The UN communication points to reports showing that the Home Minister presented the electoral updates before Parliament using the policy formula “Detect, Delete and Deport”. The text also notes that senior leadership repeatedly used this framing, describing the SIR as a process to “‘purify’ electoral rolls of infiltrators”.

The joint letter was sent by Nicolas Levrat, Special Rapporteur on minority issues; Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; and Nazila Ghanea, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. Operating under Human Rights Council mandates, the experts requested explanations from the Indian government regarding actions that may amount to “serious violations of multiple human rights obligations”.

The scope of the ‘Special Intensive Revision’

The inquiry by UN experts centres on the large geographic scale of the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) voter roll update.  According to the details sent to the UN mandate holders, the ECI announced a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process on November 4, 2025. This administrative exercise covered nine states: Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. It also included three Union Territories: Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry. In total, the revision applied to 321 districts and 1,843 Assembly Constituencies.

This updating process, which concluded its second phase on December 4, 2025, followed an initial revision conducted in Bihar between June and September of the same year. The ECI stated that the program’s official goals were to ensure that “the names of all eligible citizens are included in the electoral roll,” that “no ineligible voter is included,” and to maintain full transparency when adding or removing names.

Reports sent to the UN indicate that approximately 52 million names were removed from the voter rolls across the 12 participating States and Union Territories. The UN experts noted that the preliminary update in Bihar had already “caused alarm over potential large-scale disenfranchisement and denationalization, particularly of Muslims and other minorities”.

Detailed reports and complaints sent to UN experts led up to this. After examining the on ground details of the allegations, the United Nations (UN) has contacted the Government of India regarding the recent voter roll updates through Special Intensive Revision (SIR). In a formal communication dated May 1, 2026, three UN Special Rapporteurs have raised serious questions concerning the potential systematic removal of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities from electoral registers, focusing particularly on Muslim voters and people of Bengali descent.

Impact in West Bengal and the Nandigram

The removal of names heavily affected West Bengal just before its state assembly elections took place on April 23 and 29, 2026. The UN communication notes that West Bengal was “particularly affected,” with a reported 9.1 million names removed from the state’s voter registers.

Individuals affected by the deletions reported being “wrongfully excluded despite having provided valid identification”. The communication states that “Muslim voters were reportedly disproportionately impacted by the SIR process”.

Data from specific local areas highlighted significant discrepancies. The UN mandate holders pointed to the constituency of Nandigram, where reports indicated that “allegedly 95 per cent of the deleted voters were Muslims, even though Muslims only make up 25 per cent of the constituency’s electorate”.

The affected voting population in Nandigram includes “men, women, and elderly citizens who are Indian nationals with valid identity documents”.

The communication also highlights that minor issues, such as “minor spelling inconsistencies in documents”—which are “reportedly common across India due to administrative challenges”—were used as the basis for removing voter names.

Additionally, the UN mandate holders noted concerns regarding the use of technology, specifically reports pointing to “the alleged use of an AI-driven system that flagged ‘irregularities’ in voter data”. The experts stated that using automated systems in this high-stakes context introduces “serious issues related to transparency, errors, and potential bias,” which risks removing valid voters and “undermining democratic fairness”.

Official statements and rhetoric

The UN communication connects the administrative actions to the broader political environment and public statements regarding minority communities. The Special Rapporteurs noted “discriminatory rhetoric by politicians and senior public figures of the Government in the context of the SIR exercise”.

The letters state that the public comments “appear to reflect and reinforce a pattern of discriminatory rhetoric directed at Muslim, Bengali, and other minority communities”.

The communication also cites public statements from senior government figures, including the Union Home Minister, who “publicly framed the deletion of voter names as targeting ‘illegal Bangladeshi immigrants'”. The UN letter states that this description “conflates legitimate Indian Muslim citizens with foreign nationals”.

The UN communication points to reports showing that the Home Minister presented the electoral updates before Parliament using the policy formula “Detect, Delete and Deport”. The text also notes that senior leadership repeatedly used this framing, describing the SIR as a process to “‘purify’ electoral rolls of infiltrators”.

The Special Rapporteurs warned that this phrasing “could amount to potential incitement to discrimination within the meaning of article 20(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)”. This article prohibits the advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that leads to incitement, hostility, or discrimination.

The UN experts stated that this language functions to “construct Muslim citizens as presumptively foreign, criminal and undeserving of civic rights, without any individualized determination of their legal status”. Furthermore, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief reiterated that religious groups “must not be instrumentalised to incite hatred and violence, including for electoral purposes or political gains”.

The UN concluded that basing a state-run voter update on the removal of a specific religious group “risks constituting, at minimum, an official endorsement of discriminatory attitudes toward Muslim citizens,” and could represent the “instrumentalisation of State administrative machinery for the purpose of political targeting of a religious minority”.

The appeals process and judicial timelines

The UN letter reviewed the legal avenues available to affected citizens and how tight deadlines impacted the outcomes. Voters originally sought recourse through the ECI and filed petitions for judicial review with the Supreme Court of India. On April 6, 2026, the Supreme Court declined to put a stay on the revision process.

On April 16, 2026, the Supreme Court utilised its special powers under Article 142 of the Constitution. The Court ruled that removed voters in West Bengal could restore their names if their appeals were approved by appellate tribunals by the deadlines of April 21 and April 27, 2026. The ECI was directed to update supplementary lists for these individuals, but the Court specified that “those with pending appeals would not be allowed to vote”.

The UN experts expressed concern over the logistical challenges of this legal remedy. The revision exercise led to more than 3.4 million appeals. The UN observed that “the short timeframe and sheer scale of the appeals meant to be resolved before the deadlines set by the Court… appear to have led to the exclusion of millions of eligible citizens from the elections in West Bengal”. The pressure on tribunals to process millions of cases in a few days left many voters without a resolved appeal before the voting deadlines.

