Amartya Sen: As India drifts into autocracy, nonviolent protest is the most powerful resistance

By Dilip -

Nothing is as important, the philosopher Immanuel Kant claimed, as the “freedom to make public use of one’s reason on all matters”. Unfortunately, as Kant also noted, the opportunity to argue is often restrained by society – sometimes very severely. A disturbing fact about the world today is that authoritarian tendencies have been strikingly on the increase in many countries – in Asia, in Europe, in Latin America, in Africa and within the United States of America. I fear I have to include my own country, India, in that unfortunate basket.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN General Assembly December 10, 1948)

After India secured independence from British colonial rule, it had for many decades a fine history of being a secular democracy with much personal liberty. People showed their commitment to freedom and their determination to remove authoritarian governance through decisive public action, for example in the general elections in 1977, in which the despotic regulations – dressed as “the emergency” – were firmly rejected by the people. The government obeyed promptly. However, in recent years the priority of freedom seems to have lost some of its lustre for many people, and the current government gives striking evidence of the inclination to promote a different kind of society....

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/26/india-autocracy-nonviolent-protest-resistance

Avay Shukla: Acts Of God And Follies Of Man

Is all this too much to ask?

Samjhauta Express blast case verdict: ‘Who will answer for death of my five children?’

Jailed and Harassed Former IGP Darapuri, 76, Shares His Ordeal

Prem Shankar Jha: The Shadow of Haren Pandya’s Case Lies Long Over Justice Arun Mishra

Nikhila Henry - Ex CJI Gogoi's RS Nomination Calls All His Judgments Into Question, Says Legal Expert

‘This episode is going to haunt SC in years to come’: Justice AP Shah on CJI sexual harassment case

Joint Statement of Religious Leaders On “Supreme Court order on Section 377”

RSS backs Supreme Court order on gay sex // Vikram Seth slams Supreme Court order on Section 377

Fahad Hashmi: Homophobia & Islamophobia – The Jamaat e Islami Hind & the SC’s Decision on Section 377

 A mother and a judge speaks out on section 377

Lakshmi Chaudhry - SC verdict on 377: Why Indians, gay and straight, must all despair

Patriotic hooligans on the rampage: Shiv Sena, MNS workers thrash North Indian migrants in Kolhapur // VHP vandalizes art gallery in Ahmedabad

What is to be Undone

Suhas Palshikar - Disenfranchising The ‘Other’ // Ajaz Ashraf interviews Ashis Nandy on the future of India

The Supreme Court, Gandhi and the RSS

The Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: Inquiry Commission Report (1969)

The Abolition of truth

The emperor's masks: 'apolitical' RSS calls the shots in Modi sarkar

A whiff of evil

Mukul Kesavan: Against forgetting

Pratap Bhanu Mehta: In post-mortem of secularism, we are hand wringing over religion, missing the real crisis // Ashutosh Bhardwaj - Don’t blame only English elite. Indian secularism failed in Hindi heartland first

Suhas Palshikar: Bhoomi pujan of the new republic // Pratap Bhanu Mehta: Political colonisation of Hinduism

एक बात हमेशा ज़हन में सवाल खड़े करती है A question that stays with me... / Ravish Kumar's Speech at Berkeley (2019)

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