Yanis Iqbal

Alīgarh, India

Contributor at Freelance

Marxist. Aligarh Muslim University. Author of 𝐸𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐴𝑔𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑁𝑒𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝐷𝑦𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑝𝑖𝑎. Contact: [email protected]

Articles

A Spectacle Of Strikes: South Asia’s Slow-Motion Detonation - OpEd

1 month ago | eurasiareview.com | Yanis Iqbal

Once upon a time, not too long ago, yet rapidly fading into obsolescence, India and Pakistan performed the ritual of hostility with the precision of dancers trained to never quite collide. Incendiary speeches? Yes. Troop movements? Certainly. Artillery exchanges and cross-border sabre-rattling? Of course. But beneath the fury: choreography. A fragile, perverse etiquette. That is over now. What we see today is not war in its old form, but a grotesque theatre of immediacy.
Why Men Should Shut Up About The Burdens Of Masculinity| Countercurrents

2 months ago | countercurrents.org | Yanis Iqbal

Patriarchy has started a new PR campaign – rebranding the male jailors as emotionally wounded inmates. In The Indian Express, for instance, Shraddha Upadhyay that while “masculinity poses an obvious danger for women,” it is “self-destructive for men as well”. At the heart of this assertion is the myth of male inarticulacy. The author writes: “Men have not collectively spent enough time articulating their experience.” What sounds as progressive empathy is actually an elision of patriarchal power.
The Hetero-Patriarchal Panic Of India’s Minority Communalists| Countercurrents

Mar 27, 2025 | countercurrents.org | Yanis Iqbal

In 2024, the Supreme Court of India noted that what is primary in the determination of the minority character of an institution is not the “existence of a religious place for prayer and worship” or “the existence of religious symbols” but the objective of providing “benefit” to “a religious or linguistic minority community”. This means that “educational institutions could be established for minorities to provide secular education without imparting any lessons on religion”.
Sexual Violence And Government Response In West Bengal Under Mamata Banerjee's Leadership| Countercurrents

Mar 25, 2025 | countercurrents.org | Suparna Banerjee |Shreya Singh |Vikas Meshram |Yanis Iqbal

“Rape cases are on the rise because boys and girls interact more freely now. Earlier, if men and women held hands, they would be caught and reprimanded by parents, but now everything is so open. It’s like an open market with open options.”Mamata Banerjee, CM West Bengal, 2012.
National Federation Of Indian Women Condemns Allahabad High Court Judgment| Countercurrents

Mar 22, 2025 | countercurrents.org | Shreya Singh |Vikas Meshram |Yanis Iqbal |Nilofar Suhrawardy

The National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) expresses its deep shock and strongly condemns the recent judgment of the Allahabad High Court, dated March 19, delivered by Justice Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra, which stated that “grabbing the breast of a girl and breaking her pant string is not an attempt to rape, but an attempt to sexually molest.”The judgment came in the context of an incident in 2021 when an 11-year-old girl was attacked by two men in Kasganj area of Uttar Pradesh.
No, Equality Doesn’t Mean Separate Roles For Men And Women| Countercurrents

Mar 10, 2025 | countercurrents.org | Yanis Iqbal |Tamanna Joshi |zeenat khan |Bhabani Nayak

The emergence of feminist politics has led to a patriarchal counter-revolution that pays lip-service to “equality” while insisting that women and men should occupy different, separate places in society. In the case of Islamists, this ideology takes the following form: Islam recognizes the equality of men and women but underlines their separate and complementary roles/responsibilities based on God-given differences.
Rural Women Groups Combine Economic Progress With Social Reform| Countercurrents

Mar 6, 2025 | countercurrents.org | Bharat Dogra |Shiraz Durrani |Yanis Iqbal |Sanjay N. Parate

By pooling their savings on a regular basis every month self-help groups (SHGs) in many parts of India have improved their economic and social security. However such efforts, particularly of rural women, have been able to achieve more when they have combined this with wider initiatives for social reform.
Women's Day And The Market Economy| Countercurrents

Mar 5, 2025 | countercurrents.org | Danaka Katovich |Niranjan K S |Yanis Iqbal |Sanjay N. Parate

With a lot of excitement, my daughter approached me to inform me that some of the apps on her phone were offering fantastic deals on various items in observance of Women’s Day. Even though those things weren’t really helpful to me, she persisted in pushing to induce me to buy them merely because they were currently on sale. Celebrated annually on March 8th since 1911, International Women’s Day (IWD) honors the social, cultural, political, and economic accomplishments of women worldwide.
Rethinking Muslim Politics In India| Countercurrents

Mar 5, 2025 | countercurrents.org | Yanis Iqbal |Mohd Khan |Justice Markandey Katju |P S Sahni

With the rise of Hindutva, the Muslim community has been pushed into an existential crisis. Facing extreme segregation, the question of how to reclaim dignity becomes unavoidable. Studying at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), a predominantly Muslim campus, I have seen firsthand how this question shapes intellectual debates and discussions. One answer to this consists in an inward turn, whereby Muslims focus on asserting their own religious identity.
Why Maududi's Islamism Must Be Rejected

Mar 5, 2025 | timesheadline.in | Yanis Iqbal

Reading time : 6 minutesA woman without economic autonomy, without access to the public world, lacks the power to challenge patriarchal abuses of power. She cannot exit an abusive relationship because she doesn't have the means of survival. She cannot refuse her husband's demands because she can't turn to anyone else.