South Asia Citizens Web

(Published in: Monthly Review, September 2005)
Alice Thorner’s life was lived in three continents, and her interests lay in studying processes of change in India’s colonial economy and the experience of planned development following decolonisation. She interacted for over six decades with academics and academic-bureaucrats, who were not inconsequential actors in what Gunnar Myrdal had termed the ‘Asian Drama’, and she too played a part in that unfolding drama. It was while visiting England (…)

The Hindu, August 28, 2005
Alice’s son, whom I have never met but feel I know, gave me the news this morning in a gentle and restrained way. Our department, Queen Elizabeth House, is moving site after 50 years; and the day after Alice’s death was the day of the much-opposed death of our departmental library. I have spent it thick-headed, moving from one task to another unable to concentrate, finally settling on some mechanical work `as she would have wished’ but imagining she would have (…)

leaflet by Sampradaikta Virodhi Andolan [Movement Against Communalism, New Delhi] with text in Hindi and Urdu. The text was hand written and printed at the back of the Vyapey Hain Ram Poster

Scanned image of celebrated poster in Hindi by Sampradayikta Virodhi Andolan, challenging the political use of the name of the Hindu god Lord Rama by the the Hinduva right wing to incite violence

The SC’s recent judgement on the IMDT Act betrays such an ignorance
of basic legal principles and lack of sensitivity to human rights
values, besides using a fantastic interpretation of the Constitution, that it could have extremely far reaching implications on the citizenship and external policy of the country