The India Forum
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Check out The India Forum's August issue. Help us continue to publish more by donating to this independent and non-profit digital-only effort. Here’s the link:
0
1
1
The Char Dham Pariyojana in
#Uttarakhand
was wilfully broken up into 53 separate projects to fast track it and avoid environmental scrutiny. The deception has been disastrous for the environmental and local society.
12
149
327
Replug: "Islamophobia is too mild a term to describe the relentless violence, physical & psychological, collective & individual, faced by Muslims at the hands of the state’s administrative & police machinery, & through the judiciary."
@Apoorvanand__
writes
9
161
271
Everybody is so oblivious to the persecution of Muslims. I wake up to a new video of lynching, or a genocide-enabling speech, but I go to office & find people discussing what place makes the best sushi & what place makes the best cheesecakes |
@inker_salik
4
83
194
Don't ignore this report: An astonishing revelation, the statistical system finds that one-third of the companies it considers for estimation of GDP may not exist. So what does this say of our "world's highest GDP growth"?
5
132
162
The surge of Hindu nationalism in India can be seen as a revolt of the upper castes against the egalitarian demands of democracy. The Hindutva project is a lifeboat for the upper castes in so far as it promises to restore the Brahminical social order.
13
78
155
Replug: The idea of women at leisure is redolent with derogatory connotations. Yet, snatched between mundane responsibilities, leisure is a space for women to express themselves in personal ways. A photo essay.
2
45
170
Jean Dreze and Reetika Khera write
Progress towards universal maternity benefits, sluggish as it was in the first place, has gone into reverse gear in the last few years.
1
61
136
Replug: Madhav Gadgil writes
"Democracy is not merely voting once in five years; it is the active involvement of us citizens in governing the country at all levels, most importantly in our gram sabhas and ward sabhas."
1
36
114
Unemployment: "Quietly, this issue can become big and yet remain undetected."
@_YogendraYadav
writes about the political costs of high unemployment in
@ThePrintIndia
3
60
98
Farmers in India have been protesting for months against three farm laws passed last year.
@theindiaforum
has a set of essays on the laws, their implications for the agricultural landscape, and what drives farmers to oppose the reforms. Thread.
3
29
103
A recent study by the
#WorldBank
says that out of 7 crore people who plunged into
#poverty
in 2020 due to pandemic, 5.6 crore are Indians.
A thread on some of the important pieces we published.
1
56
100
The principle that Hindus can rule & marginalise others has firmly established beyond the BJP & the RSS. This ethnocracy in India draws on electoral victories & legislative majorities, making formal suspension of democracy unnecessary.
@IndrajitRoyYork
in
12
22
98
"The media landscape in India is quite bleak. It's wonderful that
@TheIndiaForum
has managed to come alive in this period and has done so well in such a short time", says
@Jayati1609
on our fifth anniversary!
Please consider donating to The India Forum:
1
31
101
"The present government’s generous five-year package of $24 billion in production-linked incentives has created less than 2 lakh jobs, and has not even scratched the surface of the grim reality of educated unemployment…"
1
36
99
A YouTube channel is participating in the current surge in competitiveness of Indian chess.
@ChessbaseIndia
has a host,
@sagarchess1
, who carries his audience with him by performing multiple roles in a friendly and quiet way.
@arvindsubraman
writes
3
13
97
"Upper castes are significantly over-represented amongst the ultra-wealthy. Interestingly, during the Modi years between 2014 and 2022, the OBC share in billionaire wealth fell to below 10% from 20% while the upper caste share rose to 90% from 80%."
Read:
4
52
96
It is the flattening of diversity, the undermining of education that gave mobility to so many, & the entire 'banality of evil' around us that makes me lose hope.
@kikumbhar
on why his loss of hope in India is different from
@andymukherjee70
’s
15
29
96
India finds it hard to accept its declining influence in South Asia. Not only is China a bigger economic & geopolitical power, the Modi govt has made matters worse by sucking in even friendly neighbours into fractious domestic politics.
@SushantSin
writes.
0
42
83
The introduction of VVPATs in voting machines should have led to a revaluation of administrative & technical safeguards. But that did not happen, opening up vulnerabilities.
@naukarshah
does a blackbox analysis of the EVM-VVPAT with ECI’s public documents.
3
27
78
What do we know about caste in Bihar?
"A full six decades after Independence and the enshrining of Dalit upliftment as a key societal goal, Dalit surnames continue to be at the bottom of the distribution. Indeed, the bottom eight poorest surnames all belong to Dalits.
2
35
80
'Planning Democracy' by Nikhil Menon is a timely book. We are today in an era where the Planning Commission has been shuttered, NSS reports are being shelved, and the 2021 census has been delayed – perhaps indefinitely.
@PenguinIndia
Gaurav Garg writes
0
16
78
"Colonial administrators, when they first climbed the hills, were astonished by the variety of political forms and finesse they encountered and wrote about these in detail. What stood out – to them – was the sheer diversity of political arrangements."
0
30
79
Reetika Khera, Md Asjad write: The last two decades have seen little increase in welfare spending. But the NDA government has created an image of being focused on welfare by renaming schemes, appropriating older ones, & starving some UPA schemes of funds.
0
28
74
Research assistants are typically erased out of subsequent publications – their labour and intellectual inputs a mere footnote or entirely absent, writes
@Sree_socscience
Read here:
1
22
74
The results of
#BiharCasteCensus
are finally out.
Read
@sharanidli
on how the
#CasteCensus
can offer new insights into the endurance of
#caste
's links with occupation & economic status, & how it has the potential to empower residents & deepen democracy.
1
21
69
"The total wealth of the top 0.001% (less than 10,000 persons) is nearly 3 times the total wealth held by the entire bottom 50% (46 crore individuals). Please pause to let that sink in."
@Nitin_K_Bharti
,
@lucas_chancel
,
@PikettyWIL
, and
@anmol_smnch
write
9
39
70
In a study by
@iitdelhi
, cyclists were found to be 40 times more likely to die in a road accident than passengers in a car. For a large section of the population to take up cycling voluntarily, this safety gap must be bridged. A thread:
3
17
68
'Unhappy with data sets,' the central government has suspended
#KSJames
, the director of the
#iips
, as reported by
@thewire_in
.
In 2021, KS James and
@Juelrana
wrote that the fears about a demographic shift between religious groups are not based on fact.
0
20
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The long-term trajectory of COVID-19 will see the disease becoming endemic. We must understand the consequences of this path and reach a consensus on the level of risk we can live with. Shahid Jameel and
@MenonBioPhysics
write.
1
25
68
Akeel Bilgrami writes: "I don’t believe that we can fully come to grips with the subject of Gandhi on caste unless we situate it in his very deep anxieties about modernity, in particular capitalist modernity and the political structures of liberalism…"
1
20
64
The 1986 order of a district court in UP led to the locks at the Babri Masjid being opened. Courts, especially those at the lower level, have played an active role in escalating these disputes.
@UmangPod
explains the pattern.
2
33
61
Introducing The India Forum, a journal-magazine on comtemporary issues.
@TheIndiaForum
hopes to enrich public conversations on the world around us. Launching tomorrow. (1/9)
12
29
63
🧵: 1. The continuous treating of the oppressed as mere variables or their research subjects in the discipline makes it urgent to take up the case for ‘Bahujan Economics’.
@aditipriya_0301
writes.
@BahujanEcon
1
13
61
Periyar & Ambedkar believed that opening temples to the oppressed castes was about annihilating caste. They warned that temple entry movements organised by the UCs were pretentious acts & temple entry alone was unlikely to ensure social equality & freedom.
2
20
57
"Farm income in India is very unequally distributed among agricultural households. A very large proportion of them earn a total income of less than Rs. 5,000/month. This obviously has major implications for the welfare of India’s agricultural households."
1
25
61
Alok Rai writes: There is a quality of honesty in
@Akshayamukul
's biography of Agyeya (
@PenguinIndia
), a willingness to lay bare the messy complexities of actual lives, which is a welcome break from the tradition of producing hagiographies.
10
16
59
"Just as the historian must be non-chauvinist, the reader of history must be non-chauvinist too."
@Ram_Guha
writes about what it means to be a historian, and what it takes to write and indeed read history.
7
18
56
Niraja Gopal Jayal writes
Longstanding structural constraints on university autonomy now have a new edge with state intervention that has a strong ideological purpose.
#Academic
freedom for both teachers and students has as a result suffered.
