Culture
Culture
Issue Articles
The Making of India’s Linguistic Landscape
India's linguistic landscape is much too vast and diverse to neatly contain within one clean narrative. Various forces — not just linguistic — have shaped individual languages, leading up to the modern forms we use today.
India's Linguistic Diversity
How the Census obscures It
The Indian census' classificatory practices obscures the full extent of language diversity in the country. Including what the census calls "mother tongues" presents a fuller picture.
Is it a Case of 'Meat-versus-Planet'? Lessons for the Global South
Claims that the livestock sector is a high emitter of greenhouse gases have led to calls for moving towards plant-based diets. These prescriptions rest on flawed assumptions; they also ignore the nutritional needs of the working poor in the Global South.
The Intrinsic Limits of Hindutva as an Ideology of the Indian State
The BJP has built an electoral juggernaut but the mishandling of the pandemic has shown that Hindutva as an ideology is a handicap in the running of a modern state. The challenge to the BJP will come at the state-level & will be rooted in a cultural pushback.
The Achievements and Challenges of the Kerala 'Model'
The experience of Kerala ever since its formation in 1956 shows that, contrary to received wisdom, high public spending on social sectors improves people’s lives and also provides a positive thrust to economic growth.
The English Education of a Kashmiri
"In a conflict-ridden space like Kashmir, can working-class people express and understand the world in a language that is not their own, while simultaneously aspiring to be upwardly mobile? Is that desire worth the struggle it takes to reach there?"
Child Marriages During the Pandemic
The worsening of poverty during the pandemic may well have led to a worrying spurt in marriages of girl children in India. The information available indicates that has happened, pushing back the progress of recent decades in reducing child marriages.
The Politics of Language in Assam
Language has been at the heart of political debate in Assam since the formation of the British colonial province of Assam in 1874, then through the turbulent decades leading to Independence, the separation of Sylhet during Partition, and into our times.
‘Conquering Delhi’
The popular culture of the farmers’ protests
Cultural motifs of the Sikhs' ‘conquest’ of Delhi animate the art and music of the farmers’ movement. Memories of defiance and triumph, juxtaposed with images of the protests, inspire the farmers to go on despite hardships.
Himalayan Histories
The Himalayas have been a zone of global interactions and exchanges over the centuries, quite unlike the stereotype of remoteness and isolation.
Rammohun Roy's ‘Gift'
His first published piece
On the eve of the 250th birth anniversary of Rammohun Roy, a discussion of his 'Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhiddin', a tract written in Persian on the One Universal Truth.
Silences of Jiddu Krishnamurti
'Krishnamurti forced us to excavate the hubris buried in our body and soul but refused to share his own ambiguities ... he shut the door on himself, probably as much for self-preservation, as for keeping us away.' An essay on the questions JK did not ask.
Historical Roots of the Rise of Hindutva in West Bengal
For a century, Hindu organisations have worked amongst Dalits in Bengal to incorporate them into the religious community, while the Left excised the question of caste from its discourse. These legacies have come to the fore as the BJP rises in the state.
Casting Away Misogyny
An important memoir discusses how patriarchy and misogyny in Hindu society are sustained by caste.
The Cultural Unity of the Deccan Plateau, 1347–1687
Between the 14th and 17th centuries, the states of the Deccan drew on the same resources to base their authority -- the memory of the prestigious Chalukyas maharajas of Kalyana, and the prestige associated with Persian language and culture.
The Life and Art of M.S. Subbulakshmi
A new biography gives us a sense of the many personalities that made up “MS”, the extraordinary exponent of Carnatic music, during her life-journey.
For A Bahujan Economics
A Personal Statement
Bahujan students face hostility in universities but they cannot give up. They must fight to assert their identity, reject being called “non-meritorious” and master their subjects. One scholar recounts her struggle and demands a more compassionate Economics.
Ruptured Reality
Fact-checks and counter-checks in the truth trade
In the Indian mediascape, every mechanism through which fact is sifted from falsehood has become questionable. If news organisations do not have an ethical commitment towards factual reporting, fact-checking risks turning into mere performance.
A Sense of a Community
A Journey of Shared Mourning during Moharram
'The shared expression among women majlis during Moharram of an iconic grief that is both personal and communal seems to create a community of women who mourn, who share a sense of the lives of women in the past, and of their lives now.’
The Power and Contexts of Cartooning
There is a centuries-long tradition in France of poking fun at the state and even the Catholic Church, but it is one thing to critique the rich and the powerful and another to satirise marginal immigrant communities.
John le Carrè (1931-2020) Who Came In from the Cold
A tribute to the British literary giant of the second half of the 20th century, John Le Carrè, who died earlier this week, with a focus on his most memorable character, the tormented spymaster, George Smiley.
In the Name of the Nation
Nietzsche’s Abyss Staring Back?
Sanjib Baruah's new book is 'a prescient ledger' of what Northeast India has become and at the same time 'a cautionary tale' of where muscular policy may take us in the rest of India.
A Prehistory of Religious Modernity
A comparative study of the Brahmo Samaj and the Swaminarayanis, two sects seen as polar opposites, raises questions on both the superiority of the Hindu reform project during the colonial period and on claims that traditionalist faiths are intolerant.
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