Yearly Archives: 2012

Debates, Everyday Life, Genders, Language, Metropolis, Movements, Politics

Notes from a Night Walk in Delhi University

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[ B&W pictures, courtesy Chandan Gomes. Colour pictures and cell phone video footage, courtesy, Bonojit Husain, New Socialist Initiative ]

Dear young women and men of Delhi,

I am writing to you again because I have been listening to you. This is a strange time, when everybody is talking, and everybody is listening, and the unknown citizen, who could have been any one of you, has transformed us all.

I was with you last night, from five thirty in the evening to around nine at night, while we walked together from the Vishwavidyalaya (University) Metro Station to Vijay Nagar, Kamla Nagar and the North Campus of Delhi University. There were around twelve hundred of you. Several of you held candles. You made yourselves into a moving blur of light. As the shopkeepers of Vijay Nagar, as the rent collecting aunties of paying guest accommodations, as the men and boys and girls and women on the streets and in the verandahs looked at you in wonder, you looked back at them, many of you smiled and waved. I could see some people in the crowd lip-synch with your Hallabols.

[ video of the night march near Delhi University ]

Continue reading Notes from a Night Walk in Delhi University →

Bad ideas, Metropolis

Desires of planning and the planning of Desires: Vignettes of a Rape Culture and Beyond: Rijul Kochhar

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Guest post by text by RIJUL KOCHHAR photos by CHANDAN GOMES

Each person, withdrawn into himself, behaves as though he is a stranger to the destiny of all the others. His children and his good friends constitute for him the whole of the human species. As for his transactions with his fellow citizens, he may mix among them, but he sees them not; he touches them, but does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone. And if on these terms there remains in his mind a sense of family, there no longer remains a sense of society.

~Alexis de Toqueville (Epigraph to Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man)

Friends! You drank some darkness

and became visible

~Tomas Tranströmer (“Elegy”)

An hour is what it took for a band of six males to show a woman, a paramedic, ‘her place’ in contemporary Delhi. Often, in our pathological public places, it takes a mere moment. This case is different because it compels us to think through the limits of brutality of the living; it compels us to confront the limits of our capacity to inflict violence. But the night of December 16, 2012 also confronts us with the kind of cities we are building and the kind of places we want to inhabit. It is a different, by no means less important, matter that this woman—from whatever one has gathered these past weeks through the periodic medical bulletins—has battled to compel us to confront all of this and more, for the pain of her body and the brutality of an experience that she had survived for two weeks, serves a specular role—through it, we bear witness to ourselves, or so one hopes.

Passengers in a DTC bus try and catch a glimpse of the candle light vigil organised outside Safdarjung Hospital. Thousands of commuters became witness to today’s meet – some got down from their buses to join the vigil. Some joined their hands when their gaze fell on the bed of candles. An old woman took out her hair clip that was shaped like a flower and threw it towards us.
Passengers in a DTC bus try and catch a glimpse of the candle light vigil organised outside Safdarjung Hospital. Thousands of commuters became witness to today’s meet – some got down from their buses to join the vigil. Some joined their hands when their gaze fell on the bed of candles. An old woman took out her hair clip that was shaped like a flower and threw it towards us.

Continue reading Desires of planning and the planning of Desires: Vignettes of a Rape Culture and Beyond: Rijul Kochhar →

Genders, Identities, Movements

In Memory of The Unknown Citizen

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We may never know her name. But not every memory needs a name or a pile of stone. Her memorial need not claim space on a city street, or square, or on the river-front. Let the well-known Leader and the Unknown Soldier have their real estate, but for the Unknown Citizen, let us not fire gun salutes, fly flags at half-mast or build portals and pedestals. And let us not for even a moment imagine that instituting police measures against the people the Prime Minister calls ‘foot-loose migrants’ will mean anything remotely resembling justice.

We can think about what the contours of enduring justice can be without being hangmen. Only safe cities, safe towns and safe villages, and freedom for all men and women will mean justice. Justice does not come from the gallows. It springs from a freedom from fear, and the gallows only perpetuate fear. Hangmen will turn the bullies who rape into the cowards who will automatically murder so that there may not be a trace of their rape. It will make fathers who rape their daughters into fathers who rape and murder their daughters. Capital punishment will lead to less, not more convictions for rape and heinous sexual violence. That can never lead us to justice. Continue reading In Memory of The Unknown Citizen →

Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Metropolis, Movements, Politics, Sex, Violence/Conflict

Evening at Jantar Mantar.

