Articles by Awanish Kumar

What lies behind the policy blindness towards concerns of the oppressed in India? The “social distancing” induced by the COVID-19 health crisis does not address the problem of deeper levels of distancing caused by “social isolation” and “social nausea,” two concepts used by B R Ambedkar. This article is an attempt to understand the factors behind the collective sociopolitical response towards the poorest sections characterised by lack of empathy, and to develop an Ambedkarite framework to understand social policy generally and, more specifically, in India.

While speaking at the Jharkhand Conclave 2025, organised by Prabhat Khabar on 13 August 2017 in Ranchi, economist and social activist Jean Drèze was heckled and shouted at by sitting ministers of the Jharkhand government, and was forced to discontinue his speech.

Nitish Kumar's exit from the National Democratic Alliance may be an honourable one, but he will have to shed his neo-liberal "developmentalist" leanings if he wants to fight the feudal and communal forces that have taken root in Bihar. This article presents a brief history of the politics in Bihar that have led to this break between Nitish Kumar and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA.