Dilip Simeon's blog

In use since 2017, the existing set of school textbooks in Karnataka were certainly in need of revision: many of the chapters in sociology were outdated, the discussions in economics, political science, history and geography drab and listless, and typographical and grammatical errors were found in the hundreds in the social science books.  But the protests over the textbooks slated to replace them showed that the Karnataka Textbooks Review Committee (KTRC) had other aims to pursue.   The writings of Kannada writers, AN Murthy Rao, P Lankesh, Sara Aboobaker were dropped from the 10th standard Kannada textbook (first language) to make way for writings by Bannanje Govindacharya, a scholar of Sanskrit and Kannada, K.B. Hedgewar, the founder of RSS, and Shatavadani Ganesh and Charavarthy Sulibele. Whatever else their talents might be, the latter two right wing ideologues are simply not the people to go to for essays on Indian values and for historical profiles of Shivaram Rajg...

Over the past two centuries, most critiques of modernity have fallen into one of two camps. The first tends to see the modern age as the spawn of the tragic dissolution of Christian civilization, which had provided stable meaning and order for over a millennium, while the second emphasizes the failures of modernity to fulfill its liberatory ideals. In his mature thought, Illich articulated an alternative to both views, summed up in the phrase  corruptio optimi pessima  ('the corruption of the best is the worst'). For Illich, secular modernity is not a departure from Christianity, but an extension of profound transformations set in motion by the Church... Deschooling Society  was “an immediate cause célèbre” and “the most widely discussed and debated of all of Illich’s writings.” The project had its beginnings in Puerto Rico, where Illich had initially advocated for free primary schooling for the poor. But as he began to study the effects of the expansion of schooli...

This article is directed at the Indian diaspora worldwide. Read the article to find out why.     Fifty years ago a young girl selling flowers on a city street in India wasn’t going to be a candidate for the civil services or even graduate from high school. At best, she’d become domestic help. That was then. This is now: Girl who sold flowers on the street in Mumbai with her father, is in a Ph.D. program at JNU and headed to the University of California. One of my recent mentees from a hard-scrabble background has a job at WIPRO as a software engineer Another person, an 8th-grade dropout, works as pharmacist-in-training at one of the top hospitals in India. ( https://feaindia.org/vikram-rai/ ) The new generation, those who are 17 to 25 represent the largest demographic group In India. Their material and intellectual success is India’s future. Their failures will be India’s too. The rich and the privileged alone cannot make the country succeed. They can help to incr...

A Delhi University professor has been booked for an allegedly objectionable social media post on the claims of a ‘Shivling’ being found at the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi. Ratan Lal, an associate professor of history at the Hindu College, has been booked under IPC sections 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race) and 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings). In a statement Wednesday, DCP (North) Sagar Singh Kalsi said, “A complaint was received Tuesday night against Ratan Lal, professor of history at Hindu College, DU, regarding a deliberate and malicious post on Facebook that was intended to outrage reli­gious feelings by insulting a religion/reli­gious beliefs. A case under IPC sections 153-A/295-A has been registered at the Cyber Police Station, north district.” Speaking to ThePrint, Lal, who belongs to the Dalit community, said, “Critique of religion has been a part of discourse since the time of Gautam Buddh...

Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, April 23, 2022 Climate Change 2022 Report: Act Now to Avert Catastrophic Events  | K N Ninan Earth Day re-emphasizes need for resolving the survival crisis  | Bharat Dogra Making Sense of IMF’s Institutional View on Capital Flows  | Kavaljit Singh Jammu and Kashmir: Tenth Report Of The Concerned Citizens’ Group Alas, Hindi Will Never Unite India  | TJS George Three cheers to Comrade Brinda Karat!  | Faraz Ahmad The Silent Revolution of Subaltern leader  | Gajanur, Kumar & Tembhurne Why is BJP’s popularity declining in Bengal  | Tarun Kumar Basu Will the Nagas get a peace deal?  | Sandeep Pandey and Pankaj Pushkar Audit of UIDAI reveals what Delhi High Court is yet to reveal  | Gopal Krishna On 103rd Commemoration of Jallianwala Bagh Massacre  | Shamsul Islam Elephants face an elephantine problem  | M.R. Narayan Swamy Puniyani...

NB : Well, if 'humanities' is defined restrictively to English language academia... DS At 12:55 p.m. on a Thursday in early January, the double doors of Salon K at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Washington hung open like an unwanted hug. The space within had been optimistically set up for an audience of maybe three dozen: six rows of chairs in neat ranks with an aisle down the middle, facing a black-draped table with space for four participants. The panel in progress  “Lessing and the Intersectionality of Gender and Cultural Diversity” - had another 20 minutes to go, just enough time for questions. But no hands were raised, and no one was holding forth. In fact, the room was free of any sign of life. The seats were empty, the table uncluttered by notes or napkins. Even the hotel corridor outside, lined with rooms hosting other sessions, was silent. This was the first day of the Modern Language Association’s annual conference - arguably the most important, and most heavily tra...

Anyone who thinks that the anti-hijab campaign is about discipline and dress code needs to have his or her head examined. And anyone who thinks it's about the emancipation of Muslim women needs to have a frontal lobotomy without any further loss of time. For it's clear as crystal that this is just the latest provocation in the right wing tool-kit for the de-identification of the Muslim community- to deprive them of their visible symbols, rituals and practices that define their identity. The attack on the hijab, remember, has been preceded by the various jihads ( love, covid, spitting), and contrived agitations against public Namaz, abattoirs and beef, non-vegetarian food stalls, alleged conversions, birth rates, immigration of "termites" and of course the eternal mandir-masjid binary. As usual, our Prime Minister has not spoken on the subject. Is it because he realises the pathetic ironies implicit in this latest demonstration of double-speak? That to deprive young ...