Tag: federalism

Al-Zulaij Exclusive

Goa and the Union of India: Lessons from Article 370

By THE AL-ZULAIJ COLLECTIVE

It is now exactly a month since the effective abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India, the article which acknowledged the federal autonomy of the state of Jammu and Kashmir as well as the federal nature of the Indian polity. It has been a sad and painful month for the Union of India, and we can only condemn the continued suffering and humiliation of the people of Kashmir—including the mass arrests, heavy curfew, communications shutdown, and an increased militarization of an already heavily militarized region subsequent to the decision of the government. (more…)

Popular Essays

Portuguese Citizenship and the Debugging of Indian Imaginations

By JASON KEITH FERNANDES

 

I read with interest the recent opinion piece “The Portuguese nationality bug”  on the vexed issue of the rights of Portuguese Indians to Portuguese citizenship and was disappointed by the author’s refusal to see the larger picture. I suspect that this is because the author seeks to resolve the question within the narrow frames of Indian nationalism. As a result, the argument forwarded in the op-ed seems to buttress the rights of the state over those of citizens. Such legality will only strengthen the growing authoritarianism of the Indian state over subjects who, while formally citizens, increasingly lack the space to realize this condition.

 

(more…)