For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Gail Omvedt (Written in November 2003) M V Nadkarni’s recent article “Is Caste System Intrinsic to Hinduism?: Demolishing a Myth”, (EPW, November 8, 2003) comes as a follow-up to his earlier article “Ethics and Relevance of Conversions: A Critical Assessment of Religious and Social Dimensions in a Gandhian Perspective” (Januay 18). Both articles show the fundamental stamp of Hindutva ideology, …
(This interview was published in January, 2001, in Rediff.com) Dr Kancha Ilaiah, associate professor of political science at Hyderabad’s Osmania University, is known for his fierce attacks on Hindu religious and political leaders. In 1996, his first book Why I am not a Hindu was accused of inflaming communal passions. Last month, he published another …
Ajith Kumar A S At Vellayambalam junction in Trivandrum, Ayyankali stands in the centre. We have to circle the Ayyankali square to get to our destinations. The heavy traffic in the junction may not help us to take a passing glance at the statue most of the time. But our politics would. That could never …
Braj Ranjan Mani The tyranny of capitalism in India cannot be grasped, let alone resisted, in isolation from its wider social context. Capitalism is far more dangerous in India than in the Euro-America because of the culture and economics of caste. Today, India (after China and the US) has the world’s third largest middle class …
Braj Ranjan Mani Intellectual compromise of the best gives rise to the worst. Amartya Sen’s sanitised, caste-blind perspective on social unfairness, Hinduism and Indian culture, despite the show of reason, eclecticism and inclusive sensibility, is a gross distortion of historical reality, and a classic example of the limitation—and danger—of elitist liberalism. Amartya Sen is India’s …
Shiva Shankar (Talk presented at the conference on ‘Dr.Ambedkar and the Modern Buddhist World’, Nagaloka, Nagpur, October, 2006) Dear Friends, We all learn early that in 250 BC the Mauryan king Ashoka waged and won a cruel war with the neighbouring kingdom of Kalinga, yet when he went to inspect his spoils, it was not triumphant glory …
V. Ratnamala The history of the press in India is the history of the freedom movement in the country. To a great extent, the Indian National Congress owed its popularity and position to the Indian press (Mazumdar, 1993). The history of the freedom movement happened to be the history of Congressmen. Hence the …
(The following is the text of a speech on Babasaheb Ambedkar delivered by the former President K.R. Narayanan at the Babasaheb Ambedkar Institute of Research and Training, Bombay in 1979) I am happy and honoured to be here on the auspicious occasion of the birthday of Dr B.R. Ambedkar. Babasaheb Ambedkar was one of the …
Kancha Ilaiah [This article was first published in two parts, ‘A paradigm shift called Kanshi Ram’ and ‘Dalits and the horizontal ladder’, in 2003; we have combined the two parts into one single piece of writing. We, along with our readers, celebrate the memory of Manyawar Kanshi Ram on his birth anniversary- Round Table …