ISHAL PAITHRKAM (ISSN:2582-550X) is a Peer Reviewed Academic Journal Published by Mahakavi Moyinkutty Vaidyar Mappila Kala Academy, Kondotty. The Academy functions under Department of Cultural Affairs Government of Kerala. The Journal is in UGC Care List. Aim of the Journal: Being a peer reviewed academic journal, Ishal Paithrkam promotes research works on language, literature, humanities, and social science. Academic papers, articles based on research, case studies, interviews, and book reviews are preferred for publication. Scope of the Journal: The journal is envisioned as a platform to disseminate worthy research output at free of cost among academics and general public. It is funded by Government of Kerala. Publishing Schedule: Quarterly
Mappila Kala Academy, Government of Kerala, India
Pedagogies of Indigenous Medical Knowledge Among Deprived Castes in Precolonial Malabar
The article examines the dissemination of indigenous medical knowledge among deprived castes in precolonial Malabar by foregrounding oral pedagogy, hereditary apprenticeship, ecological familiarity, and community-centered healing traditions. Moving beyond the conventional historiography that privileges classical Ayurveda and Sanskrit textuality, the study argues that marginalized caste communities and tribal groups sustained autonomous therapeutic systems rooted in experiential and embodied knowledge. Drawing upon subaltern historiography and indigenous epistemology, the article analyses the role of Ezhavas, Mannans, Velans, tribal healers, Kalari practitioners, and women in preserving and transmitting medical practices through caste occupations, ritual performance, and domestic instruction. The study interconnects evidence from Hortus Malabaricus, the writings of Francis Buchanan and William Logan, and the records of the Basel Mission to reconstruct the social history of indigenous medicine in Kerala. It demonstrates that healing knowledge circulated through oral transmission, apprenticeship, ritual pedagogy, ecological interaction, and women-centered caregiving rather than through formal institutions alone. The article further explores how colonial medicine and missionary intervention disrupted these hereditary pedagogic systems by privileging biomedical rationality, print culture, and institutional education. By recovering the medical traditions of marginalized communities, the study contributes to a more inclusive understanding of Kerala’s intellectual, ecological, and scientific history.
Hereditary Apprenticeship Colonial Medical Encounte
Copyright (c) 2026 ISHAL PAITHRKAM https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0
Power, Memory, and Resistance: The Politics of Contesting the Hitchcock Memorial in Kerala
The politics of colonial commemoration in India left behind a contested landscape of statues and memorials, many of which became focal points of nationalist resistance after independence. This study examines the trajectory of the Hitchcock Memorial in Kerala, erected in 1928 at Valluvambram in Malabar to honour R. H. Hitchcock, the District Police Superintendent who led the suppression of the Malabar Rebellion of 1921. Intended by the colonial state as a symbol of imperial valour and deterrence, the memorial was immediately challenged by nationalist leaders. It became the subject of satyagraha campaigns, public protests, and political resolutions. Its relocation to the Malabar Special Police Camp in 1969 and eventual demolition of the restored structure at the police camp in 1988 reveal the shifting meanings of colonial monuments in postcolonial Kerala. By tracing the memorial’s contested afterlife, this paper situates the Hitchcock Memorial within broader debates on colonial commemoration, nationalist resistance, and postcolonial memory politics. The analysis highlights how imperial symbols were reinterpreted, resisted, and replaced by memorials to indigenous struggles, such as the ‘Wagon Tragedy’ Memorial. The Hitchcock Memorial thus serves as a lens for understanding the dynamic interplay among power, memory, and resistance, demonstrating that monuments are not static relics but rather evolving sites of historical contestation in the public sphere.
India’s Education System and the New Educational Policy 2020: A Historical and Contemporary Analysis
The historical evolution of educational system of the Country reflects from an indigenous Gurukul system with emphasis on holistic and value- based learning to the educational policies of Colonial influence. The track of Indian education has undergone a paradigm shift from tradition to colonial dominated education. The post independent educational reforms primarily aimed to democratize educational system with emphasis on development, equity and national integration. While analyzing historical evolution of education system, it is not to be noted that it has undergone continuous changes and evolution from the indigenous. Gurukul system to the colonial education policies. Traditionally the education system had focused on spirituality, morality, practical learning and holistic approach. But Colonial education system mainly emphasized administrative system and the introduction of a new class suited to serve Colonial perspective. But after independence, the system focused on democratization, national integration and socio- economic development and with the introduction of New Educational Policy (NEP) in the year 2020, the system further turned into skill – based multidisciplinary approach. The present study is intended to explore the historical evolution of education system in India and analyses various aspects of NEP 2020 with critical approach. The work also highlights the significance of transformation of education by connecting historical developments with contemporary educational approach, so that India’s future can be shaped accordingly for the social, economic and democratic development of the society.
