The attack on Hadiya’s individual freedom by a deeply patriarchal system a litmus test for feminists in India. Continue reading Hadiya Case, Love Jihad Issue a Litmus Test for Indian Feminist Movement
A Five Judge mixed faith Bench of Supreme Court today declared, by a 3:2 majority, the practice of Triple Talaq, one-sided instant divorce by Muslim men bad in law and unconstitutional. This is a welcome judgment. The self appointed male custodian of religion, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board have been given a strong message by Muslim women that they will no longer decide upon women’s lives in name of religion. Women’s right to equality is above religion, this should message should also be heard by Hindu religious Gurus. The right to enter Sabrimala temple is also in Court, … Continue reading #TripleTalaq Unconstitutional – Welcome Decision By SC, Muslim Women’s Struggle Vindicated, BJP Tries To Misappropriate
How do different judges give completely different contradictory judgments on exactly same matter is a mystery better unsolved. Because if we do solve it, a can of worms will be opened. In a new judgment the Kerala High Court ruled … Continue reading Kerala Love Jihad Woman’s Right To Choice: She May Even Chose A Criminal Says Court
An edited version of this piece first appeared on The Wire The Kerala High Court in a recent judgement has stripped women of every last bit of agency, self-will, self-determination and reduced us to mere gendered bodies, incapable of taking … Continue reading Kerala High Court Confirms Love Jihad Bogey But Where Are Women Bodies Located In The Nationalism Narrative
Abdul Gafoor Tufani is a Muslim man. He has come to Delhi with a mission. Abdul comes from district Araria, a very backward region in Bihar. It is a largely rural Muslim dominated district with around 93 percent of its … Continue reading Abdul Gafoor Tufani Is A Muslim Man
Raveena Tandon the 90s Bollywood actress is the new Hindutva icon in town. She is following the foot steps of her fellow Bollywood celebrities who have recently been blessed by BJP party tickets, national awards and Lok Sabha seats for … Continue reading No Raveena Tandon, You Have Not Been Trolled, And Ramayana is Not History
First published on Firstpost with different headline and slightly edited: A woman facing violence may take various roads to justice – legal-illegal, justified-unjustified, civil, criminal, constitutional. Shayara Bano decided to eliminate the root cause. Her writ petition before Supreme Court seeking a ban on triple talaq, nikah halal and polygamy poses a challenge to the prevalence of religious personal laws over constitution, and threatens the power and position of All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) as the sole custodian and interpreter of Sharia law in India. Following her, Ishrat Jahan raised her head from Bengal and challenged Section 2 … Continue reading Flavia Agnes’s Position On Triple Talaq Sad For Indian Feminism
In response to Code of control | The Indian Express by Sania Farooqui Author herself says there’s no draft of UCC in absence of which it is hard to tell how UCC would affect individual rights. Yet there is an underlying assumption that whatever it will be, will be a means of Hindutva bullying minority. This fear is unfounded. The Hindutva narrative by BJP has ruined UCC debate. They raise it to fan Sanghi ego and divisive politics but any person with slightest idea of laws and constitution should be assured that UCC doesn’t mean imposing majoritarian laws on minority. If UCC ever comes, it … Continue reading Sania Farooqui’s fear of UCC unfounded
UCC would never be a reality in India because none of the religious bigots would accept a truly uniform code that applies to all. They all want the other group to fall in line and accept whatever they think is uniform but ask them to look at their own personal laws, they won’t accept. For eg. Parsi community, Christian, Hindu they all have certain reservations which they don’t want to change, but want Muslims to fall in line. UCC should have been a compulsory provision instead of directive principle, at the time of making the Constitution and the tyranny of … Continue reading Uniform Civil Code Will Remain a Polarizing Topic Never Be A Reality
How does a woman reconcile and negotiate her cultural identity with the gender identity where her culture is inherently oppressive to women. Continue reading Race, gender and nation: Case of Afghnistan
Hyper sexualized images of women in Bollywood item numbers strip them off their identity and reduce them to object of sexual gratification. The image of ‘Bharat Mata’ does exactly the same for the nationalist or patriotic gratification of its citizens. Continue reading Why Every Feminist Should Refuse to Say Bharat Mata Ki Jai
“Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live. ” ~Rabindranath Tagore
Every Independence Day and Republic Day I grapple with the concept of patriotism and nationalism. Am I a patriot? What does it mean to be one? Does it encourage me to hate people I have never met and take pride in accomplishments I had no role in? Does it teach me to put nation before humanity? It certainly does not. There are two major flaws in patriotism and nationalism as we know it today. Continue reading “My feeling of patriotism in a BJP ruled India”
So most of you already know the news. This high school kid Salim kept a beard in a convent school, school authorities didn’t appreciate. The kid sued the school. I don’t know if it was his own idea to go as far as Supreme Court for this mere cause of keeping beard or was it his parents or some religious leader in his neighborhood. It surprises me a bit that a school going kid would fight it all the way to have a beard of all the things. I mean beard, french beard, go-tee, clean shave, short hair, long hair, spiked hair, mohawk cut, hairy chest, waxed chest, hair on your eyebrows and upper lips are all parts of grooming and glamorising yourself I thought. Continue reading “Justice Katju’s remark equating bearded muslim with Talibans”
A few of us on Twitter and Blogaloreans list were discussing about what we can do about this Ram Sene issue and an idea struck us, in order to challenge the various threats from Mr. Muthalik and Ram Sene what we should do is dare him. He threatened us against celebrating valentines day, we want to challenge him by having a mass valentine’s day celebration. An actual event started taking shape since then. A Free Hug campaign on 14th Feb 2009 in Bangalore. We would be out in groups offering free hugs to the people of Bangalore, carrying placards like, … Continue reading An appeal to all you wonderful women in Bangalore: Join the Free Hug Campaign this Valentine’s day
It was 6.30 pm I had just decided to shut down my laptop and read some books instead, I had also moved from my drawing room to bed room in order to lie down bit. Yet at the last min I thought let me still carry the laptop I would read some of the PDF files lying unread for so long, I won’t be online though. Just when I had looked at the screen to sign out of Gtalk and Twitter I found a tweet saying “blasts in Delhi, Karol Bagh” From that time till the time they all took … Continue reading My family had a narrow escape at the Delhi Blasts
The previous post on Hajra and her community attracted a lot of adverse comments. At the moment there are a total of 57 comments on Mutiny.IN and some more on this blog. It is sad to note that when a clear case of victimization of innocent people is reported most readers are more interested in commenting upon the finer nitty-gritties of my reporting style, my journalistic ethics, the larger issue of the country’s reputation and all other shit. None of these big talkers are even interested in offering a note of sympathy for Hajra let alone a solution or help. … Continue reading Response to comments on previous post
Writing this with an attempt to report a case of human rights violation and bring some media and administrative attention. Once again a group of harmless poor people trying to make ends meet in the big bad city by washing people’s cars, pulling cycle rickshaws, working as maid servants etc. have been verbally abused, threatened, beaten up uprooted and forced to run away to save their lives by the local goons of Vishwas Sarak, Raja Puri, Dwarka, New Delhi. Their crime? They speak Bengali and have suggestive names like Zakir, Fasal, Jalal, Hajra – yes they are all Bengali Muslim … Continue reading Independence day for a Bengali Muslim Indian
On the eve of the Independence Day I want to extend this special thanks to a Bangalore Auto driver. I took this auto this morning to reach to work. On the back of his seat he had 3 photos pasted. The first pic was of Shiva Parvati and Ganesh, second one was an image of the Mecca and the third one was of Jesus Christ. I asked him if it was him who has pasted those pics, he gave a wide smile and said “Yes Madam, all same no madam.” Dear Putta Muniyappa, Holder of three wheeler driving license number 2628/06, Bangalore, I want to thank … Continue reading Vande Maataram
Just why is it such a big news that Aamir Khan’s Taare Zameen Par made L.K Advani cry. In fact the news of Aamir holding a special screening for Advani in New Delhi in itself was in headlines a day before. Obviously this fuss is because of Aamir’s continuous support to the Narmada Bachao Andolan and his repetitive refusal to apologise to Sangh Parivar. Imagine how feeble our secularism is. So this guy liked TZP, he obviously would, it’s a classic, what’s the big deal? The deal is, that because Aamir has a certain political stand (and is also a Muslim?) … Continue reading Sena resurrected Adolf Hitler?
