All posts by Aditya Nigam

Capitalism, Centre watch, Government, Law, Violence/Conflict

On the Violence Unleashed against Protesting Citizens in Koodankulam: Chennai Solidarity Group

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A Statement issued by the Chennai Solidarity Group

Background

For more than a year the people of Idinthakarai village, along with fellow citizens from nearby villages have been protesting the setting up of a nuclear power plant at Koodankulam in Southern Tamil Nadu. The protests have been peaceful and have included people from different strata of society. Women have been in the forefront of the struggle, and over the last year even children have learned about the perils of nuclear power plants and the need to look for alternative energy sources.

In spite of this being a peaceful citizens’ protest, the state has chosen to treat it as dangerous – and arrested hundreds of people, intimidated many others and have more than once treated Idinthakarai village and its environs as if it were ‘enemy’ territory. Sedition charges have been slapped against the protesters, along with other criminal charges. The legality of these measures has since been subject to questioning. A high level Public Hearing, presided over by Former Chief Justice A B Shah has in fact called attention to the manner in which the law has been misused in this instance, and in fact abused to harass and prevent ordinary citizens from exercising their right to protest, and defend their constitutionally guaranteed right to life and livelihood. Continue reading On the Violence Unleashed against Protesting Citizens in Koodankulam: Chennai Solidarity Group →

Capitalism, Debates, Law

Drugs in 3(d) and What Matters in the Novartis Case at Supreme Court: Dwijen Rangnekar

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Guest post by DWIJEN RANGNEKAR

Background

Glivec (called Gliveec in the US) is a drug for chronic myelogenous leukaemia (CML) – a rare and debilitating form of cancer. A Novartis drug, it has been heralded as a sign of pioneering pharmaceutical research. And, no doubt, it is a ‘life-saving’ drug; though, it also has to be taken life-long. Most narratives of the research pathways of Glivec gloss over the 40+ years of publicly funded and conducted research that isolated the cause, a BCR-ABL oncogene, and performed the initial clinical research that identified a promising candidate (STI 571 – imatinib mesylate). Novartis, the Swiss-headquartered pharma transnational, proceeded to synthesise and test STI 571, which in 1993 was patented. Further research found that a beta crystalline form of imatinib mesylate was more stable – and this was also patented (in 1997) and approved in the US in 2001. In 1998, a patent application for this beta crystalline form was filed in India – and this is in dispute here.

Section 3(d) is a provision in India’s patent law – and is unique to India; though, as explained in the article, it reflects a wider authorship of global public concern. The section was introduced in the third amendment to Patent Act, 1970 (i.e. The Patents (Amendment) Act, 2005) when India was fulfilling its final commitments to patent-related obligations at TRIPS. Written in technologically neutral language, 3(d) seeks to deny the availability of patents where a ‘new form of a known substance … does not result in the enhancement of the known efficacy of that substance’. This, along with other provisions, would hopefully make it more difficult to patent trivial and incremental modifications to a drug; thus, extending patent terms and delaying entry of generic alternatives. Continue reading Drugs in 3(d) and What Matters in the Novartis Case at Supreme Court: Dwijen Rangnekar →

Debates, Government, Identities, Politics

MSS Pandian Responds to S K Thorat

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Following the submission of the report by the Committee to Review NCERT Textbooks, we had posted the full text of the Report in Kafila, along with Prof MSS Pandian’s Note of Dissent. The controversy has since continued over the report as well as Pandian’s Note of Dissent, many questioning the very term ‘note of dissent’ on the ground that he had not participated in the proceedings of the Committee. Recently Prof Sukhdeo Thorat, head of the Committee has further put this point of view in print in The Hindu which has been followed by a response by MSS Pandian.

Since we have had a long and lively debate on the matter of the ‘Ambedkar cartoon’ in Kafila and the controversy seems to be continuing now in a different form, we reproduce here the links to the articles by Sukhdeo Thorat and MSS Pandian. In his piece, Sukhdeo Thorat defends the Committee’s work and presents his opinion on Pandian’s non-participation. Pandian responds in his piece raising serious questions about the way the work of the Committee proceeded from its early stages by excluding members. We present the links to these two pieces here so that readers can form their own judgement on the Committee’s work.