Next-Generation Economic Diplomacy: Aligning Saudi Vision 2030 with India's Make in India Initiative
This article explores the evolving economic and strategic partnership between India and Saudi Arabia, framed by the alignment of Saudi Vision 2030 and India’s Make in India initiative. Historically based on energy trade and labour migration, the bilateral relationship is undergoing a profound transformation towards next-generation economic diplomacy. This study examines the evolution of next-generation economic diplomacy through the strategic alignment of Saudi Vision 2030 with India’s Make in India initiative, anchored in contemporary South–South Cooperation (SSC) theories. Moving beyond traditional paradigms, South-South Cooperation offers robust conceptual frameworks—Development Compact, Polylateral Development, decolonial solidarity, and networked diplomacy—that illuminate the depth of this bilateral partnership. Key collaborative platforms—including the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) and the India–Saudi Arabia Strategic Partnership Council—are examined as facilitators of this multidimensional cooperation. The article highlights the complementarities of Saudi capital and infrastructure capabilities with India’s technological expertise and market potential, underscoring opportunities in fintech, cybersecurity, urban innovation, and defence production. It concludes that this dynamic alignment not only enhances bilateral interdependence but also positions both nations as influential players in shaping a resilient, multipolar global economic order. Furthermore, the partnership reflects an evolving model of strategic economic engagement in the Global South, where innovation, sustainability, and institutional cooperation drive long-term collaboration. By fostering connectivity, technology transfer, and investment flows, India and Saudi Arabia are redefining bilateral diplomacy and contributing to a more inclusive and diversified international economic architecture.
India-Saudi Arabia Strategic partnership
India-Middle East-Europe Economic corridor
The Politics of Performativity in T.D. Ramakrishnan’sFrancis Itty Cora
T.D. Ramakrishnan is one of the most significant voices in contemporary Malayalam Fiction, having received both the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award and Vayalar Award for his contribution to Malayalam literature. Ramakrishnan’s Francis Itty Cora is a postmodern novel that foregrounds multiple discourses within its narrative space, and this multifaceted nature of the novel offers endless perspectives to deliberate on. This paper attempts to delineate the gender discourse implicit in Francis Itty Cora, which is just one among the many that captures the attention of its readers. With reference to Butler, this study discusses how unconventional gender roles are curbed by culture and society, thereby limiting gender troubling or resistance against established gender norms. Reading the novel through Butler’s concept of performativity and Foucault’s theorisation of disciplinary power, this paper examines how Francis Itty Cora stages and ultimately forecloses the possibility of genuine gender subversion. The women who populate Ramakrishnan’s narrative variously attempt to perform beyond the boundaries of normative femininity only to be surveilled, punished or destroyed by the regulatory apparatus of patriarchal society, confirming that the politics of performativity is never simply a matter of individual subversion. The study is also informed by Mohanty’s postcolonial feminist caution, remaining attentive throughout to the Kerala cultural context within which the novel’s gender politics are rooted.
Spatial Consciousness in Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach
Victorian era was a period when anxieties around modernity, faith and social disintegration existed which is reflected in Mathew Arnold’s poetry from stable spaces to unstable and fragmented environments. This paper examines the role of space as a critical channel to articulate the psychological, cultural and ideological tensions in Arnold’s poem “Dover Beach.” The paper draws the theory of Henri Lefebvre’s “Production of Space” to construct a meaning where space is not a mere passive backdrop in “Dover Beach” but serves as an active, socially produced force that mediates between inner consciousness and external modern realities. Spatial analysis of the poem shall reveal that the setting in the poem symbolises Victorian cultural crisis of the loss of faith in religion, instability, and alienation through the use of landscapes, vast empty spaces, and tides. Ultimately, the paper contends that spatial analysis is a productive framework to understand the poetic response towards cultural crisis and how space offers negotiation of meaning, modern experience, and identity.
Bridging Borders: The Role of Loka Kerala Sabha in Harnessing Diaspora for Development
Kerala with significant migration history has been benefitted much from various contributions of its global Malayali diaspora for a long period of time. The State known for its high literacy rate, recognized the immense potential of non-resident Malayalis in shaping the developmental trajectory of the State. Considering this fact, government of Kerala instituted a World Kerala Assembly known as Loka Kerala Sabha as a common platform to foster dialogue, collaboration and policy engagement between the State and its global community. It is a public forum of the global gathering of Malayali diaspora with the representatives of the people of Kerala to channelise financial, social, and intellectual capital of diaspora into Kerala’s development process. The major objective of this move is to unite Malayalis across the globe and to harness their diverse talents and capacities and to integrate them with State for the social, cultural and economic development of the State. It was a great endeavour to unite Keralites from other Indian States and from various parts of the world to promote unity and cooperation among themselves. Since its inception in 2018, the Sabha has served as a driving force where ideas, experiences and resources are mobilized from the diaspora for the socio-economic development of the State. It helps the State to integrate non-resident Keralites the intellectual and financial capabilities of the diaspora into the noble cause of economic development. This paper explores the strategic role of Loka Kerala Sabha in harnessing the diaspora to extract constructive suggestions and to avail different contributions including professional expertise with policy recommendations to strengthen diaspora-led development through institutional reforms, participatory mechanisms, and accountability frameworks.
Integrating Indigenous Knowledge into Science Teaching in High Schools
The integration of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) into science education has gained global attention as educators recognize its potential to contextualize learning, enhance cultural identity, and promote sustainability. This quantitative study examines high school science teachers’ perceptions, attitudes, and challenges toward incorporating Indigenous Knowledge in science classrooms. A structured survey was administered to 100 high school science teachers across rural and urban schools. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were employed to explore patterns in teachers’ preparedness, institutional support, and pedagogical practices. Results indicate that while teachers generally exhibit positive attitudes toward integrating Indigenous perspectives, significant gaps exist in training, curriculum alignment, and resource availability. The findings emphasize the need for professional development, culturally responsive curricula, and policy frameworks that bridge Indigenous and Western scientific paradigms. The study concludes that successful integration of Indigenous Knowledge in science education requires a synergistic approach that values cultural diversity and scientific inquiry equally.
Paddy cultivation in Wayanad: History, present and environmental issues
There are divergent openions among the scholars regarding the evolution of the name Wayanad.Some of the scholars opined that the name Wayanad has its origine from bayalunadu or land of paddies. However it is reasonable to think th at the name Wayanad is derived from bayalunadu as many of her place names carry the names of paddy fields. Paddy cultivation was lively for long time in Wayanad. Cultivators of paddy had shown unique features in the cultivation ,conservation and preservation while comparing to other areas in Kerala.Wayanad possessed unique paddy which have high quality of resistance capacity. Wayanad decided it,s land relations,trade and commerce,and social set up based on paddy cultivation.Special customs and rituals were also had been here in relation to paddy cultivation.In this feudalistic economy instances of exploitation were also common. Expanded paddy fields in Wayanad also played a significant role in ecological aspect too. After the spread of cash crop cultivation paddy fields dwindled considerably in Wayanad. This article enquire the socio economic and environmental aspect of paddy cultivation in Wayanad.
Microfinance Interventions and Women’s Empowerment: A Case Study from Haridwar, Uttarakhand
Microfinance, characterized as the arrangement of monetary administrations to low-pay people lacking admittance to conventional banking, has arisen as a useful asset for financial turn of events and destitution easing. This study examines the economic, social, and psychological effects of microfinance on women's empowerment in Haridwar, Uttarakhand. Using an example of 400 ladies similarly split among metropolitan and provincial regions, the exploration utilizes organized surveys and subjective meetings to accumulate information. The discoveries uncover huge financial advantages, with members revealing higher pay, investment funds, and business possessions contrasted with non-members. Socially, ladies engaged with microfinance programs showed expanded local area association, cooperation in neighborhood navigation, and worked on societal position. Mentally, these ladies experienced improved confidence, certainty, and dynamic abilities. The concentrate likewise features contrasts among metropolitan and provincial ladies, with metropolitan members encountering marginally higher financial and social advantages, while rustic ladies showed more noteworthy upgrades in direction. Constraints such as awareness, application complexity, and socio-cultural barriers persist despite these positive outcomes. The study concludes that specific interventions are required to improve the accessibility and efficacy of microfinance programs, thereby expanding women's inclusion and maintaining their empowerment in urban and rural settings.
Human Surplus and the Politics of Exclusion: Reframing Refugeeism in Gaza
The investigation into what cultures consider garbage, its management, and the underlying values of power structures explains the concept of discard studies by examining the cultural, economic, and environmental effects of waste and discard practices. Discard studies is a metaphor for understanding how immigrants and refugees are treated by exposing the systematic marginalisation and exclusion of particular individuals, things, and activities. The current study engages discard studies, especially the works of Susan Strasser and Robin Nagle, along with Achille Mbembe's concept of necropolitics to illustrate how Dervla Murphy's narrative documents the structural production of refugee disposability in Gaza. A Month by the Sea: Encounters in Gaza is an authentic examination of how certain communities and individuals are systematically excluded and marginalized, akin to waste in society. Discard studies provide a distinctive perspective on how communities value and devalue human life in general and immigrant and refugee life in particular. Like the waste examined in discard studies, immigrants and refugees frequently find themselves on the periphery of society. Often located in inhospitable environments, refugee camps symbolize ‘wastelands’ and portray harsh realities such as border controls, denial of basic rights, and confinement in overcrowded camps. Literally like items that occupy a position between being useful and being garbage, immigrants and refugees occupy a place between being welcomed and being excluded. Through Murphy’s narrative observations of everyday life in Gaza, the study demonstrates how environmental degradation, infrastructural breakdown, and political containment collectively contribute to the production of refugee disposability. Discarded populations' ability to withstand and fight their enforced marginality is profoundly reflected in the way the physical, psychological, and socioeconomic aspects of being discardable are intricately woven into the fabric of life for refugees in Gaza. By positioning Gaza within the framework of discard studies and necropolitics, the paper argues that refugeeism can be understood as a condition produced through geopolitical structures that manage and regulate surplus populations.
