For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Durga Hole Recently, I was reading an academic paper ‘The Culture Industry Enlightenment as a Mass Deception’ by Adorno Theodor Horkheimer. The words were familiar to me but I was not able to understand the meaning of the sentences. I could not follow the flow of the language because I was stuck on individual words. …
Vinod Kumar I was writing something down, jotting down my thoughts about a certain incident, or perhaps, it was merely a random idea; it was a feeling I wanted to note down soon after having my breakfast. In the middle of recording my thoughts in English, I felt the urgent need to write a few …
Pranav Jeevan P Why is the assertion of Bahujans branded as identity politics based on caste, but the savarna assertions are termed as “culture”, “tradition” and “merit”? The dominance of rituals and performance of savarna hegemony is the sign of cultural penetration of caste hierarchies in all sections of society. It is the institutions which …
N Sukumar and Shailaja Menon The NEP 2020 has been rolled out amidst the Corona pandemic with the grandiose dreams of unleashing India’s potential as a world teacher (Vishwaguru). Ironically, a few months back police stormed the library of Jamia Millia Islamia, thrashed students and vandalized the reading space. No one knows when the culprits …
Mudasir Ali Lone This is in continuation of the Part 1 published here. Whenever someone tells me that there’s no caste in Kashmir (and I’m told that a lot), I can’t help but think of the terms that are part of our daily language, for example, Kaaluh Waatul (literal translation: black chamaar). It’s a …
Tejas Harad We don’t have to take special efforts to learn the language that’s spoken in our homes. Going to a school is not a precondition for a person to learn to speak and understand a particular language. But if one wishes to learn reading and writing, there is no option but to go …
Sumit Turuk “Language enforced by the upper castes of this country on the marginalized communities is just like the Vasuki snake from the Samudra manthan (churning of the ocean episode in Bhagvata Purana) where the Devas (the upper caste linguistic chauvinists) get all control over the wealth and riches (knowledge production, hegemony, perpetuation of …
Yogesh Maitreya When I reached the 7th Grade, my parents admitted me into a school that was run by a Hindu nationalist trust. Sanskrit, which was foreign to my tongue till then, became the compulsory language for my 7th grade curriculum. The teacher who was to teach us Sanskrit was a traditional Brahmin- a …
Yogesh Maitreya Language is one of the basic media to facilitate the expression of the mind. Yet, when a distinct form of it is spoken by a select group of people who are high up in the social hierarchy, it can become a tool to maintain cultural superiority. In the Indian context, it would …