Archive

Essays, op-eds, speeches and talks, 2013–2025, arranged by the date each was posted here. For recent and featured pieces, see Selected Commentary.

2025

Writing the Resistance, Royal Society of Literature.

We Write Because Silence Is Impossible, The Week.

2024

The Radical Rahul Gandhi Nobody Expected, The Wire.

Are women writers an easy commodity or a dangerous liability?, Deccan Herald.

Tamil Nadu: Deep Moats of the Dravidian Citadel, Outlook.

2023

Arundhati Roy is being hounded by the Indian state. This is a test case for its democracy, The Guardian.

2022

Acceptance Speech, PEN Germany’s Hermann Kesten Prize, speech.

‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ Is on the Right Track but Congress Also Needs To Get Its Own House in Order, The Wire.

Anti-Hindi Movement: The Grassroots Struggle for Tamil Pride, Outlook.

Karnataka Hijab Row: Students Recount How the ‘Saffron Protests’ Were Planned, The Quint.

Behind the Veil: Why Muslim Students Are Fighting for Hijab, Outlook.

2021

Dalits Under Siege: How Lower Castes Are Being Systematically Targeted in Tamil Nadu, Outlook.

The Long March to Freedom, Outlook, four-part series.

Interview on Decolonisation and Feminist Translation, Words Without Borders.

Shatter Fascist Propaganda in Fewer than 280 Characters, Tank.

From Sanatana Dharma to the Sangh Parivar: The Evolution of Political Hindutva, DGH Conference.

“Aesthetic Choices Are Political Choices”: An Interview with Meena Kandasamy, Asymptote.

A Report Card on the End Times Brought Upon Us by Hindutva, The Wire.

The Backlash to Dalit Political Assertion: Kilvenmani and Arakkonam, The New Indian Express.

2020

Why Feminists Must Join the Movement Against the Manusmriti, The Wire.

When Language Excludes: Caste and Covid-19, OHCHR webinar.

The Orders Were to Rape You, The White Review.

The Poetry of Female Fighters, Guernica.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall, Munich Literature Festival.

Indian police killing rape suspects is not justice, it’s just more toxic masculinity, The Guardian.

2019

India’s Most Oppressed Get Their Revenge, The New York Times.

2018

V.S. Naipaul Leaves Behind a Formidable Body of Work — and a Troubling Legacy, Time.

Sending the Pigs to Slaughter, The Daily Vox.

2017

Mother India: The Missing Women’s Revolution, Financial Times.

To Be an Indian Patriot, Al Jazeera.

Bengaluru Attacks: Misogyny by Night and Day, Al Jazeera.

2016

To Create A Nation, Newsweek Middle East.

Rohith Vemula Left Us with Only His Words, The Hindu.

2015

Foreword to Ali Cobby Eckermann’s Too Afraid to Cry, The Wire.

2014

Hurtling Towards a Rape Nation, India Today.

A Panther in Life: An Obituary for Namdeo Dhasal, Tehelka.

2013

Judiciary and Institutionalised Homophobia, The Asian Age.

How Do We Break the Indian Penile Code?, Outlook.