(The Quint) Karnataka Hijab Row: Students Recount How the ‘Saffron Protests’ Were Planned
(with G Vishnu, in Udupi) Large sections of media have framed the protests by Muslim girls in Udupi to wear a hijab inside the classroom...
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Feb 18, 20227 min read
(Outlook) Behind The Veil: Why Muslim Students Are Fighting For Hijab
(With G. Vishnu, I wrote on how political posturing in the Karnataka hijab row hardened into an ideological stand-off) On February 8, a...
Feb 8, 20226 min read
Keeping people out of education embedded in DNA of Hinduism: Letter to saffron-shawl-wearing kids
Dear saffron-scarf-wearing girls and boys, Namaskaram! I take the liberty of writing to you although I have never met you. When I first...
Dec 1, 20216 min read
(Outlook) Dalits Under Siege: How Lower Castes Are Being Systematically Targeted In Tamil Nadu
When the Suriya-starrer Jai Bhim released on Amazon Prime on November 1, it was greeted with universal praise, with the film...
Nov 5, 20212 min read
(Outlook Magazine/ 4-part series) The Long March to Freedom
Sometimes, a photograph arrests your attention and holds you in its thrall. Right at the moment of your first encounter with the image,...
Nov 5, 20211 min read
(Words Without Borders) Interview on Decolonisation, Feminist translation
Suhasini Patni interviews Meena Kandasamy about translating female Tamil combatant poets, anti-imperialist feminism, and her book-length...
Nov 5, 20211 min read
(Tank Magazine) Shatter fascist propaganda in fewer than 280 characters
Oppressive ruling classes in every part of the world have always exerted their hegemony over narrative. In such a context how can – and...
Sep 10, 20218 min read
(DGH Conference) From Sanatana Dharma to the Sangh Parivar: EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL HINDUTVA
[TEXT] Through the ages, there have been several organised and outspokenly violent attempts to prevent the discussion of what constitutes...
Jun 12, 20212 min read
(Asymptote Journal) "Aesthetic Choices Are Political Choices" An Interview with Meena Kandasamy
Indian writer and translator Meena Kandasamy has always been interested in intimate human relations and historical lesions caused by...
Jun 12, 202111 min read
(The Wire) A Report Card on the End Times Brought Upon Us by Hindutva
Days before his arrest on April 14, 2020 in the Bhima Koregaon case, I spoke to Anand Teltumbde. “They have destroyed the constitution,”...
Apr 20, 20213 min read
(The New Indian Express) The Backlash to Dalit Political Assertion: Kilvenmani and Arakkonam
As I sit down to write this column, trying to address the question, “Has Tamil Nadu changed since the Keezhvenmani massacre?”, the...
Dec 11, 20206 min read
Why Feminists Must Join the Movement Against the Manusmriti
(First published in The Wire, on 24 Oct 2020) On Saturday, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK, Liberation Panthers Party) has held...
Oct 22, 20204 min read
When Language Excludes: Caste & Covid-19
(These are my talking notes from my contribution at the 17th OHCHR Covid-19 global webinar on "Descent-based discrimination & when...
Aug 23, 20207 min read
(The White Review) The Orders Were to Rape You
(content warning: rape) THE TRAITOR WHO IS THE WRITER This is an essay about writing and trauma. This is an essay about violence: of men,...
Aug 23, 20203 min read
(Guernica) The Poetry of Female Fighters
Seven years ago, on a chilly fall weekend in London, I wandered into an Oxfam second-hand bookshop in Walthamstow along with a man I was...
ESSAYS, OP-EDS
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