Capitalism, Everyday Life, Left watch, Mirror Worlds, Politics

Molecular Socialism – A Possible Future for Left Politics

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The end of the twentieth century saw the collapse of soviet-style state-socialism and the beginning of neo-liberalism’s triumphal march, which has ravaged the planet in a little over two decades. The destruction of the earth has proceeded with renewed vigour since, as has the dispossession of the poor. Cities have been re-made for the luxury living of the rich and the upwardly mobile middle classes. And for their luxury, for their ‘free movement’ across the city and beyond, settlements of the poor have had to make way, as shopping malls, freeways and expressways began defining the new imagination of the city.

If it took soviet-style socialism close to six-seven decades to finally face mass rejection, the neoliberal order has taken far less time. Faced with major opposition movements across the Western world, from the Occupy Wall Street movement to the Indignados in Spain and Greece and powerful new political formations in many parts of South America, the neoliberal order no longer seems as unchallengeable as it used to till just some time ago. Its advent on the horizon came as a new kind of theology that brooked no dissent. It came to us apparently telling us some elementary truths about ourselves and the world we inhabit. And it was quite amazing to see the speed with which the new religion gained converts in those early years. Continue reading Molecular Socialism – A Possible Future for Left Politics →

Government, Identities, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Violence/Conflict

On the ongoing ethnic violence in Assam: A Statement

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The following is the text of a Statement issued in Delhi on 27 July 2012, endorsed by a number of concerned organizations and individuals

We the people from various parts of northeast residing in Delhi, along with concerned individuals, university members, various students’, teachers’, trade union, women’s, civil and human rights organisations from Delhi, strongly condemn the ongoing ethnic conflict with serious communal undertone that has erupted in four districts (Kokrajhar, Dhubri, Chirang and Bongaigaon) of Lower Assam. This has been the most widespread and alarming conflict in the recent history of Assam.

In the last one week we have witnessed the tragedy of nearly 200,000 people belonging to the Bodo and the Muslim communities, being forced to flee from their homes and villages. Currently they stand internally displaced, and are scarred and traumatized. Official figures state that around 41 people have lost their lives so far, while unofficial estimates from the grounds are much higher. More than 400 villages have been torched down until now. Continue reading On the ongoing ethnic violence in Assam: A Statement →

Capitalism, Government, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Maruti workers produced in district court: Anumeha Yadav

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Guest post by ANUMEHA YADAV

In Manesar 25 July court
In Manesar 25 July court

Satbir, a 28 year old worker, was among four workers from Maruti’s Manesar plant produced by Haryana police at the district court in Gurgaon on Wednesday afternoon. Satbir has multiple fractures in his left leg and was taken to the civil hospital from the court room. “I fell while trying to flee the plant. I was in the morning Shift A; we had stayed back because we heard the union leaders were meeting the management to negotiate the reinstatement of a worker,” he recounts. “The violence began after 7 pm, I don’t know why it started. Gate 1 was closed. I feared that I may get attacked in the rioting and the confusion. I and two of my colleagues tried to jump off the back wall but I fell,” he says. Continue reading Maruti workers produced in district court: Anumeha Yadav →

Capitalism, Government, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Resisting Caste Violence – Facing Brutal Repression: NTUI on Maruti-Suzuki

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Statement issued by NEW TRADE UNION INITIATIVE on the incidents at Maruti-Suzuki’s Manesar Plant

Dated 19 July, 2012, New Delhi

The present spate of violence at the Manesar plant of Maruti Suzuki as a fallout of a protest by workers against a casteist comment made by a supervisor at a dalit worker reflects the continuing use of ‘caste’ as a method of subordination and oppression reflecting the persistence of deeply rooted primordial structures of society that complement capitalist exploitation. When co-workers protested, the management suspended the abused worker and refused to re-instate him and instead resorted to brutal violence, orchestrated by goons, against the workers and targeting the union leaders.

