News and Views

Genetics has proved that Aryans did migrate from the Steppe region and that the Harappan Civilisation was pre-Vedic. What does this mean for the RSS' definition of nationalism?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here’s the key issue the CJI-led bench will need to consider, and why it could spell trouble for the government.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The BJP once seriously considered changing the country’s system of government. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was very interested in the presidential form of government. In a speech in 1998 he declared that “we should discuss the merits of the presidential system.”

He said, “I often wonder whether the British Westminster model has been defeated by the Indian reality.” His home minister, LK Advani, had also made a series of speeches and wrote articles pushing for a presidential system. He went so far as to say, “The basic structure doctrine doesn’t bind us to parliamentary democracy.”

For more podcasts from The Quint, check out our Podcasts section.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Dalit man beaten to death in Uttarakhand’s Tehri Garhwal; a 18-year-old Dalit girl gang-raped in Thanaghazi in Rajasthan’s Alwar district; stones hurled at a Dalit wedding procession in Gujarat’s Aravalli district - these are some of the crimes that have taken place in the past few weeks, even as the country was in middle of, as the cliche goes, the ‘festival of democracy’.

These aren’t isolated incidents. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, crimes against Dalits have increased by 25 percent between 2006 and 2016 and the trend has been continuing since then.

Subjected to physical attacks as well as more day-to-day forms of humiliation, there is a simmering anger among Dalits across the India. While the anger goes beyond politics, in this election it appears to be mostly directed towards the ruling BJP.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices