South Asia Citizens Web

Today, against the backdrop of a severe crisis of capitalism, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, like Mr. Putin, is asserting an unapologetic nationalism. Vowing to “take back Japan,” partly by revising the country’s pacifist Constitution, and disowning its previously expressed guilt for wartime brutalities, Mr. Abe has stoked tensions with China. This is just the kind of retrograde 1920s-style nationalist dogma that is making a big comeback in India, especially since last year, when Mr. Modi, a close ally of Mr. Abe, overcame the taint of various suspected crimes to launch his bid for supreme power. Interestingly, it is not the R.S.S.’s khaki-shorts-wearing volunteers but rather quasi-Westernized Indians in the corporate-owned media and mysteriously well-funded think tanks, magazines and websites who have provided the ambient chorus for Mr. Modi’s ascent to respectability.

Himal’s latest quarterly examines the myriad ways in which militarisation has seeped into the public sphere and mainstream consciousness, from ‘zones of exception’ in India to the military’s political influence in Pakistan and the outsized role of the military in the civilian life of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. In addition to providing thorough analysis of ‘the Southasian military complex’, this issue offers content that explores alternative histories of economic engagement, threats to indigenous livelihood, and the aftermath of communal violence.

The first of the Left Unity Forum Bulletin is glimpse of stirrings on the left in the late seventies. It had the function of reporting on activities and individuals involved in left unity efforts that had led to the Left Unity Conference held in December 1978 in Kanpur. The Left Unity conference was [This document has long been out of print and has been scanned as part of the sacw.net web archive of rare documents on the Left]

It’s fair to say that more than one religion deserves scrutiny. Christian extremists in the United States today attack women’s liberties and gay rights in language they claim comes from God. Hindu extremists in India today are launching an assault on free expression and trying, literally, to rewrite history, proposing the alteration of school textbooks to serve their narrow saffron dogmatism.

posted below are selected articles on Kashmir by Balraj Puri that were circulated in 2000, 2004 and in 2006 on the south asia citizens wire