Dilip Simeon First posted on March 24, 2015 NB: This paper appeared in a volume entitled Communalism in Post-colonial India Changing Contours; by Mujibur Rehman (ed; 2015). I discuss why our understanding of communal politics is constrained from the outset by the faulty concepts we use, which only serve to re-inforce communal ideologies. DS The Philosophy of Number [1]… Read More The Philosophy of Number
First posted January 20, 2016 The non-violent soldier of Islam, Bharat Ratna, died 28 years ago, on January 20, 1988. The assault on the university named after him in Pakistan is yet another attack on his legacy. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988) is better remembered in India as Frontier Gandhi, and in Pakistan as Bacha… Read More Mukulika Banerjee: Remembering Bacha Khan. The beleaguered legacy of Frontier Gandhi, Abdul Ghaffar Khan
First posted January 19, 2013 Once again art pushed the boundaries of diplomacy, just that much further. Pakistani theatre group Ajoka, who many believed had packed their bags and gone home, performed Saadat Hasan Manto’s Kaun Hai Yeh Gustakh to a packed auditorium on Saturday. At the end of the play, audience and members of the crew broke… Read More Delhi celebrates Pakistani play ‘Kaun Hai Yeh Gustakh’ (2013)
Anisha Dutta India may prevent the declassification of papers from 1947 related to Kashmir as it fears the “sensitive” letters could affect foreign relations, according to internal government documents seen by the Guardian. The letters, known as the Bucher papers, are believed to include political and military arguments for why India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, called… Read More GoI reluctant to declassify ‘sensitive’ 1947 Kashmir papers
Pakistan and National Unity is an important position paper of the Communist Party of India, and a far-reaching text in the history of the Indian communist movement. The resolution dated September 19, 1942 contains an outline of the CPI’s support for what it called the ‘just essence of the Pakistan demand’; and the Report by Gangadhar… Read More Communist Party of India’s resolution on Pakistan and National Unity, September 1942
NB: ‘Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’ – Big Brother, in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. DS What is the purpose of remembrance? Revenge? Remorse? Restitution? Reconciliation? Rekindling the dying embers of mindless hate? Reapportioning blame? Remembering? Or, reminding oneself, “never again”? Before asking our prime minister to… Read More Mani Shankar Aiyar – Partition: What does the prime minister want us to remember?
“Nobody in my family had ever gone through horrors of the Partition in particular as an actor in it but I never understood why I always felt deeply and was always lured by the stories, visuals or events of ’47. One of the biggest migration and movement that was forcibly acted upon the common people of… Read More Art & Experience Project on 1947: Undelivered. BY Guriqbal and Team
After the truth-shower 