Colonial Pedagogy in Kerala: A Study of Textbook Narratives as Instruments of Cultural and Political Subjugation
The paper examines how British colonial-era textbooks in Kerala served as ideological tools to legitimize foreign rule and reshape indigenous identity. Through content analysis of prescribed school readers, it demonstrates how these materials systematically promoted Western cultural supremacy, distorted historical narratives of local resistance, and inculcated loyalty to the colonial government. The study argues that education was a primary mechanism for enforcing cultural assimilation and mental subordination, leaving a lasting legacy on the region’s socio-cultural and educational landscape.
The Power of Dreams: Transformative Reflections on Savi Sharma’s This is Not Your Story
Savi Sharma’s This is Not Your Story (2017) explores the relationship between aspiration, selfhood, and personal transformation through the interconnected lives of Shaurya, Miraya, Anubhav, and Kasturi. The novel foregrounds the emotional and psychological struggles experienced by individuals attempting to negotiate societal expectations, personal crises, and the pursuit of meaningful aspirations. This study examines how the characters reconstruct their identities through the pursuit of dreams, resilience, and self-discovery. The research employs Dan McAdams’s Narrative Identity Theory (McAdams, 2001) as a theoretical framework to analyse how individuals shape their identities through evolving life narratives that integrate past experiences, present conflicts, and future aspirations. Using a qualitative interpretative approach, the study investigates how narrative reconstruction contributes to identity formation and emotional transformation within the novel. The paper further examines how the characters’ aspirational journeys reflect broader questions of self-realisation, personal choice, and psychological resilience in contemporary motivational fiction. By situating the novel within the framework of narrative psychology and identity studies, the study seeks to contribute to the emerging academic discussion on contemporary Indian popular fiction and its representation of selfhood, transformation, and emotional resilience.
Travel Writing as Political Revelation: Intercultural Negotiation and Borderland Politics in Peter Matthiessen, Vikram Seth, and Tiziano Terzani
Travel writing has conventionally been associated with documenting landscapes, cultures, and personal experiences. However, travelogues often function as significant sites where cultural encounters intersect with political realities. This paper examines Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard, Vikram Seth’s From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet, and Tiziano Terzani’s A Fortune Teller Told Me to demonstrate how travel writing transcends geographical description and becomes a medium for political revelation. Drawing upon Edward Said’s concept of representation and Homi Bhabha’s notion of the interstitial space, the study argues that these travel narratives expose hidden structures of power operating within Asian borderlands and culturally contested regions. Through analyses of state surveillance, minority identities, bureaucratic control, nationalism, and transnational cultural encounters, the paper reveals how travel writers negotiate complex intersections of culture and politics. The study ultimately positions travel writing as a critical literary practice that uncovers the tensions between human mobility, political authority, and cultural belonging.
Deconstructing Anthropocentrism: A Posthumanist Analysis of M. P. Narayana Pillai's Parinaamam
This paper examines M. P. Narayana Pillai's novel Parinamam through a posthumanist analytical framework, arguing that the work is a pioneering example of posthumanistic literature that critiques anthropocentrism and challenges the human-animal binary. While Pillai is often categorized as a modernist writer, this study demonstrates that his focus on the alienated lives of both humans and non-humans, particularly in Parinaamam, reveals a deeper engagement with posthumanist perspectives. The novel's protagonist, a dog named Tommy, is presented not as a symbolic animal but as a complex subject with his own ideology and revolutionary consciousness. By giving voice and agency to a non-human, Pillai critiques human-centric institutions—from the state to political ideologies—and exposes their hypocrisies. The paper employs analytical method to explore how Pillai's narrative blurs the lines of anthropomorphism and zoomorphism, ultimately envisioning a ‘zoopolis’ where animals are regarded as co-beings with inherent political and moral rights. In conclusion, this research asserts that Parinaamam is a seminal work that anticipates contemporary posthumanist thought by decentering the human and asking fundamental questions about our relationship with other species.
Writing Islam and Performing Faith in Leila Aboulela’s Minaret
The novel Minaret (2005) by Sudanese-British writer Leila Aboulela offers an alternative view of Islam by way of its nuanced treatment of the often unaddressed question of faith and religious belief among Muslim women, notably immigrant Muslim women, struggling to cope with alienation and liminal existence in the west. This paper examines the literary representation of Islam and faith-based subjectivities in the novel, tracing the protagonist Najwa’s struggle to craft a simultaneously modern and religiously compliant subject hood. It looks into the connection between the performance of religious actions and the creation of a pious moralistic self to foreground the role of religion, especially Islam in the dynamics of migrant identity politics. As there is a resurgence of religion in the public sphere in present times, this enquiry can add to the study of religion as an indispensable category of analysis in contemporary identity politics. Drawing from the works of Saba Mahmood (2005) and Meredith Mc Guire (2008), this paper expands the understanding of piety, performativity and empowerment to locate agency beyond the binaries of subordination and resistance, in everyday practices of lived religion. The affirmation of faith and surrender to religious beliefs as depicted in the fiction of Aboulela and the centrality of Muslim religious identity in the lives of the female characters of the novel, I argue, attempt to challenge and redefine the western normative belief that religiosity is always a result of the imposition of external forces that are invariably oppressive or politically charged.
