Meat, Mercy, and Morality: Animals and Humanitarianism in Colonial Bengal, 1850–1920 by Samiparna Samanta, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2021; pp 288, $75.
This article aims to re-evaluate the infl uence the Greeks and especially Aristotle have had on Jürgen Habermas’s thought via Hannah Arendt. The purpose of such a reassessment is to argue that Habermas’s reconstruction of the public sphere is conceptually yet indirectly embedded in the Aristotelian historical and intellectual trajectory, which is often neglected.
Wajida Tabassum’s stories—relatively unknown now, but popular and controversial in her time—explore gender and class through sexuality, desire, and resistance.
Over the last few days a lot has been done, said and written on the “Kiss of Love” protests, but perhaps we have forgotten that the primary intention of the protests is not to kiss in public, but to claim one’s right to the freedom of expression.
Without liberty there cannot be democracy and Article 19 of the Indian Constitution guarantees that right to all citizens. In order that the state can regulate the individual's freedom in the greater interest of society a number of restrictions have been placed on these rights. However the restrictions have become so numerous today that the balance has tilted towards social control rather than liberty.
