The media in Kerala is in a tizzy these days over ‘quotation’ gangs and their influence on everyday life. Like evil spirits dancing upon the bodies of fallen heroes in abandoned epic battle-fields, ‘quotation gangs’, it seems, now dance upon the dead political heroism of the Malayalees. Suddenly, the media finds, they are everywhere, settling every kind of dispute. The institutions of law and order are turning, slowly, into adjuncts or versions of ‘quotation gangs’. The recent murder of the real-estate businessman Paul Muthoot, who was apparently traveling with two of the most notorious ‘quotation gang’ leaders in Kerala, has brought matters to a head. The papers are clogged these days with advertisements feeding Onam-time consumer-frenzy and news of the Paul Muthoot murder and they don’t see any connections between the two.
Monthly Archives: August 2009
Editors and Journalists Must Declare Their Assets As Well
On 15 August, our favourite newspaper, the Indian Express, carried a lead article on the edit page by its editor, Shekhar Gupta. The learned editor tells his readers, in case they are feeling depressed with the drought scenario, to drive down to Punjab – to Shimla, Chandigarh or Amritsar. ‘Just drive out’ he says… don’t fly’.
For then you will like Ali Baba be able to enter the magic cave and lo and behold! you will see ‘Totally lush, bounteous fields of paddy stretch endlessly into the horizon on both sides of the highway.’ And he goes on: ‘So where is the drought? Where are the caked, cracked and dried mud-flats with withered saplings that characterise drought? And mind you, Punjab and Haryana are among the worst hit states this year, notching up a rainfall deficit of 50 to 70 percent…’
Lord’s Own Voice, speaking through its prophet, tells us that why this is so:
Continue reading Editors and Journalists Must Declare Their Assets As Well
Dronacharyas All?
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
– Martin Luther King
I
Few years back a study commissioned by Ken Livingstone, the then Mayor of London had discovered how ‘Black teachers face bullying and racism’ in the school and had linked the plight of the black teachers to the ‘continuing problem of underachivement among black pupils’. The landmark report had called for a formal investigation – akin to the Stephen Lawrence inquiry into policing – to address concerns that black teachers are isolated, maligned and robbed of proper pay and status. (Hugh Muir, Friday September 8, 2006, The Guardian). There were also calls for a public inquiry into racism in schools.
One is yet to come across a comprehensive study of a similar nature to know how ‘apartheid of different kinds’ unfolds itself in schools in this part of the earth and whether teachers coming from – socially oppressed communities- are similarly ‘.isloated, maligned and robbed of proper pay and status..’and how does it impact the performance of the students coming from similar sections of society.Ofcourse, one does get an inkling of the state of affairs through related studies, reports and investigations. Continue reading Dronacharyas All?
My Name is Not Khan
Migration is a matter of my life. I first moved to Delhi to pursue my education. Later, I had to often leave my country to work. Immigration grew, and increasingly became tiring for me – various counters, security checks, scanning, and questions began scaring me. I carry a few baggages, but I think my family and I must carry all our rights with them when I move. I am a human being, whether I am documented or not. Immigration systems and detentions need reforms and alternatives to ensure that I am treated with full respect for my rights and human dignity. We need to support each other – tens of thousands of individuals will be harassed and detained tonight, tomorrow, and the next day in the present system.
यशपाल समिति पर बहस और दिमाग़ों के ताले
उच्च शिक्षा को लेकर यशपाल की अध्यक्षता में बनी समिति की रिपोर्ट को लेकर चल रही बहस से भारत के पढ़े -लिखे समाज के बारे में कुछ दिलचस्प नतीजे निकाले जा सकते हैं. सबसे पहले तो यह, जो कोई नई खोज नही है कि यदि आपको इनके राजनीतिक झुकाव का पता है तो आप इनकी प्रतिक्रिया का सहज ही अनुमान कर सकते हैं. वे बुद्धिजीवी भी, जो अपने आप को राजनीतिक प्रतिबद्धताओं से ऊपर बताते और समझते हैं, इस बीमारी से आजाद नहीं हैं. ऐसा लगता है, प्रतिक्रियाएं तैयार रखी थीं और उनका उस रिपोर्ट की अंतर्वस्तु से कोई लेना – देना नहीं जिसकी वे बात कर रही हैं.
