Amit Ranjan

The brutal killing of Avijit Roy in Dhaka on February 27, 2015 is another example of the rise of intolerance in Bangladesh. He was a Bangladesh born US citizen, an atheist blogger and the founder of a blog called Mukto Mano. According to reports, Ansarullah Bangla Team, an Islamist extremist group based in Bangladesh, claimed […]

In 1947, when India was partitioned and Pakistan was carved out, many crossed the border with the dream of living in what was supposed to be ‘their’ country but, till today, they are regarded as Mohajirs (migrants) because religion per se is not the only criterion of social bonding. Soon after 1947 other primordial identities […]

December 16 has turned into a black day for South Asia. On this day, in 1971, Bangladesh gained victory after many Bengalis were killed, tortured and raped. In 2012, a young paramedical student, Nirbhaya, was gangraped and murdered on the roads of south Delhi and, in 2014, 132 school students and nine staff members of […]

Why, in 1947, was India partitioned? Was partition inevitable? Usually, these two questions dominate political discussions between the people from India and Pakistan. In search of their own answers, a plethora of books, research papers and articles have been written but none of them have provided a satisfactory reason for the partition of India, accepted […]

The Indian and Pakistani sides of Jammu Kashmir and a few districts in Pakistani Punjab are facing a grim situation due to a late monsoon that is causing floods. More than 400 people from both sides of the border have been killed, a large number have been displaced and standing crops worth millions of rupees […]

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI)’s leader, Imran Khan, may be revered as the most successful captain of the Pakistani cricket team but he has tried vile tricks and has taken many unusual steps to prove himself to be a frustrated and power hungry politician. His current political theatrics, in the name of revolution, are part of […]

On December 9, 2013, during a visit to Pakistan, I met Saeed Ahmed, the author of Dilip Kumar: Ahadnama-e-Mohabbat, at his Model Town residence in Lahore. He informed me that in Pakistan there are a few individuals who, every year, on December 11, gather at Dilip Kumar’s ancestral home in Peshawar to celebrate his birthday. […]

Across the globe the post-US forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan is a serious issue of debate among policy makers, journalists, scholars and other sections of society. Yet no one has a concrete solution to deal with the post-withdrawal challenges. Although the US government, as earlier maintained, will keep nine military posts, at present the nature, character […]

The history of a country decides its present socio-political dynamics and sets up its future trajectory. Often, to get away from the dictatorship of the past, countries rewrite and recreate their history by restructuring their socio-political structures but there is always a caveat: the means to recreate history may lead to chaos and the establishment […]

Usually, a discussion on the partition of India in 1947 begins and ends with holding Gandhi, Nehru or Jinnah responsible. However, during days of partition-related communal riots, these leaders, and others, lost their authoritative hold over their party men. Instead, local leaders along with the badmash or rowdies from their respective religions took charge of […]