This article by VISHWAS SATGAR was earlier published in the Daily Maverick, South Africa, Satgar has written for Kafila on earlier occasions.
Vladimir Putin’s regime, unlike Franco, Mussolini or Hitler, has a formidable nuclear arsenal. In this context, the contemporary world stands on the brink, facing extinction either through nuclear holocaust emanating from battle fields in Ukraine or worsening the climate crisis, while in our everyday lives prices for food and fossil fuels are skyrocketing.
Precariousness, uncertainty and complex risk have become the lived reality of deep globalisation in which markets for finance, energy, food and production have been integrated.
The fragility of this global economy was exposed in the “great financial crisis” (circa 2007-2009) from which the world economy has not recovered, by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, and now by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These realities cannot be understood through simple memes, propagandistic binaries or abstract security concepts.
Part 1: “The Russian invasion is a unilateral decision of the leadership which reflects the internal dynamics of Russian imperialism”: A Ukrainian political scientist explains the War, Ukrainian nationhood, Maidan, NATO and neo-Nazis.
In February Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed in a televised address that Ukraine is an illegitimate country that exists on a land that’s “historically” and “rightfully” Russian. Putin further claimed that a “genocide” was being perpetrated on “millions” of Russian supporters in the Donbas by Ukrainian far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis. Putin used this as an excuse to launch what he called “special military operations” in Ukraine, thus triggering the war.
One month into the Russian invasion, what is the situation in Ukraine? How does one understand the historicity of Ukraine’s nationhood, including its culture, language, status within the Soviet Union and its evolution since independence in 1991. How does one situate events like the maidan protests that rocked Ukrainian society, the role of far right formations like Azov and the aspirations of Ukrainians?
To understand these issues I spoke to Denys Pilash, a political scientist teaching at Kyiv National University. Pilash is on the editorial board of Commons magazine, a left of centre intellectual magazine. Pilash is currently in Transcarpathia in Western Ukraine, where he is helping deliver humanitarian aid. The interview is in two parts.
इच्छा और आशा में अंतर होता है. विशेष तौर पर किसान आन्दोलन के आलोक में, बहुत से लोगों की तरह मैं भी चाहता था कि भाजपा हारे और मुझे इस की थोड़ी आशा भी थी परन्तु कोई विशेष आस नहीं थी. भाजपा की जीत मेरे लिए दुखदायी है परन्तु अनपेक्षित नहीं है. चुनाव परिणामों की समीक्षा के तौर पर बहुत कुछ लिखा-कहा गया है परन्तु एक महत्वपूर्ण पक्ष का ज़िक्र कम हुआ है.
क्या उत्तरप्रदेश, जिस का कम से कम एक हिस्सा किसान आन्दोलन के सक्रिय केन्द्रों में शामिल था, में भाजपा की जीत से यह साबित हो जाता है कि भारतीय मतदाता हिन्दुत्ववादी हो गया है? ऐसा बिलकुल नहीं है. भाजपा को उतर प्रदेश में कुल पंजीकृत मतदाताओं के 25% ने ही वोट दिया है. भाजपा के वोट अनुपात में जिस बढ़ोतरी की चर्चा हो रही है वह असल में वोट डालने वालों में से भाजपा के पक्ष में वोट डालने वालों के अनुपात की बढ़ोतरी है. ग़ैर-भाजपा वोटर के वोट ही न देने से और भाजपा वोटर के पहले की तरह वोट देने मात्र से भाजपा के समर्थन में बढ़ोतरी दिखाई देती है. वास्तविकता यह है कि 10 में से लगभग 4 पंजीकृत वोटर तो इतने निराश हैं कि वे वोट डालने ही नहीं गए (वोट न डालने वालों का एक छोटा हिस्सा निश्चित तौर पर ऐसा होगा जो किसी अन्य कारण जैसे शहर से बाहर होने के कारण या अन्य व्यस्तता के चलते वोट नहीं डाल पाया होगा परन्तु यह हिस्सा बहुत छोटा ही होने की संभावना है). 2017 में भी कुल पंजीकृत वोटरों में से भी लगभग इतने ही प्रतिशत वोटरों ने भाजपा के पक्ष में वोट डाला था. यानी बहुमत अभी भी हिन्दू वादी नहीं है, उत्तर प्रदेश में भी नहीं.
Prof Zoya Hasan, Professor Emerita, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Distinguished Faculty, Council for Social Development, New Delhi, will be delivering the 16 th lecture in the Democracy Dialogues Series, organised by New Socialist Initiative, at 6 PM, (IST) Sunday, 27 th March, 2022.
