Who is racist, us or them…?
It has been for long that the Muslims have been experiencing what has come to be known as – Islamophobia, or the fear of Islam and Muslims. This fear breeds prejudice and hate against Muslims at the hands of those who suffer a sort of mental condition wherein they are scared of everything related with […]
… and people’s disempowerment continues!
Immediately after the September 2014 floods, when Election Commission of India decided to go ahead with the electoral exercise in J&K, it assured that it should not impact the rehabilitation of the flood-hit population. However, this assertion, as was expected, proved no different than countless similar promises which have been observed only in breach. The […]
We’re tolerant people!
“As a young man in early nineties, most of my actions were, instead of rational thinking or logic, programmed by the adrenaline rush in my body. But today I am different; I have learned to tolerate dissent, and I am tolerant of even the worst of my detractors.” This is how one of Kashmir’s ‘leaders’ […]
Studying impacts of violence
Human life, which, those in the realm of the make-believe, developed world are so fond of taking for granted so much as to think that “everything one wants to happen will/must happen in the best of all possible worlds” is after all not as simple – at least not for the huge majority in the […]
‘Peace is won only by effort and resolve’
History has an uncanny habit of repeating itself. Unfortunately at a place like Kashmir, it is only the bad precedents that get repeated, and almost at regular intervals. What is still more unfortunate is that all these bad things happen at times when there is visibly no reason for such occurrences – whenever the Valley […]
Once the ‘lid effect’ is gone…
Human life, which those in the realm of the make-believe, developed world are so fond of taking for granted so much as to think that “everything one wants to happen will/must happen in the best of all possible worlds” is after all not as simple – at least not for the huge majority in the […]
Simplistic inferences lead to wrong conclusions
The “successful” conduct of recently held urban local body and panchayat elections has once again surprised many – though political realists had anticipated it to be so. Given that the separatists had called for boycott and their calls were endorsed by a wider cross-section, including the vocal civil society actors who make it to media […]
Selling ‘differences’ as political myths…!
DIFFERENCE, though an inherently natural and important behavioral characteristic, is also a dangerous trait in socio-psychological make-up. Beginning as a minor difference in (of) opinion, left unchecked and uncontained, it takes no time in acquiring monstrous proportions of difference of (in) interests. Once interests — be they selfish personal ones, or the social, political, cultural, […]
When will our ruling class wake up?
Alfred North Whitehead was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. Having written on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education, Whitehead also supervised the doctoral dissertations of Bertrand Russell and Willard Van Orman Quine, thus influencing logic and virtually all of analytic philosophy. In his ‘Adventures of Ideas’, Whitehead […]
Using ‘national myths’ to polarize people
William Ury once said: “dealing with the differences is today one of the greatest challenges facing human beings.” True, what we are seeing happening these days is that the differences of opinions and worldviews are actually being exploited to breed conflict. And what is really unfortunate is that it is not only the regular “conflict […]
