https://znetwork.org/category/place/asia/india/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Fri, 23 Jan 2026 15:44:54 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/category/place/asia/india/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/guarantee-to-live-is-alive-in-kerala/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/guarantee-to-live-is-alive-in-kerala/#respond Fri, 23 Jan 2026 17:30:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293834 In 1945, two years prior to India’s independence, the current Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, was born into a working-class family in northern Kerala. He was his mother’s fourteenth child; of the thirteen siblings born before him, only two survived. His mother was an agricultural labourer and his father a toddy tapper. They belonged [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/guarantee-to-live-is-alive-in-kerala/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/zvideo/arundhati-roy-on-new-memoir-mother-mary-comes-to-me-gaza-authoritarianism-from-india-to-u-s/ https://znetwork.org/zvideo/arundhati-roy-on-new-memoir-mother-mary-comes-to-me-gaza-authoritarianism-from-india-to-u-s/#respond Sat, 27 Dec 2025 14:04:40 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1292836 In this holiday special, we speak to the acclaimed Indian writer Arundhati Roy on her new memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me. The book focuses on her mother Mary Roy and how Arundhati was shaped by her, both as a source of terror and of inspiration. We also talk to Arundhati about Gaza and the rise [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/zvideo/arundhati-roy-on-new-memoir-mother-mary-comes-to-me-gaza-authoritarianism-from-india-to-u-s/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/peddling-lord-ram-as-a-slick-commercial-acronym/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/peddling-lord-ram-as-a-slick-commercial-acronym/#respond Mon, 22 Dec 2025 15:43:56 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292616 The revanchist government of the day was clearly canny enough to understand that removing Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the rural employment guarantee scheme (MGNREGA) which was an enforceable right-to-work budgeted endowment would be seen as an egregious enormity, a veritable red line even for compliant Hindu followers. So, they pressed into service the only entity that could [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/peddling-lord-ram-as-a-slick-commercial-acronym/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/testing-the-waters-with-bill-to-replace-mgnrega-the-right-wing-moves-towards-the-final-obliteration/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/testing-the-waters-with-bill-to-replace-mgnrega-the-right-wing-moves-towards-the-final-obliteration/#respond Thu, 18 Dec 2025 16:47:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292496 Who does not know that Gandhi has always been a thorn in the side of the right-wing for having defined swaraj as the unity of Hindus and Muslims in independent India. One of the pioneering flagship programmes of the erstwhile United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by the late Manmohan Singh was the Mahatma Gandhi National [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/testing-the-waters-with-bill-to-replace-mgnrega-the-right-wing-moves-towards-the-final-obliteration/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/anuradha-ghandy-between-marxism-and-feminism-a-reading-in-the-biography-of-a-revolutionary-indian-intellectual/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/anuradha-ghandy-between-marxism-and-feminism-a-reading-in-the-biography-of-a-revolutionary-indian-intellectual/#respond Mon, 15 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292414 Throughout history, women have played crucial roles on both global and local levels. They have fought for rights, participated in governments, led nations, excelled in the arts and sciences, and inspired generations. Yet their stories have often been marginalized or their impact diminished within historical narratives dominated by male perspectives.The series “Women Who Changed History” [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/anuradha-ghandy-between-marxism-and-feminism-a-reading-in-the-biography-of-a-revolutionary-indian-intellectual/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/coercion-without-consensus-the-united-states-and-the-new-imperial-disorder/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/coercion-without-consensus-the-united-states-and-the-new-imperial-disorder/#respond Fri, 12 Dec 2025 16:55:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292279 The year 2025 witnessed escalated threats from the United States on the Global South. In the span of months, Washington declared Venezuelan airspace “closed in its entirety,” threatened to invade Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” to protect Christians from an alleged genocide, and demanded that the Taliban return Bagram airbase with warnings of unspecified consequences. These are not isolated episodes of Trumpian bluster. They [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/coercion-without-consensus-the-united-states-and-the-new-imperial-disorder/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-democracy-fretting-to-be-a-dictatorship/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-democracy-fretting-to-be-a-dictatorship/#respond Thu, 11 Dec 2025 16:46:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292238 There is this difference between Donald Trump and Narendra Modi: during his electioneering for the United States’ presidency, Trump had forthrightly declared, “I will be a dictator from day one.” Endowed with