Himal Southasian Podcast Channel

How has the RSS and Hindutva propaganda worked over a century? Journalists and writers Akshaya Mukul and Kunal Purohit dive into the strategies and successes with Harsh Mander on the this episode of Saffron Siege. Mukul examines the popularity Gita Press, which was founded in 1923 – two years before the RSS itself, and its many publications and how it insinuated itself into the consciousness of millions of Hindus. Purohit discusses the more recent phenomenon of Hindutva pop in which the internet has enabled young people in the smallest towns and villages to become Hindutva influencers regardless of education, access, gender or caste. 🎧 You can watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Kq6ffi92x5kThis episode is part of Season Two of Partitions of the Heart. In this season, Harsh Mander speaks to leading scholars and observers who have studied the RSS closely. Together, they examine its roots and core principles, its Hindutva agenda, and its corrosive role in India’s public and social life across a century. “Saffron Siege” runs from 17 September to 3 December 2025, with a new episode releasing every Wednesday. Himal’s podcasts are available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Production: Imaad ul Hasan, Lydia Smith, Ritika Chauhan, Nayantara NarayananSupport Himal Podcasts and Himal's independent journalism for just USD 5 per month: https://payhere.lk/pay/oee1bdaf1Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasianhttps://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

The feminist historian Tanika Sarkar speaks to Harsh Mander about the role of women in the #RSS, the organisation's view on gender and its reinforcement of patriarchy. Sarkar describes the creation of the RSS's women's wing, the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, and how it evolved over the years. She also speaks about the women leaders have emerged in the Hindutva fold to gain strategic power in the RSS's project of hate. You can watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ghjTuQco4vwThis episode is part of Season Two of Partitions of the Heart. In this season, Harsh Mander speaks to leading scholars and observers who have studied the RSS closely. Together, they examine its roots and core principles, its Hindutva agenda, and its corrosive role in India’s public and social life across a century. “Saffron Siege” runs from 17 September to 3 December 2025, with a new episode releasing every Wednesday. Himal’s podcasts are available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Production: Imaad ul Hasan, Ayushi Malik, Lydia Smith, Ritika Chauhan, Nayantara NarayananSupport Himal Podcasts and Himal's independent journalism for just USD 5 per month: https://payhere.lk/pay/oee1bdaf1 Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasianhttps://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

In this writer Aakar Patel and journalist Rana Ayyub examine with Harsh Mander whether India under Narendra Modi has transformed into a Hindu Rashtra or and to what extent does India’s secular socialist democracy still endures.You can watch this conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/P3mb8QO9uDUThis episode is part of Season Two of Partitions of the Heart. In this season, Harsh Mander speaks to leading scholars and observers who have studied the RSS closely. Together, they examine its roots and core principles, its Hindutva agenda, and its corrosive role in India’s public and social life across a century. “Saffron Siege” runs from 17 September to 3 December 2025, with a new episode releasing every Wednesday. Himal’s podcasts are available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Production: Imaad ul Hasan, Lydia Smith, Ritika Chauhan, Nayantara NarayananSupport Himal Podcasts and Himal's independent journalism for just USD 5 per month: https://payhere.lk/pay/oee1bdaf1 Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasianhttps://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

In this episode, Harsh Mander speaks to historians Mridula Mukherjee and Vinay Lal about the origins of the RSS, the ideologies of its founders, the it played (and did not play) in India’s freedom struggle, and its role during the Partition riots.Mukherjee talks about how in pre-independence India, the idea that Hindus must constitute a separate nation that opposed including minorities already existed and the RSS was set up in 1925 with the purpose of forming a militant group – directly inspired by Europe’s fascists – that would form its ideological core. Lal points to how the RSS ideologue, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, wanted to “militarise Hindudom” to counter the British attempt to portray Indians as effeminate – which is an important reason why the RSS focuses on physical culture and hyper-masculinity.You can watch the video of this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7VbD_HMJF-8This episode is part of Season Two of Partitions of the Heart. In this season, Harsh Mander speaks to leading scholars and observers who have studied the RSS closely. Together, they examine its roots and core principles, its Hindutva agenda, and its corrosive role in India’s public and social life across a century. “Saffron Siege” runs from 17 September to 3 December 2025, with a new episode releasing every Wednesday. Himal’s podcasts are available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Production: Imaad ul Hassan, Ayushi Malik, Lydia Smith, Ritika Chauhan, Nayantara NarayananSupport Himal Podcasts and Himal's independent journalism for just USD 5 per month: https://payhere.lk/pay/oee1bdaf1Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasianhttps://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

