Indian Opinion

Mukesh Devrari How the feminists should fight for gender equality in India is an elusive question? What should they demand is a settled narrative?  At the first level, feminists should fight to reform the law. It must be based on rationality. It must not be discriminatory and biased. At least women in India are fortunate that the moral conscience keepers of our society were always sympathetic to the concerns of feminists. Immediately after the independence first Prime Minister of India decided to amend the Hindu Code Bill on the modern lines despite the opposition from Hindu fanatics within Congress party. He successfully dealt with fundamentalism of the majority community but decided to bow its head in front of fanatics within the Muslim minority. Perhaps that’s why uniform civil code could not be implemented in India. Feminists in India must ask for the changes in laws that are gender biased and discriminatory. That is the first battleground. At the second level,...

Mukesh Devrari M.A. Jinnah is perhaps the most abused man in India. Nationalists hate him. He is considered responsible for dividing India. He started his career as nationalist and ended up as a most vocal critic of the concept of India.  How this ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity turned rogue? This question still eludes a convincing answer.   Jinnah’s life can be divided broadly into two parts. In the initial part of his life, he was the loyal member of Congress party. According to the Pakistani historians he believed in the constitutional methods to achieve political goals. He disagreed with Gandhi’s methods of mass mobilization and protests.   Muslim historians, including Ayesha Jalal who glorifies ideas and achievements of Jinnah, prefer to highlight the non-religious lifestyle of Jinnah. He is also projected as a secular man who has nothing to do with the ideology of Islam as such. It helps Muslim historians to draw an inference that secular m...