Read:
0
27
57
India’s punitive demolitions bear striking resemblance to Israel’s tactics against Palestinians. The tragedy is that a significant chunk of the majority in India is delighted.
@angshuman_ch
wrote in 2022
2
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55
Jean Dreze writes: The Indian public is insufficiently aware of the radical nature of the social security framework that had begun to take shape before the Modi government slammed the brakes.
1
31
52
An important piece by
@PalshikarSuhas
! After floundering for a new identity
@INCIndia
has hit on 'Nyay' or justice for 90% of the people. Recognising the danger,
@BJP4India
has given up on speaking of economic issues and has fallen back on fear mongering.
0
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50
At the dawn of independence, the liberal traditions that underpin a constitutional democracy were absent in India. How did the framers of the Constitution deal with this challenge?
@jaffrelotc
on
@MadKhosla
’s ‘India’s Founding Moment’
@Harvard_Press
0
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"My own view is that historians should not give advice to people in power. Historians are in the business of education, enlightenment, truth telling; they are not in the business of problem-solving. " by
@Ram_Guha
7
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"[I]t should not come as a surprise that Muslim women do not share the dominant framing of what ought to be “women’s issues”. For them, the segregation of Muslim issues from Muslim women’s issues does not make sense."
@hashiyaarai
writes
2
11
51
Replug: Sharda Ugra writes
"Indian sport has methodically ticked many ugly boxes: sycophancy, glory-hunting, mediocre management, patriarchy, chauvinism, and casteism."
0
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51
“Sagar Shah’s recent interview of
@MagnusCarlsen
after he had crushed the young Praggnanandhaa was masterful in a different way. That Carlsen was human after all, and Carlsen the human was a magnanimous chess player too teased out by Sagar Shah.”
2
9
50
To stay informed once a week about thoughtful articles that are without abuse, and that are free to read:
Sign up for the Friday newsletter:
1
7
49
"..history is not mathematics. Even when based on the most rigorous research, even when written with the most open mind, it is never the perfect truth. It is only closer or further from the truth."
Read
@ramguha
at
2
16
36
.
@kikumbhar
speaks with
@veenashatrugna
, a medical doctor and a public health researcher, on the challenges in
#anaemia
and undernutrition in India and on recent attempts to dilute the diagnostic standards for anaemia.
0
18
45
Jean Dreze & Reetika Khera write
Pregnant women count for very little in public policy & electoral politics. A real effort to universalize maternity benefits would have made waves. Instead, the govt took refuge in a lame scheme that didn’t really take off
0
22
46
Replug: Higher education in India no longer guarantees decent work. Given the policy reforms and technological upheavals also underway, our universities face an uncertain future under an uncaring state. Read Satish Deshpande on its turbulent future:
0
15
49
Food shortages in Travancore during the Second World War led to tens of thousands of deaths. The scale of the mismanagement of relief wore thin the legitimacy of princely rule, setting the stage for the communists' rise to power.
@Aditya_Balasub
writes
0
16
47
"That the number of households demanding work under the MGNREGA scheme is still greater than in the pre-pandemic years tells us that the overall financial state of the rural poor is not really great."
@kaul_vivek
on the state of the Indian economy
2
15
46
Madhav Gadgil on why development and conservation will fail if imposed upon people. The way forward is to aim for an inclusive model of development, and include local communities in the process of decision-making.
2
14
46
Replug:
@BhattRohin
writes
The Supreme Court has forgotten that its primary duty is to protect the citizen from the excesses of the state and its instrumentalities. The time is ripe for the judges to get down to their actual job of administering justice.
2
21
48
Process safeguards designed to form a protective armour around electronic voting machines are now of little value following the 'jugaad'-like manner in which VVPAT-machines have been inserted,
@naukarshah
writes.
1
27
44
"It is worth recalling that Hukum Singh, the sole Sikh representative in the Constituent Assembly, did not sign the draft Constitution, as he believed that Article 25 defined Sikhs as a branch of Hinduism, rather than as a separate & distinct religion."
1
17
45
Indian democracy is in crisis. The long-term context is a growth of ‘sub-democratic’ politics. This has made democracy vulnerable to erosion as in the current regime. Can citizens make the re-investment needed to rescue the Republic?
@PalshikarSuhas
writes
2
21
44
'Krishnamurti forced us to excavate the hubris buried in our body & soul but refused to share his own ambiguities. He shut the door on himself, probably as much for self-preservation, as for keeping us away.'
