Now that the Ayodhya dispute has been settled in favour of the Hindu side, the focus is back on the Places of Worship Act, 1991, which threatens to open a Pandora’s box. Groups representing Hindu gods are now eyeing waqf lands, thereby threatening the secular character of the country.
The 1990s decade was dominated by the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid row. Now, the Gyanvapi mosque row has added another chapter to the country’s history of disputes over religious structures and the spaces they occupy.
Instead of quashing petitions that violate the Places of Worship Act, the past few years have seen courts and judges allowing those against mosques to fester
If the Ram Temple movement established the saffron outfit in the Hindi belt, the Hubballi campaign catapulted it to power in the state
The decline of industry and businesses in Hubballi, once a thriving centre for processing cotton, coincided with spurts of communal violence in the 1980s and 1990s.
When one party is God, it cannot be said that both parties are at the same level, because with God, religious sentiments of people are involved
Riding piggy back on the shifting allegiance of the Lingayats, the most dominant caste group in Karnataka, BJP has managed to capture power by raking up communally sensitive issues
Though the objective of Places of Worship Act to discourage any retrogression into communal fault lines is admirable, its contradictions and ambiguity on many counts have rendered it inefficacious
PFI came into being in response to violence against Muslims. Political silence on it only helped the fundamentalist outfit grow in coastal Karnataka
The anthology brings together a myriad of experiences of how women in South Asia negotiate the phenomenon.
The architect, professor and painter Tushar Manohar Shetty from Dahisar, Mumbai has dabbled in graphite and pencil sketches, then painting and later pursued architecture as it blends technology and art
With the tide of majoritarian appeasement, fuelled by the ruling political establishment, there are efforts now to even exempt the Gyanvapi mosque-Shringar Gauri dispute in Varanasi from the ambit of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.
The political legacy of Ganesh Chaturthi dates back to the late 19th century. The first community Ganesha festival was started by Bhausaheb Laxman Javale aka Bhau Rangari, in 1892.
Why was it so important for the Karnataka government to hold Ganesh Chaturthi puja in an Idgah maidan somewhere in the state? Was it something to do with the fact that assembly elections are around the corner?
A disturbing commentary made the rounds that the rapists belonging to the virtuous caste and kinship would not have committed the crime
The move came two years after the Soren government’ historic decision to pass the Sarna code bill, asking the Centre to provide a separate religion column for Adivasis who do not self-identify as Hindus
A civil servant and author provides glimpse of his warm memories from his days in Cambridge to his travels through Maharashtra
