Column

On October 25 (2016) the seven member Supreme Court Bench started hearing to revisit ‘Hindutva’ cases. These are group of cases where the use of term Hindutva-Hinduism to be used during elections is to be opined. One such case was that of Manohar Joshi who in his election speech said that if he is voted to power he will work for making Maharashtra as the first Hindu state in the country. In

Lord Ram has served the BJP very well so far. It was the Ram temple issue around which seeds of the divisive politics were sown all over the country. The Rath yatra of Lal Krishna Advani precipitated deeper polarization and was followed by the trail of violence. The well planned Babri demolition further intensified the communal violence and the politics in the name of religion in the country. The

Retired Justice of Supreme Court Justice Markandey Katju wrote (26 September 2016) to the Supreme Court judges, “You are aware that one Ikhilaq was brutally lynched by cow vigilantes in Dadri. Instead of severely punishing the perpetrators of this heinous outrage, the police and local judge are proceeding against the family of Ikhlaq…Have the police gone mad?” Chand Khan alias Shan Khan spent 11

In the din of hysteria created around the military action on LOC, which was in response to the killing of 18 Indian army jawans in Uri, the issue of anguish of people of Kashmir has been undermined. As such India-Pakistan skirmishes (September 2016) are mostly centered on the issue of Kashmir. On one side India’s claim is that Kashmir is the inseparable part of India and no power on the Earth can

Today, nearly a decade later when we are remember with pain the horrific violence of Kandhmal in 2008, many issues related to the state of affairs of communal violence, state of minorities, the state of justice delivery system come to one’s mind. The incident Just to recall, Orissa witnessed unprecedented violence against the Christian minority in August 2008. On August 23, 2008, Swami Laxmananand

An old controversy resurfaced lately. After the alleged denial of government jobs to candidates linked to the RSS, Minister of State in the PMO, Jitendra Singh, said last week that “the central government has not issued any such order (prohibiting government staff from joining RSS activities) recently”, and “if any old order exists, we will review it.” (16 June, 2016) RSS Prachar Pramukh Manmohan

Communal violence is the big bane of Indian society. While on one hand the innocents are killed the guilty mostly get away without any punishment. The rate of prosecution of riot cases is very low. Even where punishments are meted out the big fish are let off while the foot soldiers get punished. Apart from these observations what is popularized and what has become part of the ‘social common sense

Can there be two type of Justice delivery system in the same country? This question came to one’s mind with the U turn taken by NIA in the cases related to terror acts in which many Hindu names were involved. Now the NIA in a fresh charge sheet (May 13, 2016) has dropped the charges against Pragya Singh Thakur, has lightened the ones against Col Purohit and others. Along with this new line of NIA

History is always subject of debates for various reasons. The one which cropped up recently around Bhagat Singh had a new dimension to ‘looking at the past’. This relates to changed perception of a word in the context of current global terrorism. In one of the talk shows, which is the noisiest of them all, the anchor attacked legendary historian Bipan Chandra and the book ‘India’s struggle for

Towards the end of 2015 many a writers and accomplished eminent citizens returned their national honors; protesting against the growing atmosphere of intolerance. The list was long and this acted as a process where some introspection took place in the society. Still the ruling dispensation and its associates in the Hindu right wing politics, the RSS combine, began criticizing those who returned