Guest post by GHAZALA JAMIL

I suppose some clarifications are in order. I do doubt that Anna’s Lokpalmobilisation is a movement. Just as Anti-Mandal was, just as Ramjanmbhoomi is, but not the way Dalit Panthers was or NBA and MKSS are.  I also want to clarify that my position is not of frivolous dismissal of this mobilisation as a middle class picnic but one of grave concern against what I feel is a uni-dimensional, one point demand around which an entirely regressive and casteist politics can be and is being wrapped up. A collectivity of SC/ST and Minority groups yesterday organised a protest march in Central Delhi. It was reported in many dailies- highlighted as having affected traffic in the area for 45 minutes thus dismissed as not being any valid counterpoint to ‘I am Anna’ wave.

Continue reading The Fallacy of Progressive Yearnings: Ghazala Jamil →

I’ve been struggling to write on the Hazare moment but in her piece here, Nivedita Menon has begun going where I wanted to so I shall just add to her conversation with a second set of experiences and questions. Forgive the fragments.

In a post earlier that was written after the first stirrings in Egypt, I had asked a set of questions about politics, protests and publics:

“Could reclaiming public space for conversations, debates and voices – regardless of what these voices want to say and whether “we” agree with “them” or not – become a single point agenda for a movement of our own? Could the idea of the public bring urban residents together – regardless of what we want to do once we’re in that space? Could public space be an answer that rallies people together – the more voices, the more noise, the more debates, the more antagonism that come, from any point of view, would that noise not represent a resistance to the single story being told about India today?

Could such spaces be created? Would anyone come? How can they be sustained? How can we use new forms of information flows and technologies in this process? What are the new sites and spaces of struggle open to us?”

I believe, in one sense, this moment has been brought to us. I had been speaking about “inequality” in that post as an ideal broad concept that brings people together. It isn’t what has happened here and that is not something to forget. It is “corruption” – narrowly defined, poorly understood but deeply felt. So be it. The Noise is here. Now what?

I was walking through hordes of people last week in Jantar Mantar, on India Gate. It was the first time I’ve been among publics in this city with city streets so alive and full of people and yet felt totally emotionally, politically and intellectually disconnected from them. It was an uncomfortable, strange feeling. After years of thinking about what it would take to get people onto the streets in anger, seeking change, how could the moment feel so empty? Is Nivedita right – are “we” missing something? Am I? How is one meant to engage?

Continue reading Many Halves of a Split Screen →