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Candles at,Jantar Mantar
Candles at,Jantar Mantar
The Wake
The Wake
Armed, Cold, Bored
Armed, Cold, Bored
Genders, Law, Metropolis, Violence/Conflict

We must resist the cunning of judicial reform: Pratiksha Baxi

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Guest Post by PRATIKSHA BAXI

The death of the 23 year old woman following the brutal gangrape rape and assault on a moving bus on 16 December 2012 at a hospital in Singapore early this morning leaves all of us in states of deep mourning. This is a political death. Rape and murder of women is political violence against all women, whether or not, the political class recognises and accepts this. In the course of the last two weeks, many body blows have been endured. We felt a body blow after the political death of the 17-year-old gangrape victim in Patiala who took her life after she was humiliated and pressurised to compromise. The numbing list of such political violence continues.

We have seen the emergence of many kinds of publics. There have been many speeches and writing against the emergence of a retributive public, where the cry for death penalty or castration became a vocabulary of protest, also especially since the media initially focussed largely on this demand. Yet in the last few days there has been a perceptible shift from the focus on forming a retributive public moving towards a passionately reasoned and informed public on what the government needs to do to be accountable to rape survivors, and indeed, to all of us who reject the rape cultures in India.
Continue reading We must resist the cunning of judicial reform: Pratiksha Baxi →

Genders, Language, Media politics, Movements, Violence/Conflict

For Anonymous: Nilanjana Roy

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Guest post by NILANJANA ROY

Photo: Ruchir Joshi
Photo: Ruchir Joshi

That girl, the one without the name. The one just like us. The one whose battered body stood for all the anonymous women in this country whose rapes and deaths are a footnote in the left-hand column of the newspaper.

Sometimes, when we talk about the history of women in India, we speak in shorthand. The Mathura rape case. The Vishaka guidelines. The Bhanwari Devi case, the Suryanelli affair, the Soni Sori allegations, the business at Kunan Pushpora. Each of these, the names of women and places, mapping a geography of pain; unspeakable damage inflicted on women’s bodies, on the map of India, where you can, if you want, create a constantly updating map of violence against women. Continue reading For Anonymous: Nilanjana Roy →

Genders, Movements

Hope

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Some images from Jantar Mantar today.

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Genders, Metropolis, Movements

Remembering the 23 Year Old Who Brought Delhi Together

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Sucheta Dey (AISA) and Kavita Krishnan (AIPWA) just before they spoke at the condolence meeting
Sucheta Dey (AISA) and Kavita Krishnan (AIPWA) just before they spoke at the condolence meeting

This morning, Delhi woke up to the news that the 23 year old Paramedic that the city had taken to its heart had breathed her last at around two in the morning at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore. From early morning, sms messages, phone calls and facebook and twitter posts and updates, informed the city about a condolence meeting scheduled for 11 am in the morning at Jantar Mantar. I was there by 11, and realized that a lot of people were having problems getting there because a shameless administration had decided to shut down entry and exits on to reportedly ten stations of the Delhi Metro. Buses were also being diverted. Despite this, a sizable crowd had gathered by around noon. Two minutes silence was observed. Sucheta Dey (AISA, JNU) and Kavita Krishnan (AIPWA) spoke briefly.

Both emphasized the need for a peaceful, dignified gathering to pay respects to the brave fighting spirit of the deceased woman. Kavita Krishnan spoke about the need to combat patriarchy everywhere, in the family, at home, in the workplace, in colleges, schools and universitities. And called for an to end the culture of impunity that lets men think that they can get away with rape and sexual violence. Continue reading Remembering the 23 Year Old Who Brought Delhi Together →

Identities

A Day in the Life of a Sikh Prejudice: Pukhraj Singh

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Guest post by PUKHRAJ SINGH

Part I

“The very ink with which history is written,” allegorised Mark Twain, “is merely fluid prejudice.” By that rationale, religion can often be the quill which defaces the truth with its broad strokes, perverting history than promulgating it. And like the bastard child of these perversions, a few counter-narratives manage to wade through the tides of public opinion, carrying the dim outline of the ossified ideas that led to its tragic pursuit. But one has to have the right kind of eyes, says Hunter S. Thompson, to “see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

