All posts by Nivedita Menon

Media politics, Right watch

Statement protesting arrest of Shirin Dalvi, Editor, Awadhnama

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We, members of the Mumbai based human rights group Hum Azaadiyon Ke Haq Mein  are disturbed at reports of the multiple cases lodged against Shirin Dalvi, the editor of Awadhnama, Mumbai, and her arrest by Thane district police on January 28, for publishing a news-item on the Charlie Hebdo issue and one of the covers of the magazine on January 17, 2015. We are also shocked at the reports of the continual harassment of Shirin Dalvi.

Responding to readers’ views, she issued a clarification denying any intention to hurt religious sentiments and tendered a public clarification the very next day. However, cases have been registered against her in different police stations in Mumbra and Rabodi (Thane district), Malegaon and Mumbai on charges of violating Sec 295 of the Indian Penal Code (outraging religious feelings by insulting a religion with malicious intent).

While she has sought, and obtained, anticipatory bail in one set of cases from Mumbai Additional Sessions Court judge S D Tekale on January 23, she was arrested in Mumbra, Thane district, and granted bail the same day on Jan 28.

The Mumbai based human rights group Hum Azaadiyon Ke Haq Mein is disturbed at the attempts made to defame her character. Baseless statements appeared in several Urdu newspapers that a colleague had tried to dissuade her from using the Charlie Hebdo cover but the colleague identified was actually not even in office on that day and had resigned a few days ago. Other attempts to defame her included statements that she had joined the RSS women’s wing and was a ‘follower’ of Bangladeshi writer in exile Taslima Nasreen!

Shirin Dalvi is a respected journalist with more than 20 years of experience in Urdu journalism. She is perhaps the only woman editor in Urdu journalism in India, has written on issues concerning women’s rights and politics and is well-known for her literary skill and learning.

The manner in which she is being hounded bodes ill for free debate and discussion and for peaceful resolution of controversy. Besides, the incident is also being used as a pretext to ratchet up polarized public opinion, which is a dangerous game and detrimental to freedom of speech and expression in a democratic society, besides causing immense personal harm and a threat to her life and safety.

We request those who have filed cases against her to accept her clarification in the right spirit with which it has been given and to withdraw all the cases against her.

We also demand that Shirin Dalvi be provided necessary protection forthwith.

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Hasina Khan
Dr. Ram Puniyani
Adv.Irfan Engineer – Director, Centre for Study of Society and Secularism
Javed Anand – General Secretary, Muslims for Secular Democracy
Sukla Sen
Ammu Abraham
Sameera Khan
Nasreen Fazalbhoy
Mario D’Penha
Divya Taneja
Kamayani Mahabal
Geeta Seshu
Brinelle D’souza – Tata Institute of Social Science
Teesta Setalvad, Editor, Communalism Combat
Rukmini Sen, Hillele Combat TV
Veena Gowda
Anjali Kanitkar
Saaz Shaikh
Rohini Hensman
Chhaya Datar
Susan Abraham
and members and organisations of Hum Azaadiyon ke Haq Mein

Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Indian Democracy and the Current Political Dispensation: Ram Puniyani

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Guest Post by RAM PUNIYANI

Text of the Dr Asghar Ali Engineer Memorial Lecture

I begin this lecture paying tribute to my very dear friend, Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, with whom I had the rare privilege of working with for close to two decades. Dr. Engineer was a unique scholar-activist, totally committed to the dream and vision of a humane society that honours the values of diversity and where human rights for all are the defining point.

In this regard, he may have been among the first persons who realized the dangers of divisive communal politics. It was he who set the trend seeking the causal factors behind communal violence, doing his own meticulous investigation after such riots. He contributed massively to reforms that took place in the Bohra community, on the issues of secularism and finally, in the interpretation of Islam. We need to learn a lot from him in order to strive for a society that values peace, amity and compassion.

Where are we standing today? What are the major threats to Indian democracy, today, even more menacing with the coming of the Modi Government?

The factors contributing to his victory have been several. The unstinted support given to him by India’s corporate; the fanatical zeal of the RSS and its lakhs of volunteers; the role of a corporate controlled media; the false projection of the ‘Gujarat model of development’; and the polarization of society along religious lines

The promise of Achhe Din – Good Times – has vanished into thin air. Despite the steep fall in the prices of crude oil in the world, the overall ‘cost of living’ continues to going up. The promise that all the black money stacked abroad will be brought back within six months or so and that we would be surprised to see 15 lakh deposited in our accounts, has been forgotten. The pattern of (good?) governance is only visible in the centralization of power around one person, Modi. Gradually the cabinet system of governance is giving way to one man’s autocratic ways, with secretaries of Government departments reporting directly to the PM.  Continue reading Indian Democracy and the Current Political Dispensation: Ram Puniyani →