It is important to note that the Maruti Suzuki management is yet to constitute the Grievance Redressal Committee and the Welfare Committee at its Manesar plant which was agreed upon after the last dispute in October 2011. The present dispute is a well planned instigation by the management to systematically derail the ongoing negotiations on the Charter of Demands submitted by the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union in April 2012 and to discredit the sustained and united struggle of the workers at the Manesar plant. Continue reading Resisting Caste Violence – Facing Brutal Repression: NTUI on Maruti-Suzuki →

Capitalism, Left watch, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Some Reflections on Capital and the Workers’ Movement After Manesar

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Workers’ Violence and Corporate Violations of Law

It has been a long time in the making. The violence at Maruti-Suzuki’s Manesar plant on 19 July 2012, that led to the ghastly killing of the general manager, Awanish Kumar Dev was waiting to happen. While the killing was gruesome, I believe this is merely a ‘freeze shot’ of a larger film that has been playing for a very long time now. While it is the media’s wont to focus only on these moments of spectacular violence and then dish out reports from handouts provided by managements and the police, sometimes, such moments of conflagration do illuminate what has been in the dark for so long.

What follows below is an attempt to think through some of the issues that seem to me to lie at the bottom of the violent event. The ‘violent event’ here is not simply what took place in Maruti-Suzuki’s Manesar plant now; it is rather a shorthand for the whole series of such conflagrations that have been taking place over the past few years in the National Capital Region (NCR) – starting with Honda Motors and Scooters 2005,  Graziano Trasmissioni 2008, and many others since – Rico Auto Industries, Pricol Ltd and so on. The struggle in Honda Motors that had been brewing for a long time had eventually spilled over into a series of public protests with severe police violence in the full glare of the media. Things have never been the same in the entire belt since. Rico Auto Industries incident in September-October 2009 subsequently became an important milestone – galvanizing as it did a number of other workers’ strikes. There it had started when the workers struck work after 17 of their colleagues had been dismissed ‘on disciplinary grounds’. Actually, the workers rightly felt that this was to quash their attempt to form a union. And while the workers were protesting at the gate, a group of hired goons attacked them, killing one of the workers and injuring many others. In the Graziano Trasmissioni the issue of contention was the reinstatement of 136 dismissed workers which led to a massive unrest in the unit in Greater NOIDA, leading eventually to an incident not very different from the present one. Continue reading Some Reflections on Capital and the Workers’ Movement After Manesar →

Capitalism, Law, Mirror Worlds, Violence/Conflict

What set off the violence at Maruti’s Manesar plant?: Anumeha Yadav

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Guest post by ANUMEHA YADAV

Photos by Anumeha Yadav

The year-long industrial conflict at Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL), India’s largest automobile manufacturer’s Manesar plant turned violent on 18 July. At 3:30 pm on Wednesday afternoon, representatives from Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union and the Maruti management had met to discuss the reinstatement of Jiya Lal, a permanent worker who had been suspended that morning after an altercation with his floor supervisor. Lal is a Dalit and alleges that he had reacted when the supervisor made derogatory casteist remarks against him. The workers were protesting that the management had been unfair, suspending Lal from service while merely sending the supervisor home on leave for a few days. Continue reading What set off the violence at Maruti’s Manesar plant?: Anumeha Yadav →

Capitalism, Government, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Maruti Suzuki Manesar Workers – Casteist Attack and Repression

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The following is a statement issued by the Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union (MSWU) on 19 July following violence and repression at the Manesar plant yesterday.

The Manesar factory of Maruti Suzuki

The Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU) is anguished at the recent developments in Maruti Suzuki plant, IMT Manesar where the management has resorted to anti-worker and anti-Union activities in a pre-planned manner leading to violence and the closure of the factory yesterday.

We have had a long tough struggle with the strong unity of our permanent and contract workers to establish and register our Union last year, and had recently as of April 2012 submitted our Charter of Demands to the management of Maruti Suzuki, and the process of negotiation for wages and other demands was underway. However the management has done its utmost to derail the process since long and is trying to break the back of the spirit of unity of the workers and the legitimacy of the Union.

