India

In Mizoram, a refugee crisis highlights Mizo tribal affinities and hostility
Shared Zo identity has Mizos extending hospitality to Chin and Kuki-Chin refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh. More remarkable is that Chakmas, mistreated by the Mizo majority in Mizoram, have welcomed Kuki-Chin refugees too
Suraj Gogoi | Jun 02, 2023

In ‘Agra’, a grim portrait of the repressed Indian man
Director Kanu Behl’s Hindi feature film examines the sexual obsession and frustration of men, mental health and the transactional nature of human relationships in a patriarchal society where space is in short supply
Anna M M Vetticad | May 30, 2023

When neoliberalism came to the Indian farm
With a focus on agricultural policy since the 1990s, 'Distress in the Fields' demonstrates how neoliberal interventions sowed the seeds of the crisis faced by farmers today
Tanya Matthan | May 27, 2023

“I write with the same hands that carried shit”: Reading Pandiyakannan’s ‘Salavaan’
The Tamil writer Pandiyakannan, the first novelist from the Kuravar community, offers an intimate portrait of the lives of manual scavengers
Ashik Kahina | May 25, 2023

Screen Southasia: Q&A session for ‘Is it too much to ask?’
A conversation with the filmmaker Leena Manimekalai and Smile from 'Is it too much to ask?'
The Editors | May 11, 2023

Interfaith solidarity in the face of anti-Muslim violence on Ram Navami in India
Multiple Indian states saw organised anti-Muslim violence on the Hindu festival of Ram Navami. In parts of West Bengal, instances of compassion and interfaith solidarity that unfolded in response to the violence.
Astha Savyasachi | May 05, 2023

What really makes a Sikkimese?
India’s Supreme Court set off a storm by describing Sikkimese-Nepalis as people of “foreign origin.” As “Indian” Old Settlers fight for new rights, Sikkim’s Bhutia-Lepcha and Nepali communities face a reckoning over belonging and identity.
Mona Chettri | May 01, 2023

The politics of democratic planning in postcolonial India
In Nikhil Menon’s ‘Planning Democracy’, the vision of economic planning shows the strain between technocracy and representative democracy in India
Sarath Pillai | Apr 25, 2023

BJP’s land reforms and the shifting political landscape in Kashmir
The BJP’s approach to reshaping Jammu and Kashmir’s political legacy and governance model is based on exclusionary measures that have raised concerns about the erasure of Kashmiris from the region’s history and identity
Maknoon Wani | Apr 21, 2023

Meena Kandasamy’s feminist intervention on the Tirukkural
The unparalleled Tamil classic’s third part, covering desire, was long overlooked, but Kandasamy’s new translation looks precisely at it to challenge convention
Kavitha Muralidharan | Apr 11, 2023
