South Asia Citizens Web

The Guardian, October 15 2008
God’s thugs
Religious vigilante groups intent on rooting out ’vulgarity’ are causing fear among Lahore’s traders
First, they went after the barber shops and video stores, razing to the ground those outlets they deemed inimical to their obscurantist interests.
Then came the girls’ schools: well over 50 in the past year alone, further hampering the cause of women’s rights (not to mention literacy) in an already avowedly patriarchal society. In the (…)

Nationalism is and should be natural or strong devotion to your nation. But this natural tendency is warped by the clout of the dominant majority and acquires different hues like tribal nationalism of the Hutus and Tutsi in Congo and Rwanda, cultural nationalism of the right wing Hindus, religious nationalism as of Saudi Arabia, and racial and religious as of Sudan. In conflict zone the natural nationalism is stunted by the superimposed consideration of race, religion, region, culture, (…)

Down to Earth, 15 November 2008
The river is almost totally absent in modern day discourse
Barrage, dam, embankment, flood, irrigation have a common thread: a river. But it is symptomatic of our preoccupation with things ‘developmental’ that while we talk about dams, barrages, embankments and irrigation, the river is almost totally absent in modern day discourse. The river as a unique ecosystem on earth, the only ‘watery’ system that flows and hence creates a distinctive zone of (…)

Express Buzz, 3 November 2008
When bomb becomes the symbol of failure
Initial reactions are an important indicator of how people take stock of events beyond their control. On October 30, as the news of serial bombs exploding around Guwahati spread, people around our office complex called friends and family to make sure that they were safe. As the enormity of the blasts sunk in, one heard that similar explosions had occurred in Barpeta Road, Bongaigaon and Kokrajhar. The overwhelming (…)

by Aditya Mukherjee (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) Mridula Mukherjee (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) Sucheta Mahajan (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)
Published : June 2008 Pages : 120 Size : Crown Octavo: 5" x 7.5" Imprint : SAGE India India, Nepal, Bhutan (INR) Rs 195 Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives (USD) $ 5 ISBN 9788178298542
__3__ RSS, School Texts and the Murder of Mahatma Gandhi (…)