After having worked most of my life in a public university and research institute, I started teaching at Ashoka last year. So my response to the many commentaries on the ongoing debacle at this private university comes from being an outsider as well as an insider. This ‘squint-eyed perspective,’ as fellow-sociologist Satish Deshpande has described… Read More Amita Baviskar: Ashoka and After: The Universities We Believe In
Expressing disapproval of a government’s action “cannot be branded as an attempt to promote hatred between different communities”, the Supreme Court said Thursday while quashing an FIR against Patricia Mukhim, the editor of Shillong Times, over a social media post about an incident of assault on some non-tribal youth in Meghalaya last year. A bench of… Read More SC stands up for voicing disapproval, backs editor Patricia Mukhim
NB: Democratic rights are not presented to us on a platter by managements, howsoever liberal they portray themselves to be. Professor Rajendran Narayanan’s experience is evidence of that; as well as of the truism that our access to the justice and fair-play is directly linked to our socio-economic status. That is why workers, and even… Read More Rajendran Narayanan: What I learnt about power and privilege when I quit Ashoka in 2016 / Yogendra Yadav: No one is asking the right questions about Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s ouster from Ashoka University
Not many academics have studied Hindu nationalism with the intensity of Stanford University anthropologist Thomas Blom Hansen. The 63-year-old’s new book, The Law of Force: The Violent Heart of Indian Politics, argues that anger and brutality have become mainstream in public life and politics in India. The 176-page volume delves into what Hansen calls “the emergence of… Read More The Modi Government Is a Regime of Low-Intensity Terror. By Ullekh N.P.
The Singhu border seemed energised Tuesday as women and youths from Punjab and Haryana trickled in to mark Bhagat Singh’s death anniversary. The border, which has been relatively quiet for the past few days, saw a sea of first-time protesters. Among them was Ramanpreet Singh (23), a member of the Punjab Students Union (PSU), who… Read More Ashna Butani: At Singhu, a sea of first time protesters
NB: A very thoughtful piece by Jawed Naqvi. It would be welcome if the intellectuals who once were supportive of the BJP government and who have now turned critics of this regime, could tell us what they thought of the RSS in 2013 and why. Meanwhile I believe we must rethink our understanding of ‘parties’. We have… Read More Jawed Naqvi: Thank the left for the right
The Punjabi farmer has found it hard to escape the whirlpool of an ecologically unviable cropping pattern and its commercial entrapments created by the history of its past six decades. Despite Punjab’s meagre size, the region has remained an important constituent in the self-imagination of the Indian nation. The imprints of Punjab’s agrarian economy and… Read More Surinder S. Jodhka: Changing Modes of Agriculture in Punjab
The arrest in February of Disha Ravi, a 22-year-old member of the climate change organisation Fridays for Future (FFF) India, on charges including sedition and criminal conspiracy, and warrants issued against two members of Extinction Rebellion (XR) India, Nikita Jacob and Shantanu Muluk, have severely jolted innumerable climate activists, students, and other young people in… Read More Nagraj Adve: Coming of Age of India’s Youth Climate Movement
Social activists who were part of the JP movement, led by the political activist Jayaprakash Narayan in the 1970s, see echoes of that movement in the ongoing farmers’ protest. In March 1974, the JP movement began as a student-led protest in Bihar against unemployment, which soon gained Narayan’s support. The movement subsequently fought against corruption… Read More AKHILESH PANDEY – The farmers’ protest may grow into a second “total revolution”: JP movement activists
First posted March 22, 2021 NB: Appended below are documents which appeared in the public domain between March 17 and March 21. (The Joint Statement is curious for bearing the signatures of the two departing scholars, who apparently refer to themselves in the third person). The contrast between the content of the first three letters… Read More Ashoka University: Correspondence on Professor P. B. Mehta’s Resignation (2021)
