India’s diversity has been amazing as different cultures, religions, languages and ethnicities had been living here, cheek by jowl, from last many centuries. Bhakti-Sufi Saints and then the freedom movement cemented the bonds between diverse communities living here. But last few decades in general and last few years in particular have seen an assault on this syncretism and intercommunity relations.[Read More…]

“Majorities are of two sorts: (1) communal majority and (2) political majority. A political majority is changeable in its class composition. A political majority grows. A communal majority is born. The admission to political majority is open. The door to communal majority is closed. The politics of political majority are free to all to make and unmake. The politics of[Read More…]

In Minneapolis, US an African American, George Floyd lost his life as the white policeman, Derek Chauvin, caught hold of him and put his knee on his neck. This is a technique developed by Israel police. For nine long minutes the knee of the while policeman was on the neck of George, who kept shouting, I can’t breathe. Following this[Read More…]

“I can’t breathe…”. These were the last words of forty-six-year-old black African American George Floyd. He uttered them when he was being strangled to death by the white American police. His “crime” was his accidental birth in a community that is not a white race. Similarly, Dalits, Adivasis, lower castes and minority Muslims get strangled in India. Their “crime” is[Read More…]

Palghar incident again reminds me of my first encounter with the word mob lynching. How far we have come but the mob still looks and sound the same in its form and execution. When I was doing my masters. After the completion of the course I confronted a job interview in placement cell in Aligarh Muslim University. I wanted to[Read More…]

Days after the brutal lynching of Tabrez Ansari in Jharkhand, a 24-year-old youth was lynched to death in West Bengal. The victim identified as Sanaul Sheikh was accused of bike theft. A mob lynched him instead of having him arrested, in Malda district, 326 kms from Kolkotta. The video that went viral shows three sturdy men brutally assaulting Sanaul, who[Read More…]