You may have heard of Gwalia in Khasia, the book by Nigel Jenkins but had heard of the film? Watch this classic BBC documentary on the history and politics of Khasi Hills
RAIOT Posts
The missionaries gave us the written word though it could have easily been Bengali rather than Roman. It is in this process that a complex history of battling calligraphies contrived to sort out an oral tradition that they considered to be uncivilized.
Generations of Kashmiris have already answered the rhetorical question, “Hum kya chahte?” (What do we want?) with “Azadi”—freedom from India. If there is to be any possibility of reconciliation, it cannot be answered with another question: “What about Kashmiri Pandits?” This latter question can be—should be—part of the answer to another question, “Azadi ka matlab kya?” (What does azadi entail?) But for that to happen, the first question must be heard, and answered.
Ri’s idea of justice and peace resides in the militants’ surrendering of arms and not in the State taking similar responsibilities.
“In a country that mints gold, a bazaar of bones is on show;
We’ve become holy wanderers on the waves of an illusion.”
Shillong High Court Bar Association has challenged the appointment of Delhi based lawyers who do not practise in the Shillong as Senior Advocates by the Meghalaya High Court in the year 2014-15.
Maranatha Wahlang’s revealing experiences of Hyderabad Central University and how Rohith Vemula’s experience was not an anomaly
Photographer and archivist Aditya Arya was at the book launch of India by Steve McCurry’s and some questions went unanswered
Football, cricket and others have essentially displaced the older sports/games which were customarily played by a large number of people, especially in the rural areas.
Who is a dalit?
Members of scheduled castes and tribes, Neo-Buddhists, the working people, the landless and poor peasants, women and all those who are being exploited politically, economically and in the name of religion.
We have been looking at anger as an antithesis to peace for far too long. Non-violence has been understood as the most acceptable means to peace and peace has been in turn construed as absence of conflict.
For Khaki crimes, there will be no calls for emasculation, or hanging. There are rapes and there are rapes. There is truth and there are tri-colour blinders.
Rohith Vemula’s ‘suicide’ is not the desperate reaction of a despairing victim to casteist atrocities. For the same reason, and contrary to what many might imagine, Vemula’s ‘suicide’ has nothing to do with anomie-bred existential nihilism. Rather, it is an act of revolutionary affirmation
SO WHO WILL MAKE CHANA FOR US?
BIHARI?
WHO WILL CLEAN UP OUR MESS?
BANGLADESHI?
WHO WILL RUN OUR SHOP?
PUNJABI?
WHO WILL SEND SUPPLIES?
MARWARI?
For those who are using Rohith’s letter to simplistically assert that he died due to “personal problems,” sit up and open your eyes, ears, and mind to what is being said and what is not being said in this letter. Read between the lines, in the loops of his “y”s and “g”s and in the indented spaces separating his neat paragraphs.
“Please serve 10mg Sodium Azide to all the Dalit students at the time of admission. With direction to use when they feel like reading Ambedkar.”
ROHITH VEMULA’s letter of 18/12/2015 to the Vice Chancellor of Hyderabad Central University
The vibrance of the streets of Shillong can be overwhelming, especially on a crowded public holiday, or even just rush hour on weekdays when the colleges are at their peaks of attendance levels. A few steps away from the bustling centers however, and you are transported to a different world, where houses snuggle together in the dying sun and lanes disappear and reappear on the curves of hills.
(for Rohith Vemula) they pushed you to the edge of their village but, you broke into the cellars of their Agrahaaras they sealed your lips…
The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust. In very field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.
It is a well known fact that people have been threatened of being kicked out of the balang if they were to take part in festivals of other groups. The word ‘blei thaw’ is quite familiar to us with the degrading connotation it carries. So we already have people in our state who have developed their own version of the ideology of ‘incompatibility of differences’; given the right motivation they could very soon take the next step, i.e., violence (not in thought but in actual deed)
A few days ago, I found myself among 50 odd listeners, soaking in the field recordings, narrative-snippets, perceptions and emotional responses of singer-songwriter Moushumi Bhowmik…
I grew up in Shillong in the 1970s.
My sister went to Loreto, me to Pine Mount, and in that insular world of ours all that mattered was the grades we got in school and the prizes I won for the (mostly Bengali) songs I sang at Ananda Sammelan.
Then we left.
Then we chose to leave.
Then we had to leave.
It is now only a matter of months until the Rio Olympics, an event inevitably wrapped up in the glamour of that most festive of world cities. The reality, however, is rather less glossy. Indeed, behind the fanfare, some of the city’s poorest people, many living in Rio’s notorious favelas, are being uprooted to make way for the games.
R.I.P DAVID BOWIE
PLEASE SHARE IF YOU CARE ABOUT DAVID BOWIE.
1 LIKE OR SHARE CAN BRING HIM BACK TO LIFE!!
Essay presents the critique of perspective on gender and patriarchy of the revolutionary movement in India that comprises numerous mass organizations and movements across the country that follow Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology.
There has to be a systematic overhaul of public health delivery system in Meghalaya with health rights at the core of such a structural change. Accountability and transparency is an important structural change that requires immediate attention if the health sector is to improved.
With all the paeans being sung about Late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, this calling into account by Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) is a much needed corrective.
I don’t want a Bible without errors and historical inaccuracies, without contradictions and inconsistencies. Thank God for them! They are good news. They are the very things that make Scripture meaningful and compelling.
Not all is right in the state of Arunachal Pradesh in the Indian Union. Some old British-rule era habits die hard
What does one do in Shillong, but observe,
Fancy people walking on stilts of insecurity.
Poor people justifying their fate as victims.
Never mind a Dylanesque aura about this town,
Which is so fake.
Never mind the so called Christian culture,
Which is so adopted.
In light of all the hatred, directed towards hawkers and other people of the street, I want to stand up and publicly cheer for them.
Here in Mawlai I am clad in the infamous garb of a Maram.
“Go back to your Wild West Khasi Hills, you son of a maram”
Whenever a major earthquake is in the news, you’ll probably hear about its Richter scale rating. You might also hear about its Mercalli Scale rating,…
Ka 30 Nohprah 2015 kan dei ka janmiet ka ban sah jingkynmaw ba ka Kynhun Nongrwai TARIK ka la pyllait paidbah ia ka thup jingrwai jong ka kaba la ai kyrteng “Khanatang Parking Lot bad ki Mawbynna Dew Bilat” ha Savio Hall, Laitumkhrah Shillong.
Shillong. Tara is getting married in 3 days. On her bachelorette’s party, she falls into a pool to find herself in a world exactly like her’s but where she doesn’t exist.
a film by Dennis Konjengbam, Prateeksha Darabdhara & Bijoy Labuktongbam
Allowing a private entity
– to define for Indian Internet users what is “basic”,
– to control what content costs how much, and
– to have access to the personal content created and used by millions of Indians
is a lethal combination which will lead to total lack of freedom on how Indians can use their own public utility
On Khasi identity crisis
With change, a culture evolves. The question to be asked is: Should this evolution be guided by a few dominant minds? or should it be let to go how it is supposed to go, naturally, with a promise of a gradual acceptance by all?
Share this: