A Bridge Too Far
By Satya Sagar
A communist stronghold for ages, Nandigram, along with Singur, is going through hell in a state where the Left Front has never been dethroned in the last three decades. All this because West Bengal has been bitten by the latest brainchild of India’s economic liberalisers for attracting global capital. Weeks after unimaginable State-sponsored brutalities on farmers, Satya Sagar travels through the restless districts and discovers intense fury amidst the wounds that will take a long time to heal

Globalisation and Indian Economic Development
By Amit Bhaduri
Economic policies formulated by the Indian government are tilted in favour of the advanced capitalist countries, often to appease the financial markets. That’s why our governments get showered with accolades from the Bretton Woods institutions, the IMF and the World Bank.

SEZs for the Rich, Poor to Bear the Brunt
By Arun Kumar
With ‘growth-at-any-cost’ being the sole motto of the Special Economic Zone policy, the cost of this new brand of industrialisation is falling on the marginalised, Indian farmers and tribals. Economist Arun Kumar analyses the phenomenon called SEZs

Mainstreaming ‘Otherness’
By Sukumar Muralidharan
The media does not merely inform, it goes beyond, into constructing meanings through a montage of messages that often reinforce and create communal stereotypes. Sukumar Muralidharan takes stock of the mainstream media

Carnivorous Flower
Bringing adivasis within ‘communal’ fold
By Shankar Gopalakrishnan and Priya Sreenivasa
Philanthropy is the new dubious card being played by the sangh parivar. At the core of this strategy lies education that is being used as a tool to convert unemployed adivasi youth. Shankar Gopalakrishnan and Priya Sreenivasa delve deep into this complex and sinister strategy

‘Hatred’ as a Way of Life
By Asghar Ali Engineer
The BJP always plays the anti-Muslim card in the run-up to elections. The latest seedy CD released in UP, though disowned by the party later, touches a new low in this vicious campaign. Asghar Ali Engineer unravels the BJP’s history of crass propaganda

State Has No Religion
By Colin Gonsalves
Court decisions generally have lacked strong measures to penalise religious fundamentalism. On the contrary, as some of the decisions indicate, the judiciary seems to permit social ostracism, boycott of minorities and ghettoisation based on caste and religion. Colin Gonsalves argues that in a democracy like ours the State has no religion

The Will to Hope
By Amit Sengupta
Yes, it is absolutely clear, writes Amit Sengupta, that the official Left has lost its soul, that communalism is here to stay, that farmers will continue to commit suicide… unless the radical Left wakes up. Yes, we can hear it from a 100 miles

 
Remembering Minu Jose
Minu, you will be dearly missed, as a friend, a colleague and a fellow traveler in the journey to resist human rights violations and the fight for justice and equality.

Editorial

Letters to the Editor

Five Years on, Gujarat
Scars Refuse to Heal
By Suvi Dogra
It’s stark, this abject absence of hope, despite the UPA offering cheques to the survivors of the Gujarat carnage. Suvi Dogra reports on a public hearing held in Delhi

Bombay Pogrom:
Srikrishna Report Dumped
By Combat Law team
Years after the Srikrishna Commission came out with its report that indicted 31 police officers for their role in the 1992-93 Mumbai riots, no significant action has been taken against these police officers. Below is an overview of the actions initiated, or avoided, in the wake of a petition filed in the court for follow up action. An analysis by Combat Law team

Institutionalising Communalism
By Colin Gonsalves
One of the oldest and largest slums iDespite a number of commissions of enquiries reports implicating police officers for laxity in investigation, and, in fact, sometimes playing an active role in abating communal riots, such officers are hardly brought to justice. Only strong judicial pronouncements can lay down a new law for the effective and immediate prosecution of perpetrators in khaki.

Spurious textbooks
Suvi Dogra
A small book – Schools or Hate-Labs by Apoorvanand — based on the findings of an NGO about textbooks being taught in schools of Rajasthan highlights attempts to initiate children into a particular ideology, courtesy the state government. This, besides being against the secular spirit of the Constitution and ethos of the country, is detrimental to the interests of children

Other issues:

Left Faces Critical Choice
By Praful Bidwai
Is it credible for the Left to speak out at the national level against neo-liberalism, but practise that very strategy on its home turf? The Left, especially the CPI(M), must decide whether it wants to fight for radical change and socialism, or merely manage capitalism Chinese-style. If it chooses the second option, it will surely get marginalised and go into historic decline.

Hocus Pocus Posco
By Pragya Vats
The resistance is on. In Nandigram and Singur. And in Orissa where the South Korean steel giant Posco is setting up a multi-million mega plant on the debris of lives and livelihoods of thousands. Promises of jobs and seductive displacement packages have proved to be hollow and people are in no mood to be deceived yet again.

The ‘Globalised Modern’
Takes to Religion
By KN Pannikar
In an era of globalisation, where a certain brand of modernity is being forced on us, conservative Hindutva forces are pushing their ‘swadeshi’ agenda among the middle-classes. KN Pannikar explores this relationship between globalisation, culture and communalism

Axis of Evil
By Anil Chaudhary
The very concept of the nation is being eliminated by the market as a handful of global business conglomerates call the shots. With the economic definitions of nation, nationalism and nationhood rendered redundant, right-wing fundamentalism is filling the vacuum.

Whither Minority?
By Yoginder Sikand
Denying them their separate identity could be part of an agenda that seeks to bring minorities within the amorphous Hindu fold

Celebrating Vilification

A religious occasion like Shabri Kumbh was invented and used by its organisers to target Christian community in Gujarat through hate speeches, distribution of inflammatory CDs and a website started in the name of the festival forcing ANHAD, a voluntary organisation to file a public interest case in the Supreme Court pleading for restrain against such exercises. A brief summary of the case

Schooling Fundamentalism
By Abid Shah
The BJP’s attempt to propagate its ideology through schools, textbooks and morning prayers is driven by xenophobic cultural training.

Can Judiciary Provide Hope?
By Mihir Desai
Despite the laws, has our judiciary been able to address the contentious issues related to communalism? When the Shiv Sena supre moemits vitriol against Muslims or ‘outsiders’ from other parts of India, the law of the land lets him go scot-free. And how come after every bout of ‘organised’ communal violence governments seem so non-serious about commission of enquiries.

Robbing Freedom
of Conscience
By Tehmina Arora 
The anti-conversion law not only curbs the right to propagate one’s religion but also cripples freedom of one’s conscience. Yet, there is no restriction on re-conversion.

Sangh Spreads its Cloak in
American Campus
By Girish Agrawal
Hindutva forces are systematically spreading their ideology in American universities, reports Girish Agrawal from New York

Who Wants the World Bank Anyway?

Announcing the Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank in India

Imaginary Homeland, Imagined Community
By Jitendra Kumar &
Himanshu Upadhyaya
How can the people of Kashmir celebrate freedom under the shadow of the gun? Screened in Delhi recently, Sanjay Kak’s sensitive documentary ‘Jashn-e-Azadi’ is a grim and complex narrative of tragic realism

Ayodhya Revisited
By Abid Shah
A-decade-and-half after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Saurabh Pandey’s short documentary, ‘Bone of Contention’, exposes how ‘outsiders’ instigated frenzy

Blood and Ashes
By Amit Sengupta
So were Ishrat Jahan and her colleagues murdered in a ‘fake encounter’? Like Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife? Were others too victims of these extra-judicial murders? And how come the Narendra Modi regime seemed totally clueless? The fake encounter in Gujarat might open up a ghastly pandora’s box of how a communalised hate-lab can manufacture its own brand of killers — in khaki.