जो प्रौढ़ हो चुके, यानी जिनके कई प्रकार के स्वार्थ उनके राजनीतिक आग्रहों से बंधे हुए हैं, उनकी बात छोड़ भी दें तो नौजवानों में इस राजनीतिक मताग्रह से दूषित विचारक्रम को देख कर चिंता होती है. नौजवान दिल -दिमाग आजाद होने चाहिए . किसी भी घटना या विचार पर प्रतिक्रिया देते समय उन्हें उसे ठीक-ठीक समझने की कोशिश करनी चाहिए. दुर्भाग्य से ऐसा होता नहीं दीखता. अगर सिर्फ शिक्षा से उदाहरण लें तो पांच साल पहले स्कूली शिक्षा के लिए बनाई गयी राष्ट्रीय पाठ्यचर्या पर हुई बहस में इस विचारहीन मताग्रह के अच्छे नमूने मिल जायेंगे. चूंकि उस प्रक्रिया का संचालन एक ऐसा व्यक्ति कर रहा था जिसे वामपंथी नहीं माना जाता, वामपंथी समूहों ने २००५ की पाठ्यचर्या पर संगठित आक्रमण किया. प्रखर इतिहासकारों और अन्य क्षेत्र के विद्वानों ने जिस तरह इस दस्तावेज पर हमला किया उससे इसका अहसास हुआ कि इसकी आज़ादी तो कतई नहीं कि आप बने-बनाए वैचारिक दायरों से निकल कर कुछ सोचने -समझने का प्रयास करें.
Continue reading यशपाल समिति पर बहस और दिमाग़ों के ताले
A People’s Uprising Destroyed by The Maoists: Santosh Rana
[This is a guest post by SANTOSH RANA, one of the legendary leaders of the Naxalite revolt in 1967. Rana lead one of the important CPI(ML) groups that is active in the Jharkhand region. Here he writes of the Lalgarh and the Maoists. The post was written sometime ago. It gives a more nuanced picture of the different strands and phases of the movement, including the PCPA phase.]
Lalgarh lies in Jhargram sub-division of West Medinipur district of West Bengal. It is part of the Paschimanchal (western zone) of the state and is an extension of Chhotanagpur plateau. With its laterite soil of low water-retention capacity and Sal-Mahua forests, the area differs from the Bengal plains both geographically and culturally. It is indeed a part of the Jharkhand cultural region. Nearly 30 percent of the population are Scheduled Tribes (ST), 20 percent Scheduled Castes (SC) and the rest are communities like Kudmi-Mahatos, Telis, Kumbhars, Bagals, Rajus, Tamblis, Khandaits and others. The Kudmi-Mahatos are the biggest among the rest, who had been treated as ST till 1935 when they were de-scheduled. The Mahatos, Bagals and some other communities are actually semi-tribals who have been partly Sanskritised but still retain their tribal characteristics; now they are treated as Other Backward Classes (OBC). There are other OBC communities like Kumbhar, Tanti, Teli and others. But in West Bengal, benefits for OBCs started not only late but also unenthusiastically. Even today, there is very little reservation – only 7 percent, and that too in the government jobs only – given to the OBCs here. The OBCs are not given any reservation in higher education. The SC communities living in the region ( Bagdi, Dom, Jele, Mal and Bauri etc) are so backward that they are unable to get government or semi-government jobs through reservation. The tribals constitute 30 percent of the population Jhargram sub-division, but in local jobs, they are given only 6 percent reservations – the stipulated quota for the STs at the state level.
Continue reading A People’s Uprising Destroyed by The Maoists: Santosh Rana
The Ghost of Jinnah, Advani and Jaswant Singh
[That the BJP expelled Jaswant Singh for writing a book on Jinnah is hardly surprising, even if it represents really the most rotten part of contemporary India’s political culture from the Right to the Left: intolerance of intellectual differences. What is intriguing is that Jaswant Singh wrote the bookknowing well that this would be the end of his political career; even LK Advani could not survive his praise of Jinnah and even though he came back, he remains a pale shadow of his former self. So Jaswant never really had a chance. I have not yet read the book but have tried to follow those who have. While a more detailed analysis will have to wait, I am posting a piece I had written sometime ago as part of a larger academic paper which deals with Advani’s Jinnah episode and the seductions of secularism. – AN ]
Advani Meets the Ghost of Jinnah
On 5 June 2005, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Deputy Prime Minister, Lal Krishna Advani unleashed a storm within his party and its allied organizations of the Hindu Right. On that day, speaking at a function organized by the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations, Economic Affairs and Law (KCFREAL), Advani referred to Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s speech in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly on 11 August 1947 and described it as ‘a classic exposition of a Secular State’ and Jinnah as a genuine secularist (Advani 2005). In this speech, sections of which Advani read out at length, Jinnah, the founder of the ‘Islamic state of Pakistan’ had said: ‘You are free, you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed; that has nothing to do with the business of the State…You will find that in the course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State’ (Jinnah 2005).
