For An Informed Ambedkar Age
JS Vinay “Be thy own light- Atta Deepa Bhava” ~ Buddha “You must abolish your slavery yourselves. Do not depend for its abolition upon god or a superman. Remember that it is not enough that people are numerically in the majority. They must be always watchful, strong and self-respecting to attain and maintain success. We …
Vidyasagar “He did not hit us because we vandalized the bus. No, he hit us because we stood tall. He hit me because I, Maadasamy’s son, was named Duryodanan.” ~ (Dialogue from Karnan) Karnan is a Tamil language film which was recently released on Amazon Prime. Karnan is the second movie directed by the Periyerum Perumal …
Karthick R M MSS Pandian was an exemplary Tamil scholar, but more importantly, he was a Dravidian scholar. What I mean by ‘Dravidian’ here does not denote an individual belonging to a region, ethnicity, nation or culture, but a way of socio-political thinking that lays emphasis on social justice, proportional representation, a form of …
Rajesh Rajamani Recently, when ‘Kabali’ director Pa Ranjith introduced ‘The Casteless Collective’, an initiative that attempts to politicize and mainstream ‘Gaana’ music (considered to be a musical form of the oppressed), he was accused of bringing caste into art. Popular Tamil singer Srinivas from the Iyengar community rubbished the initiative on his social media …
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 …
Rajesh Rajamani Kabali is a very good movie. (Warning: Spoilers ahead!) The movie effectively borrows several Rajinikant tropes and uses them meaningfully within the script. For example, Rajinikant’s movies almost always begin with an opening song. Where he introduces himself to the audience. No one knows why this is done. It’s quite a bizarre …
Trevor Jeyaraj “I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past.” – Brother Rohith Vemula A despairing man should have the devotion of his friends – (Job 6:14, Old Testament, The Bible) ~ I am trying to recuperate from the spiral of grief enforced on the students by the …
Kadhiravan Round Table India talked to Joe D’Cruz on 12th July, 2015. Joe D’ Cruz is a renowned Tamil writer, novelist, famous for his novels, Aazhi Soozh Ulagu, and Korkai. Joe D’ Cruz hails from the coastal village Uvari in Tamil Nadu and his novels and his works revolve around the life, struggle, history, culture, …
In recent weeks, the Tamil writer Perumal Murugan, who works as a Tamil Professor at the Government Arts College in Namakkal, has been the target of vicious attacks by some casteist forces due to the alleged ‘controversial’ content in his book ‘Madhorubagan’ (English translation: One Part Woman). Protests by some people (not identified as …