Society, Culture and Peace

Enhancing socio-cultural well-being, ensuring justice and equity

Featured here are initiatives to enhance social and cultural aspects of human life: the revival and progressive use of visual, performing, and other arts, of the myriad crafts of the country, of threatened or submerged languages, of food and cuisine diversity, and other such cultural traits and processes. They also cover the various struggles and constructive movements to achieve social justice, to reduce inequalities and inequities of various kinds including caste, class, gender, ethnicity, and religion, and to create dignity in living for those currently oppressed and exploited. Finally, they include movements to generate ethical living and thinking, and spread values such as simplicity, honesty, frugality, and tolerance.

A strain of music that has flourished in India for centuries is being silenced by communalism

Muslim jogis, who were once venerated for their singing powers, are being pushed to the margins.

Sisters of Tezpur: Assam’s little-known feminist collective which pushed for fixed meal times, women’s leisure

Northeast Lightbox shines the light on Assam’s little-known feminist history by documenting the history of the Tezpur Mahila Samiti

P.V. Satheesh: A revolutionary passes on

One of the icons of civil society activism in India, he championed issues of agri-biodiversity, food sovereignty, women's empowerment, social justice, local knowledge systems, participatory development, and community media.

‘Our identity lies in these songs’: saving the music of India’s Biate

Goswami said the festival performance was just the beginning for the project, and the main focus was getting “this generational transfer of knowledge going once again”.

How Sarmoli became a poster child of ecotourism in Uttarakhand

The core of this women-led enterprise was designed around village forest commons (known as Van Panchayats).

Secular Theology of Religions

This essay explores the possibility of re-formulating a secular theology of religion in the contemporary context of violence, violation, and virulence in the name of religion. 

Statement and Appeal on Ladakh’s Constitutional Status

We strongly support the demand by the people of Ladakh, that the Government of India include Ladakh in the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution and accord it statehood

Pandemic Resilience in Urban India

Examples, lessons, and specific recommendations for communities, civil society organisations, and government agencies.

The Guardians of Life

Testimonies of communities resisting and reconstructing, the beauty in struggle, resilience and strength found in being fully alive in troubled times.