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This article examines the conflict between press censorship and free speech in post-partition Delhi, focusing on the Urdu press. It demonstrates how conflicts over free speech became a focal point for the intersection of two fundamental tensions underlying postcolonial state formation—between civil liberties and the authoritarian legacy of colonial rule, and between a secular democracy and a religion-based partition. The article explores the Urdu refugee dailies that relocated from Lahore to Delhi amid the partition upheaval and emerged as significant media voicing refugees' interests, often at the expense of Muslim residents. Their provocative writings simultaneously challenged the boundaries of free speech and advanced an exclusionary notion of citizenship based on blood-based descent (jus sanguinis). This narrow conception of citizenship, underlying the partition migrations themselves, challenged the secularist vision of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. In response, the Delhi administration took actions against the refugee papers, making them central to contemporary struggles over press censorship. By taking the state to court, refugee editors promoted citizens' right to free speech, but simultaneously advanced a circumscribed notion of ethno-religious citizenship. Navigating this dual role, the article unveils the exclusions and contradictions that marked citizenship formation in the early postcolonial period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manchadikkari is a region in central Kerala occupied primarily by Dalit Christian communities. The majority of the people in the area are agricultural daily wage workers who have been economically and culturally marginalized. Caste discrimination and exploitation mark their past and present. The people in Manchadikkari articulate powerful anti-caste politics through their creative cultural productions like songs, stories, and plays that take shape in their community groups. The remembrance and reiteration of caste experiences in these community groups keep alive the history of caste exploitation and transmit these memories to the next generation. This paper analyses the play Azhakante Kutil ('Azhakan's Hut'), authored by Thankamma Titus from Manchadikkari in 2021 and performed by a group of women who are members of the community group 'Sanjeevani.' This study considers the processes of conceptualization, production, and performance of the play to show how these processes embody anti-caste politics. The play dwells on the community's caste history to show that caste is not an anachronism of the feudal era but actively determines the present cultural and material conditions. When contextualized in the community, the play exists as a moving narrative of the community's cultural activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]