Waiting for Justice
“After spending 23 years in jail, I was just like a living corpse. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t sleep. It was only on seeing my old mother and hugging her I could believe that I was still alive…” saying this Nisar Uddin Ahmed broke down in an interview given to NDTV’s Ravish Kumar. Nisar Ahmed is one of the many Muslim youths who have been acquitted in some serious cases after a long drawn legal battle. Along with some others he was booked for bomb blasts in trains carried ou…
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The Portrait of a (Closet) Muslim Fundamentalist
Is often decently educated and prays regularly (which is fine). Believes Islam can co-exist comfortably with modernity (which is again fine) but then goes on to believe that Islam was always already modern. In fact it was the most uptodate religion that ever emerged and the holy book is always relevant and never context bound. No wonder all scientific discoveries were already mentioned in the holy book but waited to be unearthed mostly by non-believers. Believes that …
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The Making of a 'Bhakt'
A
bhakt in the making is liberal (at least initially) benign believer in his
religion who feels that India may have some problems but still one should feel
patriotic. Basically believes in live and let live philosophy and likes movies
like Upkaar and Border. Also feels an extra tinge of satisfaction when India
defeats Pakistan in a cricket match.
Then happens Rohith. Blames
Brahminism despite being a Brahmin (usually). Ardently believes that the
problem of caste based discri…
On Babies and Bodies
With an over-enthusiastic news media which is always eager to please an overtly voyeuristic audience, we are often presented with celebrities cornered and asked about issues on which they don’t know much. The same has been the case with Lisa Haydon who was asked about her views on Feminism. And a few awkward sentences tumbled out. We were presented with her ‘profound wisdom’ of how people make unnecessary noise about Feminism and how it is overtly misused as a concept. How t…
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This blog is authored by Parvin Sultana. She is currently working as an Assistant Professor at Pramathesh Barua College, Assam, India. She regularly writes on contemporary socio-political issues.