All posts by Aditya Nigam

Debates, Politics, Right watch, Scams, Violence/Conflict

Modi and Godhra – Review of Manoj Mitta’s ‘The Fiction of Fact-finding’: Monobina Gupta

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MONOBINA GUPTA reviews The Fiction of The Fact-finding: Modi and Godhra by Manoj Mitta, Harper Collins India, 2014

My most embarrassing moment during my recent Eastern UP trip was hearing RSS and BJP men sing praises of the media. “Aap log Modiji ka bahut madat kar rahen hain” (You all in media are really helping Modiji), they said warmly, throwing cheerful smiles all around. “Sometime ago, you were giving Arvind Kejriwal too much of coverage. Now you have brought the focus back on Modiji,” was the discomfiting refrain in these upbeat quarters.

I squirmed beneath my fake smile and grumbled to myself: this was a stiff penalty to pay for covering these fraught general elections. I would rather these men complain about why we in the media were still so troubled about Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riots; why were we still persisting with our questioning the process of investigation, particularly the role of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), that led to Modi’s exoneration in the charge of complicity in the 2002 pogrom.

But that’s not how political discourse in the run up to the 2014 elections is shaping up. Skeptics holding the judiciary to be fallible are blasted for daring to express doubts about the ‘hallowed’ courts; those not rushing in to embrace Modi’s acquittal as manifestation of the truth and nothing but the truth are regularly shouted down on television talk shows. Dissidence is drowned out in the noisy din raised by Modi drum-beaters. Continue reading Modi and Godhra – Review of Manoj Mitta’s ‘The Fiction of Fact-finding’: Monobina Gupta →
Capitalism, Culture, Debates, Media politics, Right watch

Crafting the Modi Mask – India Inc and the Big Media

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AAP Rally in Gujarat. Courtesy Mukul Sinha
AAP Rally in Gujarat. Courtesy Mukul Sinha

Two things stand out for their sublime quality in the current round of pre-election campaigning. First, the danger to Indian democracy has assumed unprecedented proportions, and there is a clear sense of desperation in the air. The threat emanates, you guessed right, from a group of anarchists who are poised to take over Indian democracy.  This is perhaps the dirtiest and most dangerous election that India has ever seen – what with the bunch of anarchists ‘fixing the media‘, ‘spreading anarchy‘, ‘hijacking democracy‘, ‘taking foreign funds‘ for their election campaign (while the others, the impeccable democrats of the BJP and the Congress have to make do with ‘local’ capitalists like  Mukesh Ambani). What’s more, these people are ‘political mercenaries‘,  urban Maoists in disguise and they want to wreck the neatly and painstakingly built edifice of our hallowed democracy. This widespread love of democracy is touching. For someone like me who has closely watched (and participated in) politics from the mid 1970s, the panic evident in the tone of those attacking AAP is as unprecedented as it is revealing. It is revealing of the fact that the political class is thrown into disarray by this new way of doing politics that AAP represents. In BJP’s case, in particular, one can discern complete befuddlement – neither its hope to reap the benefit of the mass anger against the Congress, nor its tried and tested polarizing communal vocabulary seem to have any meaning any more.

Thus, during the days of AAP rule in Delhi, the official BJP state executive resolution came up with this claim:

“Delhi is currently being ruled by a bunch of political mercenaries hired, supported and controlled by Congress party. The words and action of AAP leaders expose the fact that it is a Maoist outfit.”

Of course, the Maoists are “hired, supported and controlled by the Congress”!

Continue reading Crafting the Modi Mask – India Inc and the Big Media →

Culture, Politics, Right watch

Despatch from Ayodhya: Monobina Gupta

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Guest post by MONOBINA GUPTA

Ayodhya, Faizabad: As our taxi approaches the site of the controversial Ram temple, two young men on motorcycle ride alongside our car. “ We will be your guides. Want to see the temple? Only hundred rupees,” they shout. My unofficial ‘guide’ Vineet Maurya, a fierce crusader against representing the site as the birthplace of Ram, rolls down the window and snaps back,” We are not here to see the temple.” Further down the lane, more young men run behind the car with similar offers. Temple sightseeing has turned into a veritable industry at Ayodhya.