She will be speaking on ‘Challenges to India’s Democracy‘
Prof Zoya Hasan has written and edited many books on state, political parties, ethnicity, gender and minorities in India and society in north India and has been a visiting Professor to the Universities of Zurich, Edinburgh and Maison des Sciences de L’Homme, Paris.
Her most recent publications include Forging Identities : Gender, Communities And The State In India ( edited) , Agitation to Legislation – Negotiating Equity and Justice in India , Congress after Indira: Policy, Power and Political Change (1984–2009), Politics of Inclusion: Castes, Minorities and Affirmative Action, (2009) and a collection of essays titled Democracy and the Crisis of Inequality
Abstract
Challenges to India’s Democracy
The 75th anniversary of Indian Independence is a landmark event in the history of our democracy. It is for this reason a significant moment to assess the state of India’s democracy. As the largest democracy in the non-western world, India is a success story. Its success, however, has primarily been recognized as an electoral democracy, with regular free and fair elections registering high voter participation, and also peaceful transfer of power. Elections certainly are a climactic moment of the democratic process but by no means the only important one. Politics between elections is central for understanding the challenges facing Indian democracy, and it is important, therefore, to contextualize democracy.
Three years since the Bhartiya Janata Party government was re-elected has seen the consolidation of the process begun in 2014 – the establishment of a Hindu state. This process has been facilitated by the combination of majoritarianism and authoritarianism which has resulted in democracy becoming thinner, not accidentally, but deliberately. This does raise certain questions about the relationship between Hindu nationalism and democracy which seems to weaken the idea of democracy moderated by institutions.
This paper tries to make sense of these shifts through a thematic exploration of the trajectory of Indian democracy since 2014 focusing on three overlapping developments -the consolidation of a majoritarian brand of politics, the decline of independent institutions and the shrinking space for political dissent and protests -which has undermined democracy. Each of these issues distinct and significant in its own right when taken together constitutes a major risk to Indian democracy. However, public protests in the last few years have emerged as a major bulwark against authoritarian rule and the erosion of democratic dissent. For the Opposition it’s a moment of reckoning but there are signs of churning among the Opposition as well.
Originally published by The India Forum as The Shattering of The Muslim Hope in India(https://rb.gy/jfnxtz)
कुछ रोज पहले, एक शाम अपने दोस्त के साथ दिल्ली की भागदौड़ भरी जिंदगी से वक्त निकालकर, काई से काली पड़ चुकी अपनी छत पर बैठा, पीले आसमान के नीचे खड़े ठूँठे रूख को देख रहा था। मेरा दोस्त, जो एक बड़ी मल्टीनेशनल कंपनी में काम करता है, अपने अनुभवों के बारे में बताते हुए कह रहा था कि कैसे उसका ऑफिस उसके लिए एक अजनबी जगह है।
मेरे दोस्त कहता है, “वहाँ हर कोई मुसलमानों पर हो रहे अत्याचारों से कितना बेखबर है। मैं रोज लिंचिंग का नया वीडियो, नफरत उगलनेवाला भाषण, जनसंहार (Genocide)को उकसाने वाला कार्टून देखता हूँ लेकिन जब मैं ऑफिस जाता हूं तो वहां लोगों में चर्चा होती है, सबसे अच्छी सुशीज (Sushis) कहां मिलती है, और केक सबसे बेहतर कौन बनाता है। गुप्ता सांता का खेल चलता है और लोग अपनी तरक्की की योजनाएँ बनाने में मशगूल हैं। मैं ऑफिस को अचंभे के साथ देखता हूं और सोचता हूँ कि यह कैसी जगह है, या फिर मैं किसी दूसरे जमाने में आ गया हूँ।”
फरवरी के महीने से विश्वविद्यालय परिसर में विद्यार्थियों का आना-जाना शुरू हो गया है । परिसर गुलज़ार रहता है । कक्षा के बाहर छोटे-छोटे समूहों में उन की आवाजाही और उन के बीच किसी भी विषय की चर्चा मन को एक सुकून देती है । कहीं-कहीं दोस्ती और आकार लेता प्रेम भी महसूस होता है । यह भी अत्यंत सहज एवं स्वाभाविक लगता है । विश्वविद्यालय केवल कक्षा मात्र के लिए नहीं होते न ! वहाँ एक नई दुनिया होती है । नए संबंध भी बनते हैं । पिछले एक माह से परिसर में लौटी रौनक़ मन में उत्साह जगाती है । फिर आया मार्च का महीना । होली के त्योहार का महीना ! रंग और गुलाल का उत्साह ! चार दिन की छुट्टी से पहले परिसर में ‘होली-मिलन समारोह’ आयोजित हुआ ।
उत्साह से भरी होली की गतिविधियों के दौरान अचानक ही ‘भगवा झंडा’ परिसर में लहराया जाने लगा । ‘जय श्रीराम’ के नारे भी सुनाई दिए । होली में ‘जय श्रीराम’ के नारे ! सोचने मात्र से ही मन सिहर उठता है । होली और छठ ऐसे त्योहार हैं जिनमें न तो पुरोहित की ज़रूरत होती है और न ही किसी प्रकार के कर्मकांड की । ‘होलिका-दहन’ की परंपरा भी इस पर्व में ब्राह्मण-पौराणिक वर्चस्व की स्थिति को प्रदर्शित करती लगती है । ऐसा इसलिए कि होली की पूरी संकल्पना और इस पर्व के मिज़ाज को देखकर ‘होलिका-दहन’ का इस से ठीक-ठीक जुड़ाव महसूस नहीं होता ।
