Mahishasur was the mythological hero of the Bahujan communities of India. According to D.D. Kaushambi, Mahishasur’s realm was Mahoba in Bundelkhand. In connection with the research for my book, I reached Mahoba on 2 October 2015. Mahishasur’s memories still survive in the folk traditions of Mahoba. He is known as Maikasur, Kaaras Dev, Gwal Bab…[Read more]

We wrote this report in December 2015. In this report, we have tried to bring out the ideology of the organisers of Mahishasur Day, and their strategy for cultural-social change.
When, on 25 October 2011, a handful of students of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University celebrated Mahishasur Martyrdom Day for the first time, no one could have i…[Read more]

We wrote this report in December 2015. In this report, we have tried to bring out the ideology of the organisers of Mahishasur Day, and their strategy for cultural-social change.
When, on 25 October 2011, a handful of students of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University celebrated Mahishasur Martyrdom Day for the first time, no one could have i…[Read more]

दिल्ली के जवाहरलाल नेहरू विश्वविद्यालय में मुट्ठी भर अन्य पिछड़ा वर्ग और दलित छात्रों ने जब 25 अक्टूबर, 2011 को पहली बार ‘महिषासुर शहादत दिवस’ मनाया था, तब शायद किसी ने सोचा भी नहीं होगा कि यह दावनल की आग सिद्ध होगा। 2015 तक, महज चार सालों में ही इन आयोजनों ने न सिर्फ देशव्यापी सामाजिक आलोडऩ पैदा कर दिया था, बल्कि ये आदिवासियों, अन्य पिछडा वर्ग…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: ´El Gran Diseño´, libro de Stephen Hawking y Leonard Mlodinow (Bantam, 2010) se propone responder científicamente a algunas cuestiones que en tiempos pasados se explicaban mediante mitos de creación: por qué existe el universo, y por qué es como es. Nos centramos aquí en una de sus propuestas más controvertidas, la teoría d…[Read more]

If we closely study the recent string of incidents in JNU while keeping their background in mind, we will realize that the Bahujan-Left unity had set alarm bells ringing in the RSS camp. To grasp this better, we will have to revisit the first Mahishasur Martyrdom Day, organized by the All India Backward Students’ Forum (AIBSF) in JNU in October 2…[Read more]

This article concentrates on the affective impacts of the relationship between the bodies of the father and his daughter in Sirach. It relies on gender studies as well as affect theory to explore how intensities pass from body to body in the biblical text, and also to the bodies of those who read it. The father’s body is marked by gynophobic a…[Read more]

This chapter analyzes activist narratives that foreground agroecological systems such as milpa farming. Here, corn has been most visibly used as a unifying metaphor for Mexican identity, while quelites (‘tender edible weeds’), which grow spontaneously at the feet of corn plants, have historically commanded much less attention. Recently, how…[Read more]