In this inaugural episode of the podcast “Saffron Siege”, Harsh Mander speaks to Rajmohan Gandhi, a renowned historian and grandson of Mohandas Gandhi, on the hostility of the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh towards Gandhi that ultimately led to his assasination in January 1948.Rajmohan Gandhi describes how Gandhi's demand for an India that belonged equally to all religions, communities and identities set him against the Hindu right. “Those who ultimately did kill him did not want an India for everybody. They wanted an India where some people would be supreme, others would be subservient or junior or second-class,” says Rajmohan Gandhi. He describes how the Hindu Mahasabha and Hindutva ideologues were also advocates of Partition and kept their distance from India’s struggle for independence from British rule. “Those who do any serious study will know that the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha kept aloof from the freedom struggle and they openly said that the Muslims are a real enemy and in fact we should cooperate with the British.”You can watch this conversation on YouTube: This episode is part of Season Two of Partitions of the Heart. In this season, Harsh Mander speaks to leading scholars and observers who have studied the RSS closely. Together, they examine its roots and core principles, its Hindutva agenda, and its corrosive role in India’s public and social life across a century. “Saffron Siege” runs from 17 September to 3 December 2025, with a new episode releasing every Wednesday. Himal’s podcasts are available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasianhttps://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

Harsh Mander wraps up Season 1 of this podcast series with Himal associate editor Nayantara Narayanan. They talk about the significant moments and takeaways from Mander's conversations with eminent and emerging voices on the crisis of Muslims in India: Afreen Fatima, Hilal Ahmed, Amirullah Khan, Seema Chishti, Shahrukh Alam, Aman Wadud, Irfan Habib, Mohsin Alam Bhat, Saeed Mirza, Syeda Hameed, Manoj Jha and Zeyad Masroor Khan. This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India under the rule of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.You can watch this episodes on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Uw3bGOXSbgUWatch and listen to the full season on Himal Southasian's podcast channels. Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasianhttps://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

Zeyad Masroor Khan grew up in a Muslim ghetto in Aligarh, a place he says is still “caught in time” and one he describes as still a slice of “India as it was envisioned by Nehru and Gandhi” with people from different religious communities living close by, running their businesses together and having family connections. But, in this same ghetto, he also witnessed several communal riots as he came of age. In this podcast episode, Khan speaks to Harsh Mander about what he witnessed and the lessons from that childhood. They also speak about why Muslims live in ghettos, the new dangers they face from economic boycotts and the unabashed hate and division that is even causing their expulsions from parts of the country. This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India under the rule of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.You can watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/AxaEEUPkc-kHimal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasianhttps://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

Manoj Jha, a politician and member of India’s upper house – the Rajya Sabha – is the rare politician who has spoken up about the persecution of Muslims in India and their being pushed into being second-class citizens of the country. Jha believes and has written that Muslims are not mere footnotes but co-authors in the story of India. In this conversation with Harsh Mander, Jha says that the the craving for peace that was once the default template of India has been warped into a politics of hate.Jha attributed many factors to this change. For instance, “the prosperity or the non-prosperity of the middle class, the shift from a public sector to a liberalised economy. The market can sell anything. If it finds that love has few takers, hate has more takers, it will package hate,” he says. This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India. Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.You can watch the whole conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8MOhZggVcb4GlossaryRahi Masoom Raza: An Indian writer and poet in Urdu and Hindi who wrote screenplays and dialogies for major Hindi films and among whose important literary works are Aadha Gaon and Topi Shukla.Jawaharlal Nehru on India as a palimpsest: “She was like some ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what had been written previously.”Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasianhttps://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

