Dear Comrade
I write to you as a citizen, so unlike the many eulogies and appeals you have received recently, this will not be sugar-coated. You have received much praise, which is indeed well-deserved. But most of us have done, and are still doing, our duty well, but there is no need to indulge in any more self-praise.
Continue reading Restore Our Vision of the Future: A Letter to the Kerala Chief Minister
Today morning, The Hindu reported a decision of the Communist-led Kerala government: “The State Cabinet on Thursday decided to appoint a consultancy firm to guide in the post-floods reconstruction. The Cabinet is understood to have decided to appoint KPMG as its consultants on the subject.”
This is a guest post by ROBY RAJAN
Epic. Biblical. Apocalyptic. These are some of the words that have been used to describe the floods and landslides that have wreaked havoc in Kerala over the last few weeks. Entire towns and cities were submerged, and entire rivers altered their courses overnight. Continue reading Brackish Reflections on the Great Deluge of 2018: Roby Rajan
Continue reading A National Pledge for Kerala after the Great Deluge of 2018
By now everyone knows what the Sanghis, probably not just outside Kerala, but also inside, have been up to when others were battling the deluge, saving lives, working round the clock to organize relief: making Lord Ayappan look like a stupid brat (or, actually, painting him in their likeness), spreading idiotic claims that only the rich were affected, or that the Christians/Muslims/commies/everyone who isn’t a Hindutva bigot, are responsible for this catastrophe, and circulating fake photos, from relief work in Gujarat or somewhere else as RSS relief work for Kerala. Really, how we wish we could persuade them all to migrate to the Hindi heartland where ecological disasters are unheard of and will never ever be! Continue reading A List of Little-Knowledge Theories about Kerala in the Wake of this Disaster
[Before you read this post, you might want to read KR Meera’s brilliant portrait of the average Malayali middle-class Sangh supporter, in her story Sanghiannan, which I translated as ‘My Brother Sanghi’, published by Juggernaut at : https://www.juggernaut.in/books/088d472b19d745d29492560654250e15 . I recommend this also because she sketches beautifully the spirit of deep compassion that inheres in the thought of Sreenarayana Guru, who tried to imagine the faith outside the brahmanical framework of caste. This will help you to get a sense of that section of Malayali middle class I address here.]
Continue reading A letter to Sanghiannan in the wake of our common woe
In Malayalam, the usual way of referring to virulence that feeds on negative experience is paashaanathil krmi — or the maggot that is fattened by poison, instead of getting killed by it. Over the past few days, many of us have lived completely on the edge, bereft of sleep or ease, tossing about in a seemingly-unending nightmare, as the rain, floods, and landslides uproot not just our physical world, but the very culture of smugness and complacency that took over our deepest selves over the past twenty years or so. Continue reading Beware of Poisoning-Eating Maggots in Flood-Hit Kerala
This is a GUEST POST by TANNISTHA SAMANTA
Although the Indian Hindi film industry has been known to be considerably less gerontophobic than the western popular culture (Hollywood, in particular), our aging Naanas and Naanis have been often represented as either able keepers of family “sanskars” or hyper-ritualized subjects (with added effect if in some diasporic setting)or as self-sacrificing elderly parents to prodigal children (or ruthless grandchildren). Continue reading Bollywood’s re-imagination of growing old: Tannistha Samanta
The recent murder of an SFI activist, Abhimanyu, at the Maharajah’s College, Ernakulam, allegedly by activists of another student organization, the Campus Front, has once again triggered a series of intense campaigns against the Popular Front of India (PFI), which is accused of having terror links, even with the ISIS. This last claim has become commonsense almost impossible to contest.
Continue reading Who feeds whom? Reflections on the Left responses to the Abhimanyu murder case
സത്യം പറഞ്ഞാൽ അഭിമന്യു എന്ന വിദ്യാർത്ഥിയുടെ ഞെട്ടിക്കുന്ന കൊലപാതകത്തിനു ശേഷം ആ ചെറുപ്പക്കാരൻറെ മാതാവിൻറെ വിലാപം മാത്രമാണ് ഇപ്പോഴും മുഴങ്ങിക്കേൾക്കുന്നത്. ആ ശബ്ദം മനസ്സിൽ നിന്ന് മായുന്നതേയില്ല.
After the Modi government came to power, citizens of this country have seen gate after gate of Hell — the Narakas — open relentlessly to suck them in mercilessly or condemn them to be helpless spectators to unspeakable acts of injustice and violence. We have by now crossed the Arbudanaraka and the Nirarbudanaraka many times; the ordeal of having to watch evil unfold in the attacks on people in the name of what they eat, how they love, what they speak, who they pray to, which caste they were born into, what gender was assigned to them at birth — the list is growing day by day. We seem to be reduced to waiting endlessly at the doorsteps of police stations, courts, morgues, nearly overpowered by the stench of power and majoritarian hubris, fighting to stay conscious, waiting for the dead, broken, defiled, or dismembered bodies of our kin, our friends, neighbours, people. For instance, can one ever forget how we stood in sheer anxiety outside the Supreme Court, truly like souls awaiting judgment at the gates of Vaikuntam, reduced to droplets of pure worry? Those of us who fought for Hadiya’s rights can hardly forget.