From the narrow alley, the disputed plot, closely barricaded with high yellow railings and watched 24/7 by men from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Provincial Armed Constabulary(PAC), images a heavily guarded fortress: one that is in danger of imminent attack. This is the holy site over whose ownership Hindus, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had waged such a fierce battle and spilled so much of blood. The manifestations of that unholy battle are overwhelmingly present in the form of deployment of countless security forces guarding Ram Lalla. What is lost in this murky stand-off is the sanctity of a holy place.  Ayodhya ranks among the top holy sites of India. Continue reading Despatch from Ayodhya: Monobina Gupta →

Capitalism, Centre watch, Debates, Government, Politics

जनता की महालूट का तमाशा अनवरत जारी है ! : अनुराग मोदी

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Guest post by ANURAG MODI

हमारा विकास का मॉडल और हमारी राजनीति,  सविंधान कि मूलभावना के ही विपरीत है. सविधान में जहाँ, समाजवादी  गणराज्य की स्थापना, जिसमे हर नागरिक को आर्थिक, सामाजिक और राजनैतिक बराबरी के अधिकार होंगे, की बात है. हमारी राजनीति, यह भूल गई विकास के वैकल्पिक मॉडल के बिना न तो समाजवाद आएगा, और न ही राजनैतिक और सामाजिक और आर्थिक बराबरी स्थापित होगी. बल्कि, हम पिछले ६६ सालों से विकास की मृग-मरीचिका के पीछे भागते रहे, और देश के संसाधन की महालूट का तमाशा अनवरत ज़ारी रहा; जिसके चलते 1% लोगों के हाथों में देश के संसाधन से उपजी कमाई जमा हो गई. और देश की आम-जनता, विकास और राजनीति के हाशिए पर तमाशबीन बनी खडी रही.

यह स्थीति पिछले 10 सालों (2001-11) में और बिगड़ी है : कृषी प्रधान देश होने के बावजूद, 2,70, 940 किसानों ने  आत्महत्या कर ली; जितने लोग रोजगार में लगे हो उससे ज्यादा बेरोजगार हो; गैरबराबर बढी हो;शिक्षा, स्वास्थ्य, बिजली, पानी, सड़क, यहाँ-तक की राशन जैसी सामाजिक सुरक्षा के कामों से सरकार गायब हो गई- उसे निजी हाथों में दे दिया हो. Continue reading जनता की महालूट का तमाशा अनवरत जारी है ! : अनुराग मोदी →

Culture, Debates, Education, Politics, Right watch

CHS, JNU Statement on the Wendy Doniger Issue

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The following is the text of a statement issued by the Faculty of the CENTRE FOR HISTORICAL STUDIES, Jawaharlal Nehru University, protesting against the recent decision by Penguin India to withdraw and pulp all remaining copies of Wendy Doniger’s Hinduism. An Alternative History

We are outraged by the news that Penguin India has agreed to withdraw Wendy Doniger’s much acclaimed book The Hindus: An Alternative History and pulp all existing copies of the book in stock. Professor Doniger is one of the most respected Indologists in the world. She has spent a lifetime exploring the richness of India’s religious pasts, showcasing the creative interplay between multiple traditions — the Puranic and the Vedantic, the folkloric and the Brahmanic. Innovatively drawing on many disciplines, she has investigated the variegated world of Hindu mythology and theology, to explore what they say about order and chaos, morality and ethics, the good and the evil, the erotic and the non-erotic. Her reading of Hinduism has inevitably disturbed those who wish to sanitize and straitjacket Hinduism, and repress the multiplicity of traditions that constitute it. While welcoming all critical engagements with the book, the faculty of the CHS condemns any attempt to curtail the circulation of this book in any form.

The decision of Penguin India to sign an out-of-court settlement to withdraw Professor Doniger’s book is therefore an act of abandoning the basic ethics of publishing. What is most disturbing is the fact that Penguin Books — which had in the past a sturdy reputation of defending freedom of expression — has agreed to a settlement even without the Indian state or the Indian judiciary taking a position against the book. This decision will affirm the power of the forces of religious intolerance, encourage further attacks on authors who question the fundamentalist interpretation of the past, and subvert the right to freedom of expression. It will undermine further the rapidly eroding public space wherein critical debates and discussions can take place. This is a space that all who believe in democratic values — publishers included — need to preserve and defend.