Continue reading Maruti Suzuki Manesar Workers – Casteist Attack and Repression →

Bad ideas, Left watch, Movements, Right watch

CPI(M)’s ‘July Crisis’ and Challenges for Rebuilding the Left

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In an unprecedented move ,  the JNU unit of the SFI (SFI-JNU) has been dissolved by the ‘Delhi State Committee of the Students’ Federation of India’ [SFI is the CPI(M) student wing]. What is interesting about the press statement issued by the ‘Delhi State Committee’ following this momentous decision, is that it is signed by the Acting President and the Acting Secretary. The state secretary Robert Rahman Raman has since resigned in protest against the decision and the state president, according to him happens to be among those expelled. The state secretary in his statement has protested against the SFI Delhi state committee’s decision, ‘taken with just 12 members present and without adequate consultation or effort to retain the unit.’  The matter then, is far bigger than that of an errant SFI unit.

Clearly, leading state functionaries of the organization too are involved in the heresy that has called forth this action by the high priests of the CPI(M). Anyone who knows the command structure of the CPI(M) and how it works, can see immediately that a decision as important and unprecedented as this cannot have been taken by something as inconsequential as the Delhi state committee of the SFI. Indeed, even the Delhi state committee of the CPI(M) could not have taken this decision without the concurrence of the highest leadership – in this case Prakash Karat, the general secretary, himself. Continue reading CPI(M)’s ‘July Crisis’ and Challenges for Rebuilding the Left →

Government, Politics, Violence/Conflict

जेल डायरी: अरुण फेरेरा

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Guest post by ARUN FERREIRA

Translated from English by Anil Mishra

नागपुर जेल की उच्च–सुरक्षित परिसीमा में स्थित अंडा बैरक बग़ैर खिड़कियों वाली कोठरियों का एक समूह है। अंडा के प्रवेश–द्वार से दूसरी अधिकतर अन्य कोठरियों में जाने के लिए लोहे के पाँच दरवाज़ों, [और पैदल] एक संकरा गलियारा पार करना होता है। अंडा के भीतर कई अलग अहाते हैं। हरेक अहाते में कुछ कोठरियाँ हैं, और हर पहली कोठरी दूसरी से सावधानीपूर्वक अलगाई गई है। कोठरियों में बहुत कम रोशनी होती है और आप यहाँ कोई पेड़ नहीं देख सकते। आप यहाँ से आसमान तक नहीं देख सकते हैं। मुख्य निगरानी टॉवर के ठीक ऊपर से अहाते में एक बड़ा भारी, ठोस अंडा हवा में लटकता रहता है। लेकिन इसमें (और अन्य अडों में) एक बड़ा फ़र्क़ है। इसे तोड़कर खोलना असंभव है। बल्कि, यह क़ैदियों (के हौसलों) को तोड़ने के लिए बनाया गया है।

 अंडा वो जगह है जहाँ सबसे ज़्यादा बेलगाम क़ैदियों को, अनुशासनात्मक क़ायदों के उल्लंघन करने की सज़ा के लिए क़ैद किया जाता है। नागपुर जेल के अन्य हिस्से इतने ज़्यादा सख़्त नहीं है। अधिकतर क़ैदी पंखे और टीवी वाली बैरकों में रखे जाते हैं। बैरकों में, दिन के पहर काफ़ी इत्मिनान वाले, यहाँ तक कि आरामतलब भी हो सकते हैं। लेकिन अंडा में, कोठरी के दरवाज़े ही हवा के आने जाने का एकमात्र ज़रिया है, और ये भी कुछ ख़ास आरामदायक नहीं, क्योंकि ये किसी खुले प्रांगण में नहीं, एक ढंके–मुंदे गलियारे में खुलता है। Continue reading जेल डायरी: अरुण फेरेरा →

Excavation, Left watch, Politics, Theory

MEGA, the recovery of Marx and Marxian path: Sankar Ray

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Guest post by SANKAR RAY

In sharp contrast to the scenario of the unprecedented debt-driven crisis of neo-liberal world economic order, a new era of radiant expectations seems to open up for Marx-followers and Marxists around the international project, Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe or complete works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (MEGA) and it’s hitherto ‘unexplored Marx’. MEGA , a collation of original texts is ‘the historical-critical edition of works of Marx and Engels’, an imperative ignored during the 20th century by official Marxists. Fifty-nine out of 114 volumes , have already been published. The MEGA editorial board, following prolonged debate decided to put together the whole of 164 volumes of original manuscripts in 114 volumes.