When Government itself Does Not Have Any Qualms in rationalising Drona Mindset
( Photo Courtesy : Feminism in India)
[H]istory has come to a stage when the moral man, the complete man, is more and more giving way, almost without knowing it, to make room for the . . .commercial man, the man of limited purpose. This process, aided by the wonderful progress in science, is assuming gigantic proportion and power, causing the upset of man’s moral balance, obscuring his human side under the shadow of soul-less organization.
—Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism, 1917
( Quoted in ‘Not for Profit – Why Democracy Needs Humanities, Martha Nussbaum, Princeton University Press, 2010)
A single story is sometimes enough to tell how an institution functions and how it needs to be overhauled.
Aruna’s long struggle to get overseas scholarship is one such story.
Son of landless agricultural labourers from Orissa, this bright student, belonging to a socially oppressed community, had applied to get a overseas scholarship via the National Overseas Scholarship – which awards scholarships to students from SC, ST, Denotified tribes etc – and even had lost two years in bureaucratic wrangling despite the fact that he had already got admission into Essex University.
Thanks to the timely intervention of a group of Ambedkarite thinkers from Nagpur, who filed a petition in the Delhi Highcourt on his behalf , which ultimately ruled in the student’s favour.
It would be cliche to say that Aruna’s struggle is an exception.
Story of Vishal Kharat is qualitatively no different who is still trying to get a scholarship for the last two years and has discovered to his dismay that the scholarship portal itself does not work properly.
Instances galore how this ambitious scheme which was launched in the wee hours of India’s independence when Nehru was the Prime Minister and a great scholar and freedom fighter Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was a Cabinet Minister for education, has been left to go slowly into oblivion.
The latest decision by the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment, to not to fund scholarships for marginalised students keen to study India’s history, culture abroad, is just another indication of how it is being implemented.
We can recall that it was the year 2012 when UPA government led by Congress was in the saddle this scheme was extended to Humanities as well and every year 100 students from the socially deprived, oppressed communities started receiving it but with the change of power at the centre things started changing drastically.
Like many of its earlier decisions, this decision to axe scholarship to study humanities abroad was taken without consulting the stakeholders involved in the process or without even giving a hint of how the government wants to proceed in this unique empowerment initiative. The fact that the final date to apply for this scheme is to expire on 31 st March and when there was hardly anytime left to young scholars who are keen to study abroad, to search for alternate path to fulfill their dreams.
The rationale being provided by the powers that be appears unconvincing.
It talks of utilising rich availability of repositories, records as well as books available in Indian institutions and various experts on this subject of India’s culture, civilisation etc and divert the resources thus saved to study other subjects like Science, technology.
It is rather difficult to believe this claim but even if for the sake of discussion we concede, can it be said with certainty that the existing faculty and these institutions would be sensitive to the issue or the concerns of emerging talents from the oppressed, exploited sections of our society, and would be accommodating as well! Fact is that even Higher Educational Institutions are not free from exclusions, discrimination on the basis of caste, gender, community and despite constitutional provisions for affirmative action existing since decades, the character of the academia in most of these institutions is very much exclusive mainly dominated by the so called upper castes.
Cases of discrimination faced by students from such Institutions keep piling up leading even to many unfortunate incidents – rightly called as ‘institutional murders’ of many such talents.
The stories of suicides of the likes of of RohithVemula, ( HCU, Hyderabad) ; Payal Tadvi ( Medical College, Mumbai,) or Fathima Latheef ( IIT Madras) and many of their ilk cannot be seen as exceptions.
A related point is the status of academic freedom in India.
