Apoorvanand

We need plenty of democracy in this hour, diverse voices and criticism of the government and the state to thrive. But Lenin found democracy superfluous and turned Russia, later the USSR, into a one-party state.

Just before the news of coronavirus infection broke out, the largely-Muslim gatherings in protest against the discriminatory citizenship law, NRC and NPR were blamed for the intensification of anti-Muslim bias among the Hindus.

Relief is not treated as the right of those who have been wronged. It is seen as an unnecessary burden on the state, which tries its best to evade it.

To criminalise protests by Muslims and disallow them to even speak is to tell them that they are not part of the democratic universe of India. For what is democracy if not the freedom to have a view which could be contrary to the mainstream?

There are two distinct features of the protests: The youth, mainly students, are from all religions and social backgrounds. The second feature is that while the Muslim presence is spontaneous, the effort to persuade others to join has met with little success.

To see the Congress’s compromise with the Shiv Sena, which was the first to have proudly claimed responsibility for the demolition of the Babri Masjid, was the last thing one could have imagined. By considering doing so, it has made it clear that the language of Hindutva will now be the common political language.

Indira Jaising won for all women of India, irrespective of religion, the rights of equal inheritance and guardianship of children, which neither their communities nor the state was willing to give.

People like Hany Babu, with the confidence of their scholarship and the integrity of their profession, can talk to the state with their heads held high. Statism cannot succeed as long as they are free.

It is beyond the capability of the faculty and students of the JNU to save it from an administration which is at war with it. It is the duty of the society, not only its alumni, who are in powerful positions to speak out but also those who have never been to it, for the very existence of spaces like JNU have helped us in thinking about possibilities which can become realities.

PM Modi has never backed his pious words about minorities with action. Much more than his followers, it’s the PM who needs to be watched.

Those baying for the blood of Sam Pitroda must also think about the need to remember and reflect on our history of mass violence and our own thoughtlessness towards it.

Bilkis Bano is the quintessential Indian our Constitution demands us to be. She may be unlettered but she understands the spirit of the Preamble. She understands the weight of the words, “We, the people of India”.

Islamophobia continues to run like blood in our veins. We share our lives with those who hate Muslims and yet claim to remain civilised. Unless we first recognise this duplicity, we would not be able to move towards getting rid of this disease.

Namvar Singh was inarguably the first and the only Hindi scholar and intellectual who commanded the respectful attention of luminaries from the world of social sciences and politics.

Impasse in Babri masjid case is better than ceding ground to a radical evil.

The court’s lament about the recurrence of mass violence and the absence of laws against it in the 1984 judgment needs to be heard.

A survey shows Indian campuses are more inclusive than before, but a lot of ground needs to be covered still

Government has forgotten that children have a first right to nation’s resources

A decade after anti-Christian violence took a toll, there are no signs of remorse

Congress must remember: When in doubt, stand with the persecuted.

The trolls that target Sushma Swaraj are a byproduct of her and her party’s politics

Optimism over Pranab Mukherjee addressing RSS meet is misplaced

Karl Marx envisioned a world where humans are not abstracted by societies or commodities

Let silence, the absence of language force us to look at crime non-poetically