@tmkrishna
on the questions JK did not ask.
0
10
45
Rahul De's student-friendly book accomplishes its task of helping the reader understand economic policy changes in India since 1947. It suggests reforms helped the urban rich, but it doesn't explore their influence on policy decisions.
@CambridgeUP
2
8
44
Replug (Jean Dreze & Reetika Khera):
"Pregnant women count for very little in public policy and electoral politics. Between 2019-20 & 2021-22, PMMVY coverage declined in all major states except Kerala & Jammu-Kashmir, sharply so in many cases..."
Read:
1
13
44
Why has the govt claimed that India is ‘open defecation free’ when 2018 data shows that 40-50% of people in four key states still defecate in the open? By researchers
@riceinstitute
5
29
45
.
@TheIndiaForum
turns 5 this week! From our archives, we investigate five of India’s most pressing issues. Follow this thread.
1
10
44
India's new labour codes replace 29 laws, leaving out key legislations that impact the most marginalized workforce: the Manual Scavengers Act, the Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, and the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act.
Atul Sood writes.
1
21
43
Replug: "The Hindutva ideology of nationalism thrives upon the lack of scientific clarity about the exact genesis of languages in India & the exact nature of exchanges & mutual influence between Tamil, Sanskrit, Pali, & several other Prakrits."
By GN Devy
2
15
45
NITI Aayog’s recent report on the gig economy in India & its belief that platformisation will create an inclusive working environment is a deliberate attempt to ignore the erosion of workers’ rights, security, and welfare.
@asiyaislam
@DamniKain
write
0
14
44
To try & satiate society’s lust for punishing and othering a criminal, bail hearings emerge as an alternate site of justice with courts engaging in pseudo-condemnation to justify imposition of lengthy jail terms before a conviction.
@abhinavsekhri10
writes
0
12
44
In their dissection of the economy under
#Narendra
Modi,
@maitreesh
and Udayan Mukherjee acknowledge the regime's achievements but show that Modi over-promised and under-delivered
#IndianEconomy
| "The Mirage of Modinomics"
2
29
43
Replug: Satish Deshpande writes
Higher education in India no longer guarantees decent work. Given the policy reforms and technological upheavals also underway, our universities face an uncertain future under an uncaring state.
0
24
44
“Millets were also the resilient grains of Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi communities, of women & men who sowed, weeded & harvested in the landlords’ fields. Oppression, struggles and resilience are intertwined through the stories of millets.”
1
10
42
There is enough scientific and epidemiological evidence that says it is safe to reopen schools for children of all ages. It is not whether but how and what should be done to bring children back to the classroom.
@DrLahariya
writes.
2
20
41
There are two interconnected root causes for the travails of Bihar’s school education system—a paucity of resources and ineffective policies. There is a similar situation in Jharkhand.
@AmitavaParan
and Kanika Sharma write
1
8
42
Seven interesting articles on launch: on Modinomics; citizenship in Assam; the dangers of chauvinism in writing history; the crisis of fraternity; behind the new nationalisms in Europe; how not to measure poverty and on what it means to be young and Muslim in urban India today.
0
17
37
Replug: The principle that Hindus can rule & marginalise others has firmly established itself beyond BJP & RSS. The emerging ethnocracy in India draws on electoral victories & legislative majorities making formal suspension of democracy unnecessary.
1
14
40
Replug | "If at all there is a lesson of history, it is this, that there are no permanent winners or losers. Hitler talked about building a Thousand-Year Reich, yet his regime collapsed in a mere 12 years."
@Ram_Guha
on the historian and chauvinism
1
15
39
Replug: The party in public office has a single goal – win elections and hold office. Parties are no longer tied as much to society as they are linked to the state. Then whom do parties represent and whom are they accountable to?
@kailashkk
wrote in 2022
2
11
41
.
@kaul_vivek
writes
Data do not justify the gung-ho optimism in the media on the Indian economy. While consumer good sales for the higher income groups are growing rapidly, at the lower end conditions are not much better than on the eve of the pandemic.
0
6
40
Replug:
@harsh_mander
writes
How long will India’s working people live with a policy regime that concentrates unimaginable levels of wealth in a few hands & leaves millions of people struggling for food, healthcare, decent schooling, work, & pensions?