Continue reading Against the Yawning Jaws of Hell: Protest Against Hate on 23 April
കേന്ദ്രത്തിൽ മോഡിസർക്കാർ ഭരണത്തിൽ വന്നതിനു ശേഷം നരകത്തിൻറെ വാതായനങ്ങൾ ഒന്നൊന്നായി പിളരുകയും അവ നമ്മേ വിഴുങ്ങുകയും മഹാപാതകങ്ങൾക്ക് നിസ്സഹായരായ ദൃക് സാക്ഷികളാവുക എന്ന അപാരപരീക്ഷണത്തിനു നാം വിധേയരാവുകയും ചെയ്തിരിക്കുന്നു. നിരർബുദനരകവും അർബുദനരകവും പല വട്ടം നാം കടന്നിരിക്കുന്നു. മാട്ടിറച്ചിയുടെ പേരിലും പിറന്നു പോയ ജാതിയുടെയും മതത്തിൻറെയും പേരിൽ നിരപരാധികളായ മനുഷ്യർ ഇവിടങ്ങളിലേക്കു വലിച്ചെറിയപ്പെടുന്നത് അധികവും നിസ്സഹായരായി കണ്ടുനിൽക്കേണ്ട ദുര്യോഗം താങ്ങാവുന്നതിലും അധികമായിരിക്കുന്നു. Continue reading മഹാനരകങ്ങൾക്കെതിരെ : ഏപ്രിൽ 23ൻെറ പ്രതിഷേധക്കൂട്ടയ്മയ്ക്കു വേണ്ടി ഒരു കുറിപ്പ്
If you ask me, this cover is not of a woman breastfeeding, but of one who is declaring her determination to be comfortable while breastfeeding, thereby reinforcing her commitment to breastfeed her baby. I think this difference is important. Breastfeeding is a very intimate act; it is highly physical. If the mother and child are well, happy, and don’t have issues that may make this feel like a chore or hard to do, then it is very highly pleasurable too. As a woman who has breastfed continuously for 9 years with just a short break of a few months during my second pregnancy, I can say this: breastfeeding is also ‘breastfeeling’, so your attention is on the act, and you really don’t want to focus on anything else, especially irritating stares. It is as pleasurable as lovemaking. Many years later (my daughters are 25 and 20 this year), when I remember the act, my nipples rise, tingling. Breastfeeding was also play time, when the little one played with her mum’s breast with her tiny fingers feeling and squeezing it; and my younger one was especially playful, twisting her tiny body in sheer pleasure, and sometimes, remaining still and then naughtily sinking her little tooth into the nipple, rolling her eyes up to check the reaction from her mum! So when we traveled, I always carried a big, opaque duppatta with which I made a ‘tent’ over our heads that covered us completely. We would be sitting in a corner seat in the train, and having fun, she sitting on my lap (and later the tent would be big enough for the three of us, myself, my six-year-old, and one-year-old, the former listening to a story, and the latter happily suckling). We would sing, tickle, do what not. Demanding the freedom to breastfeed without being too bothered about modesty and in public without anyone staring, for me, then, is demanding the right to such intimate pleasure in public. In that sense, this should have been one of the afterlives of Kerala’s Kiss of Love protests.
This is a guest post by V J VARGHESE
The aborted move of giving the Emigration Check Required (ECR) passports a distinct look by orange-jacketing them was arguably driven by reasons of administrative expediency. Though unexplained officially, the aim was to ensure discreet and dedicated handling of the large number of ECR passport-holders emigrating from India for overseas work. Had the colour code been carried through, the orange passport holders would have been relegated practically to an inferior citizenship not just at overseas but also through the multiple stages of emigration at home and in transit. The ill-thought colour-bracketing would also have nearly stigmatized the most vulnerable section of Indian passport-holders through contravening ‘special’ treatment at multifarious levels. Continue reading ECR Devoid of Orange is Still a Deterring Passport: V J Varghese
This is a guest post by TANNISTHA SAMAMTHA and MUKTA GUNDI
With the success of “PadMan”, Akshay Kumar has established himself to be a bleeding-heart ‘feminist’. News channels are pouring praises for a film that introduces a ‘bold’ topic while regurgitating the crucial link between safe menstrual practices and women’s health. While the message is old (and important), the euphoria around it is new. Continue reading PadMan, Patriarchy and the Poor Man’s Innovation: Tannistha Samantha and Mukta Gundi
T T Sreekumar, an important commentator on contemporary politics in Kerala — a public intellectual who now qualifies to be an irritant in the eyes of the Kerala police, now that he has openly declared his allegiance to the dalit people fighting injustice and Vadayambady and inaugurated a protest-event there — writes about the issue and its historical origins:
When I visited Vadayambady the other day to express my solidarity with the cause of the agitation, what I witnessed there was an atmosphere of utmost fear and police terror. A big task force of police was stationed at the location. The team that included the special branch officers, had created a situation of terror at the peaceful site. Activists mentioned that a particular police officer continuously hurled abuses, including caste abuses, at the protesters that included Dalit women and children. When the protest began to draw national attention, the ruling dispensation of CPIM that had hitherto remained unconcerned has started to take up some damage control measures. However, when they finally arrived at the site of the agitation almost after a year since the agitation began, the CPIM leaders allegedly refused to address the caste question involved. Dalit activists, including women activists, surrounded them and raised several objections to this attitude pointing to their sheer hypocrisy and lack of integrity.