The educationist, writer and women's rights activist Syeda Hameed had a ringside view on much of what was unfolding in the new India in the years after it became independent. This was a country that had become free, but after Partition when a million Hindus and Muslims had been slaughtered by the other. Yet, Hameed remembers the first decade of free India as one of immense hope."My family comes from Panipat," Hameed says. "And Panipat was a symbol of Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb – the mingling of the Hindu-Muslim, the composite culture... There was a beautiful commingling and that is really the India, that was my DNA, you know." Speaking to Harsh Mander, Hameed says she does not feel any of that hope now. This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India. Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.You can find audio versions of this conversation on: 🎧 Spotify: 🎧 Apple podcasts: Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasianhttps://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

The filmmaker Saeed Akhtar Mirza talks to Harsh Mander about a civilisational slide in india over the past three decades. “The idea of India as in our constitution being slowly eroded in front of our eyes and nothing was done about it,” he says. In this episode Mirza talks about how the Hindu right is rewriting history and scripting one-sided narratives through cinema, about the takeover over film schools by political agenda and more. Mirza recalls his immense despair in the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, followed by communal riots and bomb blasts in his home city of Mumbai. At the time he made a film called Naseem in which he wrote the epitaph of India. But Mirza believes that India’s current troubles will pass as everything before it has. After making Naseem, he travelled across the country meeting ordinary people who restored his faith in its pluralism. This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India. Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.You can watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5WO0WRYFbls♦️ Glossary Scoundrel Times: A term coined by the American playwright Lillian Hellman referring to the McCarthy era which was defined by selfishness, cruelty, corruption, and fear in the US government and society.Taimur: A 14th century ruler of Turco-Mongol origin and founder of the Timurid Empire situated in an around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran and Central AsiaKhiljis: A Turco-Afghan dynasty who ruled large parts of the Subcontinent fron Delhi between 1290 and 1320Aurangzeb: The sixth Mughal emperor who ruled from 1658 and 1708 Seljuks, Mamluks, Ottomans: Powerful Turkic dynasties with Islamic rulers♦️Himal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. ♦️ Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/♦️ Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: ♦️ https://twitter.com/Himalistan♦️ https://www.facebook.com/himal.southasian♦️ https://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

In this conversation with Harsh Mander, the legal academic Mohsin Alam says that the crisis of Indian Muslims, which is about safety, integration, and citizenship, is tied to the crisis of Indian democracy. How the Indian state and society treats with its weaker populations, including religious minorities, will determine whether India remains a democracy or not.Alam points to evidence that anti-democratisation of the economy has had a terrible impact on minorities and Muslims in particular. He says that greater neoliberalism has led to a loss of solidarity among majorities and minorities, among different communities. This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India. Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.You can watch the entire episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gMol26m0aYwHimal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasianhttps://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

Irfan Habib, who is regarded as one of India's best historians, tells Harsh Mander that encouraged by the Narendra Modi and BJP leadership, The Hindu right is attempting not just to rewrite India's history to erase Muslim presence and contribution but to manufacture it entirely. Now 94, Habib looks back to when India got independence – when he was a young man – and at the inclusiveness and spirit of service of national leaders at the time. He also looks critically at the divisive politics of the present but believes that "ultimately I think India is a large country with varied languages and I think a pure Hindu religious philosophy can't unite the country."This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India. Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.You can watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/uyoDoPELQdUHimal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.comSupport our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasianhttps://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

Aman Wadud, a lawyer and politician, tells Harsh Mander that Bengali Muslims Assam are among the most persecuted in the country. Having been accused or taunted of being "outsiders" or "Bangladeshis" for decades, they have in recent years faced the terror of state policies questioning their citizenship, especially the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Act. This episode is part of the podcast series Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander, produced in association with Karwan-e-Mohabbat. The inaugural season called Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India, focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in India. Mander hosts conversations with a powerful array of Indian Muslim figures both eminent and emerging, young and old. Together, they talk about the lived experiences of Indian Muslims amid the rise of the Hindu Right and escalating Islamophobia, as well as the politics and the history that have brought India to this shocking new reality.You can watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/kf-Zs4lsrXYHimal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasian https://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