0
27
41
One of India’s finest ecologists, Gadgil has spent a lifetime in these landscapes, walking through and working on most of the ecosystems in the country. His autobiography arrives at an opportune time, writes
@HariniNagendra
1
10
40
A new biography gives us a sense of the many personalities that made up MS Subbulakshmi, that extraordinary exponent of Carnatic music, during her life-journey.
@arvindsubraman
on ‘Of Gifted Voice' by
@DesirajuKeshav
@HarperCollinsIN
@inamdarsiddhesh
1
15
39
India’s need to prevent a two-front threat & to be on the right side of the US underlies the sudden decision on LoC ceasefire. This opens up possibilities but Modi’s domestic anti-Pakistan politics can come in the way of a durable peace.
@SushantSin
writes
1
9
40
Congratulations to
@dinyarpatel
for winning the prestigious Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2021 for 'Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism' published
@harvardpress
. Read the review by
@AnilNauriya
here:
0
11
38
Gandhi's views on caste & his motivations in forming them haven't always been understood with the necessary depth. I write this essay to present the larger framework within which his ideas & struggles over caste must be understood, writes Akeel Bilgrami.
0
12
38
A surrendered ULFA insurgent's transition to lemon farming in Assam is the story of continued dreams of sovereignty and freedom. By
@DixitaDeka
and
@DollyKikon
1
15
37
Analysing satellite imagery & ethnographic sources such as archival accounts, historical maps, & colonial-era gazettes,
@arjun_s2
&
@Rao__Pooja
show how the unequal development of Bangalore can be visualised in relation to its uneven topography.
1
9
37
Inaugural set of articles by
@maitreesh
and Udayan Mukherjee,
@Ram_Guha
,
@BarboraSanjay
,
@harsh_mander
,
@tabish_khair
,
@meerarizvi
and S Subramanian. We will be live tomorrow. Spread the word!
1
21
39
The 470-pages 'The Bill Gates Problem' by
@TimothyWSchwab
& published by
@PenguinBooks
has only two images: a shattered image of
@BillGates
on its cover and the Smithsonian portrait of Bill and Melinda Gates near its middle.
Follow this thread on 'the white man's burden'.
1
10
37
What has been the record of the labour market in India since the early 1990s in terms of job creation? Should we also be concerned about the quality of jobs that are getting created in the economy?
@maitreesh
@MrinaliniJha22
Jitendra S examine the trends
0
14
38
Ajay Gandhi who co-founded one of India’s most vibrant public discussion forums was a true public intellectual in that he was open, reflected about issues and closely engaged with the ‘public’ in debates about India and its future.
@ramreddy
's tribute.
0
13
33
Ignore the noise this election season: the economy is the real issue. For a young electorate, the big concern is employment. Why have we fail to create jobs? Read about it in
#indianeconomy
#election2024
#employment
#jobs
2
10
37
"For more than a decade, governments have resisted workers’ demands that the critical nature of their work entitle them to be recognised as government employees. The state continues to see them as voluntary workers, unprotected by labour laws."
0
12
35
No serious student of development economics or India’s political economy should miss Pranab Bardhan's 'Charaiveti'. It is full of anecdotes & interesting insights on the lives of some of the best economists in the world, writes Pulin Nayak
@HarperCollinsIN
0
14
37
"How Fascism Works by
@jasonintrator
identifies ten pillars of fascist politics that can exist without the establishment of a full-fledged
#fascist
state. These render a people divided into an ‘us’ and a ‘them’."
#Fascism
0
13
37
Uttar Pradesh’s law restricting interreligious marriages is the Indian version of anti-miscegenation laws in Nazi Germany, segregationist US, & apartheid South Africa. It is not only unconstitutional but a blatant misuse of state authority.
@BurhanMajid
in
0
17
37
‘Mathematics and Society’ by Senthil Babu shows that mathematical knowledge and pedagogy are deeply embedded in the caste-class-gender hierarchy and power structures and thus links them to issues of social justice. CN Subramaniam writes
@OxUniPress
0
16
35
Replug: "How long will Indians live with a policy regime that concentrates unimaginable levels of wealth in a few hands and leaves millions struggling?"
Amidst the cloud over India’s
#poverty
numbers, read
@harsh_mander
on India's staggering
#inequality
.
0
13
36