Please note that individual names are not being listed in this statement as this is emanating from the entire faculty.

Thank you,

Professor Rajat Datta

Culture, Education, Politics, Right watch

Statement by Scholars in North American Universities on Withdrawal of Wendy Doniger’s book

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This statement expresses the views of the individuals listed below and does not represent the views of the University of Chicago or any of its departments.

We, the undersigned, as students of South Asia, strongly condemn the withdrawal by Penguin Press India of Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History from distribution in India. We believe that this work has been attacked because it presents a threat to orthodox Brahminical interpretations of Hinduism. We believe that this attack is part of ongoing attempts by upper-caste extremist Hindu forces to stifle any alternative understandings of Hinduism. As students in the United States, we are acutely aware that North American organizations of the Hindu right initiated the protests against Wendy Doniger’s scholarship. Hindu right wing organisations in India have worked in tandem with their North American counterparts to suppress alternative voices in India and too often violently. We are deeply concerned about the alarming increase in attacks on any academic study of Hinduism that does not fit these groups’ narrow and exclusionary vision of Hinduism which is part of their desire to create a Hindu India that excludes the religious minorities of Indian Muslims and Indian Christians. Continue reading Statement by Scholars in North American Universities on Withdrawal of Wendy Doniger’s book →

Culture, Debates, Everyday Life, Genders

Are you celebrating free speech, Mr. Lit Fest? Harsh Snehanshu

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Guest post by HARSH SNEHANSHU

This January, in a session at the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), the award-winning writer Jerry Pinto said something that sent most of us into a tizzy.

“We are sitting in the ‘Google’ Mughal Tent discussing how crucial the freedom of expression is for us writers,” Pinto said wringing his hands animatedly. “It’s the same Google that reads all our mails, encroaches on our privacy, and here, under its roof, we are discussing how we should feel free to say whatever we want without any fear.” The crowd was amused, and left with some food for thought. Would it have been possible to organize an event as grand as the JLF, free for all, without Google’s help? I asked myself. The answer was a no. Google’s deep pockets couldn’t be ignored. Should I refrain from attending the fest just because of Google’s invasion of my privacy? The answer, after some thought, was again a no. Google monitoring my mails doesn’t affect my freedom of expression that I prize most as a writer.

Two weeks later, another literature festival has arrived, this time in New Delhi. Run by arguably India’s most revered newspaper, The Hindu’s Lit for Life is being held at the Siri Fort Auditorium, New Delhi, on 8th February after its successful three day stint at Chennai in mid-January. The guest-list is embellished with names of noted luminaries like the writers Rana Dasgupta, Sam Miller, Rahul Bhattacharya among others, the Olympian Mary Kom, and politicians Shazia Ilmi and Manish Tewari. The entry, like every other literary festival nowadays, is free. The beautifully designed logo is aptly shaped as the fountain pen, representing the craft that it celebrates. However there is something below the logo that disturbs me. It says, ‘Powered by VIT University.’ Continue reading Are you celebrating free speech, Mr. Lit Fest? Harsh Snehanshu →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Government, Politics

In Defense of the ‘Post-Ideological’ Aam Aadmi – Yet Again!

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On the morning of 17 January, the very day after Somnath Bharti carried out his vigilante act – and I maintain, despite Arvind Kejriwal and Yogendra Yadav, that it was a vigilante act – I wrote a post relating to the dangers of xenophobia, racism and vigilantism that this act portended. I felt called upon to write that post because one of the valuable political lessons I have learnt over the years is that there can be no unconditional support for any political formation. Every support must be is contextual and conjunctural,  never for all eternity. My criticism was therefore of someone who is invested in the process that AAP and Kejriwal have unleashed and I want it to succeed. In invoking xenophobia and racism, my point, however, was that the leadership of the party has a role to play in relation to political education and cannot simply flow with the local sentiment.

I have always maintained, right from the days of the anti-corruption movement led by the IAC, that the movement and its later avatar, the AAP, had opened out a space of new possibilities. The mass support that the movement and now AAP is drawing is primarily, in my view, a function of the fact that it can mean many things to many people. ‘Clarity’ on every issue concerning the world is not its agenda. This is why some of us have been arguing that the movement/ party is still taking shape. It does not yet have a ready-made, given ideological form. This is why it can be shaped. Its future is radically open. I see no reason to change that position yet. Yes, it is in the design of things that there are Kumar Vishwases and Somnath Bhartis in that formation, and it disturbs our sensibilities no end. But that is precisely the challenge – if we cannot deal with them, we cannot deal with ordinary folk either. Moreover, everybody can change and it is simply arrogant upper class presumptuousness to mock at the ‘uncouthness’ of someone or hold their past against them (in the case of Vishwas). In any case, for anyone seriously interested in changing the existing state of affairs, it should be quite clear that the entire business is about changing ‘common sense’, to put it in Gramscian language. We don’t live in an already transformed universe. Continue reading In Defense of the ‘Post-Ideological’ Aam Aadmi – Yet Again! →

Centre watch, Debates, Media politics, Politics

The English Media and AAP – Should One Rush to Endorse the Party: Shankar Gopalakrishnan

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Guest post by SHANKAR GOPALAKRISHNAN

Over the last few weeks, the blizzard of news about the Aam Aadmi Party – and the move of many independent intellectuals and some activists into the party – has seemed like a roller coaster ride. One week we were told the world had changed, the following week that it had collapsed, and now we have no idea what next week is going to bring. But the roller coaster should not blind us to the deeper dynamics at work. In particular, there’s one that is uncannily familiar – the role being played by the English media. Those rushing to endorse and celebrate AAP should pause to consider recent events before they do so.

A good place to start is the India Against Corruption protests, which were clearly a media mobilisation. It was the media – particularly the English and Hindi electronic media – that called people on to the streets, that announced the locations and demands of the protests, and that consistently described the movement as being “universal” and about “ordinary people” (for examples, see the paragraph in this article on Times Now’s role in April 2011; or The Hoot’s analysis of TV coverage). Social media, the Sangh Parivar and the IAC’s local committees did so too, but they all jumped in after the mainstream media did, and they continued to rely on it. No other mass mobilisation of recent times, except the anti-rape protests, has received this kind of treatment at the hands of the media. Continue reading The English Media and AAP – Should One Rush to Endorse the Party: Shankar Gopalakrishnan →

Culture, Media politics, Politics, Right watch

Why I joined AAP and Quit the CPI: Kamal Mitra Chenoy

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Guest post by KAMAL MITRA CHENOY

I first became conscious of politics as a student of economics in Kirorimal College, Delhi University in 1969 when I was elected to the students union executive committee. The same year I was persuaded by a senior to stand for the Delhi University Students Union’s Supreme Council. The latter body elected the DUSU office bearers. These were heady days with some of the leading pro- Naxalites students, students like Avdesh Sinha, who later became a highly respected IAS officer, and Rabindra Ray now a sociology professor in Delhi University. Another leading star who has written on his experiences was Dilip Simeon. I also became Left but did not agree with armed struggle. At this stage I watched the mainstream Left parties and along with Marxist texts read some Left Party pamphlets.

However, a deeper and much more expansive debate was snowballing where I joined in JNU in 1972. Prakash Karat who had earlier written a thought provoking book on the nationality and language question in India was widely respected as a political leader of the JNU students and a formidable theorist. In 1973, the Student Federation of India and the All India Students Federation of which I was the unit secretary aligned for the first time after the split in the communist movement in 1964. We called the alliance progressive democratic front. We were also attacked by an extremely erudite Trotskyist Jairus Banaji who considered us revisionist and quoted extensively from Marxist classics as well as literature, philosophy and the social sciences. Because of this challenge all of us had to do our readings. Continue reading Why I joined AAP and Quit the CPI: Kamal Mitra Chenoy →

Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Politics

Xenophobia, Racism and Vigilantism – Danger Signals for AAP

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The bizarre drama yesterday, involving one of the Aam Aadmi Party ministers, Somnath Bharti, should make the AAP leadership sit up and think. Here is a brief extract from a report:

Less than 24 hours after he led a midnight raid and tried to bully police into arresting some “Nigerians or Ugandans” who he alleged were members of “a prostitution-and-drug ring”, Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti returned to the very spot on Thursday and asked residents to draw up a list of houses where “such people” live and said he would personally check each one.

