Media, News, Political, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak Media, News, Political, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak

Donald Trump and the ritual of shock and awe in American duopoly

Trump is the logical apotheosis of humanized capitalism, where the winners take all, where executive decisions are sacrosanct, where we feel it right to sponsor deaths and tortures and waterboarding and drones and assassinations and weaponization of regions that we consider inferior, says Saswat Pattanayak.

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Eurocentrism as Terrorism

Contrary to what Žižek claims, egalitarianism and personal freedoms do not comprise Western legacy—their suppression in the name of colonialism does. One cannot rule over and plunder another country for decades, if not centuries, and then blame the “backwardness” on the ruled subjects.

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Roots (and prospects) of Justice

Maulana Mohani was concerned that in our anticommunist quest, we were ignoring an emancipatory USSR Constitution, while heavily borrowing from colonial legacies of oppressive Constitutions of the imperialist world, and that, by doing so, we were facilitating prospects for dangerous communal violence in the coming years

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Culture, Media, Philosophy, Publication, Racism, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak Culture, Media, Philosophy, Publication, Racism, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak

The need for Political Correctness

The censorship argument just as the artistic expressions themselves needs to be politically correct - the position must spring from the point of raised consciousness where the needs of the times - taking into consideration various locations of exploitations and associated struggles for social justice - are well understood and articulated.

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News, Philosophy, Political, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak News, Philosophy, Political, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak

Sovereignty, Unity and The State Of Denial

Contradictions abound in the new political landscape. Like Savarkar’s divisive Hindutva excluded other religions, so does Modi’s prescription of Hinduism as the way of life for Indians. To reemphasise my point: Modi did not win the people’s mandate because he opposed divisive politics, but because he profited from it. Not because he spoke against identity politics but because it is the victory of the identity politics – specifically that of the Hindu identity. It is the victory of the idea of a Hindu nation.

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News, Philosophy, Political, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak News, Philosophy, Political, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak

The Politics We Deserve

Our social conditioning has manifested in our misplaced patriotic duties to refuse authority to a woman not on grounds of political differences, but solely because she is a ‘foreigner’, despite having been more of an Indian than the countless NRIs whose funds we have voluntarily solicited to fuel hatred in the subcontinent.

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Culture, History, Media, Philosophy, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak Culture, History, Media, Philosophy, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak

Fashion Dialectics

Benjamin belonged to the interwar period that witnessed rise of fascism, actively aided by European intellectuals who were hostile to the masses. The bourgeois was disdainful of the “mass society”, and the ways in which new electronic media were displaying potentials for mass liberations. Its high-brow standards were being threatened by the low-brow tastes of American consumer capitalism.

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Culture, History, News, Political, Saswat, Publication Saswat Pattanayak Culture, History, News, Political, Saswat, Publication Saswat Pattanayak

Platoon of Leeches and the New Royal Parasite

The truth is royal family is not an embarrassment. It is a criminal institution. It is not a laughing matter. It is a despicable agency. It’s members are not saints. They are hooligans. It’s legacy is not of a cultural pride. It is one of racist supremacism. Royal positions are not ceremonious figureheads. They are active displays of colonial machismo.

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Culture, Media, Philosophy, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak Culture, Media, Philosophy, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak

i-Solation

The association of loneliness with the personal is based on a lingering myth. Far from being an individual symptom, loneliness is the inevitable outcome of an individualistic society. It is a state of being that prevents a person from exercising class prerogative and realizing their revolutionary potential. And to that extent, loneliness is a politically disempowered experience.

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The Market

One could argue that capitalism transcending all barriers and uniting us in our greed is supposed to be a good thing. After all, until this stage is reached, there would be no way to successfully combat its ills so that a higher stage of human development can be aspired for.

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Culture, Feminism, Media, Political, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak Culture, Feminism, Media, Political, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak

Our Rape, Their Rape

Many progressives have questioned why Delhi, why now and why the middle class? Isn’t the middle class, after all, the biggest perpetrator of violence against women? The answer is perhaps a tad simplistic – culturally enslaved by the corporate media, the bourgeois elements in Indian society usually wake up only to the “breaking news” and “shocking news”. And therefore the concerns are genuine – that the middle class might even disappear from the map of activism as soon as the media cease coverages of this specific “event”.

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Communism, Culture, Philosophy, Publication, Academic, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak Communism, Culture, Philosophy, Publication, Academic, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak

Radical Roots of Gangnam Style: Psy, Kim Jong-Un and Challenges for the Fascist Standards of Sexy

In a Eurocentric world dominated by the disturbingly unifying English language, where American narratives grip past and the present times, it is easy to wonder why a Korean wields such an influence. The answer is as easy: why not.

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Culture, Feminism, Media, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak Culture, Feminism, Media, Publication, Saswat Saswat Pattanayak

Rape Culture, Capitalism and India

Demanding castrations and death penalties are the easiest ways to appear moralistic while letting the system sustain its sexist character. If righteous people are really serious about hanging the rapists, they will be surprised by the sudden decrease in the military forces of any country, once such a law is duly implemented.

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On Einstein's Acceptance of Communist Russia and Rejection of Zionist Israel

Einstein was opposed to a separate Jewish state, opposed to a partition of Palestine, opposed even to an establishment of a Jewish government-in-exile, considered the Jewish underground movement a “disaster” and supported a bi-national self-government in Palestine with both Arabs and the Jews ruled with the consent of the Arabs.

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