South Asia Citizens Web

SAHMAT pays tribute to Pandit Ravi Shankar, who has passed away in the US. A less remembered part of his long and illustrious history are his beginnings with IPTA in Bombay. Ravi Shankar composed the music for IPTA’s film on the Bengal famine "Dharti Ke Lal" directed by K.A. Abbas in 1946, as well as Chetan Anand’s "Neecha Nagar" also in 1946. "Dharti ke Lal was the debut film of Balraj Sahni and Zohra Segal, the songs were written by Ali Sardar Jaffri. He was an important part of the great moment of the progressive movement in the 1940s when the Communist affiliated IPTA and PWA had a huge impact in shaping modernism in the arts. His music for these two films was composed more than a decade before his music for Satyajit Ray’s film "Pather Panchali", with which both received lasting acclaim.

A Fact-Finding Committee comprising a professor and some students of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha (MGAHV), social activists and journalists visited Akot (District Akola in Maharashtra) on 23rd November’ 2012. An incident of communal violence occurred on 23rd October in Akot in which four people were killed and several injured. 22 homes of Muslim community and about 25 shops belonging to both Hindu & Muslim communities were set ablaze. All the deceased were from lower-middle class background.

the calendar says it’s December 6. On this very day, 20 years ago, the Babri Mosque was demolished. In the pre-planned communal violence that followed, over 2,000 people were killed and property worth hundreds of crores destroyed in Ayodhya, Bombay (now Mumbai), Surat, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Kanpur and elsewhere. In the Mumbai edition of two out of five English national dailies, there’s not a word on Ayodhya, its immediate aftermath, and what it has meant for the nation’s polity. Nothing on the news pages, nothing on the opinion pages. Two others did remember the date as if it was an incident of some minor consequence. Only one of the five newspapers thought it fit to devote three news pages and the main comment piece, highlighting the failure of justice and the lack of punishment for the grievous crimes committed on December 6, 1992, and thereafter.

India is halfway to becoming a fascist state — halfway because the central government is still relatively liberal and tolerates checks and balances while the states are increasingly in the grip of fascist political parties. A fascist political party proclaims its worship of the people, romanticises the idea of community and culture, is deeply conservative about the rights and responsibilities of individuals, has young men that threaten or carry out acts of violence, bows before an all-powerful leader, and practices politics as if it were theatre. Going by these characteristics, most of our regional parties are fascist.

alleged Perpetrators a report by IPTK/APDP examines 214 cases of human rights violations and for the first time, the role of 500 alleged perpetrators in these crimes. The report is authored by Parvez Imroz, Kartik Murukutla, Khurram Parvez, and Parvaiz Mata.