On the previous day, Advani had already fired his first salvo. He had visited the Qaid-e-Azam mausoleum where he made the following entry in the visitor’s book: ‘There are many people who leave an inerasable stamp on history. There are very few who actually create history. Qaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah was one such rare individual.’ And further, recalling Sarojini Naidu, underlined: ‘Sarojini Naidu, a leading luminary of India’s freedom struggle, described him as an ambassador of Hindu Muslim unity. His address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947, is really a classic, a forceful espousal of a secular state…’ (Sarwar 2005, Kapoor 2005). If there was any doubt in anybody’s mind that this was not just a polite entry in a visitor’s book, made in a formalistic way, Advani hastened to clear it in the speech that followed the next day.
Continue reading The Ghost of Jinnah, Advani and Jaswant Singh
On Thinking Pakistan—Rambles and Recollections of an… upon Intezar Husain’s ‘Chiraghon ka Dhuvan’
Once it is granted that in India we practise a different kind of secularism, a secularism which is unique to us, it becomes very difficult not to grant the same status to Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. This may seem bizarre given the fact that religion seems to pervade life in all these places, and a struggle over the definition of the state continues everywhere. However, defining oneself is different from the way one may be read. Many an avowed Muslim appears highly heretic to others. In fact the contemporary state, given the kinds of tasks of enumeration, surveillance, discipline and welfare that it is asked to command can only ever be secular, a fact that the Emory based legal scholar Abdullah Bin Naimi has been trying to hammer home to different kinds of Muslims over the last decade. For more of his works one can go to here and here.
The reason I bring this up in particular relates to the case of Pakistan. An avowed Islamic state, it has found it difficult to satisfy the urgings of different kinds of Islamists. And indeed it never can do so simply because protecting its citizens and assuring them equality is also one of its declared goals. The clash between the principle of treating each citizen as an individual, equal before the state, and the demands of different kinds of communities which may be ethnic, linguistic, regional or religious is precisely the playground of struggle that all South Asian, and now some European, states grapple with in their pursuit of secular goals. Continue reading On Thinking Pakistan—Rambles and Recollections of an… upon Intezar Husain’s ‘Chiraghon ka Dhuvan’
A Tale of Two Mosques
Ferozeshah Tughlaq (1351-1388), the last significant ruler of the Tughlaq Dynasty, built his capital of Ferozabad on the banks of the river Yamuna. The ruins of the city, that came to be called Ferozeshah Kotla in later centuries, are located behind the Indian Express building and the perpetually under-renovation Ferozeshah Kotla Cricket grounds that derive their name from this 5th capital at Delhi. Continue reading A Tale of Two Mosques
Expert Committee on Metadata and Data Standards for Personal Identification
There has been considerable debate on the politics of the Unique Identification. It is claimed that the ID card will not be a citizenship card, and the government expert committee has just released a document with the standards for identification. It would be good if we could have some people who could interpret this data for us and what it means for people concerned with the long term impact of the UID
Draft Person ID Codification
http://egovstandards.gov.in/public-review/egscontent.2008-09-04.3708808455/at_download/file
Generic Data Elements-
Virtuous Feedback: Why Google keeps winning
This is in response to Anu’s comment on my previous post on Google: Search and Destroy. I started off responding as a comment, but had been planning a follow-up post on the issues she had raised. Read the first post and her comments here.
Anu’s queries are centred around the stability of Google’s current market dominance – namely, can a new entrant do to Google what Google appears to be doing to Microsoft? In an industry of constant innovation, what is to say the next big innovation – in search, or in data storage etc – won’t come from somewhere completely unexpected and upend the Google applecart?
These arguments are in essence the arguments that Google has consistently cited – this is not to say that this is problem: these are very good arguments with no clear answers and are the reason that Google is still around in its present form and has not been split into many smaller Googules.
The stability of near-monopolies is actually a very interesting question – one that a lot of MBA classes spend a lot of time over. There might be a bit of jargon in this post, but I think its worth the effort.
