Is Mandal politics electorally salient again? | The Hindu Parley podcast
The Hindu
Parley podcast discusses how the demand for caste surveys and the Ramcharitmanas controversy compare to the high noon of Mandal mobilisation in the late 1980s and 1990s
With the second phase of the caste survey beginning in Bihar, other political parties such as the Congress are also raising a pitch on the issue. Last month, there was a heated political war over sections of the Ramcharitmanas in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with some leaders arguing that the text “abuses” Dalits, Adivasis and backward castes.
Here we discuss how these developments compare to the high noon of Mandal mobilisation in the late 1980s and 1990s.
Guests: Mona G. Mehta, Associate Professor in the School of Arts and Sciences at Ahmedabad University; Amit Ahuja, fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Host: Sobhana K. Nair
Read the parley article here
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Several principals of government and private schools in Delhi on Tuesday said the Directorate of Education (DoE) circular from a day earlier, directing schools to conduct classes in ‘hybrid’ mode, had caused confusion regarding day-to-day operations as they did not know how many students would return to school from Wednesday and how would teachers instruct in two modes — online and in person — at once. The DoE circular on Monday had also stated that the option to “exercise online mode of education, wherever available, shall vest with the students and their guardians”. Several schoolteachers also expressed confusion regarding the DoE order. A government schoolteacher said he was unsure of how to cope with the resumption of physical classes, given that the order directing government offices to ensure that 50% of the employees work from home is still in place. On Monday, the Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) had, on the orders of the Supreme Court, directed schools in Delhi-NCR to shift classes to the hybrid mode, following which the DoE had issued the circular. The court had urged the Centre’s pollution watchdog to consider restarting physical classes due to many students missing out on the mid-day meals and lacking the necessary means to attend classes online. The CAQM had, on November 20, asked schools in Delhi-NCR to shift to the online mode of teaching.