Alignment with international human rights law

The UN mandate holders evaluated these events against international treaties that India has ratified, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified on April 10, 1979, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), ratified on December 3, 1968.

The annex to the communication outlines these specific standards. Article 27 of the ICCPR states that ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities have the right “to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language”. The 1992 Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities similarly requires nations to protect minority identities and ensure their participation in public life without discrimination.

Furthermore, Article 25 of the ICCPR guarantees citizens the right to participate in public affairs and vote in periodic elections “without unreasonable restrictions” and without religious distinctions. The Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 25 (1996) states that voter registration processes must be facilitated, objective, reasonable, and non-discriminatory.

The UN expressed “grave concern that the SIR process of electoral rolls conducted by the ECI in West Bengal appears to have imposed conditions and procedural burdens that were neither reasonable nor proportionate, and which have disproportionately impacted Muslim citizens”. They noted that the tight timelines, the “opacity of the algorithmic methodology employed,” and the barriers faced by economically and linguistically vulnerable voters combined to form unreasonable restrictions on voting rights.

Specific questions put forward by the UN

The communication asks the Indian Government to provide detailed observations on seven specific points:

“1. Please provide any additional information and any comment you may have on the above-mentioned allegations.

2. Please provide detailed information on any steps your Excellency’s Government may have taken to ensure that the substance and implementation of the SIR process, including the administration of the claims and objection period, complies with India’s obligations under international human rights law and standards. In particular, please provide details on steps taken to ensure that the SIR process has not resulted in the exclusion of eligible voters from their participation in the public elections of 2026.
3. Please provide details on safeguards ensuring that members of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities are not discriminated against in the framework of the SIR process and the determination of their voter status. In this context, please provide detailed information on the exact number of names that have been removed from the electoral rolls, during the SIR process, specifying the reason for deletion, as well as the number of objections and appeals filed in front of the various organs and the resulting decisions. Please also provide disaggregated data on the ethnicity and religion of individuals who have been excluded from electoral rolls, as well as individuals who have been declared ineligible after judicial adjudication. If unavailable, please explain why.
4. Please provide more details about the “claims and objections” period and, in particular, whether the process ensured a fair and effective opportunity to contest exclusions, particularly in light of reports that millions of voters were declared ineligible after judicial adjudication despite presenting valid identification.
5. Please provide details on measures taken to ensure access to effective remedies before the two-phase Assembly elections, which took place 23 and 29 April 2026, for all individuals excluded from electoral rolls.
6. Please provide information on measures undertaken to eliminate any discriminatory treatment of minorities, including Muslims and persons of Bengali descent, as well as other minorities, with regard to the right to vote and to choose their representatives freely.
7. Please provide information on measures that the State is taking to provide effective remedies to individuals found to have been wrongfully removed from electoral rolls and consequently deprived of their right to vote, particularly in cases where no timely remedy was available before the elections took place. What steps are taken to ensure accountability and to safeguard the affected individuals’ right to political participation?”

The UN provided a 60-day period for the Indian government to respond before the communication is permanently hosted on the public reporting website. The Rapporteurs noted they might issue a public statement sooner, as they consider the initial information “sufficiently reliable to indicate a matter warranting immediate attention”.

The Special Rapporteurs requested that “all necessary interim measures be taken to halt the alleged violations and prevent their re-occurrence,” and if the details are confirmed by investigation, to “ensure the accountability of any person(s) responsible for the alleged violations”.

The UN’s official Communication dated May 1, 2026 can be accessed from here

Related:

Disenfranchisement route to Majoritarian Rule: Political Logic of SIR

Exclusive Investigation SIR: How many voters did the ECI actually disenfranchise? Why do final figures show inexplicable ‘additions’?

Judgement delivered, paradox prevails: every voter a citizen, but what is the fate of 51.8 million excluded?

SC greenlights SIR, upholds ECI’s power to revise electoral rolls

The Bihar Verdict 2025: How an election was engineered before votes were cast

The post UN Rights Experts flag Discrimination in ECI’s SIR exercise, seek India’s response appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The statement has elaborated on the provisions of international humanitarian law that recognises that even in times of war, humanity must prevail, the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols grant special protection to hospitals, ambulances, medical personnel, and rescue workers, recognising that those who dedicate their lives to saving others must never become targets of armed conflict. These fundamental and noble principles have been repeatedly and systematically violated by Israel, the occupying Power, says the statement.

“The destruction of healthcare infrastructure has reached catastrophic proportions. Hospitals have been bombed, besieged, and rendered inoperable. Ambulances have been attacked while attempting to rescue the wounded. Doctors, nurses, and paramedics have been killed, injured, or detained while performing their humanitarian duties.

“As of today, only 19 of Gaza’s 34 hospitals remain partially operational, operating under impossible conditions, while severe shortages of medicines, medical equipment, fuel, electricity, and clean water continue to push the healthcare system toward total collapse. In the occupied West Bank, repeated military incursions, restrictions on movement, and shortages of essential medicines have severely disrupted healthcare delivery, with approximately 11,000 surgical procedures reportedly postponed, placing thousands of patients’ lives at further risk.

“This humanitarian catastrophe is not an inevitable consequence of war; it is the result of Israel’s systematic dismantling of the Palestinian healthcare system upon which millions of Palestinian civilians depend for their survival.

“The world witnessed the tragic fate of six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was targeted by the Israeli army after remaining trapped for hours. The Palestine Red Crescent ambulance sent to rescue her, despite prior coordination with Israeli authorities, was also attacked, killing the two paramedics. A recent United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli forces deliberately targeted both the family vehicle and the ambulance.

