Kancha Ilaiah

Aug 27, 2010

Cartoon and after

If we rework Shankar’s cartoon with, say, Mahatma Gandhi riding a bullock cart of democracy in his dwija dress and Jawaharlal Nehru standing in his sanatan pundit’s dress, a thread across his body, an

Food fascism

After the beef festival in Osmania University, Hyderabad, on April 15 — in which 1,500-2,000 students belonging to SC/ST/OBC communities and some faculty members participated — was attacked by the Akh

Who is Telangana’s grim reaper?

The two young men who killed themselves recently in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, and the subsequent and preceding incidents of youth immolating themselves or jumping in front of trains add up the tally o

The relevance of Mayawati

Mayawa-ti’s electoral defeat cannot be seen as the end of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), just as the Samajwadi Party’s victory does not mean the emergence of a new, unassailable social force onto Uttar Pradesh’s political horizon. Both parties have their bases intact, issues they hold dear, and the will to take the fight forward. Though it is premature to say how the future will unfold, clearly, history is being made.

Are we ready for spiritual democracy?

Whether the concept “spiritual democracy” is tenable and has the potential to reform the spiritual systems that are locked up in caste cultures is being debated in certain intellectual circles in Indi

Mayawati: Too clever by half?

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati seems to think that the proposal to split Uttar Pradesh into four states will help her win the 2012 elections. What she has not realised is that the four-way split will put the very existence of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the dalit agenda that she has been carrying on in real danger.

Ms Bedi, how dare you?

Team Anna has been arrogant and self-righteous ever since it launched the Jan Lokpal movement. Its Jantar Mantar hungerstrike yielded quick results, as the Congress government itself gave the team a boost by constituting a committee to draft a bill and by including five members from the team in it. Among them was former cop Kiran Bedi, who behaved as if she were an angel and all others in the country either corrupt or of no consequence. But now this angel has been caught for fraud and cheating organisers that invited her to speak at their functions.

BJP’s small state theory

With the Telangana question reaching a climactic stage it is necessary to examine the implication of carving out small states for issues such as reservations in general and the OBC reservations in particular.

Gandhi today

In my childhood, way back in the early Sixties, there was a Gandhi statue in my village. His clean shaved head and semi-naked body with a tucked-in dhoti, in a walking posture, resembled my illiterate shepherd father in every respect except

Anna’s social fascism

The recent happenings in Delhi around the issue of the Lokpal Bill have been celebrated by the media as people’s victory, pinned down on Team Anna Hazare. But the majority of the “masses” of this country, living in institutional caste and class enclosures, are not yet part of the “civil society” that the victorious group was talking about.

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