A critical approach to history  is essential for scholarly inquiry. Yet  scholarship alone isn’t enough where an enterprise such as this is for it also requires unbiased collation and editing. The development of Marxist studies had been throttled due to widespread vulgarisation which had dominated Marx studies from the 1890s to the end of the 20th Century. Early Marxists like Franz Mehring and Vera Zasulich – and Rosa Luxemburg – adopted a more critical approach which is a essential for the ‘Marxist temper’. Marx’s prescription, de omnibus dubitandum (doubt everything), wasn’t meant to be just a quotation. Unfortunately, Lenin and his followers often deified Marx. Lenin’s words – “Marxism is omnipotent, because it is true” – is one such instance as if Marxism represents the end of philosophy. Continue reading MEGA, the recovery of Marx and Marxian path: Sankar Ray →

Countryside, Left watch, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Right watch

Swami Sahajanand Saraswati – A Contested Legacy: Manish Thakur and Nabanipa Bhattacharjee

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Guest post by MANISH THAKUR and NABANIPA BHATTACHARJEE

Observers of the political scene in Bihar would have hardly failed to notice a renewed interest in the life and works of Swami Sahajanand Saraswati (1889-1950), the founder president of the All India Kisan Sabha, and arguably the most influential peasant leader of Bihar in the 1930s and 1940s. Over the last decade or so, his birth (22 February, 1889) and death (26 June, 1950) anniversaries have been celebrated with great pomp and show with full attendance of political luminaries of the state including Nitish Kumar, its present Chief Minister. Not only have glowing tributes been paid to his legacy but there has also been a spurt of writings on his life and times.

Swami Sahajanand Saraswati
Swami Sahajanand Saraswati

New biographiesi have been released, and his collected works been published in six volumesii. In fact, there is a Swami Sahajanand Saraswati Foundation based in New Delhi as well as a Swami Sahajanand Saraswati Forum on the internet. Curiously enough, Swami Sahajanand Saraswati figures prominently on the internet in the caste-specific web-portals such as www.bhumihar.com; www.bhumiharmahasangh.com and www.bhumihar.net where his name appears along with Bhagwan Parashuram, Chanakya, Mangal Pande, Sri Babu, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, C.P Thakur, and so forth in the long list of supposedly Bhumihar icons. Indeed, Saraswati’s legacy has always been the bone of contention between the Bhumihars and the communists. What needs explanation is the BJP’s concerted efforts in appropriating this iconic peasant leader as ‘samajik samrasta ke sant’.

Continue reading Swami Sahajanand Saraswati – A Contested Legacy: Manish Thakur and Nabanipa Bhattacharjee →

Government, Identities, Law, Violence/Conflict

Terrorism in India – Between Facts and Fiction: Imran Khan

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Guest post by IMRAN KHAN

More and more concerns are being expressed by human rights activists in India today on the question of fabricated and false charges on innocent people. When Dr. Binayak Sen spent his time in jail on such charges, activist groups all over the country and abroad came out and protested. For the first time in the history of human rights movement in India, around two dozen Nobel Prize Winners came out to defend him. It should also be noted that there were even protests against such fabrication in front of Indian embassies in different parts of the world.

However, with the arrest of Binayak Sen, the contemporary history of `fabricating false cases’ by the Indian state took a new turn. The arrest took place while Dr. Sen was a national leader of India’s pioneering human rights organization, People’s Union for Civil liberties (PUCL).  The activists felt that the message was loud and clear: That even human rights defenders can be imprisoned for no reason under repressive laws of the post-independent India.

Dr. Sen was released due to public pressure. But thousands are still languishing behind bars, waiting for justice. The nameless adivasis who were arrested like Sen from different parts of Chhattisgarh, speak of an unknown territory even to the best of our human rights activists. And new messages are given. Even journalists can be grilled. Thus, K.K. Shahina, Azmi, Seema Azad, Advocate Naushad Kasimji and others have become victims of attacks on freedom of expression. Fabricating false cases has become a norm today rather than an exception, according to human rights groups. Minorities, dalits, adivasis,  people’s movements and self determination movements become an easy prey to false charges. Continue reading Terrorism in India – Between Facts and Fiction: Imran Khan →

Government, Identities, Law, Politics, Violence/Conflict

False Charges and Brutality in Prison: Mohd Amir Khan

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Guest post by MOHD. AMIR KHAN

[ Mohd. Aamir Khan has spent 14 years in prison and was acquitted earlier this year]

I am in deep pain today. As though terrible, terrible memories, locked away in the deep recesses of my mind have been pried open. Heard on news that an accused in terror case was killed in judicial custody in Yerwada jail. That too in his high security cell.

I had read that the British rulers unleashed physical and mental torture on prisoners in colonial jails, but have never heard that they carried out killings of hapless convicts or undertrials in their custody. The naked truth of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo has been brought before the world. But who will illumine the dark secrets of the netherworld of our prisons? Brutalisation and torture are routine in our jails.

I speak from experience, having lived for fourteen long and seemingly unending years in prisons in three states. There was a near fatal attack on me twelve years ago while I was lodged in the model prison of India, Tihar Jail. But when I survived the attack, a case was slapped on me. While I was thankfully acquitted in the case, not one of those who attacked me was charged until my father – who was still alive then—appealed to the court to intervene. Mercifully, the Court accepted his complaint and registered a case, which still goes on in Tees Hazari court. Continue reading False Charges and Brutality in Prison: Mohd Amir Khan →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Identities, Law

Disability Law Violations in Delhi University admissions – notes from the margins: Rijul Kochhar

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Guest post by RIJUL KOCHHAR

Contrary to what they may tell you, they don’t really give a damn about the disabled in this country. Systemically flouted laws, polite terms substituted for impolite realities, and stony silences meted to those who seek to question—these comprise the working of the disability model in this nation, a model that only goes so far as the abundance of obligation and ‘feel-good’ eye-wash will take it. The juggling of words—‘disabled’ for handicapped, then annihilation of ‘crippled’, and finally that awful phrase regnant in contemporary fashionable use, ‘differently/specially-abled’—constitutes our single biggest achievement as far as dealing with the disabled as rights-bearing persons is concerned. Continue reading Disability Law Violations in Delhi University admissions – notes from the margins: Rijul Kochhar →

Culture, Images, Metropolis

KK Aziz and the Coffee House of Lahore: Chris Moffat

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Guest post by CHRIS MOFFAT 

During a recent trip to Lahore, I visited the Sang-e-Meel bookshop on Lower Mall Road in search of K.K. Aziz’s The Coffee House of Lahore. Happily, the store was well stocked with the late historian’s final work, and I spent the afternoon reading the text at a table outside the nearby Tollinton Market. It was a betrayal, perhaps, to read the book in this way, sipping cold drinks from the Hafiz Fruit and Juice Corner rather than something appropriately caffeinated, purchased amidst a flurry of conversations in a busy café. I took some solace in the fact that I was sitting not a stone’s throw away from the former Pak Tea House, once a hub of cultural life in the city and among the many spaces of discourse and dissent mapped by Aziz in his narrative of mid-twentieth century Lahore.

Today, the Pak Tea House appears hollowed and shuttered, no longer decorated with a sign to declare its name or to suggest life inside. In spite of recent rumours of a revival, its vacant façade appears a testament to Aziz’s loud lament in The Coffee House of Lahore: that the city’s culture has “disappeared from view”, that its original landmarks “have been obliterated”. The book emerged out of the historian’s desire to capture, before it is lost, the memory of a period of free thought, argument and cultural effervescence, encapsulated in the life of institutions like the Tea House, the Indian Coffee House, the Arab Hotel, the Nagina Bakery, and other important places of assembly, all of which have now vanished from the urban fabric. Aziz chooses to focus on the particularly tumultuous period between 1942 and 1957, when he was an active participant in this culture as a student of politics and later as a lecturer in Lahore’s Government College.
Continue reading KK Aziz and the Coffee House of Lahore: Chris Moffat →

Culture, Debates, Identities, Images

Red Herrings, Red Rags and Red Flags – Once More on the Cartoon Controversy

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With the recent article by Prabhat Patnaik, the controversy over the ‘Ambedkar cartoon’ issue has now moved into a different terrain. In this important statement, Prabhat undertakes the task of pointing out the numerous red herrings that have entered into the debate. These include  ‘freedom of expression’ and ‘sense of humour’ and the question of  whether Ambedkar had actually seen and let pass this cartoon. Prabhat’s point about the changed sensitivities and increased audibility of the dalit movement today is also well taken.

