Image from Census of India website. Why You Should Read This Across 2021, there was a lot of momentum building behind the demand for a new caste census. As we discussed in our video on the subject, upper caste-dominated parties seemed to fear it while OBC parties were the most vocal in their demand for it. This paper by Nandini Sundar explores why some groups argued for and against the idea of a caste census in post-independent India. We have condensed the original 10,000-word paper into a 1,500-word summary. You can read it in fullClick on each point to dig deeper and get the complete pictur ..read more

Ram Manohar Lohia, Karpoori Thakur, Lalu Prasad Yadav, and Nitish Kumar.Why You Should Read This Bihar has been the birthplace of numerous movements for social change in the decades preceding and following India’s independence. These movements emerged as a challenge to the caste order since they were largely rooted in the the oppression and deprivation of the backward castes. Over the course of the 20th century, these backward castes have succeeded in capturing political power, resulting in a drastic change in the state’s power dynamics. We have condensed the original 10,000-word paper into a ..read more

Image by Yann licensed under CC BY SA 4.0 Why You Should Read This We talk about colonialism like it’s something that happened to India in the past but to the indigenous peoples of India, colonialism is ongoing. Except that Indian society are the colonizers – usurping their land, erasing their culture, and denying them autonomy. In this paper, Virginius Xaxa who is from the Oraon tribe lays out how academics and state officials have debated the language, religion and identity of indigenous communities in India over the last two hundred years. And how little that has involved actual indigenous ..read more

Image by Suyash Dwivedi. Licensed under CC BY SA.40Why You Should Read This The Sangh Parivar’s version of Indian history twists historical facts in an attempt to shape society in accordance with Hindutva ideology. This paper by Tanika Sarkar explores how the Sangh Parivar manufactures its version of history and takes it to the people through formal education, as well as through informal avenues. The goal of this project is to create and popularise the idea of a glorious Hindu past that defines all that it means to be Indian, while projecting all minorities as foreign. You can read it in full ..read more

Image by Suyash Dwivedi. Licensed under CC BY SA.40Why You Should Read This History is something we take for granted as a narration of past events. But it’s not as simple as that. Historical theories become facts through a conversation between scholars and the general public. Various versions of the same historical events exist in the minds of people. One such version that is prominent today is the one produced by the Sangh Parivar, which gives a clear right-wing colour to the Indian past in a bid to shape society along its ideological lines. This paper by Tanika Sarkar seeks to explore in de ..read more

It’s been almost four months since India Ink launched and the response has been overwhelming. Before we launched, we were mentally prepared for a long hard grind – a period of publishing content that no one really paid attention to as we slowly built an audience. Luckily, we managed to skip that stage and attract a decent amount of attention from the beginning. In fact, we got more than just attention. We’ve been getting emails and DMs from people who really like our content and want to help – to contribute, collaborate, be a part of India Ink in some way. Someone appreciating your work so muc ..read more

Why You Should Read This As this article is being published, India is still reeling from the second wave of a pandemic which has devastated the country and led to a lot of criticism of government mishandling. This paper shows how the colonial government mishandled a pandemic as well – the Spanish Flu. Through newspaper reports from the time, this article shows how despite a century passing, many things have not changed. We have condensed the original 8,000-word paper into a 1,800-word summary. You can read it in fullClick on each point to dig deeper and get the complete picture. in 9 minutes ..read more

Photo by Danish Prakash on UnsplashWhy You Should Read This This is Part Two of a two part summary of Anuj Bhuwania’s 2018 paper about a PIL that transformed Delhi and how the people of Delhi were barely consulted during this process. Focusing on just one case, it shows how PILs, despite being created for the “public good”, are particularly prone to class bias and abuse of power. It’s a wild and scary story about how a judge can just wake up one day and throw a whole city upside-down. You can read it in fullClick on each point to dig deeper and get the complete picture. in 8 minutes or skim i ..read more

An alternative title for this post could’ve been “Falling Into Information Design”. When we conceived of India Ink, it was going to be “social-first”. We mentioned this in the first post in this series but the general idea was that the website would only be an archive. All our content would be native to social media but we’d still have a website because that would give us permanency. That is now how we really think of it anymore. There have been projects all across the world that think about how to exploit the advantages of the web to make documents more interactive. One of my favourites is Th ..read more

Why You Should Read This Public Interest Litigation was created by the Supreme Court in 1979 to deliver justice to those who couldn’t otherwise access the justice system. Indian law typically only allows court cases to be brought by parties that are directly affected by an issue. In a PIL, this restriction is relaxed. Even people who are not directly affected can take a matter to court as long as it is in the broad public interest. PILs have enabled a lot of judicial activism, which has often been cheered on and celebrated by the public. This is especially true when it comes to issues like th ..read more