STATEMENT BY KAFILA COLLECTIVE
The Kafila collective takes serious note of the accusation of sexual assault/rape against one of our members, Mahmood Farooqi. We stand by the rights of both the complainant and the accused to a fair investigation and hope for a speedy and just resolution to the issue. Until then, Mahmood Farooqui is suspended from Kafila and will not be writing in it.
ANDREW KEEN writes in The Sunday Times (June 15, 2015) on E-learning, which Indian universities are promoting as the latest and best. It turns out that Silicon Valley IT bigwigs, all frantically developing the perfect software that can finally eliminate human teachers, (a goal being promoted enthusiastically by the Indian system through Massive Online Open Courses MOOC), are themselves sending their children to ‘Waldorf Schools’, in which computers, tablets and smartphones are banned (yes, indeed, BANNED), because, says the Media and Technology Philosophy Statement of Waldorf School:
Waldorf educators believe it is far more important for students to interact with one another and their teachers, and work with real materials than to interface with electronic media or technology.
Oh my. Are they taking us back to the Dark Ages, as Indian teachers want us to?
Or (Heavy Irony Warning) – do children need ‘traditional’ education with human teachers and human interaction, so that they can develop the creative skills necessary to develop the software that can eliminate humans?
And of course, it will inevitably be e-education for the masses, and increasingly expensive “traditional education” for the elites. As Keen puts it:
It is yet another irony that, over in California, the Waldorf School of the Peninsula says it provides a “Renaissance education in Silicon Valley”. While an online humanities-lite education is good enough for the masses, the children of successful venture capitalists and digital entrepreneurs are being educated in an unambiguously low-tech environment dominated by the physical relationship between teacher and student and a body of core knowledge that stretches back for hundreds of years.
Keen quotes William Deresiewicz:
Moocs, Deresiewicz argues, are “about reinforcing existing hierarchies and monetising institutional prestige. The kids at Harvard get to interact with their professors. The kids at San Jose State get to watch the kids at Harvard interact with their professors.”
Full article by Andrew Keen starts here:
Online learning is yet to take off in Britain as it has in America, where the market research firm Global Industry Analysts estimates that revenue for the online learning sector will reach more than $100bn (Pounds 64bn) this year.
But if on-line education really is the future, why are so many IT moguls choosing traditional schooling for their own children?
Among the rich and powerful families of Silicon Valley, the new-new thing is to give their children a “Waldorf” education that outlaws computers, tablets and smartphones. Continue reading Do as iSay, not as iDo – Silicon Valley’s two faces on learning: Andrew Keen
Praful Bidwai is no more. He died in Amsterdam on Tuesday evening due to a cardiac arrest, With his death we have lost the ‘best left-wing journalist’ in this part of South Asia whose articles appeared in many newspapers and magazines in the subcontinent and in the middle east and was frequently published by The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique as well. Praful will be missed by thousands and thousands of his readers (this pen pusher included) who were ‘groomed’ by him in a career spanning more than four decades. For them he was one such voice who remained uncompromising in his strident criticism of communal fundamentalisms of various kinds and the crony capitalism which is having a field day these days. He was a leading voice for nuclear disarmament and peace as well and had written extensively on it. It was a strange coincidence that we met last in the capital when a memorial meeting was organised by Communist Party of India to remember the legendary Comrade Govind Pansare who was assassinated few days back. He was to speak in the meeting. The meeting was yet to start and I could steal some time to talk to him. He told he is working on a book – which was near completion – on the left movement in the country and had interviewed many activists associated with the movement to listen to their understanding of challenges before the left. And in that connection he had long meeting with Com Pansare – once in Kolhapur and one possibly in Mumbai. He shared his fascination about the energies he still had at that age for ‘the cause’. Few days after the meeting, there was a call from him asking for a phone number of a dalit activist which incidentally I did not have. Yes, that was the last time I spoke to him.
Atali, the site of recent attacks on Muslims by their Hindi co-villagers, is a metaphor for India. Or,a mirror India should look into, to ‘re-cognize’ itself. To know that it is gradually turning into a majoritarian society. A society in which neighbors turn into strangers and yet keep feigning /pretending affinity and love for each other. A nation with a Hindu sensibility-zone and a Muslim sensibility zone.
