Secular activists, writers meet at Dandi to pledge, fight against continued atmosphere of intolerance in India

Salil Tripathi, Rajmohan Gandhi

By A Representative
It was the first secular intellectual gathering in decades in Gujarat. The spot was Dandi in Gujarat, where Mahatma Gandhi observed his famous Salt Satyagraha in 1930. Around 500 writers, artistes and activists from across the country gathered to unite and speak out against the rise of communalism in the country, and support Gandhian values.
The day was January 30, when Gandhi was martyred. The speakers included Rajmohan Gandhi, writer and grandson of the Mahatma; Rakesh Shukla, leader of the recent agitation of the students of the Film and Televesion Institute of India, Pune; Chaman Lal, a left-wing scholar; and top documentary film maker Anand Parwardhan.
Also present were Ria Vithasha and Muddu Thirthahalli, the teenaged writers who returned their Karnataka Sahitya Akademi award in protest against intolerance; Salil Tripathi, London-based writer with free speech forum PEN International; Atul Pethe, theatre director and actor; top artist Ghulam Mohammad Shaikh; and senior Gujarat-based Dalit rights activist Martin Macwan.
The meet did not go without hiccups. The state BJP administration tried to create hurdles, sources said, as could be seen from the organizers being forced to postpone the participants’ march to the satyagraha site from early morning to mid-day. In fact, after the police stopped the writers while they were on way to Dandi, they met at the auditorium of Navsari Agriculture University.
While the meeting was part of the project of Sarva Bhasha Samvad, a dialogue between writers of different languages, the speakers spoke about how it was necessary today to follow Gandhiji more than ever before, as he showed the way on how to fearlessly fight the British (Rajmohan Gandhi), and how the Hindutva forces, who were looked down upon by the Indian people in the 1940s, had grown to come to seize power, had seized power (Rajesh Shukla).
Leftist scholar Chaman Lal admitted that though “he totally disagreed with some ideas of Mahatma Gandhi, one worked with such extraordinary effort to work for peace and understanding”, and Anand Patwardhan traced the history of communal elements since the time of their links with the fascists in Europe in the thirties.
Even as talking about Gandhiji's alt march, Martin Macwan recalled the importance Kalaram Temple entry satyagraha at Nashik, begun by Dr BR Ambedkar on the same day as the Salt Satyagraha. Macwan also spoke in detail about what led to young Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide and the rule of caste on the minds of Indian society.
Vidyadhar Date, a senior journalist-activist, who attended the meet, said, “It was a unique experience to be on the site of the satyagraha on a day when the Mahatma was assassinated by communal elements. Such coming together out of a sense of belonging, togetherness for the cause of secularism and human values is particularly important because on this day elsewhere some elements were seeking to build a statue to Nathuram Godse, Gandhiji’s killer, and hail him as a hero.”
“Writers had come together, travelling at their own expense, without corporate sponsorship, speakers pointed towards how the recent Jaipur literary festival – which devoted to the theme of freedom of expression – failed to condemn the judicial trial to which Magsasay award winning writer Arundhati Roy, who had spoken out in defence of Prof GN Saibaba for the latter’s alleged Naxalite links”, Date said in a recent report.
The participants – who included relatives of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and MM Kalburgi who were killed for holding rationalist views – paid rich tributes to Rohith Vemula, the Dalit scholar of the University of Hyderabad, who committed suicide recently because of caste discrimination.
Organised by well-known Gujarat-based linguist Ganesh Devy, a prominent academic who had returned his Sahitya Akademi Award, the march was the culmination of a movement against the atmosphere of intolerance prevailing in the country.

Comments

Beyond India-China borders: Economic links expand, political gaps persist

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak* Despite growing trade between India and China, a persistent trust deficit continues to shape their bilateral relationship. Expanding economic engagement has not fully resolved political differences, many of which stem from historical legacies as well as contemporary geopolitical concerns. Border disputes—often traced to colonial-era arrangements—remain a significant obstacle to deeper cooperation, while differing strategic alignments in global affairs add further complexity.

Gujarat cadre to HDFC: When bureaucratic style hits corporate walls

By Rajiv Shah I was a little amused by the abrupt March 17, 2026 resignation of Atanu Chakraborty —a Gujarat cadre IAS officer of the 1985 batch who retired from the government in 2020—as chairman of HDFC Bank . Much of what may have led to his decision to quit this ostensibly high post—actually a non-executive, part-time role—is by now well known. I followed most of it online with considerable interest, partly because I had interacted with him umpteen times during my stint as The Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar from 1997 to 2012.

Operation Epic Fury: Making America great at the world’s expense?

By N.S. Venkataraman* The decades-long enmity between Iran and Israel is well-documented, but historically, their direct confrontations have been brief, constrained by the logistical and economic limitations of sustained warfare. The current conflict in the Middle East, however, marks a radical and dangerous departure from this pattern.

India has been getting its economic growth wrong for two decades, say top economists

By Jag Jivan* India's official GDP figures have misrepresented the trajectory of the world's fifth-largest economy for the better part of two decades, according to a major new working paper published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). It finds that India overstated annual growth by up to two percentage points after 2011 — and understated it during the boom years of the 2000s.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

'Tax the top': Nationwide protests demand action as 1% control 40% of India’s wealth

By A Representative Civil rights groups across the country observed the martyrdom day of Bhagat Singh on March 23, as people from diverse backgrounds united to raise their voices against growing economic inequality. The mobilisations marked the launch of a nationwide campaign against inequality, running from March 23 to April 14 (Ambedkar Jayanti), under the banner of the “Tax The Top” campaign.

Fair prices, fresh produce: Vegetable market opens in Rajasthan tribal village

By Vikas Meshram* On 18 March 2026, the tribal village of Sajjangarh in southern Rajasthan witnessed the grand and dignified inauguration of a new vegetable market (mandi). Established through the tireless joint efforts of the Krushi Avam Adivasi Swaraj Sangathan (Bhilkuaan) and Vaagdhara, under the active leadership of the Gram Panchayat of Sajjangarh, the market is being hailed as a cornerstone for local self-governance, self-reliance, and a sustainable rural economy.

Ex-IAS Atanu Chakraborty and a tale of two different Gujarat vision documents

By Rajiv Shah The likely appointment of Atanu Chakraborty as HDFC Bank chairman interested me for several reasons, but above all because I have interacted with him closely during my more than 14 year stint in Gandhinagar for the “Times of India”. One of the few decent Gujarat cadre bureaucrats, Chakraborty, belonging to the 1985 IAS batch, at least till I covered Sachivalaya was surely above controversies. He loved to remain faceless, never desired publicity, was professional to the core, and never indulged in loose talk. When he neared retirement, which happened in April 2020, first there were rumours in Sachivalaya that he would be appointed SEBI chairman, and then there was talk he would be chairman (or was it CEO?) of Gujarat International Finance Tec (GIFT) City (a dream project of Narendra Modi as Gujarat chief minister, which as Prime Minister Modi wants to promote, come what may). But, for some strange reasons, and I don’t know why, none of this happened, despite the fact...

Search This Blog