Shamik Bag

Journalist-writer. Previously: Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Rolling Stone, Mint Lounge.
Winner: Ramnath Goenka Award, 2017. Red Ink Award, 2018.

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

@JaipurDialogues Any coward can do what Suvendu did protected by an army of gun-totting men. Salute to the bravery of the lone man standing against the blatant abuse of power.

[Preeti Choudhry @PreetiChoudhry]

My exit poll! As I leave #Bengal, it would be a disservice not to say this: I have come to deeply admire the way women inhabit space here. There is a quiet, almost subconscious elevation of women as independent beings . something that stands in stark contrast to the entrenched misogyny that still finds resonance across much of northern India. Perhaps it stems from a cultural understanding of shakti. A form of empowerment that manifests here in ways both subtle and profound, unlike anywhere else in the country, even in the south.
Any woman journalist who has covered political rallies across India will recognize the difference immediately. Other states, a crowd is not just a logistical challenge, it carries risk. the inevitability of wandering hands, the violation masked by chaos. Here, the crowds are no less dense, the air no less heavy with sweat and alcohol—but the hands, for the most part, do not grope. Men step aside to make way. When contact happens, as it inevitably does in chaos, there is visible embarrassment rather than entitlement. What you encounter is not chivalry, but something far rarer: equality. And equality feels far more meaningful. Was never a fan of chivalry in any case :) 
There is more. Women politicians across party lines campaign with a striking freedom, aggressive, sharp, unapologetically irreverent, often using what would elsewhere be labelled as ‘masculine’ rhetoric. In most states, such behaviour would invite judgment, even censure. Here, it is met with acceptance,  applause. What feels liberating to an outsider is, in Bengal, simply normal. What we frame as empowerment  here is a cultural undercurrent.
I have covered four elections in this state, and each time I have returned with the same sense of awe. Bengal, meanwhile, ambles on with a certain bemusement, as if unaware of what sets it apart. But it is a big deal. And perhaps the most remarkable part is that Bengal does not think so.
Governments will come and go. One can only hope that this constant endures, not just how Bengal sees its women, but how, in many ways, it doesn’t. ♥️♥️♥️

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

@PreetiChoudhry Thanks. During you stay, did you hear about the two young women who married at a temple following full Hindu rituals in a wedding that was crowd-supported by the entire village in Sundarbon? The women blew conch shells villagers collected funds. Bengal!

[William Dalrymple @DalrympleWill]

Very sad to hear about the death of my old friend, the wonderful Kanai Das Baul. He had been Ill with TB for some time. I wrote about him, his beautiful voice and his life in the Tarapith cremation-ground in Nine Lives: ‘Sometimes the mad and sightless can understand things better, and more clearly, than the sane and the sighted,' he said. ‘The blind are never deceived by appearances. It is only those of us who have no eyes that can see through the lure of maya, and glimpse reality for what it is.’

[Veena @veenavenugopal]

Why @the_hindu matters

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

@narendramodi We know you have time to look at replies to your posts. Now think, if that's possible at all.

[eNewsroom India @enewsroomindia]

"If a PhD holder & international speaker like Dr. Nandita Roy has to cry for her voting rights, what happens to those without a voice?"
Dr. Roy speaks to eNewsroom about the systemic erasure of Bengali voters—especially women. This isn't just her fight; it’s for millions.
👇 Watch her powerful testimony.
#VoterRights #WestBengal

[Seyed Abbas Araghchi @araghchi]

Israel is bombing Iranian historical monuments dating as far back as the 14th century. Multiple UNESCO World Heritage Sites have been struck.

It's natural that a regime that won't last a century hates nations with ancient pasts. But where's UNESCO? Its silence is unacceptable.

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

@RShivshankar To equate the two is so spectacularly dumb and so you.

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

@ReuvenAzar You, representative of a terrorist state, should be marched out of our country immediately

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

@ReuvenAzar You should be immediately marched out of India.

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

@amitmalviya Keep at it please till you lose every single seat in Bengal. No matter how hard you try, the gutka spit will always land on your face.

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

@Mofobian Is there an English subtitled version?

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

On May 8, during the Indo-Pak conflict, when Chinese jets operated by Pak were shooting missiles & killing innocent Indians while China had declared support for Pak, Indian PM Modi's closest crony, Adani signed a strategic partnership with Guangzhou-based Chinese airport platform

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

@AbhinandanSekhr @smitaprakash planning another show with this scum?

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

Reporting from Jharkhand, wrote on this adivasi rights anthem--one connected to their fight for jaal, jangal, jaamen and recognition of their nature-worshipping religion, Sarna

[Article 14 @Article14live]

A song that @shamikbag heard in Adivasi gatherings across the lands of some of India’s most disadvantaged communities is now an anthem that accompanies protests & marches & connected to a movement to return to an ancient religion in #Jharkhand

https://t.co/iHNi0uDXn1

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

Wrote on this adivasi rights anthem--one connected to their fight for jaal, jangal, jaamen and recognition of their nature-worshipping religion, Sarna

[Betwa Sharma @betwasharma]

Gaon chodab nahin,
jungle chodab nahin,
maain maati chodab nahin,
ladai chodab nahin

(We will not leave our villages, we will not leave our forests, we will not leave our mother earth, we will not give up our fight) #fieldnotes

Listen here: https://t.co/diXBfKV699

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

I researched and reported this out of Jharkhand

[Article 14 @Article14live]

The demand to recognise the #tribal Sarna religion has pitted tribal identity politics against #Hindutva, which considers all Indian tribals to be #Hindus. Nearly 5 million enrolled as Sarna adherents in #Census2011. Upcoming #Census worries RSS in #Jharkhand, reports @ShamikBag

https://t.co/vHsVScIwKE

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

@mrsinha

[Shamik Bag @ShamikBag]

@ssingapuri You think you dhokla gutka folks can win West Bengal by posting fake news? Think about it. This video is from UP (of course) and your post makes a joke of you