Asiatic genius, Narendra Modi continues to make flashy avowals of his alleged commitment to constitutional rule. However, his everyday governance suggests a penchant for [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-democracy-fretting-to-be-a-dictatorship/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/on-renaming-memory-and-the-strange-weight-of-words/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/on-renaming-memory-and-the-strange-weight-of-words/#respond Mon, 08 Dec 2025 20:57:52 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292138 “What is in a name?” The great Shakespeare had Juliet pose this question, suggesting that names might be delicate shells we can discard without consequence. However today, we see an administrative system embroiled in a debate over renaming one of its leading institutions, IIT Bombay, to IIT Mumbai. This demonstrates that Shakespeare was mistaken. Names [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/on-renaming-memory-and-the-strange-weight-of-words/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-commission-deadly-serious-about-enforcing-democracy/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-commission-deadly-serious-about-enforcing-democracy/#respond Mon, 01 Dec 2025 16:39:26 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291824 Notice the example the Election Commission of India is setting for wishy-washy democracies of the world. The electoral process must be enforced in double quick time, even if you die doing so. There are the morons who quibble that it is an oxymoron to hold that democracy must be enforced. These are so obviously Macaulay’s leftovers. And [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-commission-deadly-serious-about-enforcing-democracy/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-indian-citizen-has-had-a-confusing-constitution-day/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-indian-citizen-has-had-a-confusing-constitution-day/#respond Fri, 28 Nov 2025 18:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291740 On the 26th day of November, 2025, as we celebrated “Constitution Day,” two very opposed signals about the republic invited us to clear our heads about what it means to be a citizen of India, and what text it is that ought to guide the further exertions of our lawfully elected governments towards “development”. On [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-indian-citizen-has-had-a-confusing-constitution-day/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-indigenous-replications-of-project-macaulay/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-indigenous-replications-of-project-macaulay/#respond Thu, 20 Nov 2025 16:46:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291494 In an unsurprisingly puerile Ramnath Goenka Lecture, Narendra Modi has re-invoked the favourite cultural hobby-horse of the “indigenous,” upper caste, North-Indian elite. By introducing English language and education to India in 1835, Macaulay was instrumental in successfully enslaving the Indian psyche, and forging a class of Indians fit only to serve British colonial purposes. That British [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-indigenous-replications-of-project-macaulay/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/good-muslim-bad-muslim-so-also-good-hindu-bad-hindu-shri-bhagwat-ji/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/good-muslim-bad-muslim-so-also-good-hindu-bad-hindu-shri-bhagwat-ji/#respond Tue, 11 Nov 2025 16:59:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291134 In yet another peroration on the occasion of the centenary celebrations of the RSS, Shri Mohan Bhagwat, with characteristic balance and good sense, has cautioned us not to club all Muslims in one “bracket”. He has underscored how only some Indian Muslims speak of “Ghazwa e Hind”, or practise “Love Jihad”. Thus he admonishes us [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/good-muslim-bad-muslim-so-also-good-hindu-bad-hindu-shri-bhagwat-ji/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-deterioration-of-the-concept-of-communal-into-vote-bank/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-deterioration-of-the-concept-of-communal-into-vote-bank/#respond Wed, 29 Oct 2025 18:19:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290589 In the area of Humanist studies in sociology it is perhaps hard to find a more endearing concept than that of the “communal.” Be it Latin, French, German, or English, all extensive etymological studies show how the word denoted that which is general, collective, public, “Held in common” – a history that was to lead [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-deterioration-of-the-concept-of-communal-into-vote-bank/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-illusion-and-reality-of-sanatan-and-social-hierarchy/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-illusion-and-reality-of-sanatan-and-social-hierarchy/#respond Thu, 09 Oct 2025 15:45:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289733 It seems our Sanatan continues to ride a dual horse of convenience when it comes to caste identities: it speaks of caste either as birth-related or karmically-acquired as it suits whatever case may be in hand. Mulling the Manusmriti text which lays down that the killing of a Brahmin is the most heinous of sins, many bewildered Hindus [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-illusion-and-reality-of-sanatan-and-social-hierarchy/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/zvideo/how-zionism-and-hindu-nationalism-work-together/ https://znetwork.org/zvideo/how-zionism-and-hindu-nationalism-work-together/#respond Sat, 04 Oct 2025 14:10:34 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1289492 On this episode