For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Arvind Bouddh Is India really a hindu-majority country? And is Hinduism really a religion? You may wonder why I am even asking such questions when they are already well established facts (wait, not facts but notions). Well, for you these are not notions but facts, for a person like me whose identity has always …
Kurukhetra Dip “Gandhiji, I have no homeland”, said Babasaheb Ambedkar during the 1930s when India was struggling for freedom from the British. Babasaheb further says, “how can I call this land my own homeland and this religion my own, wherein we are treated worse than cats and dogs, wherein we cannot get water to …
Ambedkar was for ‘(Pra)Buddh Bharat’, not ‘Hindu Bharat: What if all dalit-Bahujans of India embrace Buddhism! Sanjeev Kumar On 14th April, 2016, Rohith Vemula’s mother and brother embraced Buddhism. This of course is a major intervention in the ongoing dalit discourse on identity, nationalism, discrimination, caste and religion at large. To respond/appropriate this discourse, Ram Madhav …
Vinay Bhat “As long as caste in India does exist…and if Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Indian caste would become a world problem.” ~ Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development As part of the periodic textbook review process (which occurs every six years), the California State Board …
Harish S. Wankhede “The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind.” ~ Rohith Vemula Rohith Vemula is murdered. The Hindu caste psyche naturalizes the degraded social inequalities with such insensitivity that even …
Sundeep Pattem In the public discussion over the bans on cow meat in several states of India, a fundamental question is this: Should the bans exist in the first place? The argument can be settled quite succinctly as follows: Q. Is the cow an endangered species? Has any authority said it is in danger …
Dr. N. Sukumar Abstract Historically, the philosophical roots of the RSS can be located in German National Socialism and the former has constantly strived to live up to the ideals of its mentors. This is best illustrated when the RSS indulges in Goebbelsian doublespeak to further its exclusivist nationalism. A lie spoken repeatedly becomes the …
Bhanwar Meghwanshi For nearly four months they were subjected to social boycott, economic blockade and mental torture. They were not allowed to fill water from public taps, they couldn’t use the common space for defecation in the village, the only non-Dalit doctor had stopped their treatment, and they could not use the village land …
Nidhin Shobhana This essay is a response to the on-going strike in FTII against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the Chairman of the said Institute. I would contextualize the strike on a larger canvas called Brahmanism (not read as Hindutva1). In the essay I would make a modest effort to understand the term …