Politics & Society

Whose Civil Society Is It Anyway?

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People may remember a Hollywood film not too long ago called Indecent Proposal which featured actor Robert Redford offering a lot of money to “Woody” from Cheers (Woody Harrelson) to be able to get the latter’s wife Demi Moore for a night. I always wondered what the indecency in that film was all about. Was it the immorality of adultery? Was it the crassness of commodified trafficking in human beings? Or the commodification of love and, of course, sex?

Environment

Gandhi Today

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On October 2, 2009, we commemorated the 140th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi by having a discussion at my university. The title of the event was “Practicing Satyagraha in a Violent World: Conversations on Peace and Justice.” As Director of the Gandhian Forum for Peace and Justice, I had invited Ted Glick as one of two speakers. Ted Glick is a long-time activist and organizer who has worked on building grassroots resistance and raising the level of public debate on issues of militarism, state repression, environmentalism, tenant rights, community development and racial justice issues in the NY/NJ area. For the last four years Ted has played a national leadership role in the effort to stabilize our climate and for a clean energy revolution.

General News

Debating Hinduism – What Radicals and Progressives Could Think About

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This is a link to a post of my responses to many comments that have appeared as response to my piece on Mussolini’s Hindus and how to battle them in the latest Tikkun available here. Some of my comments are also as a follow-up to the “hate mails” that were posted on this site in response to the call to the Financial Times to not give an award to the chief minister of the state of Gujarat under whose administration a pogrom that resulted in the killing of 2000 people (mostly Muslims) occurred in 2002 and continues to reveal some shocking violations of basic human rights (see here for a petition to the Prime Minister of India following up on a high court decision that indicted the same administration for the most recent murder of a Muslim student). Interested readers can read the entire piece from Tikkun and the responses here
Peace
Murli

General News

“When Timidity Passes for Wisdom…” Or, How to Lose Friends and Influence Policy?

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Towards the end of his speech, President Obama said the following words: “…when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter that at that point we don’t merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.”

General News

And the Financial Times Award goes to … a Human Rights violator … Please sign the protest letter

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I reproduce below a letter that is calling for as many signatures as possible from those of us deeply concerned about the ways that such individuals as Mr. Modi routinely seek and get legitimized through awards handed out by well-known institutions (who may not be aware of their background or worse, may not consider such crimes as significant). This letter is to Ms. Marjorie Scardino, CEO of the Pearson Group, which owns the Financial Times group, which owns FDI magazine. As some of you may know from media coverage, FDI just anointed Narendra Modi “Asian Personality of the Year 2009.” Please join us by signing the letter below. The louder the reaction to this, the more chance this outrageous action will be sanctioned.

Health

Healthcare: Of Weakest and Strongest Links in the Battle of Ideas

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Despite the fact that some individuals have shown up at the town hall meetings literally armed, left progressives need to continue to seriously identify and attack the strongest links (not the weakest) in the ideological repertoire of those who are so rabid in their opposition to the Obama healthcare plan. This means that focusing on the “will my granny be put to death” argument is only a distraction. This is not among the strongest arguments that congeal whatever opposition to this healthcare plan emanates from the broadly defined right-wing. It is definitely the strangest, perhaps.

Culture

Remembering Racism in an Obama Age

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On Nov 11, 2008 (just a few days after the historic win of Barack Obama) the German paper Der Speigel interviewed Professor Niall Ferguson, a historian at Harvard to discuss among other things, Obama’s historical election victory. Fergusen said: “Yes, it was a very moving moment. It was similar to the release of Nelson Mandela. When Obama was born, in 1961, mixed marriages between blacks and whites were still illegal in one-third of the American states

Gender and Sexuality

Disaporic Provincialism?

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An open letter to the Indian diaspora and their organizations to think about the regressive nature of their decision to not allow the preeminent South Asian LGBT association to march on the Indian Independence Day celebrations due to take place on Sunday August 16, 2009 in New York city.

General News

Policing the Police in India

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(Bangalore) – The Indian government should take major steps to overhaul a policing system that facilitates and even encourages human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. For decades, successive governments have failed to deliver on promises to hold the police accountable for abuses and to build professional, rights-respecting police forces.

Gender and Sexuality

Coming Together For Continuing Bigotry?

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It was bound to happen. Religious “leaders” (the quotes are meant to highlight the fact that the existence of “leaders” depends entirely upon the legitimacy and consent they enjoy or don’t among their so-called followers) from the major religions in India – Hinduism, Islam and Christianity – decried the recent court ruling decriminalizing LGBT sex (article 377 or 377 for short; see my earlier blog). Over the last couple weeks these “leaders” (who are usually busy fighting with each other in India) came together on this platform of opposition to 377 using any or all of four arguments that I am sure many of us have heard before in other spaces, other times.