The ‘lathi’: India’s colonial vintage anti-protest weapon
As Indian protests against a new citizenship law have intensified, so has police use of “lathis”, sturdy sticks used to whack, thwack and quell dissent since British colonial times —…
Whose language is it anyway?
Recently, a person from the village that one of the writers of this piece comes from approached him about applying to the Prime Minister’s Youth Skill Development Program (PMYSDP). This…
Colonialism and the environment
Decolonization under the Trusteeship Council was finally concluded on November 1, 1994 after the last UN trust territory Palau gained independence. However, almost two decades later, colonialism still haunts various…
Shah Latif’s message of wisdom
“Learn to distinguish between the flickering light of a night lamp and the shining rays of the rising sun”. So said Shah Latif, the polymath poet of Sindh urging people…
The mirage of a messiah
Imran Khan entered the political arena with his squeaky-clean image with the stated goal of making Pakistan a squeaky-clean country. But this was an image built on social media with…
Climate refugees flee as Bangladesh villages washed away
For generations Paban Baroi’s family guarded a temple to Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction, until Bangladesh’s mighty Padma river wreaked havoc of its own, wiping out the shrine, their…
Neocolonial oppression
The Russia-Ukraine war has quickly turned into a global conflict. One of the likely outcomes of this war is the very redefinition of the current world order, which has been…
Economic colonialism
European historians, with their own sense of bias, which on occasions reaches its zenith, to convert into prejudice, (there is no such thing as honest historians, they are all different…
Colonial nostalgia
POLICE reforms in India and Pakistan are more talked about than practised. In post-independence India, police reform commissions included the Gore Committee, the National Police Commission (NPC), the Ribeiro Committee,…
Desecrated: blast leaves old Beirut’s heritage gems in ruins
The monster explosion that levelled Beirut’s port darkened the Lebanese capital’s future but also blasted its past into oblivion, ravaging many beloved architectural and cultural treasures. Gems of the city’s…
