CHAMAAR TAB AUR AB

World Report 2019 Event in India 2018 In 2018, the government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) harassed and at times prosecuted activists, lawyers, human rights defenders, and journalists for criticizing authorities. Draconian sedition and counterterrorism laws were used to chill free expression. Foreign funding regulations were used to target nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) critical of government actions or policies. The government failed to prevent or credibly investigate growing mob attacks on religious minorities, marginalized communities, and critics of the government—often carried out by groups claiming to support the government. At the same time, some senior BJP leaders publicly supported perpetrators of such crimes, made inflammatory speeches against minority communities, and promoted Hindu supremacy and ultra-nationalism, which encouraged further violence. Lack of accountability for past abuses committed by security forces persisted even as there were new allegati...

Abhiram Ghadyalpatil Poet and Dalit activist Pradnya Daya Pawar on the historical and contemporary Dalit concerns, victimization of Dalit women, literature as the weapon of Dalit activism, and the contemporary social, cultural and political climate Mumbai: When poetry is a conscious act of rebellion, words become weapons of mass uprising. For Pradnya Daya Pawar, the idea of revolt comes from her middle name. Baluta, her father Daya Pawar’s autobiography in Marathi published in 1978, was one of the first personal accounts of a Dalit that soon became a genre in Dalit literature. In 2015, Mumbai-based writer Jerry Pinto translated Baluta into English. Between 1978 and 2018, the literary grammar of Dalit expression, anger and protest went from being a novelty to becoming the norm. Pradnya Pawar, who to her credit has five anthologies packed full of searing Dalit anger and feminist overtones, is the representative of this transition that still maintains its connect with its poignant past. “...