“Similarly, on March 23, 2025, the international community watched in horror as video evidence emerged documenting the Israeli killing of Palestinian rescue workers in Rafah while carrying out their humanitarian mission. These were not isolated tragedies, but part of a systematic pattern documented by the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and numerous international humanitarian organizations, and they represent only the tip of the iceberg.

“Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital and a respected paediatrician, has become the face of the resilience and humanitarian commitment of Palestinian healthcare workers. As northern Gaza’s healthcare system collapsed under repeated military assaults and siege, he chose to remain with his patients, refusing to abandon those who depended on his care.

“His personal sacrifice became even more profound when he lost his own son, Ibrahim, who was killed during the assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital. Despite this devastating personal tragedy, Dr. Abu Safiya returned almost immediately to caring for his patients, embodying the highest ideals of the medical profession.

“On December 27, 2024, following the assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital-the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza-Israeli forces detained Dr. Abu Safiya, together with members of the medical staff and patients, under Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law. Since then, he has remained in Israeli detention. His continued detention has become a matter of grave international concern.

“Yesterday, July 8, 2026, United Nations Special Rapporteurs and independent human rights experts called for Dr. Abu Safiya’s immediate release, expressing serious concern over credible reports that he has been subjected to torture, other forms of ill-treatment, prolonged solitary confinement, denial of adequate medical care, and a severe deterioration in both his physical and psychological condition. The experts further emphasized that his detention appears to be arbitrary and urged his immediate release unless internationally recognized criminal charges are promptly brought against him.”

It is in light of these dire and precarious circumstances that the Palestinian embassy has issued the statement and appeal. The appeal calls on all Indians to support and join the call for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya; advocating for the protection of Palestinian healthcare workers, hospitals, ambulances, and medical facilities in accordance with international humanitarian law; supporting independent international investigations and accountability for attacks against medical personnel and healthcare infrastructure; and backing urgent international efforts to restore and strengthen the Palestinian healthcare system while ensuring the unhindered delivery of essential medical supplies and humanitarian assistance.

The continued detention of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is not merely the case of one physician. It symbolizes the broader assault on the Palestinian healthcare system and the humanitarian principles that underpin international law. Wider support can make a meaningful difference in defending these universal values.

Related:

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Gaza: 700 citizens demand release of detained Madleen activists, call upon UK to fix Israel’s accountability for genocide, blockade, war crimes in Palestine

Illegality of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine

The post The arbitrary detention of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya: A call for justice appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Ask Palestine. The team finished second in the second round of the Asian qualifiers, behind Australia, thus qualifying for the third round for the first time in their history. Here, they were drawn in a tough group with South Korea, Jordan, Iraq, Oman and Kuwait. They played their hearts out, drawing twice against the much stronger South Korea, and would have qualified for the next round, had it not been for a penalty awarded to Oman in stoppage time during Palestine’s final match. When Oman converted, what should have been a win became a draw, and Palestine was eliminated, just one point short of progressing.

Palestine’s World Cup qualifying campaign faced extraordinary odds. In the qualifying tournaments, each team plays a ‘home’ and an ‘away’ match. Palestine has not been able to play ‘home’ matches in either the West Bank or Gaza since October 2023. These matches are played in a neutral venue. Thus, while their opponents enjoy the ‘home’ advantage, Palestine don’t. Palestinian players routinely face harassment and travel restrictions from Israeli authorities. Even getting the whole team together for training is an achievement. Several players and staff have had family members or friends killed during the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

And then there’s the destruction of infrastructure. Gaza had around 40 football clubs affiliated with the Palestine Football Association (PFA) before the start of the genocide in October 2023. Gaza had several football facilities, including four stadiums: Palestine Stadium, Yarmouk Stadium, Khan Younis Stadium, Rafah Municipal Stadium. Today, nothing remains. All stadiums have been destroyed. All football facilities are in ruins. There is no functioning football club.

And what of the players? In early June this year, Israel abducted two women football players, Rand al-Halawani (released after a few days) and Natali Abu Dayyeh.

At least they are alive. In an official letter to FIFA, the PFA said that 99 footballers (among some 400 athletes) had been killed by Israel in Gaza between October 2023 and March 2024. That’s two athletes killed every day, and a footballer killed every second day. There are also numerous cases of athletes being ‘knee-capped’ – that is, shot in the knee or lower limbs – effectively terminating their playing careers. This is part of the deliberate Israeli effort to wipe out Palestinian social life, to obliterate anything that represents Palestinian culture and national pride.

This, by itself, should be enough to get the Israel Football Association sanctioned and expelled by FIFA. But there’s more.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank, built on land stolen from Palestinians, are illegal by international law. All activity on settlements, whether economic, social, cultural, or sporting, is also illegal. Several countries in the world explicitly prohibit conducting business with illegal settlement-based enterprises.

There are about half a dozen football clubs recognized by IFA operating from illegal settlements. These clubs play in Israeli leagues, and players move from illegal settlement-based clubs to other Israeli clubs, and vice-versa, all the time.

Not only is this in contravention of international law, it also explicitly violates FIFA’s own charter, which states, ‘Member associations and their clubs may not play on the territory of another member association without that association’s approval.’

Then there is the extreme Zionism of some Israeli clubs. The best-known is Beitar Jerusalem FC. Since its founding in 1936, it has been closely identified with Israel’s extreme right wing. Benjamin Netanyahu is a long-time Beitar supporter. The club has fan groups of the extreme right. The most notorious of these is La Familia, founded in 2005. This group of football ultras is known for its wanton violence and genocidal chants, including ‘Death to Arabs’.

Among football hooligans, Israeli fans occupy pride of place. For example, in November 2024, fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv FC went on a rampage in Amsterdam, tearing down Palestinian flags from buildings; chanting racist slogans, including ‘Death to Arabs’; indulging in acts of wanton violence; and chanting songs celebrating the Gaza genocide, including one that means ‘There are no schools in Gaza because all the children are dead’.

In typical Israeli playbook style, all this was justified with the claim that it was Maccabi fans who were first subjected to antisemitic slurs and violence. Subsequent investigations complicated the picture. While it is true that some Maccabi supporters faced public anger against the genocide in Gaza (but not antisemitism), there is no doubt that Maccabi supporters indulged in acts of hooliganism and racist provocations both before and after the match (in which Maccabi was trounced by the Dutch club Ajax 5–0), followed by retaliatory violence against some Israeli supporters.

The PFA is right in petitioning FIFA to sanction and expel IFA, of course, but for us to expect action under the present FIFA leadership would be naïve. FIFA president Gianni Infantino is Donald Trump’s poodle. Not only has FIFA not used its clout to force some degree of decency from the US in the conduct of the present World Cup, Infantino presented Trump with a completely made up ‘FIFA Peace Prize’ when Trump didn’t get his coveted Nobel. He has appeared in public wearing a red, MAGA-style hat. He pledged FIFA’s support to the ‘Board of Peace’ constituted by Trump to oversee a post-genocide plan in Gaza. During the FIFA Congress in Vancouver in April 2026, he attempted to get PFA president Jibril Rajoub to shake hands on stage with the vice president of IFA, Basim Sheikh Suliman. Rajoub refused.

FIFA’s collusion with Israel and the US is in contrast with its own stand against South Africa under apartheid. FIFA suspended South Africa in 1961 and expelled it in 1976. Today, despite a mountain of evidence against Israel, FIFA refuses to even sanction IFA, let alone suspend or expel it. Or take Russia, which was banned by FIFA just four days after its conflict with Ukraine began, in February 2022.

This, like much else, reflects geopolitical realities of the respective times. The 1960s and 70s were a time of decolonization and independence in Asia, Africa and Latin America, often inspired by socialism and Marxism; today is a time of naked racism and imperialism by the white ruling elites of the West.

When children in Gaza play football on the beach in the midst of the genocide, they are not merely escaping a terrible reality. They are also fighting to be treated with decency, dignity and self-respect. They are asserting humanity.

[This is a slightly amended version of an article that appeared on leftviews.in.]

Courtesy: Sudhanva Deshpande

The post How FIFA Colludes in the Genocide of Palestinians appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The current football World Cup is the most expansive in history. It is also the most exclusionary. International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), the governing body of world football, has expanded this World Cup (WC) to 48 teams and a total of 104 matches, the most ever.

The post How FIFA is Asphyxiating the Beautiful Game appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Every age discovers its own language for discussing the human condition. The twentieth century increasingly found itself speaking through sport. Seems absurd? Twenty-two players pursue a ball around a rectangular field while millions watch. How does that evoke philosophical reflection? Yet, the deeper one looks at football, the harder it becomes to dismiss it merely as entertainment. Football has become one of the principal ways modern societies imagine themselves.

The great clubs of Europe are repositories of memory. Entire generations remember where they were when Maradona dribbled past England, when Zidane head-butted Materazzi, when Iniesta scored in Johannesburg, or when Messi finally lifted the World Cup in Qatar. Football has become one of the modern world’s great theatres of meaning.

And, thus, some of its greatest practitioners asked questions beyond tactics and trophies. What does it reveal about human beings? How should talent relate to the collective? What is the relationship between freedom and discipline? Can excellence be engineered? Can creativity be organized? These are not football questions; they are civilization questions. Football merely provides the stage on which they are performed.

Five figures stand apart for transforming football into a vehicle for thought: Johan Cruyff, César Luis Menotti, Sócrates, Jorge Valdano, and Pep Guardiola. Each seeks an answer to the same question: What is football for?

Football is about understanding space. ~ Hendrik Johannes Cruyff

Johan Cruyff’s greatest contribution to football was not tactical; it was perceptual. He changed what football looked at. Before Cruyff, football largely revolved around players. Coaches discussed positions, opponents, formations, and individuals. The football field seemed crowded with bodies competing for possession. Cruyff became fascinated by the spaces between players. Sounds simple, but it was revolutionary.

Cruyff watched football by following possibilities. The future interested him more than the present. He arrived at an insight: the game is fundamentally a struggle over space. And, the player who understands space understands football.

The pass itself is not the important event. What matters is the space created before the pass and the possibilities that follow it. The dribble changes geometry. Football becomes a shifting architecture of relationships, distances, and opportunities. Cruyff’s observation that football is played with the brain is often misunderstood. He was not praising intelligence; he was describing a way of seeing. Great footballers notice patterns before others recognize them. They enter the future slightly earlier than everyone else.

Cruyff’s vision resembles the moment when a physicist suddenly perceives an invisible structure beneath apparently chaotic phenomena. What Newton discovered in falling apples and planetary motion, Cruyff sought in football. Beneath the apparent disorder lay hidden patterns. Yet patterns alone cannot explain why football moves us. Geometry can organize a city. It cannot explain why people love it.

Cruyff’s famous dictum, ‘Toeval is logisch’ (coincidence is logical), captures this football philosophy, that football’s apparent chaos often conceals an underlying geometry. What spectators often describe as luck, chance, or coincidence is frequently the visible consequence of invisible preparation. Teams that occupy space intelligently, move collectively, and anticipate possibilities create conditions in which favourable outcomes appear accidental to outsiders. Chance remains real, but an intelligent organization determines the likely beneficiary. Indeed, one could almost place Cruyff beside chemist Louis Pasteur’s famous observation: “Chance favours only the prepared mind.”

