South Asia Citizens Web

The assassination of Gauri Lankesh, two years after a similar horror was perpetrated on scholar M.M.Kalaburgi in Karnataka, is not an isolated act. The murder of rationalists Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar in Maharashtra in the very same fashion earlier also follow the same eerie pattern. These killings are inseparable from the chain of killings of Dalits and Muslims in the name of ‘cow protection’, ‘religion’ etc. It is the dangerous continuation of the spread of right wing ideology which has started in 1990s. There have been many threats to activists who have been countering communalism, and this has continued even after her death, with the killing of Santanu Bhowmick and as seen from the way eminent Bahujan academic Kancha Iliah was grieviously threatened and even physically attacked. As the first step in this process of building a strong resistance, we request one and all to join hands in an all India coordinated mobilization for Justice for Gauri on October 5th.

Civil society must stand up against this goondaism and demand for security for Prof Kancha Iliah as well as punishment to those issuing open threats, before we have another Gauri Lankesh.

IF the NA-120 by-election is a barometer for next year’s general elections, we should worry about female enfranchisement in Pakistan.

Ana Monteiro by Jazz Goa

A documentary film on the life and work of Gauri Lankesh, the journalist and secular activist who was assassinated in Bangalore in September 2017. The was directed by Deepu and produced by Pedestrian Pictures