South Asia Citizens Web

The time has come for Indian secular-democrats to assert the case for a better universe: a universe built around citizenship and rights, not the pernicious identity politics the state and its holy allies encourage.

In Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Iff tells Haroun how certain things are P2C2E, (process-too-complicated-to-explain). But this process is simple: politicians and clerics gain by keeping the population uninformed. They fight chimeric battles and offer illusory benefits to Muslims, who want education and jobs. Instead they get quotas, and not skills, with the added bonus: to protest Rushdie.

In recent years, the media has covered a number of incidents of intimate partner or domestic violence, which is a common occurrence in Bangladesh.

Her passing leaves a void in the women’s movement and her voice against State Oppression will be sorely missed.

By objecting to Salman Rushdie’s participation in the Jaipur Literature Festival, the Darul Uloom of Deoband has not covered itself in glory. That the country’s premier body of Islamic learning has seen it fit to get involved in petty sectarian matters is shameful and shocking.