Cruyff translated that insight into football.

Football is about freedom and beauty. ~ César Luis Menotti

If Cruyff was football’s architect, Argentina’s Menotti was its philosopher. Few coaches have thought more deeply about the moral dimensions of football. To many observers, Menotti’s preference for attacking football appeared aesthetic. His brand of football was about beauty and elegance, they said. This interpretation missed the depth. For Menotti, beauty was not decorative. Beauty was ethical.

Menotti’s core values were freedom, creativity, beauty, expression, individuality, and cultural identity. He believed football should reflect the best possibilities of human freedom. Victory mattered, but it was not enough. His sentiment can be summarized as, “Winning is important. But the manner of winning reveals who you are.”

The football field became a small republic in which larger human values revealed themselves. A society that celebrates freedom should celebrate freedom on the pitch. A society that values imagination should encourage imagination in its footballers. A society that admires creativity should resist reducing the game to mere efficiency. Menotti’s football was therefore not simply a style of play. It was a vision of human flourishing.

Human beings need beauty and results. Civilization itself oscillates endlessly between these demands. Menotti’s philosophy lies in refusing to surrender beauty entirely to practicality. He insisted that efficiency alone cannot satisfy the human spirit.

Football is about meaning and leadership. ~ Jorge Valdano

Jorge Valdano inherited his compatriot Menotti’s humanism but transformed it into something more intimate. Where Menotti spoke about freedom and style, Valdano became fascinated by leadership, fear, confidence, and meaning. He spent much of his post-playing career trying to understand why some groups achieve extraordinary things while others fail despite possessing equal talent. He repeatedly returned to a remarkably simple conclusion: Every team is a state of mind.

Modern organizations are obsessed with structures. They study incentives, processes, systems, and metrics. Valdano does not reject these, but he points out that every structure ultimately operates through human beings. The most sophisticated plan in the world passes through minds occupied by doubt, hope, courage, insecurity, and belief. Thus, football is a study of collective psychology. The great leader does not merely organize. He creates meaning. He transforms anxiety into confidence. He aligns ambitions. He creates trust. He converts a collection of individuals into a community.

Valdano was fascinated by the emotional realities hidden behind the movement of the ball. Why do some teams become stronger after adversity while others collapse? Why does belief spread through a dressing room? Why does confidence sometimes seem contagious? These questions place football in direct conversation with military history, political leadership, and organizational theory. Valdano’s football is ultimately about the human condition.

Football is about citizenship and human dignity. ~ Sócrates Brasiliero

Medical doctor. Captain. Political activist. Public intellectual. No footballer has travelled further beyond football than Sócrates. During Brazil’s military dictatorship, he helped create one of the most remarkable experiments in sporting history: Democracia Corinthiana. This was not simply a football innovation; it was an attempt to rethink authority. Players voted on decisions. Hierarchies were questioned. Participation replaced command. The football club became a laboratory for citizenship.

Sócrates asked a question almost nobody else had dared to: Can football teach people how to govern themselves?

This is a profoundly political question, but not a partisan one. It concerns the nature of freedom. Modern institutions often assume that efficiency requires hierarchy and that excellence demands control. Sócrates suspected otherwise. He wondered whether responsibility might flourish under participation and whether freedom itself could become a source of strength. In this sense, he resembles the great civic thinkers of antiquity more than a conventional footballer. The field became a classroom; the dressing room, a civic institution; and football, a rehearsal for democracy.

Football is about reconciling freedom and structure. ~ Pep Guardiola

Cruyff’s understanding of space, Menotti’s defense of creativity, Valdano’s concern with human beings, Sacchi’s organizational discipline, and modern analytics’ obsession with measurement all illuminate part of the same reality. Guardiola refuses to choose between them.

Guardiola attempts something more ambitious: he seeks reconciliation.

The great debates of football increasingly appear false from his perspective. Freedom versus structure. Creativity versus discipline. Art versus science. Humanity versus analytics. These oppositions dissolve. The purpose of structure is not to eliminate freedom; it is to create freedom. The purpose of positional play is not to constrain imagination; it is to generate possibilities for imagination. The purpose of analysis is not to replace intuition; it is to improve intuition.

Guardiola’s football represents a kind of synthesis. The highest forms of excellence emerge not when one principle defeats another but when seemingly contradictory principles learn to coexist.

At this point, football begins to reveal its power as a metaphor for human life. These five thinkers address questions faced by every civilization. Football condenses them into ninety minutes.

This may explain why the game continues to fascinate billions despite its apparent simplicity. Beneath the goals and trophies lies something deeper. Football has become one of the few remaining arenas where modern societies continue to debate the relationship between freedom and order, individual brilliance and collective purpose, science and art, efficiency and meaning. The observations and investigations over the years merge into a philosophy of human flourishing. And perhaps that is why football remains larger than any statistic, any trophy, or any result. For beneath the game lies a question that every generation must answer anew: Not how football should be played. But how human beings should live.

Check in tomorrow for our next article in the series leading to the FIFA World Cup 2026.

This series is a concise version of a long-format Substack series on the World Cup by JP Santhanam. The Substack post can be read here.

Courtesy: The AIDEM

The post The Five Philosophers of Football appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Upon receiving the award, Jean Drèze said: “This recognition is not something I achieved on my own. All the work I do is in collaboration with people and collectives working for change. I live and work in India, which was rightly described as a ‘museum of inequality’ by Dr B. R. Ambedkar.

India has all possible varieties of inequality—not only astronomical economic inequality, but also the caste system, huge gender disparities, massive disparities in access to education, and so forth. The silver lining is that India also has a rich history of resistance to inequality. I’ve been very fortunate to be associated with some of these movements.

My contribution consists mainly of research for public action. I’m very pleased to be associated through this award with the World Inequality Lab, a like-minded team striving in the same direction.”

In recent decades, the study of global inequalities has experienced a remarkable boom: economic, social and environmental inequalities have been the subject of a growing body of theoretical and empirical work, visible and influential throughout the world.

The World Inequality Lab (WIL) and Sciences Po’s Centre for Research on Social Inequalities (CRIS) have joined forces to establish a Global Inequality Research Award (or GiRA), which aims to recognize every two years researchers from all disciplines who have made a significant contribution to the understanding of global inequalities.

Six years ago, on April 19, 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic, we had a conversation with Drèze that bears a listen and watch today:

Related:

‘Self-reliance for Poor and State Support for Business is the New Motto’—Jean Dreze

Silger police firing: Bela Bhatia, Jean Dreze stopped from meeting survivors

Economist Jean Drèze among three activists detained in Jharkhand, released

The post A soldier of grassroots research & action: Jean Drèze awarded the Global Inequality Research Award appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Over many years, and in many countries, a growing view among political actors and within political science was that class was losing its punch. The line was something like this. The working class once voted for labour parties. The middle class voted conservative. But over many years) that difference between how the classes voted got smaller and smaller. In some places it disappeared.

The “decline of class” narrative suited the leaders of labour and social democratic parties.

They could safely adopt market-based neoliberal policies, with a human touch added, in the knowledge their base wouldn’t desert them. But their base was changing. It was becoming more middle class, more individualistic, more awake to the benefits of market solutions to complex problems.

Now, those politicians are shocked by the rise of far-right political parties that now claim to represent the working class. In Australia, One Nation is close to matching Labor — in some polls, it is already ahead.

In the United Kingdom, Reform is leading in all the polls, while the governing Labour party is below 20%. In Germany, the neo-nazi AfD is presently leading in all opinion polls, while the Social Democrats are below 14%.

In the United States, the Republican Party has gone full Trump, on an agenda with aspects that look eerily reminiscent of prewar Germany. In France, the National Rally candidate is ahead in all opinion polls for the next presidential election.

‘Blue collar’ is not the same as ‘working class’

In many countries, the labour and social democratic parties are mere shadows of their former selves.

Perhaps the labour parties mistook the decline in “blue-collar” (manual) jobs for the decline of the working class. In Australia, the blue-collar share of jobs fell from 44% in 1979 to 28% in 2025. It’s fallen in the UK, the US and elsewhere.

Union membership, once a mostly “blue-collar” phenomenon, declined in most industrialised countries. It fell from an average of 30% of employees across the OECD in 1985 to 19% in 2005 and 15% in 2023. The fall was even greater in Australia.

But these changes did not reflect how likely people were to identify as working class.

In Australia, national attitude and election surveys give us a good idea of trends in people’s views. Between 1979 and 2007, the proportion of respondents in a standard national survey defining themselves as working class or lower class temporarily grew from 40%, to the low 50s in the 1980s and ‘90s, then back to 44% by 2007. In 2025, after a bit more movement, it was still 44% working class.

A British survey in 1983 found 58% of people claimed to be working class. By 2005, those identifying as working class had barely fallen to 57%. In 2023, still 53% of people identified as working class.

In the US, where the phrase “working class” appeared absent from public discourse for decades until Trump, a differently worded question showed that in 1976, 51% of Americans thought of themselves as either working class or lower class. In 2006, the same survey showed 52% identifying as either working class or lower class. Within this period, numbers had fluctuated from year to year — but always between 48% and 55% expressed working or lower class identity.

A Gallup poll added “upper-middle class” to the options, and the proportion claiming working or lower class status was only 39% in 2006. In 2024, that number was 43%.

In Canada, the proportion identifying as working or lower class was 36% in 1980 and still 36% in 1995. In 2017, a different poll found 37% identified as working class.

In short, while “blue-collar” jobs have sharply declined almost everywhere, the experience of “working class” has been relatively stable, within some fluctuating bounds. Differences in class identity between countries seem more notable than differences over time, perhaps due to how questions are asked or how different cultures interpret them.

This is not to say that giving a “working class” response to a forced-choice survey question is the same as a deeply thought position on class. But if people no longer thought of themselves as working class, you would expect to see some pretty big changes over time in answers to these questions.

How the working class was left behind

Sure, jobs changed, a lot. But there has never been much middle-class glamour in the “white collar” jobs at the checkout counter, behind the hamburger hotplate or in the call-centre factory.

Class relations didn’t weaken. In fact, inequality worsened in many countries. Neoliberal policies, including those adopted by social democratic parties, made the rich much richer, but they slowed the growth in the wellbeing of the majority of people, and left the working class behind.

The proportion that thought big business had too much power, and income and wealth should be redistributed, became larger.

Unions lost ground not because their ideas became unpopular with workers. It simply became much harder for unions to recruit and retain members in the face of increasingly hostile employers, governments and laws.

Working class voters didn’t have solutions to hand. But nor were they offered any by social democratic parties that barely spoke their language. Now the door has been opened to far-right parties, presenting alternatives that appeal to some facing those class problems.

There’s life in class voting yet, just not in the way we thought of it.

Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow at the Centre for Future Work, and Professor Emeritus, Griffith Business School, Griffith University

Courtesy: The Conversation

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As a group of 50+ interfaith coalitions, led by Dalit leaders and advocates met with several legislators, many of whom instantly agreed to support this bill, understanding why caste equity is so important in New York State. One key meeting was with Senator James Sanders who helped introduce this bill last year, and who spoke with immense power about the need to recognise the solidarity between Black folks and Dalit communities. “Anyone who is against this [bill] doesn’t know your own history”, he said!