Read more at:
The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, not our own powerlessness, stupefy us.
Adorno.
As frightening spectres of untouchability and unseeability hover around the festering sore of the ‘caste-wall’ at Vadayambady in Kerala, as the so-called mainstream left-led government here continues to pour its energy and resources into aiding and abetting caste devils there, as most mainstream media turns a blind eye, as the Kerala police continues its mad-dog-left-loose act, many friends ask me: why have you not yet written about the struggle there of dalit people fighting of the demon of caste now completely, shamelessly ,in the public once more? Continue reading Malayali Feminism 2018: In the Light of Vadayambady and Hadiya’s Struggle
ജൈവ വൈവിധ്യ സംരക്ഷണത്തിന്റെയും വനസംരക്ഷണത്തിന്റെയും ഭാഗമായി വനം വകുപ്പ് ട്രക്കിംഗുകളും പരിസ്ഥിതി ക്യാമ്പുകളും ലോകത്താകമാനം സംഘടിപ്പിക്കാറുണ്ട്. എന്നാൽ അവിടെയൊന്നുമില്ലാത്ത വിലക്കാണ് കേരള സർക്കാരും വനം വകുപ്പും അഗസ്ത്യാർ കൂടം ട്രക്കിംഗിൽ സ്ത്രീകൾക്ക് ഏർപ്പെടുത്തിയിരിക്കുന്നത്.
I
The recent reference to how the distribution of food in Malayali homes is often skewed against women by the actor Rima Kallingal in a recent talk has sparked off yet another round of attacks against feminists in Kerala. It is interesting to see how this seems to have brought together men of all political stripes and colours (may I say, from pro- and anti-Hadiya camps!). The attacks range from mild smirking to outright abuse, but are equally revealing of the fear of women’s feminist self-assertion. So even those men who supported Hadiya’s decision to choose her faith and community find it hard to swallow when women start laying bare the injustices of the ubiquitous patriarchal family, fearing that there may be an implicit choice in this criticism, to move away from the patriarchal family, and indeed, craft other non-patriarchal forms of intimate connection and commitment. After all, whatever be the community, the patriarchal family is acknowledged by patriarchal authorities everywhere as the foundation Continue reading From Nangeli to Rima Kallingal: Who are fit to claim Nangeli’s Legacy?
Dear Comrade
I can hardly describe the joy and relief I felt reading your piece on the Hadiya case in the Hindu yesterday. By now I am nearly deaf from the cacophony of misogyny, islamophobia, and sheer short-sighted rage that CPM supporters on Facebook are unleashing against this young woman.
Your voice of sanity, Comrade, is therefore a great restorative. If not for your writing, one could have well thought that the CPM was nothing more than a bunch of short sighted, power hungry, strategisers, whose total lack of ethics and values is covered up by a vapid, outdated rationalism and an equally problematic liberalism. You refuse to condemn Hadiya for choosing Islam. You acknowledge that she is brave. You unequivocally reject the father and other minions of patriarchy. You rightly criticise state patriarchy evident in the Supreme Court. Unlike many CPM supporters here, you have no illusions about the times we live in; you are clearly aware that the NIA is not something which will spare us if we stay good. Importantly, you put paid to the idea that the High Court judgement that sanctioned her illegal custody was justified — an idea assiduously nurtured by certain public figures allied with the CPM against religious Muslims. Comrade, thank you again for being so forthright and in the face of snarling islamophobes in your own ranks actually gunning for the voice you raised against her illegal custody long back.
When Hadiya Shafin shouted to the crowd that she converted voluntarily, that Shafin was her chosen husband, and that she wished to spend her life with him, some leading rationalist liberal feminists in Kerala sniggered at her: be grateful for the Indian Constitution which allows you to make a choice. This statement hid a despicable insult to her choice of Islam, slyly implying that it would not permit her any choices.
Goodness knows where these puerile, vain, indurate minds live their everyday lives. Maybe they are either still able to insulate themselves somehow from the onslaught of Hindutva violence, or find it useful to use the arms of this Hindutva hegemonised thuggish state to their narrow, shamefully narrow, ends.
Whatever, I could see no trace of the protective presence of the Indian Constitution when the Supreme Court heard Hadiya. I could see not the highest court of Justice of a vibrant democracy but I got a sense of how the Gates of Celestial Vaikuntam may look like:
Read more at : https://thewire.in/200701/hadiya-supreme-court-nia/
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 