Ali Anwar: By amending Waqf law, government wants to grab land, not ensure Pasmanda representation
The creation of a Waqf is a religious process. How can a non-Muslim regulate it? Will you dare provide for non-Hindu membership on the board of a Hindu religious trust? Can you make such provisions for the Sikh religious trusts? An interview with Ali Anwar, former Rajya Sabha member and president of All India...
Ali Anwar: By amending Waqf law, government wants to grab land, not ensure Pasmanda representation
The creation of a Waqf is a religious process. How can a non-Muslim regulate it? Will you dare provide for non-Hindu membership on the...
Why isn’t there talk about what if Ambedkar had been India’s first prime minister?
Had India’s policies been designed from a bottom-up perspective, the remnants of the British colonial system would have been dismantled far more quickly. However,...
The Waqf law, and the Ashraaf failure to come to terms with democracy
The Islamophilic Ashraaf’s failure to come to terms with democracy has made them hopelessly prejudiced against Common Family Code. This Ashraaf failure coupled with...
K.K. Kochu and his struggle to redeem human dignity
One of the foremost Dalit thinkers of Kerala K.K. Kochu, 76, passed away on 13 March 2025. Historian Vinil Paul recalls his enduring contributions...
Economic redistribution through democratic politics
The modern version of redistributive politics is concerned with redistribution of income and other forms of material welfare. Caste census will play a decisive...
‘Dabba Cartel’: Amid drug trafficking, an exciting entanglement of class and gender questions
The women coming together to run a drug business disguised as a ‘dabba’ service has us wondering whether the old doctrine of class struggle...
A multifaceted approach needed to end witch-hunting in Jharkhand and other states
There is a pressing need for a comprehensive national law that criminalizes witch-hunting and ensures strict penalties for perpetrators. Providing communities with proper healthcare...
‘Girls Will Be Girls’ is a poetic journey through adolescence
Director Shuchi Talati’s decision to employ a predominantly female crew results in a perspective that feels authentically feminine without being performatively so, writes Neeraj...
Pro-upper-caste bias warps Left’s sense of history
Remaining in denial about the caste system obfuscates the identity of its victims and leads us to forget their struggles. It also creates a...
Looking back at Indian cinema in 2024 through an anti-caste lens
Together, ‘Thangalaan’, ‘Kottukkaali (The Adamant Girl)’, ‘Blue Star’ and ‘Vaazhai’ signify a transformative moment in Tamil cinema, using the medium to interrogate caste-based discrimination,...
Seminal role of Dalit-OBCs in development of language and literature
Scripts were invented by painters and sculptors, and not scholars. Not only in India but in civilizations the world over, paintings and sculptures predated...
‘Sahitya Akademi has brought itself honour by honouring Sanjeev’
In his more than a dozen novels, Sanjeev has depicted the reality of the post-Independence Indian society. The issues and topics that he has...
In his ‘Ambedkar: A Life’, Shashi Tharoor betrays his privileged-caste naivete
After coming out with ‘Why I Am A Hindu’, Tharoor has predictably set out to look for Ambedkar’s ‘flaws’ in his biography of Ambedkar,...
Phanishwar Nath Renu – who gave centrality to the toilers of ‘the provinces’
Renu took the genre of reportage to new heights in Hindi literature. No one has been able to match him to date. In his...
Rajesh Paswan: Criticism within Dalit Literature is still in its infancy
Our Dalit writers don’t take criticism well. They begin enquiring about the caste and ideology of the critic. They evaluate criticism on these parameters,...
Ambedkar’s insights and foresight remain deeply underappreciated
Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s vision of democracy transcended the simplistic notion of majority rule. He critiqued majoritarian democracy as a system that risked perpetuating the...
Raidas: A modern revolutionary thinker from the feudal medieval era
Raidas’ radical thinking and works didn’t get wider national and international acceptance. In fact, his modern vision wasn’t even accorded the place it deserved...
As Jharkhand turns 24, a reason to celebrate and a reality check
Jharkhand stands at a crossroads. The state must strike a balance between preserving its rich cultural heritage and meeting the demands of modernization and...
How Ambedkar began mobilizing for conversion 20 years before the event
Ambedkar said that religious conversion was no child’s play and that it couldn’t be achieved with merely political measures. It had to be realized...
Ambedkar’s hitherto unseen intercontinental-travel and census records, some of which expose baseless claims
A powerful, authoritative biography of Dr Ambedkar, one that is based solely on hard, verifiable evidence, and not hearsay, is yet to be written....