Harsh Mander

Inequality, Prejudice and Indifference in New India

Looking Away

Chronicles of India's Margins, 2004-2011

A Fractured Freedom

There was one partition of the land in 1947. Harsh Mander believes that another partition is underway in our hearts and minds. How much of this culpability lies with ordinary people? What are the responsibilities of a secular government, of a civil society, and of a progressive majority? In Partitions of the Heart: Unmaking the Idea of India, human rights and peace worker Harsh Mander takes stock of whether the republic has upheld the values it set out to achieve and offers painful, unsparing insight into the contours of hate violence. Through vivid stories from his own work, Mander shows that hate speech, communal propaganda and vigilante violence are mounting a fearsome climate of dread, that targeted crime is systematically fracturing our community, and that the damage to the country's social fabric may be irreparable. At the same time, he argues that hate can indeed be fought, but only with solidarity, reconciliation and love, and when all of these are founded on fairness. Ultimately, this meticulously researched social critique is a rallying cry for public compassion, conscience and justice, and a paean to the resilience of humanity.

Unmaking the Idea of India

Partitions of the Heart

Civil servant and social activist Harsh Mander draws on his own and his colleagues' experiences to explore the lives of twenty people on the margins of society who have survived and coped despite all odds.

Stories of Forgotten Lives

Unheard Voices

Stories of Hope and Courage

Invisible People

Ash in the Belly is a penetrating account of men, women and children living with hunger, illuminated by their courage in trying to cope and survive. It is simultaneously an investigation into the political economy of hunger whereby one in every two children is malnourished despite the creation of wealth and economic growth. Mander critically examines the increasing economic inequalities, the range of State failures and public indifference, in general, and brings out how they have contributed to creating this grim situation. While doing so, he argues passionately for the passage of a universal right to food law which guarantees food to all persons not as State benevolence but as a legal entitlement.

India's Unfinished Battle Against Hunger

Ash in the Belly

Vivek Mishra

Anirban Bhattacharya

Astha Singla

Usman Jawed Siddiqi

India is passing through a phase where a major share of its population is in its prime and of working age. Many have spoken of the ‘dividend’ that we could reap from what is being called the ‘youth bulge’. With the gaping inequalities in our society, the youth in this country encounter gross disparities in their life chances and in their opportunities to realise their potential. In this volume, we have attempted to look closely at India’s demographic transition, specifically from the perspective of social and economic equity. Other than covering the important elements of the debate on India’s demographic transition, the book attempts to makes a signal contribution in bringing together issues of social justice and economic inequality to bear on the mostly technocratic framing of the subject. Thus, it is an attempt to highlight that all decisions about economic ‘development’ or growth are politically infused and should be addressed as such.

Equity and the Demographic Transition in India

Unequal Life Chances

Dinesh Mohan

Navsharan Singh

Pamela Philipose

Tapan Bose

Inside the World's Most Militarised Zone

Dateline Kashmir

This volume collects seventeen stories of women and men who, simply because they were born poor, or a particular gender, or into a certain caste or religion, fell prey to the many atrocities and indignities endemic to contemporary India. Some resisted, survived, and soldier on. Some did not. Lachmi Kaur lost almost all the male members of her family in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. She then overcame despair to singlehandedly bring up her children and grandchildren with fierce love and pride. With great courage of conviction, Krishan Gopal, a Dalit man from Nimoda in Rajasthan, decided to build his own shrine to Hanuman after being forbidden from the village temple by his upper-caste neighbours. What followed was persecution, violence and exile from the village which lasted all his life. At twenty-eight, Dandapani defied his family--which could not accept him for what he was--left home, and underwent a sex-change operation. Now known as Dhanam, she lives with her extended family of eunuchs in a Chennai shanty. And, in a chilling first-person account, Raheem tells of his village in Muzaffarnagar which, after cynical political manipulation, went from amity to a communal conflagration in just a week. Fatal Accidents of Birth is a powerful, challenging book. It tells us of the many ways in which we inflict violence upon each other--most of all by choosing to not see. And as it does so, this necessary book ensures that these stories will find their rightful place in our consciousness.

Stories of Suffering, Oppression and Resistance

Fatal Accidents of Birth

Ghanshyam Shah

Sukhadeo Thorat

Amita Baviskar

Satish Deshpande

This book is focused and systematic documentation of the incidence and extent of the practice of untouchability in contemporary India. Based on the results of a large survey covering 565 villages in 11 states, it reveals that untouchability continues to be widely prevalent and is practiced in one form or another in almost 80 per cent of the villages. Field data is supplemented by information about the forms of discrimination which Dalits face in everyday life, such as: – The ‘unclean’ occupations open to them – The double burden of Dalit women, who suffer both gender and caste discrimination – The upper-caste violence with which any Dalit self-assertion is met The authors also describe Dalit efforts to overcome deeply entrenched caste hierarchies and assert their right to live with dignity. While the evidence presented here suggests that the more blatant and extreme forms of untouchability appear to have declined, discrimination continues and is most prevalent in the religious and personal spheres. The authors show that the notion of untouchability continues to pervade the public sphere, including a host of state institutions and the interactions that occur within them.

Untouchability in Rural India

Harsh Mander

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