A Letter to Pranshu
Dear Pranshu, I didn’t know you before your suicide on November 21, 2023. I saw your Diwali reel in which you wore a saree – you looked beautiful. I don’t…
Yanis Iqbal
Educational Fantasies in a Dystopian Conjunture
On August 24, 2023, in a private school in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, teacher Tripta Tyagi instructed students to take turns hitting a fellow student, who was of the Muslim faith…
Deconstructive Praxis and the Politics of Independence
On August 15, 2023, India will celebrate its 77th Independence Day. However, back in 1947, Tamil Nadu saw this day marked by black flags and black shirts. For Periyar, political…
Celebrating Insurgent Love on Valentine’s Day
In India, Valentine’s day is the time when patriarchal authorities can exercise the powers of moral policing that they have bestowed upon themselves. Acting under the banner of Indian civilization,…
Digital Femininity and Indian Patriarchy
In India, the hegemonic discourse on girls’ engagement with social media has been fixed on the way they are using digital tools to express their sexuality and construct visual intimacies.…
A Feminist Defense of Urfi Javed
Indian actress and social media influencer Urfi Javed has said that she is facing difficulties in finding a home on rent in Mumbai for being “single,” “Muslim” and an “actress”.…
How India’s “Exam Warriors” have Promoted Majoritarianism
The Manipal Institute of Technology in Karnataka has suspended an assistant professor after a video showing a Muslim student powerfully criticizing him for calling him by a terrorist’s name went…
Allama Iqbal: Religion and Revolution
November 9, 2022, was the 145th birth anniversary of Allama Muhammad Iqbal – a globally renowned South Asian Muslim poet, and philosopher. The contemporary period of renewed cultural atavisms has…
The Patriarchal Regulation of Female Sexuality in India
Since the beginning of 2022, more than 650 serious crimes have been reported against women in India. This statistic encapsulates various egregious crimes that include rape, assault on women, kidnapping…
The Colombian Left’s Fight against Neoliberal Hegemony
In Colombia, the Historic Pact presidential ticket is favored to win the May 29, 2022, national elections, with between 37.9% to 48% of votes, according to various opinion polls. Historic…
Revisiting Lenin’s Views on Religion on his 152nd Birth Anniversary
Fascist groupings and their associated policies of religio-fanaticism are in the ascendant throughout the world. While some are emerging from the political peripheries - slowly but steadily gaining traction on…
The Absurdity of School Haircut Rules
The school in which I study has been harshly trumpeting the need to unthinkingly follow strict rules regarding hair. While boys have been ordered to keep their hair short, girls…
Russia’s Role in the Ukraine Conflict
On March 21, 2022, Gilbert Achcar – a Professor at SOAS University of London – published a note on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, openly wishing for a North Atlantic Treaty Organization…
The Absolute Irrationality of Exams
The results of Term 1 exam of class X have been declared. As a student myself, I can intensely feel how the educational atmosphere is laden with the brute bulkiness…
Finding a Solution to the Conflict in Ukraine
In a global atmosphere dominated by war hysteria, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s call for peace in Ukraine has been sidelined. On March 7, 2022, he said that “those who provoked…
Interpreting Karnataka’s Hijab Row
In Karnataka, there have been incidents of Muslim girls being banned from attending college for wearing hijab; when they insisted on exercising their right to do so, Hindu students donned…
A Feminist Perspective on Karnataka’s Hijab Row
In an order that legitimizes the decision of state education institutions to prohibit Muslim girl students from wearing the hijab (headscarf), the Karnataka government said on February 5, 2021, that…
The Civic Character of Indian Nationalism
With the rise of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the intellectual defense of cultural nationalism has taken on a new significance. One of its sophisticated iterations consists of the…
A Short History of the US-Pakistan Relationship
On January 10, 2022, National Security Advisor (NSA) Moeed Yusuf said, “It [Pakistan] is still not [free from US influence] and I doubt that there is any country which is free…
Chile’s Process of Change
The 2021 presidential election in Chile has resulted in the victory of the left candidate Gabriel Boric. With nearly 56% of the vote, he has won by a margin of…
Left-wing Victory in Chile
The 2021 presidential election in Chile has resulted in the victory of the Left candidate Gabriel Boric. With nearly 56% of the vote, he has won by a margin of more than…
Miss Universe: A Symbol of Our Social Wreckage
On December 13, 2021, Miss Universe crowned its 70th winner: Harnaaz Kaur Sandhu, bringing the title home to India after 21 years, the last being by Lara Dutta in 2000.…
The Hollowness of India’s Education System
In its Term 1 sociology test for Class 12 students - held on December 1, 2021 - the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) included a question asking which political…
The Logic of Hegemony
On September 8, 2021, at least five media houses and six offices of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)) were vandalized in three of Tripura’s eight districts by the ruling Bharatiya Janta…
Senseless Violence in Afghanistan
On August 26, 2021, a terrorist attack struck the area outside of the US-occupied Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), a regional offshoot of…
Remembering Afghanistan’s Revolutionary Experiment
After assuming power in Kabul, the Taliban has tried to soften its extremist image. In a press conference on August 17, 2021, the group’s spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said, inter alia, that they…
Ashraf Ghani and the Fate of Afghanistan
On August 11, 2021, Pakistan’s Prime Minster Imran Khan said, “I tried to persuade the Taliban... three to four months back when they came here…The condition is that as long…
The Unabated Oppression of Women under Capitalism
According to International Labour Organization’s (ILO) July 2021 policy brief, “Building Forward Fairer: Women’s rights to work and at work at the core of the COVID-19 recovery”: “Globally, between 2019…
USA Only Knows the Language of Militarism
On July 27, 2021, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin - amid a diplomatic standoff with China - said: “We will not flinch when our interests are threatened. Yet we…
Remembering Comrade Harkishan Singh Surjeet
August 1, 2021, was the 13th death anniversary of comrade Harkishan Singh Surjeet. Born into a Bassi Jat family in the Punjabi village of Bundala on March 23, 1916, Surjeet…
Capitalism and Alienation
Capitalism is deeply unjust. It is a system under which labour power has itself become a commodity and is bought and sold on the market like any other object of…
The Crisis in Tunisia
On July 25, 2021, Tunisian President Kais Saied dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, froze the parliament, suspended the legal immunity of parliament members and took control of the general prosecutor’s…
68th Anniversary of the Moncada Attack
68 years ago, on July 26, 1953, an angry young lawyer, Fidel Castro, led a small band of armed men in a failed attempt to seize the Moncada barracks in…
Cuba’s Fight against Imperialism
Cuba has been witnessing anti-government protests since July 11, 2021. Several objective factors account for these demonstrations. Cuba is experiencing its greatest economic crisis in 30 years. The devastating knock-on effects of the Covid-19…
USA’s Imperialist Stranglehold on Cuba
Cuba has been witnessing anti-government protests since July 11, 2021. These demonstrations are fuelled by a number of factors. The devastating knock-on effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on a developing…
Imperialist Aggressions Against The Cuban Revolution
Since June 11, 2021, protests have been taking place in Cuba. USA’s imperialist Mafiosos have laid their vulturine eyes on these events, sensationalizing the demonstrations as evidences of the Cuban people’s disillusionment…
A Short History of Haiti
The 1697 Treaty of Ryswick legalized French control over the western third of the island of Hispaniola - a Spanish asset - under the name of Saint-Domingue. The colony proved…
Remembering Frida Kahlo
July 6, 2021, was the 114th birth anniversary of Frida Kahlo - a revolutionary painter and socialist. Today, she has been fetishized, commodified and sanitized: her self-portraits and photographs stare…
China’s Programme of Socialist Modernization
On July 1, 2021, Chinese President and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered a speech marking the centenary of the Communist Party of China (CPC). “Any attempt to divide…
The Rise and Fall of the Islamic Gunpowder Empires
Islam emerged in the 7th century in the south-western corner of the Asian continent. It spread very rapidly throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula. In the…
The Long Crusades of Western Imperialism
