Patralekha Chatterjee | Look ahead, not at past: Anger, rage hurts India
1 week, 1 day ago

Patralekha Chatterjee | Look ahead, not at past: Anger, rage hurts India

Deccan Chronicle  

As the year winds down, one looks back in wonder and in anger. In an article in July 2023, “Mooknayak”, an online news website focusing on social justice for Dalits and marginalised communities, flagged several instances, both reported and unreported, where so-called “lower castes” have been subjected to urine and human faeces, underscoring the urgent need to address and eradicate caste-based atrocities. Systematic aggression against vulnerable groups — be it minorities or Dalits — as part of the ongoing culture wars in India sometimes has a bizarre twist, such as the rise of the Santa Claus police. On Christmas Day, Arjun, a Zomato food delivery man in Indore, who was dressed up as Santa Claus, was stopped by a group of people belonging to a Hindu nationalist organisation, and forced to take off his costume. “Why don’t you wear Lord Ram’s costume or saffron clothes while making the delivery during Hindu festivals,” the Zomato rider was reportedly asked.

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History of this topic

Patralekha Chatterjee | Unpacking cultural pride in election-bound India
8 months, 3 weeks ago

Patralekha Chatterjee | Unpacking cultural pride in election-bound India

Deccan Chronicle  

You do not have to say “I love you” to express love. It is the same with cultural pride -- you do not have to wrap yourself in a “proud Indian” tag to take pride in India, its culture. “Cultural pride” is a persistent theme in the poll discourse, and in the social media, as the country jostles with contesting …

Patralekha Chatterjee | Why so prickly? Is there a plot to defame India?
2 years, 2 months ago

Patralekha Chatterjee | Why so prickly? Is there a plot to defame India?

Deccan Chronicle  

Is the world conspiring to make India look bad or are we too sensitive about the global gaze? India’s officialdom rubbished the findings and called the GHI 2021 assessment of India as “shocking” and “devoid of ground reality and facts and suffers from serious methodological issues”. Amid the ongoing furore over global rankings, one may be tempted to ask how …

Patralekha Chatterjee | Festivals need to celebrate inclusion, not just diversity
2 years, 3 months ago

Patralekha Chatterjee | Festivals need to celebrate inclusion, not just diversity

Deccan Chronicle  

Festivals matter no matter who you are, where you are and whether you are a believer or non-believer. For most of us, the culture of spectacle, the panoply of sounds, lights, the rhythm of the dhak in Durga Puja pandals, the colours, the conviviality, the gastronomic delights, the grand melas, Ramlila performances, Dussehra, and all the celebrations of the past …

Patralekha Chatterjee | India’s pride, prejudice and its global rankings
2 years, 3 months ago

Patralekha Chatterjee | India’s pride, prejudice and its global rankings

Deccan Chronicle  

India’s relationship with global rankings has always had shades of Jane Austen. Which brings me to two headline-grabbers in recent weeks -- India overtaking the United Kingdom to become the world’s fifth-largest economy around the same time that the Human Development Report 2021–22, brought out by the UN Development Programme, showed that India’s global rankings have gone down. Mean years …

Patralekha Chatterjee | India needs healing touch to curb sectarian violence
2 years, 10 months ago

Patralekha Chatterjee | India needs healing touch to curb sectarian violence

Deccan Chronicle  

What makes a picturesque district in Karnataka, famous for its waterfalls and writers, erupt into violence and vandalism? There is another equally important question — what will be the economic impact of these images of sectarian violence for the district, state and country? “But, if Bengaluru is seen as the capital of a state where such incidents take place and …

Patralekha Chatterjee | Politics of nostalgia hides the problems of the day
3 years ago

Patralekha Chatterjee | Politics of nostalgia hides the problems of the day

Deccan Chronicle  

Imagine that your car has a flat tyre. India’s first Prime Minister, who died in 1964 and was the pet peeve of the BJP, is no longer being blamed for every conceivable problem in the country. The top one per cent of India’s population earned more than one-fifth of the country’s total national income in 2021, according to the recently-released …

Patralekha Chatterjee | Why is India so prickly as it faces global gaze?
3 years, 2 months ago

Patralekha Chatterjee | Why is India so prickly as it faces global gaze?

Deccan Chronicle  

Is the world conspiring to make India look bad? The Narendra Modi government has trashed the latest Global Hunger Index in which India ranks 101 among 116 countries. India’s rank slipped to 101 from 94 and is now among the 31 countries where hunger has been identified as a “serious” problem. Recent official data from the first phase of the …

Patralekha Chatterjee | Get priorities straight in time of a pandemic
4 years, 1 month ago

Patralekha Chatterjee | Get priorities straight in time of a pandemic

Deccan Chronicle  

The number of Indians infected by Covid-19 has crossed 90 lakhs. At an election rally in Jaunpur last month, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath warned of dire consequences to those found guilty of “love jihad”. Why then this noise about “love jihad” when in February this year, G. Kishan Reddy, Union minister of state for home in the Narendra …

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