Binayak Sen has just received a life-term jail sentence for sedition or waging war against the state. The specific crime, according to the judgement, was that he conveyed three letters written by a Maoist leader to a Calcutta-based trader. This was supported by a broader claim that Binayak Sen and his wife Ilina have known Maoists, and that Binayak even had Maoist literature at his home! Callous evidence The evidence presented for the critical claims of the case have been disputed. He met Narayan Sanyal several times in jail, under the supervision of jailors and was searched before and after […]
Monthly Archives: December 2010
A recent survey says that Dalits of Uttar Pradesh have started using toothpaste and hair oil more regularly. Will it have an impact on democracy? Economic and Political Weekly recently carried the report of the survey by Devesh Kapur and others (Kapur et al. 2010). The paper argued that there have been important changes in grooming, eating practices and ceremonial consumption patterns of Dalits, and in general a rapid erosion of discriminatory practices that stigmatised the Dalits of Uttar Pradesh. This interesting survey draws attention to perceived discrimination, and how it has changed since the 1990s. The authors draw attention […]
Toothpaste, hair oil, and democracy
In a world that is deeply worried about extremism I have learned to love it. In fact, there is nothing as entertaining as it is. Whenever I am bored and need a diversion, I find extremism and its close cousins: insanity and craziness, to be extremely reliable means of getting out of my boredom quickly. That’s insane, you must be thinking. Or perhaps not, if have a YouTube view of the world, as I do. All I need to do is to go to YouTube and start typing “extreme” or “insane” or “crazy” and it will give me an assortment […]
Nothing as entertaining as extremism
The 2010 Bihar election clearly reflected people’s voice, but sustained engagement by all sections of the society would be required for these voices to shape the government. In a press conference following the massive victory in the election, the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar remembered the massive changes that have happened in the electoral atmosphere of Bihar. As soon as the election got over, we would visit hospitals or families of dead people. It did not look like an election; it looked like war, he recalled. He also characterised erstwhile strategies of political parties during elections as logon ka kayal kam, […]