On Competition: Despite all the rhetoric about competition making us stronger, the fact is that most businesses hate competition. The key to successful business is create a market and then erect enough barriers to entry to make life hell for new entrants. The better the barriers, the greater are your profit margins. So, are there barriers to entry in Google-land – or is it simply a case of being better than everyone?
Continue reading Virtuous Feedback: Why Google keeps winning
Ai Weiwei’s (Chinese Artist) Statement: Guest Post from Monica Narula
Dear All,
I would like to share with all Kafila readers something that my friend Monica Narula posted recently on the Reader List about the intimidation that the well known Chinese contemporary artist, Ai Weiwei has faced, in connection with his support for the currently detained dissident rights activist Tan Zuoren in Chengdu. This is an introduction to Ai Weiwei in the current context and a text of his recent statement released in the context of the harrassment (including beatings by police) that he has had to go through. Please read and share widely.
best
Shuddha
—————
Avant-garde artist Ai Weiwei, one of China’s foremost public intellectuals, was recently detained and beaten by police when he attempted to testify at the show trial of dissident Tan Zuoren in Chengdu. Harassment and threats are connected, in part, to his “Names Project,” a performative intervention which aims to compile, publish, disseminate, and memorialize the names of the thousands of children who were crushed to death en mass in their “crumbling tofu construction” schools (the rotten fruits of official corruption and kickbacks) during the May 12, 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, while neighboring government buildings stood intact. The State has strong- armed bereaved parents into silence, refused to investigate government corruption, and barred the victims’ names from public release. Ai Weiwei’s vocal defiance has led to his censorship, intimidation, threats and now arrest and beating.
Having spent the first 2 decades of his life with his father, the revolutionary poet Ai Qing, in a cadre labor reform camp for errant intellectuals, Ai Weiwei understands that no one in China, no matter how “high profile” is ever “safe. Thus, he has chosen to push the State as far as he can in an attempt to reclaim the public sphere for critical discourse, and champion the cause of free speech and genuine citizen and human rights in China. As such, he has willingly put himself in a great deal of danger. His recent statement merits reposting. I hope that you will pass this on and share it with others who believe in the need to nurture and support critical public intellectuals, especially in places like China, where there are so few
such clarion and courageous voices.
Ai Weiwei’s Statement
“Watch out! Have you prepared yourself?” —
Ai Weiwei: “I am ready. Or, perhaps I should say that there is nothing to prepare, no way to prepare myself. A person–this is all of me–is something that can be received by others. I offer up all of myself. When the time comes when it is necessary, I will not hesitate, I won’t be ambiguous about it. If there is anything that I am reluctant to leave behind it is the wondrous miracle that life has brought me. And that miracles are that every one of us is the same, that people are equal in this game, as well as the fantasies that come along with playing it, and our freedom. I regard every kind of intimidation, from any kind of ‘authority or power’ [sic – the character is for quanli as in ‘rights’, but from the context this appears to be a typo, perhaps?], as a threat to human dignity, rationality and reason–a threat to the very possibility of opposition. I will learn to face and confront this.”
Go, Fly A Kite !
Dear all,
Here is the slightly longer, original version of a text by me on ‘Kite Flying’ (among other things) that appeared in the latest issue of Outlook, to mark the 15th of August. The version published in Outlook is titledFreedom on A String.
Apologies for cross posting on Reader List.
best
Shuddha
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Go, Fly a Kite !
There is almost nothing about rituals of statehood that appeals to me. The speeches leave me cold and patriotic anthems are the worst, most ponderous form of music ever performed or invented. As for the pomp and circumstance of parades and other solemn but pathetic attempts at grandeur – they only repeat their lessons in how distant the apparatus of the state actually is from the lives of citizens. Continue reading Go, Fly A Kite !
Balmiki, Bawaria, Garg, Chauhan: Proclaimed offenders all
The Haryana Police website has a list of proclaimed offenders. Great. E-governance and all. But how does it help them to record the caste of every ‘proclaimed offender’? Perhaps because caste is such a valuable marker of identity that it helps nabbing them – after all, where would a Chauhan hide if not in the house?
Or perhaps there is more to it.Is it merely incidental that most proclaimed offenders seem to be Balmiki Dalits in a state known for atrocities against Dalits, in which the upper castes act with impunity in collusion with the Haryana police?
Browse through and you will see, fortunately or unfortunately, that they haven’t been able to find the caste of many, and for very few Muslims have they any caste detail.
Cancer I can’t Afford – Erica Rex
Finding out I had breast cancer came as a shock. But the really rude awakening was learning I’m not middle class anymore.