With the ascendance of right-wing politics world over the very idea of academic freedom has come under attack globally – including India
Thanks to the majoritarian turn in the Indian politics where religious minorities are being further marginalised and invisibilised – the ambience which exists here within the academia itself is a pale shadow of its earlier situation. It is becoming increasingly difficult nay impossible to have a critical, open minded discussion on themes, topics which are found not palatable to the ruling dispensation which is a prerequisite for any healthy educational institution.
We have before us cancellation of international seminars on innocuous themes even like Scientific Temper or teachers being hauled to courts after taking up discussions about ‘Kashmir within the class ‘ or for engaging in open ended discussion about nationalism inside class or students-teachers being charged with sedition for protesting about highhandedness of the government.
Secondly, with the rightwing holding reins of power with a brutal majority, has also led to radical changes in the content of humanity studies playing mythology over facts e.g. there are allegations how the draft history syllabus pushed by the UGC presents a theory of the origin of caste system which relates to the advent of the ‘Muslim rule’ here.
Can we ever accept that these bright students opting for scholarships abroad who have themselves experienced caste, community or class based deprivation, discrimination in their younger days, would be ever ready to easily gulp down such trash as intellectual discourse.
Definitely not.
This decision to axe funds to socially oppressed sections to study humanity abroad very much gels with the overt concerns of the people in power which are evident in the New Education Policy 2020 which envisions restoring the the role of India as a ‘Vishwa Guru’ and interestingly remains silent on caste and other discriminations and even does not talk about reservations. It clubs SC / ST, OBC and minority communities as an acronym SEDGs – Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Groups.
What needs to be underlined that this step by the Ministry has raised concerns among the members of the international academic community, and scholars of India spread all over the world as well and in an open letter addressed to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment they have demanded that the government withdraws this immediate changes in the policy.
It emphasises how ‘[t]he argument that one need not go abroad to study India is intellectually flawed and will only serve to isolate Indian scholarship from the rest of the world.’ and these amendments attest to a lack of understanding of how interdisciplinary research is conducted today, where natural sciences, law, history, sociology and the humanities work together beyond national boundaries.
Another important point which it make that how it will further negatively impact women recipients of this scholarship who are already ‘disproportionately under-represented in scientific and technological disciplines and tend to more easily find opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities’
Last but not the least it also displays the great hiatus between the outwardly, strong image of the ruling dispensation and how paranoid, insecure it is about deeper fault lines of the Indian society.
Perhaps it worries that with increasing interest of the academia of the west in what is happening to the largest democracy in the world, and the study of caste and its attendant asymmetries receiving special attention by them, and also dalit activists, scholars there pursuing it at various levels there, these exclusivist hierarchies have rapidly attracted attention. Not some time ago the California State University system added caste to its non-discrimination policy, prohibiting caste-based discrimination or bias across its 23 campuses.
The ruling dispensation knows very well that the more students from dalit, adivasi and other deprived sections of society go out to study abroad, it will have to be ready to face many such embarassing moments because whereas it itself is keen to invisibilise caste once for all, and even clubbed all these sections – the SC / ST, OBC and minority communities as an acronym SEDGs – Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Groups; the reality as it exists would continue to haunt it.
ANHAD released a book on 28 February in an online event to mark 20 years of the Gujarat pogrom. As a reminder that it was a long campaign and organization of hate against Muslims in the state which made this pogrom possible. That hate has now gripped the entire country. We need to stop it before it is too late.
The book has essays by Father Cedric Prakash, Harsh mander, Syeda Hameed , Shabnam Hashmi and Apoorvanand and a list of hate speeches and hate crimes. The compilation of hate speeches and hate crimes against the religious minorities has been done by Leena Dabiru and Tarun Sagar .
We publish below a statement by Radical Socialist on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The statement minces no words in condemning the aggression as well as NATO but refuses to make the NATO the justification for Russia’s yearning for the lost empire.
1. We condemn Russia as an imperialist aggressor using the dreams of an old imperial epoch to justify expansionism, and are deeply concerned at this precedent that may later affect any other former Soviet republic.
2. As when the US invaded Iraq, we do not use the language of diplomacy, we do not seek UN intervention, but call for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the aggressors.
3. This demand does not date only to 2022. We demand the Russian withdraw from every inch of Ukrainian territory. That includes Crimea, and the provinces in Eastern Ukraine even as we recognise the justice of demands for greater cultural and political autonomy so that Ukraine becomes a more democratic and federal set-up. Crimea had its own Constitution in 1992 which gave it greater powers of self-governance with some powers delegated to Kiev. Unjustifiably, President Kuchma subsequently annulled this Constitution.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 