Housing as Ideological Apparatus: Class, Gender, and Neoliberal Urbanism in Tamil Cinema
This paper examines housing narratives in contemporary Tamil cinema through a Marxist theoretical framework, analyzing five films spanning four decades: Veedu (1988), To Let (2017), House Owner (2019), Kudumbasthan (2025), and 3BHK (2025). Drawing on Marx's commodity form, Althusser's ideological state apparatus, Harvey's accumulation by dispossession, and Marxist-feminist theories of social reproduction, the paper argues that these films function as cultural documents recording India's transition from a state-mediated housing regime to a neoliberal, market-dominated order. The analysis demonstrates how cinematic representations of domestic space expose the home not as refuge but as a site where class position is reproduced, gendered labour rendered invisible, and market ideology internalized as personal aspiration. Each film illuminates distinct facets of the housing crisis: bureaucratic extraction, caste-coded rental exclusion, unpaid care work, masculine precarity, and the temporal violence of long-term debt. The paper contributes to undertheorized intersections of Tamil cinema studies, urban political economy, and ideology critique, proposing the category of "critical domestic realism" to characterize films that refuse consolatory narratives of homeownership while exposing housing as capitalism's disciplinary mechanism.
British Diplomatic History in Indian Princely States: Hyderabad, Kashmir and Tanjavore
Although a multitude of philosophers have researched British diplomacy over the years, the element of British colonial diplomacy in India remains unexplored. The research on British policy in princely states in India is also marginal. This paper aims to analyse the historiography of British diplomacy in India during colonial rule, focusing on princely states as the unit of diplomacy. The paper extensively scrutinizes the British diplomacy and administration of three princely states: Hyderabad, Tanjavore, and Kashmir. Hyderabad was one of the most prominent princely states or a Mohammedan state in India, which had a unique semi-autonomous status compared to the rest, providing details of diplomatic relations with the British. In contrast, Tanjavore and Kashmir are two small princely states affected by domestic and international conflicts, leading them to be more constrained under British rule. This study concludes that the British diplomatic strategies varied significantly based on the political importance and internal conditions of each state. The methodology utilized in this research is an archival analysis of alliances, treaties, and interactions between the princely states and the British. Overall, the study provides a more nuanced understanding of colonial governance by highlighting the differentiated and pragmatic nature of British diplomacy in India.
The United States’ Active Compliance and Trump’s Peace Plan: The Retreat of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in the Gaza Genocide
This paper analyses the issues of the applicability of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm in the light of the present-day Gaza genocide. It highlights the United States' active complicity in the preservation of Israel's conduct and its contradictory peace plan for a ceasefire in Gaza. It contends that Washington's diplomatic, military, and political aid to Israel has exposed the discriminatory usage of humanitarian principles, undermining U.S. legitimacy as a protector of worldwide human rights. By juxtaposing the academic concept of R2P with its active failure in Gaza, the research highlights the United Nations' passivity, the resolve of great-power vetoes, and the preponderance of realpolitik over humanitarian principles. Employing constructivist and realist theories, it exemplifies how double standards by the United States, through its intervention in Libya and criticising Russia's actions in Ukraine while covering for Israel, corrode its normative leadership in the global order. Finally, the paper contends that the decline of R2P, combined with American complicity in Gaza, foreshadows a wider legitimacy crisis that can accelerate the geopolitical realignment towards a multipolar world order.
Pro Choice and Rawlsian Justice: Understanding Indian Scenario
The discourse surrounding reproductive rights in India encompasses a complex interplay of legal, ethical, and socio-political elements. This paper evaluates the pro-choice perspective through the lens of John Rawls’s principles of justice. It focuses on how the ideas of fairness, equality, and autonomy pertain to women’s reproductive rights in India. Rawls’s theory, which defines justice as fairness, provides a philosophical foundation for examining whether reproductive policies and societal practices in India uphold women’s rights as free and equal moral beings. The study explores the extent to which Indian legislation—such as the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (1971, amended in 2021)—is consistent with Rawlsian principles of equal liberty and the difference principle. It also investigates the influence of cultural traditions, religious values, and patriarchal structures that often impede women’s autonomy in making reproductive decisions, resulting in disparities that contradict Rawlsian fairness. By employing a descriptive and analytical framework, this research highlights the ethical imperative for a rights-centred approach that ensures women’s reproductive freedom as an essential component of social justice. By situating pro-choice discussions within Rawlsia theory, the paper argues that reproductive rights are not merely personal moral dilemmas but crucial public goods for achieving justice in a diverse democracy such as India. In conclusion, the paper asserts that safeguarding reproductive autonomy is vital for fulfilling Rawls’s vision of a just society, where individuals possess equal fundamental rights and the opportunity to pursue their conception of the good life. The study concludes with a call to address social challenges and promote increased societal engagement in order to align India’s reproductive rights discourse with Rawlsian ideals of justice, equity, and individual autonomy.
