South Asia Citizens Web

Segregation in housing, is a problem which will not immediately disappear even with legislation. Continuing with the status- quo, however is no longer an option for a modern India. It is time to legislatively outlaw, bye- laws that exclude on grounds of religion, caste or dietary preference. The National Commission of Minorities would also do well to look into the problem and contemplate both the legislative and the judicial options.

Articles by Amit Baruah and by Saba Naqvi and Illustration by unknown. "Why was taxpayers’ money being used to set the Gujarat police to tail a woman who obviously had no criminal intent? And now that the scandal has already played out for a week, let us ask the more profound question: how can a PM candidate in the world’s largest democracy feel he need not answer such questions, or instruct his Man Friday Amit Shah to do so?"

Neeti Nair has written a comprehensive and complex history of the Punjabi Hindus in the first half of the twentieth century. Changing Homelands begins by tracing the rise of communalism in the 1920s and ends with partition in the 1940s.

• Sexual assault is not just about the criminal, it’s also about the abused. (Noopur Tiwari)
• Disciplinary action cannot replace legal proceedings against sexual violence. (Pratiksha Baxi)

Leese pays special attention to the 1966-68 period to show how the exact phrases glorifying Mao became closely defined during those years, producing a “peak of language formalization and the near-merging of public and private speech” (p. 181). The cult encouraged various rituals, including daily morning and evening pledges to Mao, loyalty dances, and what Leese calls the bewildering “episode of worshipping mangos” (p. 223). This refers to nationwide fascination with mangoes as a symbol of Mao’s favor following Mao’s gift of mangos to a propaganda team attempting to reestablish order at Qinghua University in Beijing in July 1968.