South Asia Citizens Web

With the publication of the updated Beyond the Fragments, Hilary Wainwright spoke to Rahila Gupta about the politics of knowledge and using her experience of the women’s movement to address the question of how to realise the capacities of each for the benefit of all as the basis for alternative, horizontal models of political organisation.

The death of E.Ilavarsan in Tamilnadu might be a single column report in our newspapers but it has reflected the mindset prevailing in India and deep rooted caste prejudices against the Dalits in our society. It has also proved that the Dravidian politics has not been able to overcome its own prejudices against Dalits and they large represent the politics of powerful politicized OBCs who at the social level have been at the loggerheads with Dalits.

The Bharatiya Janata Party is desperate and under pressure its slip is showing. In response to the chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Ishrat Jahan case — which contains shocking quotes and details, including the fact that five cops of the Ahmedabad Crime Branch fired 70 rounds from automatic and semi-automatic weapons at 19-year-old Ishrat and three others — the BJP has chosen to show scant regard for judicial procedure.

Who was Ishrat Jahan? In 2009, S.P. Tamang, Metropolitan Magistrate, Ahmedabad, described her in the report of his judicial enquiry as a “loving daughter and caring sister” who worked hard to support her mother and younger siblings. However, now that the CBI’s examination of her death in an “encounter” is the centre of attention, many people are calling her anything but innocent and harmless. The noises coming from the Hindu Right may be ignored, for what they offer as evidence is not just pathetic but ludicrous. It is the media’s output that we must examine.

Egyptian officials and political leaders across the spectrum should condemn and take immediate steps to address the horrific levels of sexual violence against women in Tahrir Square. Egyptian anti-sexual harassment groups confirmed that mobs sexually assaulted and in some cases raped at least 91 women in Tahrir Square, over four days of protests beginning on June 30, 2013, amid a climate of impunity.