pass the roti on the left hand side

As you may have noted if you have followed this blog or many others relating to matters South Asian and authored by people racialised in the United States, there is a substantial amount of debate about what various terms mean or which ones to use.  The constancy of this debate is interesting in and of itself, even if its content is tired for people who have already participated in them - why do South Asian Americans or whatever we call ourselves create spaces that continuously and neverendingly debate what the label for the community is?

Let me start by telling you a few short stories from Delhi in recent years:

The Pakistan Army’s recent military incursion against the Taliban in the Malakand region has internally displaced about 1.8 million Pakistanis. The IDPs have fled to make-shift camps, some as far as Karachi, and are suffering from hunger-related health problems and mental trauma.

As I have noted before (1,2), I am skeptical of broad pronouncements of the meaning of a national election in India within 24 hours of their occurrance.

Call me bitter because my own prognostication was off, but as I mentioned in the post where I attempted to test my own sense of general trends in Indian politics against my ability to predict election results, I find rapid post mortems from the very institutions and people who failed to accurately predict the elections both puzzling and structurally insidious.  Setting aside the comments that are deliberately designed to further political ambitions (i.

Thinking through how to deal with violence in a less-powerful society that is at the whim of larger, more powerful societies is hard.  I know I should sign this but take into account the competing agendas of not supporting liberal imperialism ever again and ameliorating humanitarian disasters.  Take a look and see what you think and sign AFTER TAILORING the

THE PAST:

Shortly after the 2004 Lok Sabha elections that brought Congress to power and ended BJP's term, The Hindu wrote the following:

If you've been following our news section on Nepal, you may have noted that Comrade Prachanda has resigned as the head of the Nepalese Government.  Prachanda is the head of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), also simply known as 'The Maoists' in the press- though I do believe there are other groups of Maoists operating in Nepal.  A facebook friend was kind enough to start a conversation about this on his/her status message and I thought I would continue in that vein here.  I am writing with the understanding that I&

CNN-IBN just happens to be on my television. This is what I see on the chyron, interspersed with the occasional story, mostly full of b-reel footage of the SLA and unending lines of shell-shocked families marching to an uncertain future.

Read between these lines below and you will see the war and its political context in India, stripped of all complexity and boiled down to its essential absurdity:

. . .

Update

The mass violence is scheduled to accelerate tomorrow.  This addendum to the post is a list of several steps you can take culled primarily from the comments. If you look in the comments and particularly kettilkili's comment, you can find some advice about framing your own work or other resources if you want to see what else has been done or plan your own steps.

1. Read up to date news from International Red Cross on civilians in the North East