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Memory as Guide: Iam.lk and personal narratives of Sri Lanka
Ahalya Satkunaratnam | September 21, 2014

Ahalya Satkunaratnam reflects on how the stories of elders in the website, Iam.lk assist in complicating identity in Sri Lanka and how this site provides a discussion of national history and personal belonging that circumvents hostility that often accompanies web-based discussions of identity, the nation and the war.

Glimpses of a Muslim Childhood
Noor Hasan | September 21, 2014

Sajda

On the morning of my sixth or seventh Eid,
My mother dressed me in white Pakistani robes,

Holding my hand gently
As we walked through the bright wooden gates
Of the Islamic Community Center by our house.
I had not yet learned how to pray.

But my mother taught me how to bow in sajda,
The devotion of pressing one’s forehead
To the ground to feel smaller than God
has made you,
to feel as grounded
as feet.

As I lifted my forehead
from the carpeted floor of the mosque,

Recent Articles

Making Sense of Incoherent Math: The Indian Election and Diasporic Politics
By: Biju Matthew | From: Issue 43: Special Issue: The 2014 Indian elections (6/18/2014)

How can an event be at once ordinary and extraordinary, simultaneously decisive and indecisive?  The victory of Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Indian parliamentary elections of 2014 is indeed a watershed moment; for the first time in the history of independent India, it will be ruled exclusively by a Hindu supremacist party. And yet, a careful look at the way the Modi/BJP campaign produced this victory yields a picture that can only be characterized as simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary, decisive and indecisive.

To the Hindu middle-class: Why “wait and see” won’t cut it
By: Deepa Panchang | From: Issue 43: Special Issue: The 2014 Indian elections (6/18/2014)

In 2006 and 2007, I spent several months in Ahmedabad while on a fellowship from my university in the US. During my time in Ahmedabad, I interacted with the mostly-Hindu NGO staff where I was based, residents of the largely Hindu shantytown where the NGO was working, and professors at Gujarat University. Less than five years had passed since the city had gone through its nightmare: vicious riots involving saffron-clad men entering urban neighborhoods and brutalizing, gang-raping, and burning other human beings. Some 1,500 Muslims were killed.

Policing Sex
By: The SAMAR Collective | From: Issue 42: Policing Sex (3/24/2014)

This issue on Policing Sex explores the wider context of the criminalization of homosexuality in India, as well as visions put forth to challenge heterosexism, the police state, and misogyny. 

insh'allah & airport ode #1
By: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha | From: Issue 42: Policing Sex (3/24/2014)

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's poems evoke borders of bodies and nation.

 

Pride: There is no going back
By: Sabelo Narasimhan | From: Issue 42: Policing Sex (3/24/2014)

Sabelo Narasimhan reflects on this year's Gay Pride parade in Bombay, India. In the wake of the recent judgement criminalizing homosexuality, the images in this photoessay reveal the unbounded spirit of rebellion and resistance of the community.

Radio Samar

Tracks Back Home
Naazneen Diwan, Taz Ahmed

Live reading of poem developed for the South Asians for Justice event "Gujarat Genocide and US Solidarity" in Los Angeles, April 2012

History of Communalism in India
Yasmin Qureshi

History and context of how communalism grew in India (part of SAJ-LA's Gujarat Genocide event)

Book Review: Corona by Bushra Rehman (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013)
Zohra Saed | Oct 23, 2013

This fragmented, musical novel breaks the prettiness of memory, brings irreverent humor where it should, shows the crisscross of ethnic neighborhoods in New York City, and celebrates love in the midst of violence. 

Cartoon

Khalil Bendib
Click on the cartoon for a larger version.

Visit Our Friends

Asia Pacific Forum (APF) is the progressive pan-Asian radio show broadcast every Monday night from WBAI 99.5 FM in New York City and live on the web.

Ghadar is a forum for Left debate and dialogue through reports on political activism on the ground in South Asia and the diaspora.

Pass the Roti Group blog covering issues pertaining largely to South Asia and the South Asian diaspora.
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Random Five from the Archive

Speech and Silence
Mehnaz Sahibzada | Issue 15: Dogmas of War (//)
Jan 28, 2011
Seeing the Disappeared
Chitra Ganesh, Mariam Ghani | Issue 19: Relief in a Time of Crisis (1/24/2005)

Two visual artists seek out new ways of engaging with the post-9/11 disappearances in the US

Jan 28, 2011
Hybrid and Alive
Manu Vimalassery | Issue 17: Untitled (5/29/2004)

An Interview with Pianist Vijay Iyer

Jan 28, 2011
'There are No Rules Here:' A Visitor's Guide to Guantanamo and the Military Commissions
Priti Patel | Issue 24: Untitled (9/26/2006)

Two attorneys observe military commissions for four weeks in Guantanamo Bay reaching the same conclusions that the Supreme Court did—that the commissions violated the basic principles of US and international law and harm the United States' already diminishing reputation as a leader of human rights.

Jan 28, 2011
when they started bombing
Saba Waheed | Issue 15: Dogmas of War (//)

Monday, October 08, 2001
after arriving home from my weekend upstate, i fell asleep with a sadness that comes when i leave behind the comforts of the sounds of the river and the hikes through the forest. feeling slightly ill, i awoke and checked my email and saw the headline i had been dreading

the one that took me back ten years

we had spent the afternoon celebrating my friend's birthday, we came home and we rang the doorbell and her mother opened the door with tears in eyes, she was crying and she was saying, and i can't remember now, if she said:

Jan 28, 2011
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