1. We lost Gauri Lankesh, journalist, activist and very passionate human being, exactly five years back It is now history how she was assasinated by rightwing Hindutva fanatics outside her home in Rajarajeshwari Nagar on 5 September 2017. A killing which shocked not only the people of Karnataka but everyone who believed in a just and equitable society elsewhere.[Read More…]
Members of the South Asian community came together to remember the slain Indian journalist at Surrey’s Holland Park on Sunday, September 5. Gauri Lankesh was a daring editor, who was allegedly murdered by right wing extremists in Bengaluru in 2017. On the fourth anniversary of her assassination, a vigil was organized by Radical Desi, an online magazine that covers alternative[Read More…]
The City of Burnaby has declared September 5 as a day to honour a slain Indian journalist. Daring editor Gauri Lankesh was allegedly murdered by right wing extremists in Bengaluru, on the ill-fated date in 2017. She consistently wrote against superstition and growing fanaticism under the current Hindu nationalist BJP government in New Delhi. Attacks on religious minorities and political[Read More…]
Members of Indians Abroad for Pluralist India (IAPI) came together on Saturday January 30,to mark the birth anniversary of a slain journalist, outside the Indian visa and passport center in Surrey. Gauri Lankesh was a critic of the current right wing Hindu nationalist government. Born on January 29, 1962, she was assassinated in 2017 by suspected Hindu extremists. Her murder[Read More…]
In 2013 Narendra Dhabolkar, who was fighting to get the Anti-Superstition law passed in Maharashtra and led a campaign for rationalism, and against blind faith all his life, was killed. This was followed by the killings of Govind Pansare and MM Kalburgi in 2015. And this year, Gauri Lankesh. All of them have reputation for being fiercely opposed to caste[Read More…]
Dear Gauri, It is many days since I wrote to you. This must have been the longest month in my life- the days since I first heard about your killing. I should say you were very much in my thoughts as each day brought news about events and happenings in this “great” country of ours that is fast losing humane[Read More…]
The state of freedom of expression in India continues to deteriorate. Writers who voice dissenting viewpoints continue to be at risk for harassment and murder, and India’s defamation laws continue to be exploited by self-interested parties to prevent the publication of material that may well be in the public interest. A culture of intolerance linked to an emerging nationalist discourse[Read More…]
Dear Gowri, Hope my letters are not disturbing you… but as days pass and events that disturb and confuse multiply, how can I not write and share with you?… Please pardon me! The first 2 letters (Letter 1, Letter 2) have had different kinds of responses…most of the readers took to the emotional aspects that it was filled with, some[Read More…]
I was not yet nine but I distinctly remember the day when for the first time I witnessed people celebrating the murder of a person. In Mangalore my home town, on 31st January 1948 members of the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha distributed sweets to celebrate the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi the previous day. There have been many more such[Read More…]
Dear Gauri, It is 10 days since I wrote to you…2 days ago- September 15th was the International Day of Democracy with the theme Democracy and Conflict Prevention focusing on strengthening democratic institutions to promote peace and stability through strong leadership, strengthen civic society and empower women…it goes on. Somehow this day as many other days, I miss you…want to[Read More…]
One of the English phrases says that “Pen is mightier than the sword”. The attempt by sword to put down pen is purely a result of fear that Pen has created. Starting from Dabholkar, Pansare, Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh, the series of attempts to put an end to their lives is a result of this fear. Each of them had[Read More…]
While the progressive forces were gearing up to celebrate the birth anniversary of Paash – a revolutionary Punjabi poet on September 9, the news of the assassination of Gauri Lankesh shook everyone to the core. Paash was a byproduct of the radical communist movement also known as naxalite movement of late 1960s that united the oppressed communities and the[Read More…]
And after your lightning and thunder
A fresh rain will come
Sprouting new buds and petals
Spreading diverse colours of freedom.
That song I will sing
For the sake of all songs to come!
On that dreadful evening of 5th September, if Gauri Lankesh had seen her own corpse lying in a pool of blood outside her house she would have -I am very sure- simply smiled For even in her death she had done what was closest to her heart – expose India’s saffron supremacists for what they really were. A sorry[Read More…]
Ambassador Ajay Marotrao GONDANE High Commission of India Canberra, Australia Your Excellency I mourn and rage with India for the assassination of respected journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh. Progressive and principled, she upheld the journalistic legacy of rigorous advocacy for human equality and rights in the spirit of India’s freedom-fighting journalists Tilak, Gandhi, Vidyarthi, Bhagat Singh who would be desolate that the[Read More…]
When pen Becomes gun Ideas flow like bullets The enemy Picks up gun Unable to withstand the ‘ fire’ of ideas And sprays bullets To eliminate ideas Still, Question remains As it did for ages and ages What are we going to fight over to-day? What is your grudge?’ The fight Never ends ‘ To- day, the deliberate increase[Read More…]
But I am someone you just cannot curb
I am a voice that refuses to die
You may bleed my heart but it refuses to cry
I am the eyes that refuse to blink
”I will do what i can and I will say
What I should. These intolerant voices
Find strength in our silence.