Ms. Swati Sawant who has been working on this bill for over three years gifted him a statue of Babasaheb and explained the connection between Black and Dalit shared histories.

Iconic writer and campaigner, Yashica Dutt, whose 2024 published Coming Out as a Dalit, is a powerful individual account that throws a spotlight on systemic injustice in India and its growing impact on US society, took a leading part in this campaigning effort.  Writing about this on her Facebook-meta page, Yashica said that she documented that day in detail “for a video to be produced later.” She also spoke about her book Coming Out as Dalit and talked about how it points to the existence of caste, right here in the United States.

The campaign has asked all those who live in New York to support A6290/S6531! Besides, at the click of a button, any person can send their letter to their New York State lawmaker in less than a minute — https://sikhcoalition.quorum.us/campaign/nycasteequity/thanks

SabrangIndia had previously reported, how in July 2025, the US District Court for the Eastern District of California in its ruling on July 18, in response to an allegation by the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) that had claimed that the California civil rights department’s enforcement of anti-caste policies violated the “constitutional rights of all Hindu Americans,” dismissed HAF’s contention. HAF had attempted arguments to the effect that the California civil rights department’s enforcement of anti-caste policies violated the “constitutional rights of all Hindu Americans.” This claim had been dismissed by a US District Court.

Academics and civil rights activists had then too welcomed a landmark judgment by a US federal court upholding the California civil rights department’s constitutional authority to defence caste-oppressed individuals through state action.

Related:

In a ‘major win’ for anti-caste activists, a US Federal Court upholds California Govt’s authority to act against caste oppression

Unsealed: Suhag Shukla’s Deposition in Hindu American Foundation’s Failed Defamation Case Against Us

Debunking Myths: A Critical Analysis of Hindu American Foundation’s Ram Temple Narrative

The post New York: Support Bill to end caste discrimination, campaign intensifies appeared first on SabrangIndia.

1. Lai Mohammed rejects the claim of a Christian genocide in Nigeria, noting that Boko Haram has killed more Muslims than Christians.
2. The violence in Nigeria stems from a mix of extremism, criminality, governance failures, and socio-economic issues, not simply Muslim–Christian tensions.
3. The group began by attacking Muslims who opposed its extremist ideology, showing its takfiri
4. Its actions such as killings, kidnappings, and opposition to education go against core Islamic principles, making it an adversary rather than a representative of Islam.
5. The “genocide” narrative oversimplifies reality and can mislead international responses, highlighting the need for a more accurate and nuanced understanding.

In an era shaped by rapid information flows and polarised narratives, conflicts are often reduced to simplistic binaries; frequently framed along religious lines. Recent remarks by Lai Mohammed, former Minister of Information and Culture of Nigeria, offer a timely intervention in correcting one such narrative: the claim of a targeted “Christian genocide” in Nigeria. Speaking at Abbey College Cambridge, Lai Mohammed argued that insurgent violence, particularly by Boko Haram, has claimed more Muslim lives than Christian ones, challenging widespread assumptions about the nature of the conflict.

This assertion does not seek to minimise the suffering of any community. Rather, it compels a more comprehensive understanding of Nigeria’s security crisis: one rooted not in religious extermination, but in a complex web of extremism, criminality, governance challenges, and socio-economic distress.

The Misleading Simplicity of Religious Framing

The tendency to interpret violence in Nigeria as a straightforward Muslim-versus-Christian conflict has gained traction in global discourse, particularly in parts of the Western media and advocacy circles. Yet, as Lai Mohammed pointed out, such a framing risks distorting reality. Boko Haram, whose name loosely translates to “Western education is forbidden,” did not begin as an anti-Christian movement. Its early targets were, in fact, Muslims, particularly those who embraced modern education and rejected extremist interpretations of Islam.

This internal targeting reveals a critical truth: Boko Haram’s ideology is fundamentally takfiri, meaning it declares other Muslims as apostates and legitimate targets. In its formative years, the group’s violence was directed overwhelmingly inward, against Muslim communities that did not conform to its rigid worldview.

Over time, the group widened its scope of attacks to include Christians, driven less by theological motives and more by strategic intent. As Lai Mohammed frankly noted, assaults on Christians tend to draw greater international attention. In a media-driven age, the spectacle of interfaith violence heightens visibility, attracts funding, and enhances the notoriety of extremist organisations.

Terrorism Without Theology

To understand Boko Haram solely through a religious lens is to misunderstand its nature. As highlighted in earlier scholarly critiques, the group’s actions—from mass killings to the abduction of schoolgirls in Chibok—stand in stark contradiction to Islamic teachings. Renowned Islamic scholars and institutions worldwide have unequivocally condemned such acts as un-Islamic.

Islam’s foundational principles emphasise the sanctity of life, the pursuit of knowledge, and the dignity of women. These are the values that Boko Haram systematically violates. Its campaign against education, especially for girls, directly opposes the very first Qur’anic revelation: “Read.” Similarly, practices such as forced marriages and abductions have no legitimacy within Islamic jurisprudence.

Thus, Boko Haram is not merely a violent group operating under religious pretexts; it is, in many ways, an adversary of the very religion it claims to represent. It exploits religious language while undermining its ethical core.

Banditry and the Politics of Crime

Lai Mohammed’s remarks also addressed another critical misconception: the religious interpretation of banditry in northern Nigeria. He argued that these acts are primarily criminal, not ideological. The perpetrators and victims often share the same ethnic and religious backgrounds, predominantly Hausa-Fulani Muslims.

This observation underscores a broader point: much of Nigeria’s violence is driven by economic desperation, weak state capacity, and organised crime rather than doctrinal conflict. Cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom, and territorial disputes are manifestations of governance gaps, not religious wars.

Reducing these issues to religious persecution not only obscures their root causes but also risks inflaming tensions that are otherwise manageable within Nigeria’s historically pluralistic society.

A Tradition of Coexistence

Despite its challenges, Nigeria has long been a model of interfaith coexistence. Lai Mohammed pointed to the example of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his wife, representing a Muslim-Christian household, as emblematic of the country’s social fabric. Across Nigeria, interfaith marriages, shared communities, and everyday interactions reflect a lived reality far removed from the narrative of existential religious conflict.

As Lai Mohammed aptly noted, ordinary Nigerians are more likely to disagree over economic issues than theological ones. This insight is crucial. It suggests that the primary concerns of citizens, jobs, security, and stability, transcend religious identity.

The Danger of “Fake News” in Conflict Zones

Labelling the “Christian genocide” narrative as “fake news,” Lai Mohammed raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: how do misinformation and selective reporting shape international perceptions?

In conflict zones, narratives can be weaponised. Advocacy groups, political actors, and even well-meaning observers may inadvertently amplify incomplete or skewed accounts. While highlighting human rights abuses is essential, doing so without context can lead to policy missteps and deepen divisions on the ground.

A more responsible approach requires distinguishing between targeted persecution and indiscriminate violence. In Nigeria’s case, the latter is far more representative of reality.

None of this is to deny the severity of Nigeria’s security crisis. Boko Haram remains a brutal insurgency responsible for thousands of deaths and widespread displacement. Its atrocities against Muslims and Christians alike demand urgent and sustained action.

However, effective responses must be grounded in accurate diagnosis. Mischaracterising the conflict as a religious genocide risks diverting attention from the structural issues that sustain violence: poverty, corruption, weak institutions, and lack of education.

The international community, therefore, has a responsibility to engage with Nigeria based on evidence rather than assumption. This includes supporting counter-terrorism efforts, strengthening governance, and investing in education and economic development, especially in the country’s most vulnerable regions.

The tragedy of Boko Haram is not that it represents Islam, but that it distorts it. The greater tragedy would be if the world, in its haste to categorise, fails to see this distinction. Lai Mohammed’s remarks serve as a reminder that truth in complex conflicts is rarely convenient. Nigeria’s crisis is not a story of one religion targeting another; it is a story of extremism preying on vulnerability, of criminals exploiting chaos, and of a nation striving, despite immense challenges, to preserve its pluralistic identity. Recognising this complexity is not an exercise in denial. It is the first step toward meaningful solutions.

A regular Columnist with NewAgeIslam.com, Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi Dehlvi is a Classical Islamic scholar with a Sufi background and English-Arabic-Urdu Translator.

Courtesy: newageislam.com

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Though often overlooked in official narratives, Shariati remains one of the most influential intellectual figures behind the Iranian Revolution. His ideas, which linked Shi’ism with modern revolutionary theories drawn from thinkers such as Frantz Fanon and Jean‑Paul Sartre, helped shape the ideological climate that culminated in 1979.

Revisiting his legacy is essential not only for understanding Iran’s modern history but also for examining the broader intersections of religion, social justice, and political transformation in the Muslim world.

Born in 1933 in Mazinan, Shariati grew up in a religious household during a turbulent era. The 1953 overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and the Shah’s subsequent modernization drive—perceived by many as an attempt to erase cultural and religious roots in favor of Western approval—formed the backdrop of his intellectual evolution. Shariati’s activism led to imprisonment, and later, study in Paris, where exposure to existentialist and anti‑colonial thought profoundly shaped his worldview. He rejected Marxist materialism but embraced its critique of inequality, reinterpreting Islamic history to highlight figures such as Abu Dharr al‑Ghifari as symbols of resistance and social equality.

From this synthesis emerged Shariati’s concept of “Red Shiism,” a dynamic, activist Islam rooted in sacrifice, justice, and resistance, inspired by the legacy of Karbala. His slogan “Return to the Self” urged Muslim societies to break from blind imitation of the West and rediscover their intellectual heritage. His lectures and writings reframed Islam not as a passive spiritual refuge but as a force for liberation, capable of mobilizing the masses against tyranny. By the late 1970s, his ideas circulated widely among students and activists, laying the intellectual foundations of revolution.

Shariati’s critique extended beyond Marxism to liberalism and existentialism, which he faulted for neglecting the spiritual dimension of humanity. In works such as Marxism and Other Western Fallacies: An Islamic Critique, he argued that Islam offered its own emancipatory paradigm, distinct from Western secular traditions. He did not seek to make Islam socialist but rather employed Marxist sociological tools to galvanize Muslims into revolutionary action. His criticism of Iran’s Marxist Tudeh Party underscored his insistence on adapting political thought to Iran’s cultural and religious context.

Although Shariati died in 1977, two years before the revolution, his intellectual imprint was unmistakable. Pakistani writer Mukhtar Masood recorded that Iranians across social strata identified Shariati as the architect of the movement. Yet, as the revolutionary state consolidated power, charismatic leadership overshadowed intellectual activism, and Shariati’s role receded into obscurity. His story illustrates how revolutions often celebrate political victories while neglecting the thinkers who shaped their ideological foundations.

Shariati’s legacy endures as a reminder that religion, when reinterpreted through the lens of justice and resistance, can become a powerful agent of social transformation. His vision of Islam as a force for liberation continues to resonate in debates over faith, identity, and political change across the Muslim world.

Author is freelance journalist.

Courtesy: CounterView

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