pansare

Was Shivaji anti-Muslim?

Shivaji appears in the popular imagination as a ‘Hindu’ king, among the many who resisted Muslim rule in India. Govind Pansare’s Shivaji Kon Hota? interrogates the legend to separate fact from fiction. In this extract from his introduction to the English translation (Who was Shivaji?, LeftWord, 2015), historian Anirudh Deshpande, while discussing the merits of Pansare’s book, questions the anti-Muslim aspect of the Shivaji myth. […] In Pansare’s terse and admirable book, readers [...]

Activist Arrests in India Are Part of a Dangerous Global Trend to Stifle Dissent

On Tuesday morning, the police from the Indian city of Pune (in the state of Maharashtra) raided the homes of lawyers and social activists across India and arrested five of them. Many of them are not household names around the world, since they are people who work silently on behalf of the poor and oppressed in a country where half the population does not eat sufficiently. Their names are Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira and Varavara Rao. What unites these peop[...]

Amazing Grace: The life and death of Gauri Lankesh

जिस्म की मौत कोई मौत नहीं होती  जिस्म मिट जाने से इन्सान नहीं मर जाते धड़कनें रूकने से अरमान नहीं मर जाते साँस थम जाने से ऐलान नहीं मर जाते होंठ जम जाने से फ़रमान नहीं मर जाते जिस्म की मौत कोई मौ[...]