The rites of passage are familiar. The majority has to be persuaded and convinced that it has to graduate from its present complacent position to a more respectable position of power, which was always its due but which it could not get because of the policies of ‘appeasement of the minorities’. After a long, sustained education, a ceremony, an event is organized in which majority has to participate as one person. It has to be a violent event in which blood would be shed. Had not Bhima drunk the blood of Kauravas? Or, Draupadi untied her hair with a vow that she would tie it only after washing it with the blood of Duhshasana? Continue reading Hindu Rashtra, village by village -Understanding Atali
Guest post by AZZA BASARUDIN and KHANUM SHAIKH
In the past decade, the efforts of women in communities of Muslims to claim leadership roles within their communities of worship have animated heated debates around the role and place that Islam ascribes to women. Questions of whether women are allowed to call congregants to prayer (adhaan), deliver sermons (khutba), lead prayers, and participate in mixed-gender prayer with women and men standing side-by-side are religiously permissible acts have been thrown up into the air, gaining support from some Muslims, and intense resistance from others. Within the United States, these contemporary debates can be traced back to a mixed-gender Friday prayer service led by Dr. Amina Wadud at Synod House of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York in 2005.[1] Numerous women-led prayer sessions have since taken place in cities across the United States, and in various global locations such as Toronto and Barcelona.[2] Widespread condemnation, heresy charges, and death threats swiftly followed some of these acts of defiance by Muslim women who are tired of being excluded from and/or given marginal spaces/roles within mosques for prayer, i.e. usually behind men or in less than ideal spaces where it is difficult to see/hear the sermon (khutba). Nonetheless, voices of support and acceptance are also prevalent—not that the women trailblazing this mode of leadership in ritual practices need anyone’s approval. It is into one such space—a newly created women-only Friday prayer organized by the Women’s Mosque of America—that we made our way on May 22, 2015 in Los Angeles. Continue reading Women’s Mosque of America – Women Carving Out Spaces of Prayer: Azza Basarudin and Khanum Shaikh
(Picture : Courtesy ‘Youth ki Awaaz)
Ram Madhav, the first official spokesperson of RSS (later removed or discharged from this role) and these days ‘loaned’ to BJP as a ‘senior leader’ engaged in what an analyst called double delete asana on International Yoga Day. The first of this kind of ‘asana’ – unheard before – was rather necessitated by the impetuosity with which the net savvy leader twitted about ‘absence of Vice President Hamid Ansari’ from the celebrations and the ‘blackout of the programme by Rajya Sabha TV which is chaired by him’ and later twitted ‘an apology about the confusion’ and within no time deleted both the twits.
By evening it was clear that not only the Rajya Sabha TV had provided a live coverage of the programme but also provided clarifications about honourable Vice President’s absence. It was revealed that he was not invited for the programme by the concerned minister. In fact his office had to issue a press release to the effect because of the insinuations which were being spread targeting him and perhaps also tell the likes of Ram Madhav that there is something called protocol which the Vice President has to follow.
One does not know whether it would be possible for Mr Ram Madhav to comprehend such nuances of democratic procedures because for him such details are of no consequence. In fact if he was really concerned about absence of Vice President of India in the said programme, he could have easily phoned his office and made further enquiries. But as we know he just wanted to underline his absence from such a programme of ‘national glory’ when India was supposedly ‘leading the world’. It was an indirect way to further the illiberal and exclusivist agenda he has been exposed to since younger days. Continue reading Hey Ram ! Madhav
[This was sent to me by a group of concerned people. They prefer to stay nameless only because our educational institutions, especially technical institutions, which were never really liberal at any point, are now turning notoriously illiberal. The letter points to grave injustice which needs to be investigated and ended. The death of the young female Dalit student is a repeat almost of a similar suicide in Kerala by another female dalit student of Engineering a few years ago, who met her end strangled by ‘merit’, greed, and callous indifference. Here, the greed of the private sector in technical education cannot be blamed.]