I found a lump in my breast last March. This wasn’t like the lumps of my youth. Those earlier iterations had been hard as pebbles, painful, nested between my sternum and the base of my breast. They had come and gone with my monthly cycle. This new lump, a lima bean in size and shape, lay recumbent, a half-inch south of my right nipple, just under the skin. And it didn’t hurt. At all. When I pressed on it, it seemed to dip, as though
bobbing on water.
Click here to read the rest of this article by the marvellous Erica Rex.
“China should break up India”
That’s the view of a Chinese strategic expert. The funniest part is:
China can give political support to Bangladesh enabling the latter to encourage ethnic Bengalis in India to get rid of Indian control and unite with Bangladesh as one Bengali nation; if the same is not possible, creation of at least another free Bengali nation state as a friendly neighbour of Bangladesh, would be desirable, for the purpose of weakening India’s expansion and threat aimed at forming a ‘unified South Asia’. [DS Rajan]
Land and Human Rights
There are few more contentious and complex problems in India than those dealing with land and land rights. Rather than just focus on a single issue, a continuum of rights has to be established regarding land, especially in areas of access and reforms, laws and enforcement, use planning and management, administration and information, and its cross-cutting issues. The new and existing initiatives on land should be guided by the core values of pro-poor, conflict resolution, democratic governance, equity, and justice, as well as gender sensitiveness. Although land policy development is taking place, it generally lacks a human rights framework. Land is not simply a resource for one human right. While some rights have been recently established in the legal framework (like work, education, food), they all can be adversely affected by access to land, and the legal implications of it for a broad range of human rights is obvious. The Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bills should also be assessed on the basis of several international principles, interpretive documents and legal frameworks. Continue reading Land and Human Rights
Search and destroy: Google and the online ad market
Google spokesperson, Adam Kovacevich’s favourite example of a well-researched article on the now-aborted Yahoo-Google deal is “The Plot to Kill Google” that appeared in Wired Magazine in January 2009. The lengthy article takes great pains to reveal Microsoft’s attempts to scupper “a small deal that it [Google] was convinced would benefit consumers, the two companies and the search-advertising market as a whole” and paints Google a company of well-meaning nerds whose only fault is their inability to schmooze with powerbrokers in Washington. Towards the end however, one gets the feeling that Google seems to have a robust team of lobbyists itself. The article is co-written by a member of the New America Foundation – a think-tank chaired by Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Continue reading Search and destroy: Google and the online ad market
‘It will lead to the commodification of homosexuals’
(I had conducted this interview while working on a story on the Delhi High Court judgement on the 377 case. While that story didn’t materialise, I thought I should post this interview now.)
PURUSHOTHAMAN MULLOLI is general secretary of the Joint Action Council, Kannur-India (JACKINDIA) which intervened in the Section 377 case in the Delhi High Court. In an interview he explains his opposition to the case.
What is JACKINDIA? Continue reading ‘It will lead to the commodification of homosexuals’
The Old Fort
(First published in Landscape. Photographs by HIMANSHU JOSHI.)
The Old Fort, popularly known as Puraana Qila, was known to both the Author of Asaar-us-Sanadeed- Syed Ahmad Khan and the author of Waqeyat-e-Daar-ul-Hukoomat Dehli- Bashir Ahmad as Qila-e-Kuhna. The three terms Old Fort, Puraana Qila and, Qila-e-Kuhna mean exactly the same thing, The first is English, the last is Persian and the second is Urdu. Somehow the Hindi equivalent Pracheen Durg has never been in use despite the popular, though as yet historically unsubstantiated claim that this is the site of the legendry Indraprasth or Inderpat built by the mythological Pandavas. Continue reading The Old Fort
Striving for Magic in the City of Words
By LAWRENCE LIANG and SIDDHARTH NARRAIN
(Published as Magic in the ‘City of Words’ in the August 2009 issue of Himal)
After agitating for many years against the existence of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalised homosexuality, it is understandable that the Delhi High Court’s 2 July decision in the Naz Foundation case, decriminalising homosexuality, has been welcomed and celebrated by the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community. But to see this decision as a victory of the LGBT community alone would be to do injustice to the Delhi High Court’s remarkably progressive and well-reasoned decision, and the immense potential this judgement has for changing the course of equality jurisprudence in India. It would also display a very narrow understanding of the relationship between constitutional change and social movements striving for a more just and democratic society. Continue reading Striving for Magic in the City of Words
