Trauma Bonding and the Death of Rebellion
Trauma Bonding and the Death of Rebellion The person whose will to live and capacity to rebel have been extinguished, and who finds themselves unable to raise their voice against injustice, is the one who forms a trauma bond with their oppressor. The popular understanding of oppression assumes that the oppressed naturally hate their oppressors.…
Unequal Judgements in an Unequal World
Throughout history, many of the greatest artists, writers, philosophers, and intellectuals have relied on alcohol and other intoxicants. Entire myths have been built around this phenomenon. We hear stories of poets writing masterpieces in smoky rooms, novelists finding inspiration at the bottom of a bottle, and celebrated thinkers whose addictions are treated almost as evidence…
On Frustration
On Frustration There is something profoundly dishonest about the way our society speaks about frustration. Frustration is often treated as a personal weakness, a moral failure, or a sign of immaturity. Those who are frustrated are advised to be patient, positive, resilient, and grateful. Yet this advice is distributed very unevenly. The poor are told…
Why do Oppressed people sometimes turn against the most intellectual among them?
Why Do Oppressed People Sometimes Turn Against the Most Intellectual Among Them? There is a painful pattern visible across many oppressed communities in history: the person most feared is often not the oppressor outside, but the dissenter within. The intellectually curious, politically articulate, philosophically restless individual from among the oppressed often becomes the object of…
Caste as Moral Governance: Dalit Experience, Social Repression, and the Regulation of Everyday Life
My sociological observation, based on closely watching my parents and other Dalits who grew up in rural settings, is that caste society historically exercised strong control over the everyday pleasures, desires, and social freedoms of Dalit communities. In many villages dominated by Brahmanical social norms, Dalits often faced severe social consequences — ranging from ostracism…
The Monopoly of Legitimacy: University, State and the Politics of Knowledge Production
The university classroom is often projected as a sacred and neutral site of knowledge, but in reality it is also a political arrangement of power, legitimacy and recognition. The professor is not merely someone who “knows more”; rather, the professor is someone whose knowledge has been certified, institutionalised and stamped as legitimate by the state…
The Psychology of State Dependency and the Politics of Patronage
The Psychology of State Dependency and the Politics of Patronage One of the most recurring patterns in human history is the emergence of classes and groups whose entire identity, prestige, and authority depend not upon their own independent capability, but upon proximity to political power. Such people rarely build autonomous institutions, productive economies, intellectual traditions,…
The Politics of Selective Sacredness: Symbolic Rage, Moral Contradictions, and the New Dogmatism of Identity Movements
There is a deep irony in the politics of symbolic outrage practiced by a section of radical identity movements today. They spend enormous intellectual and emotional energy mocking Hindu gods, abusing deities, ridiculing rituals, and desecrating symbols that millions of ordinary people hold sacred, all in the name of “critical thinking,” “anti-caste consciousness,” or “liberation.”…
Who Gets to Drink Respectably? Class, Cultural Capital, and Liberal Hypocrisy
There is a peculiar contradiction visible in many contemporary university spaces. A section of urban, educated, self-described “progressive” students often celebrates alcohol consumption, recreational cannabis use, nightlife culture, and a rhetoric of personal freedom. At the same time, many among the same circles casually deploy moral labels such as “drunkard,” “addict,” “uncultured,” or “problematic” toward…
The Bastardisation of Experiences: Faux Theorisation
The Theatre of Position: Experience as Theory, Assertion as Knowledge What passes today as sociology increasingly resembles a peculiar kind of intellectual shortcut, where the labor of thinking has been replaced by the performance of location. The older demand—articulated in different ways by figures like C. Wright Mills—was that one move from the immediacy of…
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