South Asia Citizens Web

Each year, dozens or even hundreds of women and girls in Afghanistan are subjected to invasive, humiliating, and sometimes painful vaginal and rectal exams in the name of “science.” These so-called virginity exams are not just demeaning – they constitute sexual assault and are often used as evidence against women in court for the “crime” of zina, or sex outside of marriage.

There is no denying that Pakistani society is very vulnerable to religions passions. Even when the Islamists are unable to win an electoral majority, their capacity to mobilise the streets on an emotional issue is considerable. Perhaps nothing unites our clerics more than women’s issues.

Urdu is one of the twenty-two “scheduled languages” of the country. It is the language of vastly more Indians than, for instance, Bodo or Santali or Sindhi. Historically, there is no doubt that it is an Indian language.

Keynote address to the Eighth East-West Conference Ramjas College, March 17-18 2016. This lecture engages with the approaches of Socrates and Gandhi to the question of a ’national religion’; and on nation-worship as an instance of right-wing atheism.