जो लोग कभी नहीं करते और फ़ोटो खिंचवाने के लिए नाटक करते हैं, वे सबसे आसान आसन- पद्मासन भी गलत करते हैं।
मोदी जी के पैरों की मुद्रा देखिए। सही पद्मासन में पीछे वाली लड़की बैठी है। देखिए, दोनों पैर ऊपर हैं। जो कभी नहीं करते हैं, वे नाटक के लिए भी नहीं कर सकते।
जब पद्मासन में बैठने को कहा गया है और सभी लोग वही कर रहे हैं, तो रेगुलर योग करने का दावा करने वाले को पद्मासन ही करना चाहिए। अर्ध नहीं पूर्ण।
56 इंच का सीना नहीं, 56 इंच का पेट है। रामसनेही को अब पूरा यकीन है कि सुनने में धोखा हुआ था।
बच्चों को इनसे शिक्षा नहीं लेनी चाहिए।
Guest Post by Peoples Alliance for Democracy and Secularism
To:
The Ambassador,
Embassy of Saudi Arabia at New Delhi,
2- Pachchimi Marg, VasantVihar,!
New Delhi-110057 Fax: 00911126144244
This is an appeal regarding Raif Badawi, a blogger and Saudi citizen, founder of the website ‘Free Saudi Liberals’. Mr Badawi has been under arrest since 2012 for insulting Islam and apostasy. He was sentenced to be punished with 10 years in prison along with 1000 lashes (50 lashes to be received on every Friday) and a fine of one million riyals. Though he was cleared of charges of apostasy in 2013, there are new reports that indicate he may be tried again under the same charge.
We are mindful that India and Saudi Arabia have long-standing friendly political and commercial relations and that large numbers of Indians live and work in your country. It is because of this that we feel constrained to convey to you our concerns. Raif Badawi is a public intellectual who communicated his thoughts to the public through a blog. We do not believe that any of its contents constituted a threat to the state. To the contrary, his advocacy for secularism and the separation of religion and state is a suggestion that would strengthen it.
Whether or not his ideas are pleasing to your government, the fact remains that as a member state of the United Nations, Saudi Arabia is presumed to be respectful of the freedom of speech that is provided for under Article 19 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948. This article states: ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers‘.
The sharing of information and ideas is a basic human practice and natural right that should be available to everyone regardless of their nationality or identity and (barring extremist incitement) should not be restricted by law. The state should protect and promote our rights instead of restricting them.
It has been reported that Raif Badawi received the first set of lashes on 9 January, after Friday prayers outside the Al-Juffali Mosque in Jeddah. The next round of punishment has been suspended on medical grounds to give his wounds time to heal prior to wounding him again. We consider this an example of barbaric cruelty, not befitting any member state of the UNO. Such practices are a travesty of justice and will bring you only disrepute.
We are Indian citizens who speak for human rights both within our own country and beyond. We are in solidarity with Raif Badawi and all those demanding freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia. We condemn the inhuman punishment being meted out to him as we condemn all measures that punish people for defending human rights and sharing their thoughts
We ask that Saudi Arabia:
• Immediately suspend the punishment of Raif Badawi,
• Release Raif Badawi and provide him security,
• Take measures towards the provision of full freedom of expression in Saudi Arabia
Submitted by:
Ravi Nitesh, Peoples Alliance for Democracy and Secularism , Dipak Dholakia , Rajashri Dasgupta, Prithvi R Sharma, Rana P Behal, Shamsul Islam, Suman Keshari, Aseem Shrivastava, Viren Lobo , Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Kashif Ahmed Faraz, R.Sasankan, Journalist, Delhi , Rohit Sharma, Pilani, India , Mandeep Singh from Revolutionary Youth Student Front , Firoz Ahmad, Public School Teacher , Chaman Lal, J.S.Bandukwala , Devika Mittal (Mission Bhartiyam), Apoorvanand , Sudha Vasan , Dheeraj Gaba, Nawed Akhter, Dilip Simeon , Shabnam Hashmi, Rohini Hensman Ovais Sultan Khan, Ram Puniyani, Vinerjeet Kaur, Kiran Shaheen , Battini Rao, Convener, Peoples Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS) , Javed Anand , Harsh Kapoor , Subash Mohapatra, Global Human Rights Communications, Bhubaneswar Sagar Rabari, Ahmedabad , Nayanjyoti , Shailendra Dhar, Journalist, Nihal Parashar , Linus Ayangwoh Embe, Peter Marshall , Sudarshan