Founding Editor: Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Editors: Vinod Mubayi (New York) and Raza Mir (New Jersey).
Editorial Board: Ram Puniyani and Irfan Engineer (Mumbai); Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islamabad); Dolores Chew (Montreal); Vamsi Vakulabharanam (Amherst); Ajay Bhardwaj (Vancouver).
Circulation/website: Feroz Mehdi (On behalf of Alternatives, Montreal).
EDITORIAL: FARMERS MOVEMENT GETTING STRONGER; WORKERS, UNIONS, PROGRESSIVE GROUPS INTENSIFY SUPPORT
Vinod Mubayi
The Mahapanchayat on Sept 5 in Muzaffarnagar, UP, and the Bharat Bandh of September 27 have given decisive proof of the strength, cohesion and staying power of the farmers movement and their determination to overturn the black laws passed in stealthy and undemocratic fashion by the Modi regime a year ago. The farmers’ movement is already the longest and largest non-violent protest movement in history; over 700 farmers have perished in the last 10 months fighting for their rights while the Modi regime, in thrall to the corporate lobby, refuses to even talk to the farmers let alone meet their just demands.
Read more…WHERE IS INDIA HEADED? A HISTORICAL CRITIQUE BY DR. VINOD MUBAYI
The INSAF Collective is proud to present a book published by our own beloved editor!
The mainstream media in India is the biggest fan club of the current Hindutva regime in India and the regime provides them with many Bollywood style shows ranging from the “Howdy Modi” nautanki in Texas, USA in September 2019 to “Namaste Trump” tamasha in Gujarat, India in February 2020. All the road shows, in India or abroad, are designed in a way that Modi the ‘tamashagar (performer) becomes the tamasha (performance) himself.
Read more…MODI’S MONETIZATION MANTRA IS A BLOW WORSE THAN DEMONETIZATION
Dipankar Bhattacharya
The Modi government is known for its penchant for springing periodic shocks and desperate measures. In economics we have been familiar with the demonetization disaster and GST, in politics with the sudden stripping of Jammu and Kashmir of its constitutional status and statehood or the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act or more recently the farms laws. The latest shock inflicted by the government has a strange name – National Monetization Pipeline or NMP. True to the Modi government’s habit of bypassing parliament and not holding any prior public discussion with concerned stakeholders, the government announced this sweeping grand plan on 23 August, soon after the monsoon session of Parliament.
Read more…HINDU MOBS, ANTI-MUSLIM BOYCOTTS: IN MODI’S INDIA, THE ECHOES OF 1930S GERMANY ARE GROWING LOUDER
Debasish Roy Chowdhury
Taking part in the nine-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit just over a week ago, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi voiced a familiar concern in the region following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan: the heightened risk of Islamist fundamentalism.
Read more…SAMYUKTA KISAN MORCHA PRESS RELEASE
283rd day, 5th September 2021
Historic Kisan Mazdoor Mahapanchayat held at GIC ground in Muzaffarnagar — The entire Muzaffarnagar city turned into a rally ground — A sea of people gathered across the city — Over 10 lakh farmers from across the nation came together in a show of solidarity and strength — Huge enthusiasm among the supporters to carry the movement further.
Read more…TRIBUTE TO KAMALA BHASIN
Kavita Nandini Ramdas
Editors’ Note: The Wikipedia entry on Kamla Bhasin, who passed away on September 25, begins thus: Kamla Bhasin (24 April 1946 – 25 September 2021) was an Indian developmental feminist activist, poet, author and social scientist. Bhasin’s work, that began in 1970, focused on gender, education, human development and the media. She lived in New Delhi, India.She was best known for her work with Sangat – A Feminist Network and for her poem Kyunki main ladki hoon, mujhe padhna hai. In 1995, she recited a refurbished, feminist version of the popular poem Azadi (Freedom) in a conference. She was also the South Asia coordinator of One Billion Rising.
Read more…MIND MIGRATION: ASSAM’S EASY TRANSITION FROM ETHNONATIONALISM TO HINDUTVA
Praveen Donthi
[Editors’ Note: The deadly eviction drive by Indian police forces in Assam on September 24, 2021 left 1300 families displaced, and led to the heinous public execution of an Indian citizen Moinul Haque, which was captured on video. In this prescient article from the May 2021 issue of the Caravan magazine, Praveen Donthi chronicles perhaps a genocide foretold.]
Read more…IS A LEFT-WING NATIONALISM POSSIBLE IN BANGLADESH?
Mushahid Hussain
Commemorating victims in lieu of remembering revolutionaries, seeking retribution and reconciliation rather than redistribution, writing histories of wars and genocides rather than mass struggles – such projects have become dominant in organizing the historical memory of the political left.
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