In late April 2021, US President Joe Biden announced a withdrawal from Afghanistan. In other words, the US has been trounced in Afghanistan by its very own jihadist Frankenstein, the Taliban. The…
USA’s Hypocritical Dealings with Taliban
Speculations abound over Taliban’s aim to exploit the vacuum left by the partial withdrawal of US-NATO troop to seize control of the capital Kabul and re-establish an Islamic Emirate, similar…
Pakistan’s Geopolitical Game in Afghanistan
On June 14, 2021, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi spoke at the inaugural Pakistan-Afghanistan Bilateral Dialogue in Islamabad. His tone was mildly aggressive. Talking about USA’s pullout from Afghanistan,…
Che Guevara’s 93rd Birth Anniversary
The global scene is deeply disturbing. The wealth of billionaires is increasing even as the starvation-scarred world cries for help; astronomical surges in inequality are pushing an ever greater number…
The Violence of Israeli Settler-Colonialism
On June 6, 2021, Israeli occupation forces detained Palestinian activist and journalist Muna al-Kurd, the leader of the campaign against the ethnic cleansing of the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah.…
Israel’s Colonial Savagery
On May 24, 2021, Israel’s security apparatus launched a wave of mass arrests against the country’s Palestinian citizens as part of a violent attack on the anti-Zionist resistance movement. These…
Carnage in Gaza
There seems no end to the Zionist carnage in Gaza. On May 16, 2021, the US blocked for the third time within a week a statement at the United Nations…
Permanent Nakba
May 15, 2021, marks the 73rd anniversary of Nakba (catastrophe). 1948, the year Israel was created, was also the year of the dispossession and expulsion of three-quarters of a million…
Israeli Barbarism in Gaza
Dr. Akram Kewidar, an assistant professor at the Israa University, Gaza, has sent me videos of the Zionist carnage occurring in the Palestinian enclave. Israeli bombs are reducing entire residential…
A Ghazal for Palestine
Walnut chairs of yearning are rocking on their own - in Palestine Blood-stamped graves are speaking to olive trees - in Palestine Ceramic cheeks of age-old homes are cracking under…
Aligarh Muslim University: Havoc And Hope Amidst Pandemic
There is a general air of malaise at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). Approximately 43 professors – both serving and retired – have lost their lives due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The rate…
The Uprising in Colombia
On April 28, 2021, many of Colombia’s largest unions held a national strike against tax reforms put forward by President Ivan Duque’s government to cover funds related to the COVID-19…
Wage Stagnation in the Global North
According to the “Global Wage Report 2020-21”, in the few years before the COVID-19 crisis, annual average real wage growth for North America (Canada and USA) and Western Europe fluctuated between 0…
The Dawn of Labor: Commemorating May Day
In 1889, Clara Zetkin wrote: “Wherever busy folk are drudging under the yoke of capitalism, the organised working men and women will demonstrate on May Day for the idea of…
A Brief History of Israeli Interventionism in Lebanon
Israel has a long-standing interest in Lebanon. These interests have periodically manifested themselves in bloody attacks against the small Arab state. Two important sources on the Zionist plans for Lebanon…
The Imperialist War in Yemen
During a House hearing held on April 21, 2021, US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking grossly misrepresented the imperialist war in the country. He remarked: “With regard to the…
US Involvement in the Yemen War: A Tale of Hypocrisy
The battle for Marib is escalating. The city, which hosts over 2 million civilians - including an estimated 1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) - is the last military stronghold…
Profiting from Hajj: Commodification of Spirituality
Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islamic practice. Every adult Muslim is required to perform hajj once in a lifetime if they can afford the journey. It is…
Tightening The Noose Around Syria
The US – with the help of Israel – has been repeatedly waging attacks on the high seas against oil tankers bound for Syria. In recent statements to parliament, Syria’s Prime Minister…
Killing Yemen
The Yemeni city of Marib is in the thick of fighting between Houthi rebels and loyalists of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi’s government. Marib is the capital of Marib Governorate, lying roughly…
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