of ‘Mehdi Unfiltered,’ Mehdi Hasan speaks to award-winning Indian author Arundhati Roy. In the wake of her global success, Roy says that India tried to trot her out as a symbol of Hindu nationalism. Instead, Roy became one of her country’s most prominent dissidents. “For me… there’s never been a moment where [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/zvideo/how-zionism-and-hindu-nationalism-work-together/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/shooting-democracy-dead-during-a-television-debate/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/shooting-democracy-dead-during-a-television-debate/#respond Fri, 03 Oct 2025 14:32:03 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289456 Printu Mahadevan, a spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party, has been pleased to make it known to Rahul Gandhi that he  “will be shot in the chest”  should he encourage Gen Z like movements in India. Just to remind ourselves: Rahul Gandhi is both leader of the second biggest national party and leader of the opposition in [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/shooting-democracy-dead-during-a-television-debate/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/gaza-sparks-global-protests-except-in-india/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/gaza-sparks-global-protests-except-in-india/#respond Wed, 01 Oct 2025 18:06:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289368 While accepting the Orizzonti best director award at the Venice Film Festival, Anuparna Roy, the first Indian to do so, closed her acceptance speech by urging people to care about what was happening to the children in Palestine. “Every child deserves peace, freedom, liberation, and Palestine is no exception,” Roy said. “I don’t want any [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/gaza-sparks-global-protests-except-in-india/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/symbols-of-power-and-acts-of-erasure-what-hazratbal-emblem-row-reveals-about-india-today/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/symbols-of-power-and-acts-of-erasure-what-hazratbal-emblem-row-reveals-about-india-today/#respond Tue, 30 Sep 2025 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289305 In India’s contemporary socio-political landscape, everyday spaces have become sites of symbolic contestation. This includes grand temple rituals, city name changes, language debates, politicized food choices, and strategic interventions in textbooks and education curricula. All of these elements play into a larger project of redefining national identity by the present regime led by the Hindu [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/symbols-of-power-and-acts-of-erasure-what-hazratbal-emblem-row-reveals-about-india-today/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/delhi-riots-case-are-the-accused-to-be-tried-or-simply-held/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/delhi-riots-case-are-the-accused-to-be-tried-or-simply-held/#respond Wed, 24 Sep 2025 18:21:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1288982 Umar Khalid and others have been in jail now for five long years, awaiting trial for having allegedly incited riots in the capital in 2020. The trial has not begun, and is not likely to for some time. This could be for one of two reasons: either the state does not have a good case, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/delhi-riots-case-are-the-accused-to-be-tried-or-simply-held/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/three-recent-vignettes-from-sanatan-politics/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/three-recent-vignettes-from-sanatan-politics/#respond Sat, 20 Sep 2025 14:42:27 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1288795 The following three snapshots illustrate how everyday political interactions in New India are steadily reshaping democracy along the twin axes of feudal entitlement and authoritarian intolerance. The first comes from Debu Sarai in Bihar. Asked by Union textiles minister Giriraj Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) whether he was receiving government benefits, a Muslim [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/three-recent-vignettes-from-sanatan-politics/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-delhi-to-dc-a-summer-study-in-power-and-resistance/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-delhi-to-dc-a-summer-study-in-power-and-resistance/#respond Sat, 13 Sep 2025 15:42:04 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1288521 August 2025 will be remembered as the month India said “no”—twice. First it was “no” to Donald Trump’s economic blackmail over Russian oil purchases. Then “no” to its own Supreme Court’s order to sweep capital city Delhi’s streets clean of stray dogs. Although these cases may seem unrelated, they reveal something profound about the limits [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-delhi-to-dc-a-summer-study-in-power-and-resistance/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-the-light-of-nepals-upheaval-president-murmus-admonition-comes-not-a-day-too-soon/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-the-light-of-nepals-upheaval-president-murmus-admonition-comes-not-a-day-too-soon/#respond Thu, 11 Sep 2025 15:47:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1288425 Tucked away in a corner of page 7 of The Indian Express of September 10 is an all-important story. It carries news of an admonition from the honourable President of India – one that has not come a day too soon, given the upheavals in the neighbouring country of Nepal. The President has underlined a truth that [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-the-light-of-nepals-upheaval-president-murmus-admonition-comes-not-a-day-too-soon/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/indias-book-ban-in-kashmir-is-a-war-on-memory/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/indias-book-ban-in-kashmir-is-a-war-on-memory/#respond Mon, 25 Aug 2025 16:33:02 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287725 The bookshops in Lal Chowk, in Srinagar — the summer capital of India-administered Kashmir — had been, as usual, places of quiet and repose. But on August 7, police officers started raiding stores, pulling titles from shelves and questioning sellers. By then, the news had already spread online: the Jammu and Kashmir administration had banned twenty-five books. In the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/indias-book-ban-in-kashmir-is-a-war-on-memory/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/honeymoon-over-trump-divorces-india/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/honeymoon-over-trump-divorces-india/#respond Sun, 24 Aug 2025 16:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287682 In 2019, Donald Trump and Narendra Modi paraded their bromance with a 50,000-person “Howdy Modi” rally in Houston. They followed that up with a “Namaste Trump” 100,000-person event in India. As recently as February, Trump lavished praise on Modi, saying the two countries had “a mega partnership for prosperity.” Trump was the darling of the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/honeymoon-over-trump-divorces-india/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/let-the-130th-amendment-move-be-the-last-straw/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/let-the-130th-amendment-move-be-the-last-straw/#respond Fri, 22 Aug 2025 15:49:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287636 There are times in history when the invitation to engage in debate about a patently disingenuous gambit is a call to be complicit with it. Think of the many arguments that were made lauding the positive features of the Emergency of 1975: Trains ran on time; nobody dared come late to office; fractious public protests [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/let-the-130th-amendment-move-be-the-last-straw/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-theft-of-democracy-in-india/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-theft-of-democracy-in-india/#respond Wed, 20 Aug 2025 18:20:43 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287548 On 15 August, India celebrated 78 years of independence from colonial rule. The tricolour fluttered across villages and cities as a testament to the centuries of struggle for freedom. But beneath the surface of this remembrance lay a profound anxiety: that the most basic right won through that struggle — the right to vote, the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-theft-of-democracy-in-india/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-milestone-in-democratic-resistance/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-milestone-in-democratic-resistance/#respond Tue, 19 Aug 2025 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287506 Over three years since the national farmers’ movement forced the Modi government’s rollback of the three farm laws, Karnataka’s farmers have now won a major battle of their own. The Congress-led State Government, under pressure from sustained protest, has cancelled the plans to acquire 1,777 acres of fertile agricultural land in Devanahalli. Commonly dubbed as [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-milestone-in-democratic-resistance/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mohan-bhagwats-socialism-rethink-and-the-wider-battle-within-the-sangh-bjp/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mohan-bhagwats-socialism-rethink-and-the-wider-battle-within-the-sangh-bjp/#respond Fri, 15 Aug 2025 16:30:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287349 Quite recently, the right-wing, led by the RSS, spoke for the umpteenth time in favour of erasing the word “Socialism” from the Preamble to the Constitution of India. It is no historical secret, of course, that these forces have remained linked to private ownership of productive forces in opposition to an economic model in which [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mohan-bhagwats-socialism-rethink-and-the-wider-battle-within-the-sangh-bjp/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/kerala-is-still-the-stronghold-of-indias-communist-movement/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/kerala-is-still-the-stronghold-of-indias-communist-movement/#respond Tue, 12 Aug 2025 16:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287219 India’s central government views the state of Kerala with suspicion and disdain. Politicians from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) often present it as an internal, fifth-columnist enemy. Kerala has for decades been a vital heartland of the country’s communist movement. Despite its increasingly isolated status, the state continues to regularly vote [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/kerala-is-still-the-stronghold-of-indias-communist-movement/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/who-is-a-true-indian/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/who-is-a-true-indian/#respond Sat, 09 Aug 2025 16:44:43 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287100 In 1974, at the end of a three-hour long talk given by me to a civil society gathering in Madison, Wisconsin, I was asked a truly profound, if troubling, question: “Sir, keeping in mind the incredible diversities of cultural identity and expression in India straddling myriads of languages, castes, religious faiths, colours of skin, economic [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/who-is-a-true-indian/feed/ 0