Juyal , Dhruv Singhal (Political Science student), Mohammad Imran, NRISAHI, Suresh Bhat , Prof. S Ratnagar, Mumbai , Ilma Iqbal , Michael Karadjis , Vasantharajan, Research Scholar , Rabin Chakraborty, Shruti Arora , Hiren Gandhi, Anand Patwardhan, Dr. D. Gabriele, Mukul Mangalik, Neeraj Malik, academic, Suhas Borker , Virginia Saldanha, Mumbai , Kasim Sait , Waliullah Ahmed Laskar , Kaveri Rajaraman, University of Hyderabad, Parth Sarthu Ram , Mahesh Elkunchwar, Suman Kumar , Kamayani Bali Mahabal, Syed Ghazanfar Abbas, Jawad Mohammed , Prof. Anil Sadgopal, Shiksha Adhikar Manch, Bhopal Satya Pal, Secretary General – South Asian Fraternity Deepak Kabir / Veena Rana, Dastak, Lucknow Madhu Sarin , Kavita Panjabi, Kolkata , Xavier Dias Editor, Khan Kaneej aur ADHIKAR ,Jharkhand India , Muhammad Murad, from Pakistan, Sindh , Sanjay Halder , Gurpreet Singh, Ravi Tripathi, Francis Gonsalves , Subhash Gatade, New Socialist Initiative, Shahid Siddiqui , P.I. Jose, Ishwarbhai Prajapati, Deepak Kabir , Fr. T.K.John , Professor Rohan Dandavate – TPI WORD, Daniel Varghese , Sanjay T , Prasanth Menon , Zakia Soman and Dr. Noorjehan SN from Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan , Antony Aruloraj, New Delhi, India, Aarti Tikoo , Ashish Biswas, Online Journalist, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Devaki Khanna, Alok Chadha , Renu Singh, Samir Dholakia, Mushtaq Dar , Narinder Singh Sandhu, P R Vaidya, Bombay , Dr V Prasad , Ameeque Jamei , Padma Velaskar, Bhanu Bharti, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Delhi , M.Balanna, PADS, Andhra Pradesh , Ajay Kumar, PADS Andhra Pradesh , Roja Ramani Mahila Sravanti, Kurnool
We write as concerned scholars, many of whom have long been indebted to yoga and pranayama for their therapeutic effects, about the many plans that are being made to declare June 21 as a successful start of International Yoga Day. While mindful of yoga as a most desirable option for health care, we are concerned by the central compulsion driving the directives issued by the present Government, namely about entering the Guinness Book of Records through a show of numerical strength. We are even more alarmed about the government order addressed to university teachers and staff and school students to perform yoga on 21st June in public, and construe this as a compulsion that amounts to misuse of state authority.
Continue reading Stop the Coercive Imposition of Yoga to Enforce Cultural Homogeneity – A Petition
Apoorvanand with Ali Javed and Satish Deshpande
It has been ten days since the Muslims of Atali have returned. Normalcy has been restored. Or it is being restored, if we are to believe the grave voice of the police officer on the phone who very politely advises us against entering this Haryana village that was hit by anti-Muslim violence on 25th May.
“Please come back after a week. The situation is very sensitive here, you should understand. A misinformed ‘outside’ intervention might break the delicate peace we have managed here.”
We do not want to test the patience of the police men and women guarding the peace of Atali, braving the merciless sun beating down on them.
“We are here precisely to understand this process of restoration of peace,” we make a vain attempt to convince the officer. “Your academic curiosity can wait, we cannot take a chance with outsiders. Memories of the conflict get revived with such visits.”
It is not very difficult to sense his growing irritation as we persist, but the phone line gets disconnected and cannot be re-connected.
We are not here to collect ‘facts’. These are already known and follow a familiar storyline involving claims of harassment of women and, of course, a disputed mosque. What is new and unfamiliar in Atali is that, despite their unresolved grievances, the Muslims were ultimately persuaded to return by their Hindu co-villagers.
However reluctant it might be, such a return is unheard of in the numerous instances of communal violence of the last decade. On the contrary, geographies centuries old have been permanently altered in places like Gujarat or Muzaffarnagar. Villages have turned their back on their own neighbours of several generations, and far from calling them back, have only stoked the hatred. What is it about Atali that makes it different?
We are here to see the Atali that has brought back its Muslims. Continue reading ‘Are you a Mulla or one of us?’
