Modi came to power with a bang. Riding on the support of the Corporate World, the RSS combine, the media blitz and the promises of sky; he managed to get 31% of votes and 262 seats in the Lok Sabha. This is the first time BJP managed a simple majority in lower house of Parliament. This also…
Hindu Fundamentalism
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Kandhamal: Long Wait for Justice
Ram Puniyani Today, nearly a decade later when we are remember with pain the horrific violence of Kandhmal in 2008, many issues related to the state of affairs of communal violence, state of minorities, the state of justice delivery system come to one’s mind. The incident Just to recall, Orissa witnessed unprecedented violence against the…
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Returning Honors is an Attempt to Save Democracy
Ram Puniyani Last few weeks have seen a flood of ‘returning’ honors by writers, scientists and artists. These awardees in way have stood up to make themselves to be counted. There are also various statements from academics, historians, artists and scientists showing their concern about the growing intolerance and erosion of our plural values. Those…
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Three Murders and a Lynching
Ram Puniyani Laws of nature cannot be applied to human society so directly. Still sometimes these have been used to explain-justify social catastrophes, “When a big tree falls. Earth shakes (in the aftermath of anti Sikh massacre 1984), ‘every action has equal and opposite reaction’ (during Gujarat carnage of 2002) are too well known. I…
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Worshipping Cow: Killing Humanity
Ram Puniyani Just over a decade ago (2002) in Dulina village of Jhajjar in Haryana a mob of over a thousand people lynched five dalits who were skinning a dead cow to sell the hide. A few months ago in Malegaon Mahahrashtra police arrested three Muslims on the charge of storing beef. On the back…
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Assault on Syncretic Traditions
Ram Puniyani The country is undergoing a regressive attack in different fields of life. Apart from the political undermining of secularism, pluralism and Indian nationalism, the cultural pluralism and valued syncretic traditions are also under severe attack. The intensity is increasing. On the back of the murders of dissenting rationalists (Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and…
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Color Coding of Communal Politics
Ram Puniyani As per the reports from Ahmadabad (12th April 2015) the uniform at Shahpur School, where most of the students are Hindus, is saffron and the color of uniform in Dani Limda school where almost all the students are Muslims, the color is green. This is absolutely shocking! One knew that the ghettoization of Muslims in Ahmadabad is probably…
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Saffronisation of Education: Political Ideology and Interpretation of History
Ram Puniyani Our sub continent, which has a common past; shares its history, there are diverse ways of looking at the same history by groups belonging to different political ideologies. With the change of Government in Delhi, the leading institutions are having a major policy shift, organizations like Indian Council of Historical Research, National Council…
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Attacking the Cross: Rise in Anti Christian Violence
Ram Puniyani Julio Ribeiro is one of the best known police officers in India. Recently (March 16, 2015) he wrote in his article that he is feeling like a stranger in this country. ‘I feel threatened, not wanted, reduced to a stranger in my own country’. This pain and anguish of a distinguished…
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Holy Cow-Beef and Indian Political Games
Ram Puniyani Can the dietary practices, the animal which is worshipped as a mother by section of population, be brought in on the political arena? While all this sounds surreal, its true as far as the role of cow is there in Indian political firmament. Recently Maharashtra Government got the Presidents assent to the bill…