Reimagining Futures: Queer Spatiality and Futurity in Monster
This paper critically examines Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film Monster through the analytical framework of queer spatiality and queer futurity. Monster follows the story of Minato and Yori, who form a deep emotional bond with each other as they navigate the challenges of childhood, identity, and social exclusion. Drawing on Judith Halberstam’s idea of queer space, the paper explores how ordinary spaces are transformed into sites of queer intimacy and resistance. The study challenges the normative configuration of spaces and examines how queer individuals carve out moments of safety and belonging even in marginal and abandoned spaces. These reclaimed spaces serve not only as a temporary refuge from the surveillance and discipline of heteronormative society, but it also serves as an alternative way of being in the world. The paper also uses José Esteban Muñoz’s theory of queer futurity to explore how the film creates space for imagining queer possibilities. Rather than seeing queerness as something tragic, the film offers a vision of hope and resistance that gestures towards queer liberation. The study employs qualitative narrative analysis, focusing on how queerness and its complexities are presented through plot structure, and character development.
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Personal Well-being Index – Signaling the State of Personal Well-being in Contemporary Kerala
At this juncture as Kerala confronts a host of socio-economic, demographic and fiscal issues, an evaluation of the state of personal well-being of the people of the state is warranted. A survey of 112 respondents across the state to elicit their perceptions on various aspects of personal well-being enabled the identification of multiple domains of well-being. The six domains of well-being extracted using factor analysis were personal relationships, community connectedness, economic status, religiosity, personal health and external environment. However, personal health and external environment were later omitted owing to weak Cronbach alpha obtained following the reliability analysis. The personal well-being index score is 0.684 indicating moderate levels of well-being for the surveyed respondents. Breaking up the personal well-being index into component sub-indices reveals that except for the personal relationship domain, all the other domains influencing the personal well-being are moderate for the surveyed respondents. This implies that the personal well-being experienced by the surveyed respondents are inextricably linked to the strength of personal ties and bonds they share with the family, friends and neighbours. Moderate scores obtained for the other domains of well-being suggests the need for affirmative actions such as revitalising productive sectors to create better livelihood opportunities, strengthening civil society through cooperatives, collectives and volunteering opportunities and using the spirit of religiosity and spirituality in the society for the purpose of common good.
Kinship, Language and Cultural Identity: An Analysis of Kinship Terms in Hermann Gundert’s A Malayalam–English Dictionary
Hermann Gundert’s A Malayalam–English Dictionary (1872) occupies a foundational position in the history of Indian lexicography, not merely for its philological rigour but for the depth of cultural knowledge embedded within its lexical entries. One of the most revealing dimensions of this work is its extensive documentation of kinship terminology, which offers a rare and systematic window into the socio-cultural fabric of nineteenth-century Kerala. Far from constituting a neutral or purely descriptive inventory of familial relations, Gundert’s treatment of kinship terms reflects Kerala’s pluralistic social order, shaped by matrilineal and patrilineal descent systems, caste- and community-specific practices, gendered modes of address, and marked regional variation. Drawing on a wide range of sources including classical literary texts, administrative and documentary records, and sustained interaction with oral informants, Gundert recorded both written and spoken registers at a historical moment when dialects and colloquial speech were largely excluded from scholarly lexicography. The dictionary documents fine semantic distinctions, dialectal variants, and multilingual borrowings from Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada, Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani, situating kinship vocabulary within longer histories of migration, trade, religious interaction, and cultural exchange. Many entries also register processes of semantic shift, social stratification, and taboo formation, whereby certain kinship terms fell out of use or acquired pejorative meanings over time. By analysing representative kinship terms in their historical, social, and linguistic contexts, this study argues that kinship vocabulary in Gundert’s dictionary functions as a powerful marker of cultural identity, encoding social hierarchy, community affiliation, and ideological orientations toward language itself. In doing so, the article foregrounds Gundert’s lexicographic practice as an early form of sociolinguistic and ethnographic inquiry, one that anticipates later theoretical concerns articulated by scholars such as Thomas R. Trautmann, Kamil V. Zvelebil, and Asif Agha. The study thus reaffirms the inseparability of language, kinship, and cultural identity in the historical development of Malayalam.
