For An Informed Ambedkar Age
Rajesh Rajamani Has a know-it-all ISJW (Internet Social Justice Warrior) asked you to check your privilege? Did you misunderstand the statement and check the online dictionary to verify if the word is spelled as ‘privilege’ or ‘privelige’? Have you wondered why someone tagged you in a social media post that said: “When …
Kuffir My grandfather,The starvation deathWhich occurred during the drought when men were sold;My father,The migrant lifeWhich left home in search of work to pay off debt;I, in ragged shirt and shorts,The salute to the flag hoisted in school.* This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. It’s been over 25 years since …
Raju Chalwadi Affirmative action and Merit are two concepts on which every Indian has an opinion, especially, the former. Affirmative action policy is always seen in a negative light because of the ambiguity regarding the rationale for such a policy and its effect on social relations. And the term merit in the Indian context …
Kavita Bhanot [Excerpts from the talks given at SOAS and Manchester launch of Hatred in the belly: The politics behind the appropriation of Dr Ambedkar’s writings] For some years now, I’ve been thinking, talking about white supremacy, the ways in which it is present and normalised in every aspect of our lives in the …
Christina Thomas Dhanaraj “The oppressor is solidary with the oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor — when he stops making pious, sentimental, and individualistic gestures and …
Gaurav Somwanshi One of the grave problems with Indian academia, and the general discussions involving upper castes, has been that although we have had our share of Spivaks, Roys, Srinivases, Dipankar Guptas, Andre Beteilles and Gudavarthys, we’ve never really had any Peggy McIntosh. The one thing common among the former and latter is that …
Indrajit Roy As political commentators celebrate or bemoan the supposed change in the Indian polity with the ‘advent’ of Narendra Modi, it is important to highlight the fact that political parties were largely silent about social justice during the just-concluded elections. In fact, two of the largest political parties- the party that won the …
Nilesh Kumar My father was fortunate that there was a Government press just next to his work place. Once a presswala got to know that my father is an ardent reader of Ambedkarite literature. He started delivering Ambedkarite literature to him. When we had all this voluminous literature available at home, my father insisted …
Sreebitha P. V. “Today if my grandmother was alive she would have been ecstatic to see me as a bride but at the same time heart broken to see me not decked up in gold from head to toe!! From a very young age I knew I didn’t want to wear so much gold …