India’s oldest Socialist Weekly!
Editor: Dr. G.G. Parikh | Associate Editor: Neeraj Jain | Managing Editor: Guddi
Prof Vishwambhar Nath Mishra, a highly-regarded engineering professor at IIT-BHU and the mahant or head priest of the renowned Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi, says the Hindutva brigade has latched on to the Shivlinga claim motivated purely by politics.
Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi is known for his supreme sacrifice in trying to stop communal violence in Kanpur in 1931. Another lesser known duo from Ahmedabad, who displayed similar idealism and laid down their lives on 1 July, 1946, were Vasant Rao Hegiste and Rajab Ali Lakhani.
Temples and churches hosting Iftar parties and Nabi Dinam, blending of the azaan with temple bells, Muslims helping Hindu families – all these instances add to the state’s already rich traditions. Also, review of a film, Innu Swantham Sreedharan (Yours Truly, Sreedharan).
The city of Calicut, or Kozhikode, has been a bastion of Hindu-Muslim unity for centuries where a syncretic Malayali identity trumps religious divisions.
In 1971, the Pakistan army began a brutal crackdown against Bengalis in which hundreds of thousands of women were detained and repeatedly brutalised. Only now are their stories beginning to be told.
I will celebrate Eid in my heart. I hope that the spirit of Eid touches all of us Indians and brings us closer. Somehow, the hatred that is surrounding us, the nightmare we are living in and the unsettling atmosphere of suspicion is dispelled. With these thoughts I wish you, dear reader, Eid Mubarak.
Bachchan said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, let us discover more of that which is impossible and then do it. Let us bring down the barriers that have blinded our view of the horizons.’ Also: Comment by Apoorvanand: “For Speaking an Unpleasant Truth, Will Amitabh Bachchan Now be Called an Enemy of the People?”
The ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ seeks to bring home to us the loss we are experiencing, and recalls us to a moral and systemic commitment that our leaderships prior to the era in hand had forged and nursed. Also: ‘Puja Versus Tapasya’: Why Rahul Gandhi’s Formulation Has Meaning.
Aseemun’s repertoire, with its easy mix of folk, ritual, spiritual and pious, bespoke a syncretic tradition that is fast becoming anachronistic in India.
Statements come at a time Bollywood, once celebrated for its inclusiveness and secular moorings, has come under siege from the Rightwing ecosystem.
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