The minister got embroiled in a full-scale confrontation with the ACP, BS Jakhar, who insisted, correctly that the police were not legally empowered to do this. According to the same report, Jakhar said, “The minister told me that the women inside are part of a drug racket and that we should conduct a raid in all houses in the area. I told him that the law does not permit us to barge into someone’s house, so late in the night, without a search warrant.” But to not effect. The minister was not only unfazed; he even went on say that he had “received a lot of complaints from women in this locality against foreign nationals, yeh hum aur aap jaise nahin hain (They are not like you or me).” Continue reading Xenophobia, Racism and Vigilantism – Danger Signals for AAP →

Culture, Ecology/Environment, Identities, Language

Climate, Culture, Cosmopolitanism – Notes from Shillong: Nabanipa Bhattacharjee

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Guest post by NABANIPA BHATTACHARJEE

Surrounded by lush green hills, Shillong, the capital city of Meghalaya is widely known for its salubrious climate and natural beauty. As one of oldest hill stations of the sub-continent, Shillong was chosen – after the failure of the British administrators and soldiers to continue operating out of Cherrapunjee – to house the headquarters of the colonial government including the Sylhet Light Infantry in 1864. Following the creation of Assam as a Chief Commissioner’s province (carved out of the Bengal Presidency) in 1874, Shillong, a small town then, was declared its capital. Shillong scored over others in that part of the empire, among others, due to two important factors. First, its climate and second, the town being best suited to serve the colonial administrative, commercial and strategic interests.

As a result of the reorganised political geography of the region substantial number of European, Assamese and Bengali officers and clerks of the colonial bureaucracy lived and settled in Shillong. And so did a large number of tea planters of Assamese and European origins, Nepali staff of the colonial army, Marwari entrepreneurs and, so forth. Indeed, the quaint hill town, which was essentially populated by the Khasi tribe, acquired by the turn of the twentieth century a vibrant, cosmopolitan character which stood substantively (and perhaps best) reflected in the organisation of its cultural space. Shillong’s spirit of cosmopolitanism, as its socio-cultural history shows, was deeply embedded in the ideology of the recognition (and not mere political management) of cultural difference. Continue reading Climate, Culture, Cosmopolitanism – Notes from Shillong: Nabanipa Bhattacharjee →

Bad ideas, Debates, Movements, Politics

AAP and the Ideology Warriors

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If ideology-warriors had their way, they would rather have Narendra Modi as the next prime minister than have their ideological purity compromised. Soon after AAP’s victory, many secularists rushed to declare, on Facebook and elsewhere, that they do not and will not partake of the AAP euphoria. ‘What is their stand on communalism?’, they asked indignantly. Some other friends insisted that Muslims need an assurance about AAP’s position on communalism and it should clarify its stand if it wanted the Muslim vote.

So what do the ideology warriors want? Just when the political agenda for the elections has decisively changed, throwing the BJP into a complete quandary, upsetting its strategic plans, they want the old familiar, secular/ communal divide back in place, opening up the political field once more to the same Hindu-Muslim polarization that we are so used to. The secular/ communal divide has been the millstone around our neck, preventing any other issue from being brought into public debate at election time and effectively preventing the emergence of any new force or formation. And let there be no mistake that in a communal polarization of Hindus and Muslims, secular forces will always, in the on-going drama of secular masochism, have to deposit themselves tied hand and foot, into the Congress party’s dungeon. The Amit Shahs will have a field day, creating one Muzaffarnagar after another, and erstwhile secular mascots like Mulayam Singh Yadav will vie with them in further entrenching the Hindu-Muslim divide. In all of this, the Congress will present itself as the saviour of Muslims.

