Kancha Ilaiah

Aug 27, 2010

Who is Telangana’s grim reaper?

The two young men who killed themselves recently in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, and the subsequent and preceding incidents of youth immolating themselves or jumping in front of trains add up the tally o

The relevance of Mayawati

Mayawa-ti’s electoral defeat cannot be seen as the end of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), just as the Samajwadi Party’s victory does not mean the emergence of a new, unassailable social force onto Uttar Pradesh’s political horizon. Both parties have their bases intact, issues they hold dear, and the will to take the fight forward. Though it is premature to say how the future will unfold, clearly, history is being made.

Are we ready for spiritual democracy?

Whether the concept “spiritual democracy” is tenable and has the potential to reform the spiritual systems that are locked up in caste cultures is being debated in certain intellectual circles in Indi

Mayawati: Too clever by half?

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati seems to think that the proposal to split Uttar Pradesh into four states will help her win the 2012 elections. What she has not realised is that the four-way split will put the very existence of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the dalit agenda that she has been carrying on in real danger.

Ms Bedi, how dare you?

Team Anna has been arrogant and self-righteous ever since it launched the Jan Lokpal movement. Its Jantar Mantar hungerstrike yielded quick results, as the Congress government itself gave the team a boost by constituting a committee to draft a bill and by including five members from the team in it. Among them was former cop Kiran Bedi, who behaved as if she were an angel and all others in the country either corrupt or of no consequence. But now this angel has been caught for fraud and cheating organisers that invited her to speak at their functions.

BJP’s small state theory

With the Telangana question reaching a climactic stage it is necessary to examine the implication of carving out small states for issues such as reservations in general and the OBC reservations in particular.

Gandhi today

In my childhood, way back in the early Sixties, there was a Gandhi statue in my village. His clean shaved head and semi-naked body with a tucked-in dhoti, in a walking posture, resembled my illiterate shepherd father in every respect except

Anna’s social fascism

The recent happenings in Delhi around the issue of the Lokpal Bill have been celebrated by the media as people’s victory, pinned down on Team Anna Hazare. But the majority of the “masses” of this country, living in institutional caste and class enclosures, are not yet part of the “civil society” that the victorious group was talking about.

Don’t ban Aarakshan, it’s just upper caste

The debate around Aarakshan, Prakash Jha’s movie on reservation, has several major implications for our civil society and state. The objections raised by several organisations, individuals and also the ban imposed by three state governments — Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab — because of their suspicion that the film is against the interests of pro-reservation forces, made it controversial.

Muslims need quotas more than SC/STs

A debate is likely to be triggered by Union minister for minority affairs Salman Khurshid’s proposal for reservations for Muslims in Central institutions of education and employment. Though the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission and the Minority Commission in their reports recommended 10 per cent reservations for Muslims based on their social and educational backwardness, so far the Indian state has not taken any steps in that direction.

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