We must also be thankful to Prabhat for stating his views so candidly over the past few years, on a number of critical issues ranging from Nandigram and the electoral defeat of the Left to the ongoing cartoon controversy. We must thank him because  because in my opinion, all his positions on these disparate sets of issues are of a piece and take us to the very heart of the impasse, not merely in the Left but in our politics itself. But before I respond to some of the issues raised by Prabhat, let me restate my positions on some aspects of the ongoing controversy. This is also necessary in order to identify what exactly it is in Prabhat’s piece that is so disturbing.

 Dalit Response and Hurt Sentiments

In its initial phases, the cartoon issue was certainly a ‘dalit issue’ – even if it was raised only by a section of the dalit political leadership and intelligentsia. Very soon, however, it became clear that there was a more cynical game being played where the most corrupt and compromised sections of our politicians – especially those in parliament – were using Ambedkar as a shield, in order to deflect the blows that were actually aimed at them. The amazing unity of purpose and determination displayed by the parliament has rarely been seen in recent times; nor has the love for Ambedkar ever been expressed with such vigour.

These circumstances give enough reasons to suspect that the game had already changed by the time it reached the parliament. Not many people may have noticed but it was a Congress MP (an official spokesperson in Madhya Pradesh) who raked up a long dead issue of the book by Arun Shourie (Worshipping False Gods), demanding that it be banned. Continue reading Red Herrings, Red Rags and Red Flags – Once More on the Cartoon Controversy →

Centre watch, Debates, Government, Identities, Politics

In Defense of Critical Pedagogy: A Petition

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The following is a petition initiated by a group of scholars who have been centrally involved in the debate on pedagogy and the writing of textbooks that followed National Currriculum Framework 2005

We have been watching with deep dismay the events as they have unfolded on the floor of the Indian Parliament and outside. Uproar against an individual cartoon has now snowballed into a wide-ranging attack against the new NCERT textbooks. The office of one of the Advisors of the Political Science textbooks has been ransacked, the Political Science textbooks have been withdrawn from circulation, and the Government has resolved to conduct an inquiry into the role of those who sanctioned the inclusion of the offending material in the textbooks. Clearly what is at stake here is not just the life of cartoons on the pages of school textbooks.

But the fear of cartoons is not unimportant. It tells us a lot about the democracies we now inhabit. Jawaharlal Nehru told Shankar Pillai ‘Don’t spare me Shankar’. B.R. Ambedkar saw the cartoon that is now being seen as ‘offensive’. He had no problem with it. Nehru and Ambedkar, and great democrats like them, were aware of what cartoons mean. They were aware that creative cartoonists like Shankar or Laxman can encourage us to question what is taken for granted, reveal the ambiguities and contradictions of individuals, persuade us to see things in a new light. India has a long creative tradition of satire and irony. The productive power of laughter has been used not only in movements for social justice, but in children’s literature as well. If we celebrate this tradition, we celebrate democracy. Only in non-democratic countries is there a fear of cartoons. Continue reading In Defense of Critical Pedagogy: A Petition →

Capitalism, Debates, Media politics

The Great Indian Media Hoax Of Self-Regulation: Ruchi Gupta

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Guest post by RUCHI GUPTA

[This post was initially published in the Times of India and removed from their site soon thereafter.]

With a comfortable gap of time after the revelations of paid news, private treaties and the Radia tapes, the media is once again on the offensive to guard its independence. The trigger this time is a private member’s bill, the Print and Electronic Media Standards and Regulation Bill, 2012. The proposed legislation has been widely and energetically panned by the industry, with the Congress subsequently distancing itself from the Bill. The Bill is not available in the public domain; however based on news reports, some provisions could perhaps lend themselves to state censorship. While the merits of the Bill are debatable, what is striking is the complete lack of self-consciousness with which the media termed the attempt as an attack on democracy, without addressing its own corruption and its deleterious impact on democracy. Continue reading The Great Indian Media Hoax Of Self-Regulation: Ruchi Gupta →