The Congress, the BJP, the imaginary ‘third front’ – all have been able players and winners in this game. Continue reading AAP and the Ideology Warriors →

Capitalism, Excavation, Politics, Right watch

The Year That Was and the Challenge of 2014

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This is a slightly modified version of the article ‘Winds of Change’, published in Economic and Political Weekly (28 December, 2013). As the year ends and we brace up for the big battle that lies ahead in the coming year, here are some reflections on matters that may have a bearing on that battle. Politics is undergoing a transformation, in India as elsewhere. But perhaps, more importantly, it is also what we have so far understood as politics, that is on the point of transformation. For over a century, social science disciplines have maintained a neat distinction between the political and the economic, between state and capital and so on. Marxism ostensibly challenged this false division – but only to assert that the real thing was ‘economics’; that politics was mere epi-phenomenon. But the story of capital was never an economic story alone. In diverse ways, movements in different parts of the world are about this forced division, and the destruction of politics that followed in actual life as economics became a domain of so-called iron laws and economic models began to determine the ways we were taught to see and understand politics.  In the neoliberal 1990s and part of the 2000s, economic laws and the ‘needs’ of capital became sacrosanct – all politics was made to sing and dance to its tune. Only rank outsiders to this world could ask the emperor’s new clothes kind of questions. That is what seems to be happening. Till now, even those who saw that the emperor was naked, went on a maun vrata (vow of silence), fearing ridicule.

The dying old Kulin Brahmin in Goutam Ghose’s Bengali film Antarjali Jatra suddenly sprang to life on seeing his new attractive wife who had been married to him for the sole purpose of accompanying him in his life beyond as sati. Much like that character, the decrepit and ramshackle BJP seems to have suddenly sprung to life at the fantasy of power, having been out in the cold for almost a decade. And just as the young bride in the film was provided by another old impoverished Brahmin (his unmarried daughter), so an utterly impoverished Congress has provided the BJP with the most tantalizing possibility of what it might get in its life beyond.

How else do we explain the fact that the BJP after 2004, already in shambles with all its old leaders gone and its organization ridden with internal bickering and loss of direction, suddenly seems to have made such a comeback in the recent elections in five states? The ‘return of the BJP’ seems to be the overt message of the results of these elections. For there is certainly no doubt that in the past one year so, ever since the orchestrated rise of Narendra Modi in all-India level politics, the BJP’s fortunes too seem to have started turning. This development, however, was greatly facilitated by the Congress in more ways than one. The Congress seemed determined to hand over the game to Modi and the Hindu Right. Continue reading The Year That Was and the Challenge of 2014 →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Debates, Government, Politics

Corporate Sabotage and AAP’s Chavez Moment

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Even as the new AAP government was preparing to take oath of office, the news came of an unprecedented hike in the price of CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) – a hike of Rs 5.15 per kg. In principle, there is nothing wrong with a price-hike that is supposedly necessitated by the need to reduce supplies to metropolitan centres in order to ensure a more equitable distribution to other towns. However, knowing the way the Congress Party functions, the timing of this hike gives rise to legitimate suspicion that the intention is mala fide. At the very least, the decision could have waited till the new government assumed office and some consultation with the new government was carried out. This move shows up the nature of what can be expected from Congress and its ‘outside support’ to the new government.

Expectedly, auto-rickshaw drivers have started making noises about going on strike if fares are not commensurately hiked. If auto fares are raised, it hits the middle class, and if they are not, it alienates the auto-drivers.This clearly throws any new government into a quandary. Continue reading Corporate Sabotage and AAP’s Chavez Moment →

Capitalism, Debates, Politics

AAP’s Rise and Congress Rout – Some Obvious but Unconventional Questions: Sanjay Kumar

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Guest post by SANJAY KUMAR

A Congress rout and the AAP success are the most obvious results of recent polls. Both are spectacular, in their own ways. Even BJP’s landslide victory in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh pales in comparison, for these two open up new possibilities.

Why a party whose legacy of anti-colonial struggle had lost sheen generations ago, whose top leadership is in the grip of a seemingly disinterested and incompetent dynasty, that lacks any organised cadre, coherent ideology, social base, and whose average leader appears more of a wheeler-dealer, and scamster, should continue to get close to thirty percent of votes from Indians even in worst of times, is a genuine mystery. That the Indian social analyses, barring a few exceptions, have tried little to unravel this mystery, is not only an indication of their intellectual limitations, but also of their ideological biases. The enduring success of Congress indicates seamier side of liberal democracy in general, which bourgeois social sciences try more to paper over than explore.

