South Asia Citizens Web

A really sad day for BBC Asia Network whose journalistic inadequacies are all too evident and an even sadder day for feminists who are branded as unrepresentative of ‘Muslim’ women because they dare to talk in terms of secular universal human rights and to challenge religious power. How and why have black and minority women in the UK, who have achieved so much in terms of advancing our rights, arrived at this point of political bankruptcy?

Santasilan Kadirgamar Memorial Lecture delivered by S. K. Senthivel at the Trimmer Hall, Jaffna on July 16, 2016. English translation by S. Sivasegaram

Imagine being abandoned at London’s King’s Cross railway station with just one pound in your pocket. In 1908, this is exactly what happened to an ayah who had travelled from India to Britain to look after a family’s children on the journey home.

Several prominent liberal, progressive and nationalist intellectuals, human rights and social media activists, and public figures from Pakistan gathered in London for a conference on ‘The Future of Pakistan’ organized under the banner of South Asians Against Terrorism and for Human Rights (SAATH), co-hosted by US-based columnist Dr Mohammad Taqi and former Pakistan ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani.

Whenever an intolerant regime comes to power, there’s an attempt to destroy educational and cultural institutions. History is abused because it’s through history we learn about our past, and defines our present and shapes the vision of our future...