Let them learn to argue using words
instead of threats”
The murders of rationalists in India must make us all think as to how the Indian tradition of dissent and reasoning would survive. The tradition of dissent and rationality is not foreign to India. Historically speaking the Indian philosophical thoughts are classified as either orthodox or heterodox. The heterodox school can be broadly classified as those who used logic, rational[Read More…]
When rationalists are murdered by obscurantists, secularists by religious zealots, and humanists by fascists, people typically react in one of four ways: 1. Mentally register the murder and then move on as though nothing has really changed; 2. Empathize with the victim’s family by mouthing some pieties and then move on as though nothing really changed in their lives;[Read More…]
Exactly two years and five days after the fatal shooting of writer M M Kalburgi, the dastardly killing of journalist and editor Gauri Lankesh yesterday is being seen as a clear indication that Hindutva forces are still at work, chillingly picking out the targets on their list of intellectuals and writers inimical to them. While a number of theories have[Read More…]
I just took a bullet for the remaining bits of humanity
The baton passes on
We will take it forward from here
Dear Gouri.. A few hours ago, above the loud and deafening sounds of the guns that fired into the air to give you a “honourable state farewell”, I heard the calls of the parakeets frightened to flight by the noise. I felt you squirm even in the coldness of the murder that fate and human intolerance brought on your frail[Read More…]
Gauri Lankesh was executed. What else do you call a bullet in the forehead? We know why. The question to those who did it and those with whose support they did it is, ‘Now what?’ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/world/asia/gauri-lankesh-india-dead.html?mcubz=0 The problem with using ‘ultimate’ strategies is that when they fail, you have nothing left. Ultimate strategies also indicate another fatal flaw, that you[Read More…]
The Press Club of India did not have space to even stand yesterday. The outpouring of grief and anger in the street as well as on the social media on the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh compelled many veterans to join hand and speak up against the culture of intimidation and violence against those who differ with the current[Read More…]
Perhaps what they don’t realise
People can be eliminated
But not their ideas
Their ideas will only percolate
And continue to inspire generations
Late on the fifth of September noted journalist and human rights’ activist, Gauri Lankesh was shot dead at her residence by unidentified assailants in Bengaluru. Lankesh was the editor of her weekly tabloid, ‘Gauri Lankesh Patrike’ which stood strongly against the right wing communal politics and also ferociously critiqued the Hindutva politics in Bengaluru. Her strong writings, both in English[Read More…]
Some of us are not free. We belong like individual pearls attached to a long, long chain to which we will be forever connected and to which we have bondage as the links hold us in placement enslaved. Yes, we are not free. We are enchained. This chain stretches way back before us in time and it will stretch[Read More…]
The local South Asian activists came together to hold demonstration against the gruesome murder of Gauri Lankesh at the Holland Park in Surrey on Wednesday evening. Lankesh was a famous journalist who was fatally shot outside her house in Benguluru, India on September 5. She was a well known critic of growing violence by Hindu fundamentalists in India under a[Read More…]
In a spontaneous outpouring of grief, anger and disbelief, protests erupted across the country against the assassination of senior journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh. Lankesh was shot dead at point-blank range at her home yesterday. Candlelight vigils were held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai and in Kolkata, where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee participated. Protests were held in Gauri Lankesh’s home town[Read More…]
Gauri, you are more than a memory
You are a direction
For a world that should not be !
The fad of ‘tolerance’ is fast getting exposed but this is particularly for those who have been crying that we have suddenly become intolerance. The brutal murder of Gauri Lankesh is a reminder of the changing times that we are living in India. That those who are 24X7 on their twitter talking about greatness of our civilisation, remain conspicuous[Read More…]
New Delhi | September 06, 2017: National Alliance of People’s Movements is deeply shocked and shattered at the cowardly and cold-blooded murder of well-known journalist, editor and fearless firebrand activist, Gauri Lankesh who, time and again, locked horns with divisive, communal and casteist forces, in particular the right-wing Hindutva brigade. We have enough reason to believe that her political assassination[Read More…]
Gauri Lankesh (55) , a senior journalist and a vocal anti-communal activist was shot dead in at her residence in Rajarajeshwari Nagar in Bengaluru. According to police officials she was shot dead from close range when she was standing at her house in Rajarajeswari Nagar. According to eye witnesses, the 55-year-old journalist was standing near the gate of her house[Read More…]
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Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