From voters’ perspective elections under liberal democracy are an exercise in choice, but not in freedom. When people vote, they are not acting as citizens shaping their social world, but as little men and women facing pre-existing structures of social power. The magic of elections under liberal democracy is precisely this. They offer a choice, the choice is not fake, its collective outcome is uncertain, yet the choice is already pre-determined in ways that by and large reproduce pre-existing power structures. That is why, exercising franchise is not necessarily a marker of democratic exercise, and leaders of fascist persuasion are often the loudest votaries of compulsory voting.  But that is not all. If elections were mere gears in a machine that simply revolved on and on, they would be quickly become a ritual, like those under state socialism in which the Party and leaders always got more than 95% approvals. Elections under liberal democracy in contrast provide flexible adjustment of state political functionaries to changing social conditions. They allow reflection of changes in public opinion, demography, gender politics, caste equations and balance of class forces, whose origins lie somewhere else, onto state politics. Punctuated adjustment with a time lag produces a sense of drama. Personae on stage appear as victors and losers, for voters there is enough stage space to allow their hope, vengeance or gratitude to play their part. For a time, and only for a time, the impersonal structure of state power becomes humanly palpable. Continue reading AAP’s Rise and Congress Rout – Some Obvious but Unconventional Questions: Sanjay Kumar →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Law, Right watch

We Are All Queer – Assemble at Jantar Mantar against Reactionary Judgement

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Shocking! Shameful!!  Disgusting!!!

The Supreme Court has struck down the  Delhi High Court decision decriminalizing gay sex in what might go down as the most retrograde judgement in India’s history. While the details of the Court’s reasoning are still not available, we can perhaps easily imagine what they might be. This is time of civil disobedience. Time for protest.

Assemble at Jantar Mantar at 4.30 pm, today 11 December to announce to the world that ‘We Are All Queer’. To announce that this is not a struggle of just the ‘gay-lesbian community’ but a struggle for our most fundamental rights and cherished values.

Culture, Debates, Government, Identities, Right watch

The State Manufactures Terrorism: KP Sasi

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An Interview with activist-film-maker, K.P. SASI by Md. Eisa, Badre Alam Khan and Abhay Kumar.

KP Sasi
KP Sasi

K.P. Sasi is a well-known social activist and filmmaker.  In his several decades of activism, he has been associated with a number of social movements ranging from anti-globalisation and anti-nuclear movement to anti-death penalty struggles and the movements led by environmentalists and marginalised social groups such as Dalits, Adivasis, and Muslims etc. He has expressed his activism through making more than two dozen documentaries and a few feature films. But his two music videos —America, America and Gaon Chhodab Nahin, watched by lakhs of people, continue to motivate social and political activists standing against injustice and inequality. The lean and thin Sasi, who spots thick grey beard, is again in controversies for his latest spell of activism. Early in this year he screened a 94-minute long documentary Fabricated based on the life of Muslim leader from Kerala Abdul Nasar Madani, accused in Coimbatore and Bangalore serial bomb blasts. Fabricated has been the fruit of Sasi’s two years of hard work during which he did an extensive research, met a number of people and travelled thousands of miles and received threats as well. Why did he take so much pain and risk his life? Fabricated, in Sasi’s words, is an attempt to bring a ray of hope to thousands of innocent people, mostly Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis, oppressed nationalities, workers and others languishing in jails for years and decades under draconian laws such as Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Fabricated is mostly woven around the story of Madani, making a strong case that the Muslim leader of Kerala is innocent and has been jailed for years simply because has been framed. He has a charisma, a great skill of oratory and above all a vision of the uplift of the marginalised sections. In the early week of November, Sasi was in Delhi where Fabricated was screened at many places. After watching the documentary at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Md. Eisa, Badre Alam Khan and Abhay Kumar had a detailed interview with K.P. Sasi during which he went on a great length about a host of issues from state terror, human rights, Hindu right, caste, and class to the Muslim politics. The excerpts of the interview are as follows: Continue reading The State Manufactures Terrorism: KP Sasi →

Capitalism, Debates, Frontiers, Left watch, Politics

AAP Halts BJP Advance in Delhi

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Over a year ago, I had written on Kafila about the (Ir)resistible rise of Arvind Kejriwal,  a phenomenon thoroughly misread from the beginning to this moment, by free radicals and Left devotees of Congress-style politics. Taking the risk of saying ‘I-told-you-so’, some lessons need to be underlined, learnt from the political developments of the last three years. That post said – referring back to the days of the Anna Hazare movement (itself dubbed reactionary, casteist, even RSS-sponsored and fascist, by pundits of all hues) –