A similar, horrid apparition of truth opened the floodgates of memories and angst very recently as a headline screamed through the Twitterverse—40 Sikhs Convert to Christianity in a Tarn Taran District Village: Gurdwara Management’s Treatment of “Low Caste” Sikhs Calls for Strict Action—in the particularly sultry month of August. Continue reading A Day in the Life of a Sikh Prejudice: Pukhraj Singh →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Identities, Violence/Conflict

Seeing Pakistan from Juhapura: Zahir Janmohamed

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Guest post by ZAHIR JANMOHAMED

Since I started conducting research in March 2011 about the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots, I have learned that the worst way to begin a conversation with a Muslim here in Ahmedabad is to ask about the 2002 riots. I was an eye-witness to the riots in 2002 and I thought my experiences might make some Muslims in Gujarat feel more comfortable speaking with me. I was wrong.

Sometimes I had to interview a person four or five times before they felt comfortable speaking about the 2002 riots. The reasons are varied. Some feel there is no use speaking about the riots as they know justice will never come under Narendra Modi’s watch. Others feel exploited by NGOs and Islamic groups who have used their stories to raise funds for their organizations abroad. And others, as one rape survivor told me, do not want to “relive the trauma.”

But if you ask Muslims in Ahmedabad about Pakistan, chances are you will walk home with a notebook full of comments. Earlier this week I went around my neighborhood of Juhapura—an area pejoratively known as “mini Pakistan”—and asked residents for their comments on Pakistan. The answers are telling. Continue reading Seeing Pakistan from Juhapura: Zahir Janmohamed →

Culture, Debates, Identities, Images, Language, Sex, Violence/Conflict

What Do Men Have To Do With It?: Rahul Roy

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Guest post by RAHUL ROY

I have been sitting quietly trying to finish my new film and had promised myself that I would not get side tracked and concentrate on the task at hand. But enough is enough. I am shocked and disappointed at the way men high jacked a protest that could have been and probably still is the most significant pouring out of women who may never have thought in their wildest dreams that they would be facing water cannons and cops giving them a chase with iron tipped sticks. I am sure it is a coming of age moment for many young women of the city of Delhi.

I am aware that there has been a fair bit of cynicism about middle class women running up and down Raisina Hill and whether it adds up to anything. It damn well does. The next time they see adivasis being chased down by the police in Chattisgarh or in Orissa a penny will drop. It already is, today there is an article by a 19 year old student form Lady Sri Ram College narrating her brush with Delhi Police at the Parlaiment Street Police station and quite significantly she adds that if they are capable of behaving the way they did with a group of ‘well connected’ college students in Delhi then what must be happening in the more remote areas of non metropolitan India. Continue reading What Do Men Have To Do With It?: Rahul Roy →

Genders, Politics

Dear Abhijit babu – The Society of Painted and Dented Ladies responds

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Rajyasree Sen in Firstpost:

Dear Shri Abhijit Mukherjee,

I am writing to you in my capacity of  General Secretary of the Society of Painted and Dented Ladies of India. First of all, I would like to state that I was most touched that you have noticed our presence in your midst. For long, we the Painted and Dented Ladies have suffered on the fringes of society, waiting to be recognised – especially by the likes of political luminaries such as you. This honour from a sitting MP, has given me inestimable joy. Not to forget that you are our venerable president, Pranab Mukherjee’s very own son. I stand up in respect, sir.

Read the rest of this article here.

Law, Politics, Violence/Conflict

This Truth Will Never Be Televised: Saiyed Danish

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Guest post by SAIYED DANISH

The death of the police constable Subhash Tomar in the middle of the anti-rape protests at India Gate is eerily reminiscent of the controversial death of Inspector Mohan Chandra during the infamous Batla House encounter in 2008.

 The post-mortem report of Constable Subhash Tomar says that he died of a heart attack which was triggered by internal injuries. The police say those injuries were the result of fatal blows given to him by the angry protestors. However, a protestor named Yogendra had earlier said on national TV that he “saw him running towards the protestors and then collapsing suddenly on his own.” Yet another controversy over the death of a police man,  with a familiar  clash of State vs People’s versions has now begun.

Continue reading This Truth Will Never Be Televised: Saiyed Danish →

Genders, Movements, Politics

Men against Sexual Violence, Men for Gender Justice

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Statement by Men for Gender Justice, Bangalore

Public Protest on December 30th


Men against Sexual Violence, Men for Gender Justice

As men, we are ashamed over the continuing domination of men over women!!

Women and men are Equal. Men should understand and accept this!!

Men should become responsible, humane and non-violent!!

As protesters are pouring into the streets all across the country and demanding justice for the recent brutal gang-rape of a 23 year old woman in Delhi, we as men who stand for justice and equality are ashamed, as a large section of men in our country are committing abuses against women – rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence, economic and legal discrimination.

Continue reading Men against Sexual Violence, Men for Gender Justice →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Genders, Images

Justice for Women Now: Protest in New Delhi

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Sack the Top Cop
Sack the Top Cop

On a day when the Prime Minister put his foot in his mouth by saying that ‘footlose migrants’ were responsible for heinous crimes like rape. On a day when the S.O.P – ‘son of a president / sign of a pervert’ – Abhijit Mukherjee said that the protestors were ‘dented and painted’ women, on a day when yet another gang rape was reported in Delhi, and a young woman ended her life in Patiala because the police harassed her in Patiala following her complaint of rape  – hundreds of young women and men, and many not so young and women and men, gathered under the single banner of ‘Justice for Women Now’ at noon in New Delhi, at the Nizamuddin ‘Sabz Burj’ with an intention to march to India Gate. They were stopped at the intersection of Zakir Husain Marg and Subramania Bharati Marg by several cordons of police. The police were arrayed across two intersections, several layers deep. The gathering was unarmed, peaceful, angry, joyous and disciplined. They were faced by a sullen array of police, armed with sticks and tear gas. The police did not let the gathering move towards India Gate, and the peacable, orderly gathering sat on the street for around two hours. There were several television and media crews.The primary demands articulated by the demonstration included ‘fast track’ processes for the 100,000 pending rape and sexual assault cases, the resignation of the police commissioner of Delhi, the drafting of gender sensitive and non-sexist laws, a call for a special session of parliament and a time bound commitment towards a massive expansion of safe public transport for women in metros. Continue reading Justice for Women Now: Protest in New Delhi →

Bad ideas, Technology

Merry Copyright to you – A jingle for the Oxford v. Rameshwari Case

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A group of publishers (Oxford and Cambridge University Press and Francis & Taylor) have sued Delhi University & its agent, Rameshwari Photocopy Service for compiling short extracts from different textbooks into a digest for students to use as part of their study (commonly referred to as “course packs”).

Naturally, students, teachers and even authors of these text books have protested this aggressive law suit, particularly since this is perfectly acceptable under the Indian Copyright Act, which allows for “fair use” and permits any reproduction of copyrighted works, so long as it is done in the course of educational instruction.


This is not mala fide use, nor is anyone selling these ‘course packs’ for profit. Publishers going after students, many of them from economically disadvantaged communities, despite the high cost of textbooks, really begs the question – whither our constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right to education? Continue reading Merry Copyright to you – A jingle for the Oxford v. Rameshwari Case →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Everyday Life

Cash Transfers and UID: Essential Demands

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Statement by citizens (signatures below)

We support cash transfers such as old age pensions, widow pensions, maternity entitlements and scholarships. However, we oppose the government’s plan for accelerated mass conversion of welfare schemes to UID-driven cash transfers. This plan could cause havoc and massive social exclusion. We demand the following:

1. No replacement of food with cash under the Public Distribution System. 

The PDS is a vital source of economic security and nutrition support for millions of people. It should be expanded and consolidated, not dismantled.

2. Immediate enactment of a comprehensive National Food Security Act, including universal PDS.

Instead of diverting the public’s attention with promises of mass cash transfers before the 2014 elections, the government should redeem its promise to enact a National Food Security Act (NFSA).  Continue reading Cash Transfers and UID: Essential Demands →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Genders, Images, Language, Violence/Conflict

Bakht Arif, from Pakistan, sings Zinda Lash for Patronizing Indian Politicians (No, Don’t Listen to Honey Singh)

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UPDATED : December 28, 2012

Don’t be a zombie. Never be a Zinda Lash.