Shahrukh Alam, a lawyer practicing in India's Supreme Court, dissects how the country's law and order machinery has been turned against its Muslim citizens in recent years. Alam talks about the criminalising of protest by Muslims and anti-constitutional arguments being made in the courts, how cultural narratives have shifted to allow these things to happen. You can find watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hc9I7ssBPuQGlossary- Naroda Patiya: A village where nearly 100 Muslims were killed on 28 February 2002 during larger communal riots in the Indian state of Gujarat- Agamben: Giorgio Agamben is a leading political philosopher and political theorist- Sudarshan: Sudarshan news is a television channel in India known for its openly right-wing and anti-Muslim rhetoricHimal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasianhttps://www.instagram.com/himalistan/

Journalist Seema Chishti was covering events in Ayodhya when a right-wing Hindutva mob demolished the Babri Masjid, a 16th century mosque, in December 1992. In this episode, Chishti recounts the events of that day, the media's role in bearing witness to it and how the media in India has changed since then.From the pockets of resistance in the media during the Emergency in 1975, to its commercialisation from the 1990s onwards, to the overtly communal tones in large sections since 2014, Chishti traces the decline in standards of journalism in India. She explains how this has contributed to the othering of Muslims and the crisis they find themselves in today. Chisthi and Mander also discuss the mythology and misogyny of love jihad conspiracy theory and how it has been constructed to target Muslim men. You can also watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/TGYrO-DriuoGlossaryBabri Masjid: A 16th-century mosque in Ayodhya in India. A section of H​​indus claim that the mosque was built at the site of the the birthplace of the HInu god Ram and that the Mughal emperor Babur destroyed a temple to build the mosque. On 6 December 1992, a mob of Hindutva activists demolished the mosque. It remained a disputed site for decades. In February 2024 when India’s prime minister Narendra Modi consecrated a new Ram temple at the same site. Kalyan Singh: A politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party and the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh where Ayodhya is situated when the Babri Masjid was brought down Tata: One of the oldest business houses and largest multinational conglomerates in IndiaNano: The Tatas planned to build the Nano – billed as the world’s cheapest car - in West Bengal. However,  after violent protests over its acquisition of land for the project it had to shift to Gujarat where the project was facilitated by the chief minister at the time, Narendra Modi Ambani: The business family that runs Reliance Industries. Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries, is India’s richest man and is seen to have a close relationship with Narendra ModiAdani: An industrial group led by Gautam Adani, one of the richest men in the world whose fortunes have soared since the BJP and Modi came to power in 2014. Adani has also been a vocal champion of Modi and his government Hanna Arendt: A German-Jewish political philosopher who was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and settled down in the United States. She is best known for her study of totalitarianism especially with regards to the Nazi and Stalinist regimes Ghuspetiya: The Hindi word for “intruder”. Modi and the home minister Amit Shah have used the word in thinly veiled references to MuslimsGodse: Nathuram Godse assassinated Mohandas Gandhi in 1948. Some right-wing groups celebrate Godse as a Hindutva iconRSS sarsangchalak: The supreme leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which is the organisational and ideological parent of the BJPHimal Southasian is Southasia’s first and only regional news and analysis magazine. Stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, from Tibet to the Maldives, this region of more than 1.4 billion people shares great swathes of interlocking geography, culture and history. Yet today neighbouring countries can barely talk to one another, much less speak in a common voice. For three decades, Himal Southasian has strived to define, nurture, and amplify that voice. Read more: https://www.himalmag.com/Support our independent journalism and become a Patron of Himal: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himalFind us on: https://twitter.com/Himalistanhttps://www.facebook.com/himal.southasianhttps://www.instagram.com/himalistan/