A Deliberative Democracy Framework for Analysing the Role of Social Media in Representing Dalits Voices: Some Critical Reflections
Freedom of expression and the willingness to tolerate diverse viewpoints are indispensable foundations of any democratic system. This freedom ensures broader public engagement, which is possible only if people are adequately informed about the functioning of institutions and the decisions that shape their lives. For such engagement to be meaningful, information must be transparent, reliable, accessible, and rooted in democratic principles. At this juncture, the media—both traditional and digital—plays an indispensable role. By fostering dialogue and enabling deliberation, the media strengthens the democratic process, ensuring that it remains transparent, representative, and inclusive. In India, the media has historically served as a catalyst for social transformation, acting as a guardian of constitutional values and democratic ideals. However, this noble role has increasingly been compromised by commercial interests and the influence of deep-rooted social factors such as caste and communal biases. These challenges have distorted the ethical responsibilities of journalism and weakened its credibility. Particularly concerning is the exclusion of marginalized communities, especially Dalits, who remain underrepresented within media institutions. Their voices and concerns are often neglected or misrepresented, leaving a significant democratic deficit. Even though new digital and social media platforms promise alternative spaces for expression, Dalits still encounter barriers in using these platforms effectively to highlight their genuine issues. Against this backdrop, the present study aims to critically analyze the role of social media as a deliberative democratic space and to explore its capacity to amplify and represent the legitimate concerns of marginalized groups, with special attention to Dalit communities.
Myth in/as Biography: A Study of the Ramayana Framework in Raja Rao’s The Great Indian Way: A Life of Mahatma Gandhi
In his literary biography of Gandhi, The Great Indian Way: A Life of Mahatma Gandhi, Raja Rao employs the mythical technique, overlaying the modern biography with ancient epic form, and thematically and semantically reformulating Gandhi as Rama. Though rooted in the documented evidence of Gandhi’s life, Rao’s text eschews the conventions of traditional Western biography and presents Gandhi as a modern-day Rama, who fights colonial rule with the weapon of non-violence, thus transforming the anti-colonial struggle into the archetypal heroic quest for dharma. The structure of the biographical text parallels the kandas of the Ramayana and thematically mirror the eternal values embodied by Rama. The mythic technique is foregrounded in the semiotic choices, the thematic and symbolic motifs, and in the narrative and structural framework of the Ramayana. This paper studies how Rao aligns Gandhi’s life with the mythic template of the Ramayana, thus repositioning the biography from the discipline of historical document to the realm of sacred storytelling which calls for a reading that moves beyond political history or life-writing into the domains of myth theory, narrative emplotment and postcolonial cultural politics. The paper argues that by using the Ramayana as a moral and structural frame, Rao’s biography shifts Gandhi from a national leader to the archetypal hero of epic proportions and repositions him into India’s sacred narrative traditions as a response to the cultural politics of the period.
Unsung Grievance and Unyielding Subjugation: Exploring the Trajectory of Resilience and Subalternation in Jean Sasson’s Princess: A True Story of Life behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia
This paper examines Jean P. Sasson’s Princess: A True Story of Life behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia (1992) as a pivotal narrative that exposes the deeply entrenched structures of patriarchy and the systemic subalternation of women in Saudi society. Written through the testimony of Princess Sultana, the text dismantles the illusion of wealth and religiosity as sources of freedom, revealing instead the contradictions of privilege and oppression that define women’s lives under authoritarian and gender-segregated configurations. By employing a testimonial discourse, the narrative not only embodies individual suffering but also articulates collective experiences of obscuration, erasure, and denial of agency. The methodological approach of this study is grounded in feminist literary analysis, with particular attention to how voice, silence, and representation operate as sites of resistance against dominant narratives. The paper argues that Princess functions simultaneously as testimony and critique, challenging the manipulation of cultural and religious discourses that strategically sustain women’s subordination. In doing so, it contributes to an expanded understanding of feminist interventions in contexts often shielded from external scrutiny. The significance of this inquiry lies in situating Princess as both a literary and political testimonial—one that illuminates the intersections of gender, power, and religion, while foregrounding the urgency of recognizing women’s lived realities as pivotal to the discourse of rights and justice in Islamic societies.
Religious Perspectives on the Conceptions of Disability
The influence of religion on the human worldview is beyond definition. The value systems, belief doctrines, and ritual practices of religions have, through the process of social construction, determined the position of the human being in the world. Contemporary society’s perspectives and attitudes toward disability often trace their origins to the deeper recesses of collective consciousness. An inquiry into this collective consciousness frequently leads to religious traditions and teachings.Disability is a term that has undergone numerous transformations. Often referred to solely in terms of deficiency or defined by limitations, disability is a concept that has been nurtured within the cultural framework of diverse perspectives. Humanistic studies demonstrate that interventions and understandings around disability have been shaped within such varied cultural constructs.What is the underlying reason for the formation of such perspectives in society? Disability has been marked in different periods of public consciousness through religious and cultural influences. The role of persons with disabilities within the structure of society is unique. Through religious, historical, and literary representations of disability, its moral legitimacy and sense of justice have long been questioned. Any approach to studying social and cultural discrimination remains critically relevant. The objective of this study is to examine the discriminatory configurations present in conceptions of disability within the religions of India. Social attitudes toward persons with physical and mental differences are generally bound by tradition. In earlier times, disability was confined to narrow interpretations shaped by religious beliefs, medical discourses, and existential conditions. Today, however, disability has begun to be recognized as a socio-political and cultural construct, gaining renewed attention across the globe. Philosophical streams and lived experiences related to history, culture, religion, society, and literature deeply influence the shaping of identity. Through these influences, disability is often misunderstood or misrepresented, and its contextual analysis is neglected. The religious foundations that have led to the marginalization of persons with disabilities from the social mainstream need to be examined. Religions and religious texts have played a significant role in shaping the societal notions about disability. The religious discourses in India offer a wide range of perspectives on the concept of disability. This study aims to critically analyse the diversity and complexity raised by religious consciousness in the conception of disability, within the context of social construction, identity, and the dominant notion of normalcy.