No. Don’t Listen to Honey Singh talking about what he wants to do to the bodies of young women.

No. Don’t listen to Sushma Swaraj of the BJP talking about what she thinks is the zinda lash when she talks about the body of a young woman. Continue reading Bakht Arif, from Pakistan, sings Zinda Lash for Patronizing Indian Politicians (No, Don’t Listen to Honey Singh) →

Centre watch, Genders, Law, Violence/Conflict

How Delhi police assaulted my daughter on 25 December: Usha Saxena

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From The Telegraph

USHA SAXENA writes a letter to Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit:

Dear ma’am,

My daughter Shambhavi and I and a colleague of mine Reema Ganguly went to Jantar Mantar today 25th Dec to take part in a peaceful gathering there against the gang-rape.

At around 4pm two girls came running up to us in tears and said that the police had dragged away 2 of their female friends to Parliament Street Police Station and they asked us to help bring them back. The three of us joined 9 other women and we went to the police station. When we reached there we only saw male constables. We demanded to talk to a female senior officer and said that the 3 women must be released immediately. The policemen very rudely and aggressively tried to chase us out. We refused to leave without those 3 women and so one male cop ordered some female cops standing in the courtyard to come in and arrest all of us. Continue reading How Delhi police assaulted my daughter on 25 December: Usha Saxena →

Everyday Life, Genders, Government, Language, Movements, Violence/Conflict

An ‘I Witness’ Account of Delhi Police and RAF Violence at India Gate on 23 December: Sangeeta Das

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Guest post by SANGEETA DAS

[The Delhi Police has begun systematically lying about what has been happening in the past few days. We have seen spin doctoring around the unfortunate death of Constable Subhash Tomar. There has been efforts to plant generalized and unsubstantiated rumours about the presence of ‘terrorists’ amongst the crowds at India Gate. We have even seen the Chief Minister of Delhi, Shiela Dikshit and a sub divisional magistrate complain about the Delhi Police trying to interfere and influence that process of the recording of testimonies. Here is an important account by an eyewitness, Sangeeta Das, about the way the police behaved on the evening of the 23rd of December. Please note the kind of language that she says policemen were using. Can we trust the city to be safe in their hands.]

I am appalled at the lop-sided relay of events and incomplete images being telecast by some of the NEWS channels on TV, regarding the incident that happened at India Gate yesterday (this is an account of what happened on 23rd of December) at around 5:30 PM.

I was there. We were all on the other side of India Gate towards the Dhyan Chand Stadium.

I think I need to paint the correct picture for the nation. Except for CNN IBN and NEWS X, most other channels are not showing the peaceful gathering. Thus it gives out the wrong message to the nation, to the politicians, to other women that there was violence. Continue reading An ‘I Witness’ Account of Delhi Police and RAF Violence at India Gate on 23 December: Sangeeta Das →

Government, Law, Politics, Sex, Violence/Conflict

Armed Forces Special Powers Act provides impunity for rape: Warisha Farasat

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Guest post by WARISHA FARASAT

The protests against the brutal gangrape of a young 23 year-old girl in Delhi have been unprecedented. Finally, it appears that the impunity with which crimes against women in our country are committed is causing outrage, and both men and women are demanding justice. What is encouraging is that although the protests were triggered by the recent incident of rape in Delhi, it has also forced us to reflect on the larger issue of impunity for rape and other crimes against women, particularly when it happens against women belonging to the marginalized communities. Moreover, it is also politicizing an entire generation of young people that are realizing that their voice can create ripples in the political establishment in Delhi.

Shuddhabrata Sengupta in his earlier post has lucidly articulated about how our response to sexual violence should not be selective, and our protests should recognise the brutality of crimes against women in the conflict areas of Kashmir, Manipur and Chhattisgarh. In Kashmir, accusations of rape have been repeatedly made against the security force personnel. It has been alleged that rape and assaults have occurred during crackdowns, cordon and search operations. During these operations the men were held for identification outside their houses, near mosques or in a common ground while the security forces searched their homes. During these search operations, safeguards such as inclusion of a women officer in the search teams were never followed. Continue reading Armed Forces Special Powers Act provides impunity for rape: Warisha Farasat →