Editorial Note, Jan-Feb, 2023
6 December 2022 marked the completion of thirty years since the demolition of the Babri Masjid, which heralded a major transformation of India’s polity with a former right-wing fringe rising to dominance riding on a majoritarian and communal agenda. That…
Three Decades On: An Idea in Danger of Extinction
Three domes were brought down at Ayodhya on 6 December 1992, with a profound impact on the national psyche. As violence engulfed parts of the country, fears of a catastrophic collapse of the constitutional order did not seem unwarranted. Much…
Babri Masjid Demolition: A Point of Departure, and of Arrival
Three decades of a 75-year-old nation’s existence is just a little less than half of our existence as a constitutional republic.1 Barely five months into our bloodied birth, racked by the divisions and hate that led to violence and Partition,…
A Tale of Criminal Destruction
The officer guided me to a room to the side of the main police station. When he opened the door I was not prepared for the scene I witnessed inside. The small dark room was packed to the rafters with…
It Wasn’t Just the Masjid That Fell
It has been thirty years since the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Torn down by a mob in full public view, the destruction of the mosque occurred on the back of a massive mobilisation that shook India’s secular foundations. This…
Education, Culture and Inclusion: Rereading the Contributions of Mohammad Mujeeb in the Making of Jamia Millia Islamia
Jamia Millia Islamia, the Delhi-based Central University, marked the centenary of its foundation in 2020. The university was founded in 1920 during the freedom movement of India following the call of Mahatma Gandhi’s Swadeshi and the Non-Cooperation movements symbolising and…
The Feminisation of Modern Slavery
Modern slavery is an umbrella word that covers forced labour, human trafficking, debt bondage/bonded labour, descent-based slavery, slavery of children, forced marriage, early marriage, domestic slavery, and slavery in the supply chain (Anti-Slavery International 2022). People end up trapped in…
Book Review
Madhwi, Health, Medicine and Migration: The Formation of Indentured Labour, c. 1834–1920, Primus Books: New Delhi, 2020, xii+383 pages, Rs 1395. Michel Foucault in his path-breaking work The Birth of the Clinic (1973) delineates two significant developments in the field…