History

Vande Mataram and the 2026 Amendment: From voluntary honour to penal coercion

While the slogan Vande Mataram galvanised millions during India’s struggle for liberation from the clutches of colonial rule, this essay demonstrates that the 2026 Amendment –that the BJP has orchestrated--does not represent historical continuity, but rather a contemporary majoritarian redefinition of a complex national symbol.

Give report on demolition of Azfal Khan’s Tomb: SC to Maharashtra

While some reports stated the demolitions involved only “illegal encroachments”, this is not entirely clear from what has been stated in the SC

State Failure to protect lives during 1992-1993 communal violence, compensation for kin of missing persons, dormant cases to be revived: SC

One of the root causes of their suffering was the failure of the State Government to maintain law and order says the November 4 order of the Supreme Court

1984 anti-Sikh pogrom: The long cover-up

From the pages of ‘Communalism Combat’, a reminder that denial of justice to victims of mass violence has been the norm in India

Remembering 1984

The nightmare endures

Fireworks and Firearms: The Festival of Lights in the Mughal Court

"With the aroma of honey and almond wafting through the heavy air of decadence, the kufuri-shama casting silhouettes of a glorious past, and Nazeer Akbarabadi’s nazms resonating with a sense of coexistence, the last Mughal Diwalis were a curious confluence of tears and laughter."

Raavan Islamised! Purging the complex Ramayan text evident in attacks by far right on Adipurush

AK Ramanujan’s, Three Hundred Ramayans, extracted from The Collected Essays by the author and published in Communalism Combat in May 2008 (Year 14, No 131) actually told the epic’s spectacular and varied journey through the ages

Gandhi as “evil” (Mahiasura) is a time-tested narrative for all hues of Hindu communalists

The latest depiction of Mahatma Gandhi as ‘Mahiasura’ at the All India’s Hindu Mahasaha’s puja pandal in Kolkatta is a time-tested narrative of Hindu communalists who, as Teesta Setalvad has writen, regurgitate this narrative portraying Gandhi as different forms of “evil”

Shaheed Bhagat Singh: a fighter for freedom who dreamed and died for a world full of equality & justice

The rapid advance of the struggle led by him from the margins to reach millions remains a great inspiration for activists even today, 90 years after his hanging

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Why Swatantra Bhardwaj is a pawn in our politics

As a fellow Bihari and a native of Darbhanga, my heart goes out to the middle class parents who pawn jewellery and mortgage ancestral property to send their ladlas and ladlis to a big city…