This is a guest post by ANUJA AGRAWAL
‘Criminal sets self ablaze outside police station’, says a small news item in a local edition of a leading newspaper. The report suggests that a 22- year- old ‘criminal’ set himself ablaze outside a police station in Nanded district, Maharashtra, after some members of his family were arrested. It claims that the young man was a known ‘property offender’ with three cases against him and goes on to describe how the police had been assaulted by his family members when they had gone to investigate a case filed against him by a local trader. Why a ‘hardened’ criminal should have committed suicide outside the police station would elude the readers if they pondered over the content of this news item. But by now most of us would have moved to the next ‘story’ Continue reading Suicide of a ‘Criminal’ or Murder of the Stigmatized? : Anuja Agrawal
Guest Post by FTII student
As protests against the appointment of Mr Gajendra Chauhan as new chairman of the Institute gather steam, with students on an indefinite strike since 12th June and a joint protest being organised in Delhi on Tuesday at 11 am in front of I&B ministry in solidarity with the strike, here is an open letter written to the newly appointed Chairman by a FTII student.
Facts are also coming to the fore that not only Mr Chauhan but four of the eight members nominated under ‘Persons of Eminence’ category to the society also have saffron connections, further demonstrating how the Sangh Parivar is keen to change the very ethos and nature of these institutions and establish its regressive agenda.
Dear Mr Chauhan,
I am choosing to address you personally after listening to you respond on several TV news debates about the recent opposition against your appointment as Chairman at FTII. I am a student of FTII and part of the protest. Continue reading An Open Letter to Mr Gajendra Chauhan by FTII Student
Guest post by KAIF MAHMOOD
As a Muslim, a student of Comparative Religion and a practitioner of yoga for over a decade, I believe that both those Muslims who object to the practice of yoga on religious grounds and those others who force the practice on the unwilling, trivialise their own traditions in the service of power and identity politics. Neither is Islam an inane system of punishments and rewards, nor is yoga an ancient version of a modern gym. Both groups are a parody of what their traditions were meant to be, and pose to us the question of how to be culturally rooted without assuming an isolationist, chest thumping fanaticism of the religious kind on the one hand, and of a culturally deracinated, materialistic kind on the other – two sides of the same coin. I attempt here a reading of both the religious traditions involved in a manner that is both philosophical and personal.
The recent objections by certain Muslims over compulsory yoga in schools brings to mind a scene from Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi.
A group of RSS workers, waving black flags, stop Gandhi’s car and request him to not meet with Jinnah. Gandhi replies with a sorrowful agitation: “What do you want me not to do? Not to meet with Mr. Jinnah? I am a Muslim, and a Hindu, and a Christian, and a Jew, and so are all of you. When you wave those flags and shout, you send fear into the hearts of your brothers. That is not the India I want. Stop it, for god’s sake, stop it.” The car moves on, leaving the protestors, including Nathuram Godse, in anger and incomprehension.
The difference between one who breaks down walls of separation and one who creates them could not have been clearer. Continue reading Muslims, Yoga and the Empty Heart of Fanaticism: Kaif Mahmood
जुबां फिसलती है और शायद बहुत अनर्थ करा देती है।
बांगलादेश की जनाब मोदी की ‘सफल यात्रा’ के बाद उनके हिमायती शायद यही सोचते हैं। यह अकारण नहीं कि ‘स्त्री होने के बावजूद शेख हसीना द्वारा किए गए कामों की तारीफ कर’ बुरी तरह आलोचना का शिकार हुए प्रधानमंत्री मोदी के चीअरलीडर्स का कहना रहा है कि यह जुबां फिसलने का मामला है और उसकी इतनी आलोचना ठीक नहीं है।
अगर सन्देह का लाभ देकर इस मसले पर बात न भी की जाए, मगर आप इस मौन की किस तरह व्याख्या करेंगे कि उन छत्तीस घंटों में उन्होंने एक बार भी सुश्री इंदिरा गांधी का नाम नहीं लिया, जो बांगलादेश की मुक्ति के वक्त भारत की प्रधानमंत्री थीं । अटल बिहारी वाजपेयी के नाम बांगलादेश सरकार द्वारा दिया गया पुरस्कार स्वीकार किया, मगर बांगलादेश की मुक्ति के बाद जिन वाजपेयी ने उन्हीं इंदिरा गांधी को ‘दुर्गा’ के तौर पर सम्बोधित किया था, उनका एक बार नामोल्लेख तक नहीं किया।
यह निश्चित ही भुलने का मामला नहीं था, अगर ऐसा होता तो उनके साथ इतना बड़ा दल गया था, वह उन्हें अवश्य याद दिलाता। दरअसल यह उपरोक्त नाम को लेकर जुबां को सिल देने का मामला था। पूछा जाना चाहिए कि क्या होठों पर कायम चुप्पी क्या राजनीतिक क्षुद्रता का प्रतिबिम्बन था ? या उसके कुछ और मायने थे। Continue reading प्रचारक का स्त्री चिन्तन
Guest post by RAJENDRA RAVI
The incumbent government has reportedly resolved to build a hundred smart cities in near future. And the concept seems to have taken our world by storm offering little space, if any, for a dissenting voice. Of course, a few tremors of resistance have emerged from areas where the lands are being acquired or have been marked for acquisition. For, resistance is something that is perennial: it never fails to strike back when the forces of eviction and deprivation come together to uproot people from their habitats. Human history stands witness to the fact that it is the mass protest and organized resistance that have compelled the development machinery to re-evaluate its orientation. Arguably, the tendency has actually reinforced and deepened the institution of democracy.
However, let us not overlook the fact that every community or a social group on this globe has taken the course of migration in its quest for development either as a conscious decision or compulsion. As a consequence, the phenomenon has substantially influenced the nature and configuration of habitats, leading the small hamlets to become large villages and bigger villages morphing into towns. Eventually, these very towns end up being cities. This has been quite a predictable trajectory of human development. Historically speaking, the process has involved efforts both at the level of government and the society at large. But, at the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that the government has a far more crucial role to play in it – a role, which is always informed by the ideological outlook of various political parties and governments. This role is also conditioned by the fact whether or not the parties and governments in question seek to build an egalitarian and democratic society. Continue reading Cities, Smart or Self Reliant? Rajendra Ravi
In February this year, Iceland jailed four of its rogue bankers for market manipulation and for defrauding ordinary people. No, the heavens did not fall. Thunder and lightning did not strike. The wrath of God did not descend upon the people of Iceland. On 13 February 2015, Reuters had reported:
Iceland’s Supreme Court has upheld convictions of market manipulation for four former executives of the failed Kaupthing bank in a landmark case that the country’s special prosecutor said showed it was possible to crack down on fraudulent bankers. Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson, Kaupthing’s former chief executive, former chairman Sigurdur Einarsson, former CEO of Kaupthing Luxembourg Magnus Gudmundsson, and Olafur Olafsson, the bank’s second largest shareholder at the time, were all sentenced on Thursday to between four and five and a half years. –
In less than four months since this happened, Mathew Yglesias reported in Vox Business and Finance two days ago that the economy had in the meanwhile done quite well:
Yesterday, Iceland’s prime minister, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, announced a plan that will essentially close the books on his country’s approach to handling the financial crisis — an approach that deviated greatly from the preferences of global financial elites and succeeded quite well. Instead of embracing the orthodoxy of bank bailouts, austerity, and low inflation, Iceland did just the opposite. And even though its economy was hammered by the banking crisis perhaps harder than any other in the world, its labor didn’t deteriorate all that much, and it had a great recovery.
For those who have seen the brilliant documentary film Inside Job, which exposed the unscrupulous game played by the bankers and the financial oligarchy in defrauding millions of ordinary people and eventually triggering of the financial crisis in the US and the world at large, the story of Iceland’s descent into the dystopic neoliberal world must still be fresh in their minds. Continue reading Iceland Jailed Bad Bankers While Modi Govt Bails Out Defaulting Sugar Mills
Guest post by RAVLEEN KAUR
When June 1984 comes up in conversation, the same talking points invariably arise – “it was the state’s burden to attack; they had no choice”, “Bhindranwale had to be taken down”, or “Punjab was already bleeding”.
What these oft-repeated phrases – a product of the tight PR messaging campaign on the part of the government – glide over is the scope of human suffering that occurred in June 1984 – and most glaringly, suffering that was perpetrated by those in power, by those who had been elected in a democracy to uphold the rights and dignity of the people who they killed in 1984.