Arabi Malayalam can be explained in the simplest way as a way of writing Malayalam in Arabic scripts. It is said that it was created for the Arab traders who came to Kerala; and for religious studies. In any case, Arabi Malayalam retains many words that are foreign to today’s Arabic and Malayalam. It contains many old words that Malayalam has abandoned in course of time. Many local expressions in circulation at different times also found their place in the language. Arabi Malayalam has given literary status to any words and expressions that people use orally. “It indebted not only to the Arabic language”,observes O. Abu. “Its linguistic diversity is unique. Words from oriental languages such as Arabic and Persian, words from Indian languages such as Urdu and Sanskrit, and words from South Indian languages such as Tamil, Kannada and Tulu, sometimes in the form of synonyms and often in the form of derivatives, have gained a wide place in the Arabi Malayalam language. In the same way, the grammars and styles of the said language have also established themselves in the Arabi Malayalam language, with or without contextual changes.” (Page 7)It is recorded that not only words but also styles and grammatical matters have been incorporated into it. However, the argument in this book is that this is a regional/national language. Similarly, there are Arabi Malayalam scholars who argue that Arabi Malayalam has the status of an independent language. There have been works in Arabi-Malayalam in prose and poetry. It includes not only literary works but also scientific texts, religious texts, and philosophical and historical texts. In addition, there were many periodicals, publications, and pamphlets in the Arabi-Malayalam language.In addition to Sanskrit translations such as Ashtanga Hridayam, many other medical books have been written in Arabi Malayalam. N.V.P. Unithiri has spoken about Muslim physicians who were Sanskrit scholars in many speeches. A special method of writing and preserving medicine was developed in Arabi Malayalam. Such notes were written separately in Arabic Malayalam scripts, avoiding the method of writing together. Such medical books may have been helpful for many physicians who could not pursue academic studies.
Rethinking Gandhian Concept of Sustainable Development in the context of Responsible Tourism
Mahatma Gandhi underlined the concept of ‘Sustainability’ as the course of life for the present and the future. He observed that human body requires three kinds of nourishments namely, air, water and food. Nature provides these three components and, hence mankind fully depends on nature for its existence. It is high time to think of preserving the nature and its environment as its degradation and the subsequent climate change have raised serious challenges/threats to the existence of life on earth. Steadily constructing a discourse on sustainability and properly conceiving the developmental paradigms are the need of the hour. Gandhian concepts and ideals have contributed to the broader discourse on sustainable development with special emphasis on environment. Most of the developmental activities in one way or the other, affect nature. The much celebrated Eco-Tourism is one such developmental activity introduced in Kerala with the goal of ensuring environmental sustainability. The paper explores the prospects of Ecotourism in Kerala within the Gandhian concept of sustainable development.
From Repression to Resistance: The Freudian Uncanny in Meghna Pant’s The Man Who Lost India
Meghna Pant’s The Man Who Lost India (2024) presents a chilling vision of a near-future India fractured by authoritarian rule and civil conflict. This paper offers a psychoanalytic reading of the novel, arguing that it stages a critical movement “from repression to resistance” by mobilizing the affective and structural logic of Sigmund Freud’s uncanny (das Unheimliche). In Pant’s dystopia, the familiar—homes, streets, language, and bodies—becomes terrifyingly estranged, manifesting as doubles, spectral hauntings, and compulsive repetitions that signal the return of politically and historically repressed traumas. However, this study moves beyond a purely Freudian framework by placing it in critical dialogue with postcolonial theory (Bhabha’s “unhomely”), trauma studies (Caruth’s “belatedness”), and feminist theory (Butler’s “precarious life”). Through a method of close reading that combines semiotic and phenomenological interpretation, this paper demonstrates how the uncanny, when transposed to a South Asian context, operates as more than a psychological category; it becomes a cultural and political grammar that exposes structures of gendered and national repression. Crucially, the analysis shows how Pant’s narrative reclaims the uncanny, transforming its inherent anxiety into a catalyst for insurgent memory, feminist solidarity, and linguistic subversion. The novel is thus positioned as a “critical dystopia” where the return of the repressed does not merely terrorize but opens seams for resistance, making it a significant contribution to the emergent field of Indian speculative fiction and a powerful commentary on the psychodynamics of contemporary political life.