Goa resident author Amitav Ghosh, with Lila Azam Zanganeh for the magazine Guernica created something of a storm of outrage. Ghosh had suggested in the course of conversation, that ‘one of the wonderfully liberating things about India; [is that] it lets …