Anthropologist Talal Asad has noted the “notorious tactic of political power to deny a distinct unity to populations it seeks to govern, to treat them as contingent and indeterminate.”
With the belief that every Sikhs who was alive in 1984 has a story to tell, the 1984 Living History Project is depicting the unity in trauma of a people, who, in 1984, felt attacked as a people. The 1984 Living History Project is working to give a platform to ordinary people who lived through the massacres of both June and November. The project was initiated in 2012 by Sikh millennials. Realizing that the generation who experienced 1984 firsthand was getting older and that time was running out to capture their stories, they began a grassroots effort to capture as many stories and testimonies from Sikhs worldwide, one video narrative at a time. The first videos were their own parents and grandparents, recorded on smart phones and edited and shared rather seamlessly. The Project’s web platform allows easy Steps to make and share videos; something other Sikhs around the world have been doing through the 30th and 31st anniversary years of 1984. Continue reading June 1984 – 31 Years Later, Sikhs Are Mapping Their Stories: Ravleen Kaur
Policy slogans are usually fragments of a sentence. Make in India. Housing for All. Swatch Bharat. What’s usually missing in the fragment is that the verb has no subject to agree with. For slogans to become statements, missions, policies and actions, someone has to make in india, keep it swachh and build the housing. The big elephant in the room is: who?
For housing, this is a particularly important challenge. The numbers are daunting: a shortage of 18.78 million housing units in 2012. Over 95% of this shortage is for low-income households that make less than Rs 2 lacs total household income per year. Taking the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation’s own formula that a household can afford a house five times its annual income, this means “Housing for All” needs to make nearly 17 million houses all under Rs 10 lacs. That’s the finish line.
So: who should build this housing? Continue reading Who can build Housing for All?
NAVADEEP writes in Gaylaxy on the responses around the matrimonial advertisement for a gay man placed by his mother, in which she specified “Caste no bar, (though Iyer preferred)”.
It has been a few days since the first gay-matrimonial ad of the country has been out, and as expected, it has gathered a great deal of attention both from gay and straight people. Lack of available information would keep me from commenting on the reactions among the straight crowd. But being a part of the gay community, I have witnessed two different arguments emerging:
1. It is a great progressive step from a loving mother for her gay son and is also a potentially visible statement of the gay community in mainstream society.
2. While appreciating the aforementioned, a section of people in the community are extremely agitated about how the matrimonial ad mentions a preference of caste. This has lead to the debate of contesting the regressive part of the ad (where, of course, I find my place)….
Where does one’s choice start and where does it end? How absolute and independent an identity can this choice and preference claim? Is this choice/preference free from conditioning? Is it just an individual’s sole conscious choice/preference or product of the society he is part of? Do personal choices and preferences have no social and political connotations? Do they not have any historical and cultural context?
Public Statement issued by People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS) on 6 June, 2015
A case has been filed by the Hyderabad police against well known Dalit writer and academic Kancha Ilaiah on a complaint by Vishwa Hindu Parishad members for hurting their religious sentiments. The complaint was filed on the basis of Ilaiah’s article Devudu Prajasamya Vada Kada? (Is God a democrat?) published in a Telugu daily on May 9. In the said article Ilaiah had argued that the possibility of democracy, or its lack inside different religious groups depend on the conception of their God(s). The VHP activists have accused Prof Ilaiah of comparing Hindu gods with God in Christianity and Islam, and of ridiculing their worship. Police have filed a case under sections 153A and 295A which prescribe imprisonment upto three years for spreading enmity among groups of people and outraging religious feelings. The police action against Ilaiah has come around the same time that the IIT Madras has derecognised a student group Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle that organises discussions around socio-cultural and political issues. The group was derecognised after an anonymous complaint against it was filed with the central HRD ministry. While many political parties and groups have justifiably come out in support of the APSC, it is surprising that Prof Ilaiah has received little solidarity. Both these incidences are a proof of the aggressive intent of Hindutva forces to attack any discourse which publicly questions their castiest, Brahminical and majoritarian understanding of Indian society. Successes of Mr Narendra Modi in the recent elections have emboldened them further . Continue reading Withdraw police case against Prof Kancha Ilaiah and revoke the ban on Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle : People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 