South Asia Citizens Web

The killings are directly linked to government policy. I would hold the government personally responsible for these murders and any reasonable person would. The data journalism website Indiaspend has reported that 97% of lynching murders by gau rakshaks have come after 2014. They are the gift to us of the Modi government and of the state BJP governments (Haryana and Maharashtra in particular but they are not alone) which lit the fuse on gau raksha through legislation and rhetoric on cow slaughter. Almost no violence was happening before this on the matter of cattle, as the data proves.

A brilliant student, Mashal Khan, was brutally murdered by a mob on a university campus in Pakistan earlier in 2017 after he was accused of blasphemy. The killing caused widespread outrage in Pakistan and has even led to calls to change the country’s strict blasphemy laws. Who was Mashal Khan and why was he murdered? Secunder Kermani investigates.

Rediscovering Earth in this anniversary year has been a gift. Mehta’s film feels like a period piece on two fronts: a re-creation of the multicultural South Asia that preceded Partition, but also a relic of the late 1990s, when a less jingoistic moment allowed a film like Earth to be filmed and distributed. As mentioned, it was not a commercial success and it is not one of Mehta’s best-known works.

There have been lots of theoretical debates over the Naxalbari movement since its beginnings in the 1960s. At times, I also participate in those debates. But looking back at the years that followed, when I moved from the position of a sympathizer to an activist, I treasure memories of some wonderful people with whom I had the chance of sharing my days during the underground period, and in jails.

Cartoons by Nala Ponnapaa