There is no other group of bigots that enjoy more privilege and power, and yet suffer from terminal persecution complex, as the majoritarian Far-Right Hindu Twitter trolls. The Hindutva bigot’s capacity for manufactured victimhood makes white supremacists and islamists look amateurish. As I sit here offshore, several nautical miles away from the mainland, watching them bathe in the septic tank that is Indian social media, throwing acronyms FoE (freedom of expression) and FoS (freedom of speech) at everyone who calls them out, with blatant disregard to meaning and context, I feel a tutorial explaining free speech is warranted.

Disclaimer: Certain…

Trigger Warning: this article contains descriptions of sexual assault, abuse, and violence that may not be suitable for all readers. Fearless community, please read with care.

We were in the recreation room watching the news on TV after a 12-hour shift on the oil rig. A minor was allegedly raped by army personnel on board the Howrah-Amritsar Express train.

“Why did she travel alone in a compartment reserved for the army? She should have known these men were going home after months of isolation,” said a colleague who hails from Meerut.

“Bhaisaab (colloquial for signor) look what it says, she…

Are you tired of being rejected by editors? Are you frustrated at seeing mediocre poems being lauded as masterpieces, while your works languish in a google doc file? I will give you just ONE tip that will increase your chances of getting published by a hundred fold! I’m not going to beat around the bush with a two thousand word article on vague pointers that worked for Shaunta Grimes, but never work for you. I’m going to give you a simple, no-nonsense practical solution that you can apply right away! And I’ll say it in less than a hundred words.

Tip#1: Identify yourself as queer/ non-binary!

…

A podcast on the history of totalitarianism.

Victimhood and persecution complex are the keystone on which fascists build their fort. And they always need a boogeyman to justify their victimhood — the politics of “us versus them”.

In this episode we identify the symptoms that forewarn the descent of a society into authoritarianism. We narrate historical anecdotes that led 20th century Europe down the dark path of totalitarianism, and compare it to events happening in modern day India.

Soundcloud:

Spotify:

iTunes:

My Lil Pumpkin,

I know that your expansive vocabulary of three monosyllables is rather ill-equipped to absorb the crux of my correspondence. However, this being a day of some significance to you, I thought I’d pen down my hopes for your future and that of your kind. On the 8th of March 2042, you will be about as old as I am today. I hope for your sake, that you grow up to see a better world than the one we are in right now.

A world where crimes against women will provoke as much diabolical outrage in men, as…

This article was first published on Huffpost.

Georgian-American grandmaster Nazi Paikidze’s decision to boycott the Women’s World Chess Championship in Iran — due to the requirement for players to wear hijabs — has had a strange, unintended consequence on employee attendance at left-leaning media houses across the United States and Europe. Journalists and commentators who were smoking their keyboards mid-August in solidarity with every hijabi participant at the Rio Olympics, seem to be conspicuously missing at their desks, blighted by a virulent and debilitating strain of moral relativism.

If it were indeed about defending women’s freedom, left-leaning media outlets would…

I started working on an oil rig straight out of Engineering college. I was 21 years old. The money wasn’t great. Not for an expensive city like Mumbai. But it didn’t matter. I was single. I didn’t save anything at the end of the month but I was getting by.

I told myself I’ll start saving when I’m making more money. And I would certainly make more soon enough. After all I had a degree in Mechanical Engineering, in an industry that began with unschooled ex-convicts.

But then I got married! As the figure on my pay-check increased, so did…

Last week, actress Payal Rohatgi was detained by the Rajasthan police for her comments on India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. This isn’t the first time someone has landed in trouble over their remarks on dead people.

On 14 May 2015, the Supreme Court of India passed one of the most regressive orders in its history, while deliberating whether criminal proceedings were justified on the charge of obscenity levelled against a poet for his satirical composition called Gandhi Mala Bhetla (“I Met Gandhi”), published in 1994.

In a judgement that was half as lengthy as a Leo Tolstoy classic and…