India marked its independence in a violent and turbulent manner. Partition with Pakistan claimed the lives of 1 million people and resulted in the largest migration in human history. Communal violence between Muslims and Hindus reached its apex with both sides carrying out mass atrocities; but after the violence subsided, India still had 170 million Muslims living in the ...
2016
The Impossibility of Ethnic Nationalism in India
“I am part of the indivisible unity that is Indian nationality. I am indispensable to this noble edifice, and without me this splendid structure of India is incomplete.” - Maulana Azad The very best in a country often includes some form of nationalism; when citizens take pride in their nation, recognize a common identity and work together to achieve something unfeasible ...
India’s Consumerism Triangle
India’s “Golden Triangle” is a whirlwind of fast facts and photo-ops, “here we will stop for the photographie, just 10 minutes then back on the bus”. When asking what we are photographing, what St. Albert’s Hall is, we are left without an answer, just some stats about how often the copious amount of pigeon shit needs to be cleaned off the building. Answer: every morning. We are ...
The Problem with Academia: Reductive Labeling of Islamic Gardens
Academia often manifests itself like the pigeonhole principle in Mathematics, each concept neatly aligned in its own box, with leftover and miscellaneous concepts shoved into preexisting boxes as best they can be. And while the pigeonhole principle makes mathematical and logical sense, it does not work as a means to systematize human thought, practice, religion and art. ...
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Men dressed in vibrant feathery uniforms, strapped with much-too-old AR-15s. A middle school danced party with hundreds of onlookers. Grandmothers speedwalking or speedwheelcheering with flags billowing behind their focused path. A mustachio’d hypeman conducting and curating college football style chants and cheers. What sounds like the jacket-cover blurb for a David Foster ...
