-TheWire.in It was indeed an unequal conflict, as the Santals unflinchingly fought with bows and arrows against troops armed with artillery – an indicator of how precious self-rule was to them. The 1857 uprising of Indian sepoys is commonly considered to be the first war of independence in Indian history, even though it was preceded by tribal revolts such as the Halba rebellion of 1774, the Bhil revolt of 1818, and the...

-The Hindu Dalit-Muslim alliances are not enough; Upper Caste Hindus are needed too, to restore secularism Ever since the Sachar Committee Report of 2006 demonstrated that the socio-economic conditions of Muslims have worsened compared to Dalits, some have argued that Muslims have become India’s new Dalits. It is further proposed that the two communities should forge an alliance to fight the Hindu Right to restore secularism because together they constitute a significant...

-Business Standard How support for left and right-leaning parties is changing in social composition Some decades back the typical voting pattern in many democracies used to be that the rich and upper middle classes used to vote in general for right-leaning parties, while the relatively poor voted for left-leaning parties. But in recent decades this pattern has been shifting: many of the professional or more educated voters in some of those countries...

-TheWire.in A survey revealed that big peasants, who were among the top lenders to the labourers, gave them loans in the garb of paying low daily wages. Mansa, Patiala (Punjab): A narrow dirt road alongside a filthy pond enters Neelam’s one room house at Aklia village of Punjab’s Mansa district. The house is just a pile of bricks. The floor is muddy and uneven. Neelam, in her 40s, says that whenever heavy rain...

-The Indian Express In a nation where access to education remains a fundamental issue and where an individual’s success largely depends on access to resources, shaped by socio-economic and caste advantages, 'merit' is just another form of discrimination. While a public health crisis grips the nation, the recent incident at IIT Kharagpur where a professor named Seema Singh at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences allegedly made casteist slurs during a...