Like the rest of the world, racism thrives in India in different violent forms and colours. Cornel West and Suraj Yengde try to understand the ogre that stalks us all
The Hindutva upswing since 2014 has catalysed a new Muslim identity. Will it unveil another paradigm of Indian politics?
Dravidian ideology is in regression. And the Hindu Right is at work trying to render irrelevant the small sites of struggle that may breathe life into it.
We Bengalis bond like no other when we’re out of our own language-zones. At home it’s a different story, writes academician Samantak Das
In Bollywood, northerners claim the right to be good via fairness, while the rest make up the dark other, writes film scholar and critic C.S Venkiteswaran
From food to dialect, the jibes, sneers and bias directed at people from Bihar all over India aim to reduce them culturally, writes author and academician Tabish Khair
Discrimination against women began with the racism of settler cultures. After inter-breeding, women continued to be treated as subjugated, say Nalini Natarajan and Peggy Mohan
The racist slurs hurled at North-easterners living or travelling outside their region is akin to what the Blacks face in the West
English sports has gracefully acknowledged the Black Lives Matter movement. It's time for others to show support, writes former England Test spinner Monty Panesar
Darren Sammy has been vocal about racism and colourism that has choked the non-White and poor people across the world.
Denial of the right to love still kills young people in India. For LGBT couples, not even the law is on their side, writes academician Ruth Vanita
Despite differences on how to get there, Ambedkar and the Congress shared a common goal: an egalitarian society
For ten long years, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross swept millions across the world in their capacious Manhattan pad, hypnotising them with their gags, wisecracks, crack-ups, affairs, music-making, cooking…with the shallow, locquacious depths of their very souls. Maladjusts from Valparaiso to Delhi weakly protested, but were cut down. Though the ballyhoo ended sometime back, acute nostalgia and wannabe antics persist. Some of the glassy-eyed marked 2020 as the return of the six in a Friends ‘reunion’ in HBO. But, as Jennifer Aniston, the ever popular Rachel, lamented, the pandemic has postponed it indefinitely. A faint note of cheer could be heard amid the sighs.
As the world is torn and twisted out of shape, as hardscrabble efforts to mend the fabrics of our lives runs against our frustrated hopes, the one thing that emits warmth and joy are children, their unknowing demeanours, the li’l beasts’ innocent pranks. What we have here goes to the root of it all—a nativity scene bathed in ethereal light, of Kalki Koechlin cradling baby Sappho, announcing six months of breast feeding her daughter and looking all the happier for it. On the Greek island of Lesbos, Sappho wrote lyric poems of love, dipping her quill in violet ink. In our babe’s wide-eyed, agape wonder, we see abundant promise.
Unpredictability is as asset for a fast-bowler: the sudden rearing of a bouncer from the good-length spot, say, or a delivery that swings in and then straightens. Shoaib Akhtar had those in plenty, but in his avatar as an expert, comes across as a dispenser of reason—note his calling out of former teammates for mistreating Danish Kaneria. His sudden assertion, then, that had he been PM, he “will eat grass”, but still increase the army’s budget (ostensibly to get parity with India), has to be seen as an eruption of his hot onfield antics. Did uniformed Rawalpindi applaud the Pindi Express on this echo of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto? But, in his statement that he turned down a county stint so as to fight the Kargil War, Shoaib oversteps his mark. We want a free hit.
Taylor Swift, aided by her sharp-soulful look, made her name with punchy, love-hate-hurt ballads—decoding them was considered a brainy parlour game for those immersed in pop. Selena Gomez covers the same terrain, but is influenced by dance-pop and EDM. Suprisingly, considering the moolah at stake, the competitors are inseparable, ‘best’ friends. Though they have appeared in each other’s shows and tours to lend a voice and additional star appeal—here they are, dressed alike in black and white, belting one out in unison—they have never collaborated on a song or album. That possibility, says Selena, is her fondest wish. ‘Swifties’ and ‘Selenators’, we hear, are waiting eagerly.
