Author: Garima Sarkar

Jadavpur University has always been political. That is not its shame. It is, in many ways, its inheritance. It was born out of the nationalist educational movement; Jadavpur was never intended to be an institution that produced merely obedient graduates. It was meant to cultivate independent minds. Its history of dissent from the radical politics of the late 1960s to the anti-Emergency movement and the more recent protests over Singur, Nandigram and a range of national and campus issues is part of the intellectual character of the university. But there is a point at which a tradition of dissent becomes…

As traditional opposition parties struggle to mobilise public opinion, student movements are increasingly shaping India’s democratic conversation Democracies depend not only on competitive elections but also on a vibrant political opposition. Opposition parties perform several critical democratic functions. They scrutinise governments, articulate alternative policy visions, represent dissenting voices, and channel public grievances into institutional politics. When these functions weaken, democratic contestation rarely disappears. Instead, it often migrates to other arenas. In contemporary India, one of the most visible expressions of this shift has been the growing prominence of student protests. As opposition parties have struggled to provide a cohesive and…

One image defined Mamata Banerjee’s rise to power. Injured and wheelchair-bound during the 2021 election campaign, she raised a clenched fist before thousands of supporters and declared herself a Royal Bengal Tiger. It captured the carefully crafted paradox that defined her politics: fierce enough to take on formidable opponents, yet familiar enough to remain simply “Didi”, Bengal’s elder sister. That image helped deliver three consecutive electoral victories. By 2026, however, it was no longer enough to sustain her government. Much of the commentary on the BJP’s victory has focused on familiar explanations, including anti-incumbency, corruption scandals, Hindutva and Narendra Modi’s…

By Garima Sarkar & Malaiyandi Sundaram Tamil Nadu’s 2026 Assembly election might ultimately be remembered as a turning point not only for the state’s internal politics but also for the future of democratic campaigning in India. For more than five decades, the state’s political environment was largely defined by the dominance of the DMK and AIADMK, two parties deeply embedded within Tamil Nadu’s distinctive Dravidian political culture. The emergence of Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) as a major electoral force, therefore, represents far more than a routine change in government. It signals the arrival of a new political era in which…

Garima Sarkar & Farzana Nisha Khan Donald Trump’s second presidency has redefined immigration as both a domestic political priority and a tool of executive state power. In doing so, it is reshaping not only US immigration governance but also wider global debates around borders, sovereignty and migration policy. When Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, he did not simply resume the immigration politics of his first administration; he returned with a far more disciplined strategy for implementing it. Immigration has long been pivotal to Trump’s political identity, and from the promise of a border wall in 2016…

Garima Sarkar & Aakriti Mittal In the closing weeks of West Bengal’s 2026 Assembly election campaign, a politically charged video spread rapidly across social media platforms. It appeared to show former Trinamool Congress (TMC) minister Humayun Kabir, then aligned with the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), discussing a purported ₹1,000 crore arrangement with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to split the Muslim vote. The clip spread rapidly through WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, and X timelines, fuelling political speculation across the state. Subsequent scrutiny suggested that portions of the video had been digitally altered using AI-based editing techniques, even though parts…