But here was the political class  and the intelligentsia from Left to Right taking the protestors to task – asking them to tame their dissent and channel it through ‘proper channels’. Contest elections and let us see how much support you have, they challenged. Anna Hazare stuck to his guns, refusing the bait. Kejriwal however, seems to have decided to call their bluff. And much before the last hunger strike failed, his political mobilization started moving away from the single point agenda of the Lokpal Bill. Apparently taking up the challenge and moving towards the constitution of a political party, Kejriwal has entered the field in a manner that might even begin to pose an electoral challenge to ruling as well as opposition parties. How much of a challenge it will be we cannot say. However, one thing is quite clear: It will probably introduce an element of serious uncertainty in the coming elections, whenever they are held. Old formulas will cease to work. Equations are bound to change with new imponderables entering the scene.

Continue reading AAP Halts BJP Advance in Delhi →

Bad ideas, Culture, Law, Right watch

PUCL Statement on Tehelka Sexual Assault Case

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[We are publishing below the full text of the statement issued by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, on the Tehelka case, which raises some important issues that have not received public attention yet.]
 
Press Statement on the Tehelka Sexual Assault Case
 Dated: 2 December 2013
The PUCL
  • Expresses Solidarity with the struggle of the Tehelka Journalist who raised her voice against Rape and Intimidation by the Ex-Editor Tarun Tejpal.
  • Demands fair investigation and early charge sheet into the matter, from the Goa Police.
  • Considers Six Day of Custodial interrogation of Tarun Tejpal granted by the Goa Judicial Magistrate Court unnecessary and invidious.
  • Appeals that police custody and the case not become a tool in the hands of BJP administered Goa police to settle scores with Tejpal.
The People’s Union for Civil Liberties from the very beginning has supported the complaint of the woman journalist of Tehelka magazine who accused the editor of Tehelka, Tarun Tejpal, of rape and sexual assault. PUCL salutes her courage for breaking the silence on rape and sexual intimidation carried out by her senior colleague and editor. We have also admired the consistent and principled manner in which the young girl stated her case, initially via internal emails within Tehelka, and later on to the media, neither allowing vituperation or anger at the blatant violation of her body to sensationalise her case or to prevaricate about the fact of the offence having been committed. Through her dignified stand she stands as a model to all women who suffer similar sexual violence, that the dignity of a woman’s body cannot be a plaything for anybody howsoever influential and powerful they be. By the same token, we also denounce the vilification campaign carried out by Tarun Tejpal and his lawyers against the complainant by seeking to impute that the entire crime was actually a `consensual’ act or at trying to trivialise the crime by calling it “light hearted banter”.

Continue reading PUCL Statement on Tehelka Sexual Assault Case →

Countryside, Ecology/Environment, Law, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Right watch

Laxmanpur Bathe, Then and Now: Monobina Gupta

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Guest post by MONOBINA GUPTA

I remember a chill running down my spine that early afternoon in 1998. I was standing at Laxmanpur Bathe – the site of a cold-blooded massacre a year ago. Then a reporter with The Telegraph, I was touring Bihar, reporting on the 1998 general elections, less than two years after the United Front government came to power. Bihar was then firmly under the thumb of the redoubtable Lalu Prasad. Tensions between the Maoist Coordination Committee (MCC) and the Ranvir Sena, a private army of upper caste landlords, were running high. Every reporter visiting the area had been advised by the district magistrates concerned not to travel after sundown. Newspapers in Delhi were full of stories about Bihar’s lawlessness, extortions and abductions even in broad daylight.

I had read details of that deadly night in the newspapers; and then of the sudden trips made by VIP cavalcades to the village in the aftermath of the bloodbath. The massacre had pitched the forgotten hamlet of Dalits into the glaring spotlight. Crowds of politicians and media descended on the spot, even as the grief stricken survivors were struggling with the shock of the attack and the terrible loss of their loved ones. Continue reading Laxmanpur Bathe, Then and Now: Monobina Gupta →