Selected Commentary
Bastar: Blood on Our Hands
Far from the national conscience, a danse macabre unfolds in Bastar. In a 24-page cover story built on three years of reporting in Chhattisgarh, Meena Kandasamy shows how the deadline-driven war on Naxalism has become a euphemism for erasing Adivasis and clearing the way for corporate resource extraction — with rapes and bounty-hunting by Indian paramilitary forces along the way.
Read the cover story · Read her interview with the Adivasi rights activist Soni Sori
Trump Sets the World on Fire. India Chokes on the Fumes. The New York Times, March 2026.
A Leaderless and Connected Gen Z Is Taking Over in Asia, The New York Times, September 2025.
Writing the Resistance, Royal Society of Literature newsletter, June 2025.
We Write Because Silence is Impossible, The Week, April 2025.
The Radical Rahul Gandhi Nobody Expected, The Wire, May 2024.
Are women writers an easy commodity or a dangerous liability? Deccan Herald, May 2024.
Tamil Nadu: Deep Moats of the Dravidian Citadel, Outlook, April 2024.
Arundhati Roy is being hounded by the Indian state. This is a test case for its democracy, The Guardian, October 2023.
Bharat Jodo Yatra Is on the Right Track but Congress Also Needs to Get Its Own House in Order, The Wire, September 2022.
Anti-Hindi Movement: The Grassroots Struggle for Tamil Pride, Outlook, May 2022.
Karnataka Hijab Row: Students Recount How the Saffron Protests Were Planned, The Quint, with G. Vishnu, February 2022.
Behind the Veil: Why Muslim Students Are Fighting for Hijab, Outlook, with G. Vishnu, February 2022.
Dalits Under Siege, Outlook, December 2021.
The Long March to Freedom, Outlook, four-part series, November 2021.
The Orders Were to Rape You, The White Review, July 2020.
India’s Most Oppressed Get Their Revenge, The New York Times, May 2019.
Speeches
Opening address, The Eelam Dialogues: Voices of Resistance, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, January 2026.
Acceptance speech, PEN Germany Hermann Kesten Prize, Darmstadt, November 2022.
We Will Fight / We Will Win, Specters of Communism, Haus der Kunst, Munich, November 2017.