Capitalism, Politics, Right watch

Modi, Barack and a once sovereign nation

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The sheer misery, the excruciating embarrassment, of  watching the Prime Minister of a sovereign (but not secular or socialist) nation desperately, inappropriately, capering about to show off his imagined intimacy with an American President who steadfastly kept his distance and his dignity, is now passing. Time does heal all wounds. (And hopefully, as Groucho Marx put it, Time will also wound all heels) [1]

But the burning question remains – is Modi more shameless than he is ignorant? Much has been said about Modi’s suit that exceeds the worst excesses of the late unlamented Marie Antoinette. Vrinda Gopinath points out:

While the last world leader to don such a suit (it costs around 15,000 sterling pounds or Rs 15 lakhs today) was deposed Egyptian tyrant Hosni Mubarak, it certainly out-dazzled Obama’s working dark grey suit (to cut down on non-vital decisions, the US Prez only wears grey and blue ). However, if Modi was thinking hip-hop bling and ice accessories (his fave diamond Movado watch), it certainly got Obama to make a mention at the President’s banquet when he foxily pointed out how a newspaper back home wrote, “Move aside, Michelle Obama. The world has a new fashion icon.” It must have not passed Obama’s notice that Modi had changed his attire thrice that day.

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Continue reading Modi, Barack and a once sovereign nation →

Bad ideas, Feminism

Women Strike Back!

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Just to share with Kafila readers two wonderful performances against misogyny by two cool young women, Rene Verma and Vasundhara Kaul, putting down sexism with a light touch that cuts very deep indeed – take a look at the string of comments that follow Vasundhara’s performance , from scared and threatened men unable to deal with it.

These are already ‘going viral’ as they say – just wanted to add Kafila’s contribution to viralizing them!

Here’s Rene Verma taking on Honey Singh. Unfortunately we cannot skip the compulsory advertisement for Modi and His Technicolour Dream Coat That Costs as Much as a Small Village Hospital.

(Oh, okay, the ad seems to have gone now, but that coat – that coat!! Ain’t going nowhere, to use the slang of the land of Modi’s new unilateral BFF).

 

Here’s an interview with Rene Verma on The Ladies Finger:

I’ve always been invested in performance art and its relation to policy and society. My piece was never intended to be a takedown of an individual rapper or two, it was a beleaguered response to a culture that privileges narratives of violence, restrictive norms, and ideals of beauty that are often untenable. Pop music, and pop culture at large has been perceived as a sanitized area of operation, where anything and everything goes, but songs and the discourses they promote operate in insidious ways. There is a silencing of body diversity, queer voices, dissent, and anything perceived as ‘not-the-normative’, both in overt and covert ways. I love rap, but I often find myself confounded over the lyrics packaged within these catchy, and annoyingly pervasive songs. This piece was actually part of an inter-college competition where I was given an hour to prepare a spoken word piece on the theme, “Portrait of a ‘Lady’”. And I thought it would be nice to construct a normative portrait of a ‘lady’ through a rap parody and deconstruct it through contrasting voices.

And here is Vasundhara Kaul, telling “Men With their Big Penises – rahendo beta, tum se nahin ho payega…”

 

 

Culture, Debates, Right watch

PK, satire, ramzadas: Prabhat Kumar

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Guest Post by PRABHAT KUMAR

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Commenting on a Hindi film released a month ago is a difficult enterprise, but this ‘delayed’ review of PK highlights what the film critics so far have ignored. Through intelligent crafting of its narrator-figure and its satirical narrative, I argue, this astoundingly successful Hindi film questions the ordinary and banal of Indian public life. The political vision behind PK’s satirical attack is old but relevant: Nehruvian.

Breaking the grammar of normalcy, Pee Ke!

“Oye Pee Ke hai kya?” (Are you drunk?), is the dismissive riposte that PK, protagonist-narrator, of the film receives for questions he asks. For, the questions he asks are considered ‘abnormal’. But he is persistent with his ‘odd’ queries and prying gaze, like a drunken man, unmindful of the wrath he may invite from the sober and normal beings. He is tireless and gawking in his ‘weird’ interrogations, like a curious child, unaware of the risk of irreverence to mature beings. But, why does he ask such ‘strange’ questions? What makes his questions ‘unheard-of’ and his snooping eyes ‘clumsy’ in normal everyday life? Why is his ‘drunken-childish’ probing inadvertently insistent to confront the normalcy of mature world? The answer lies in the carefully crafted lead character and the political subtext that inform PK. Continue reading PK, satire, ramzadas: Prabhat Kumar →

Debates, Education, Government, Right watch

Resist the Shrinking of Democratic Spaces on Campus: Concerned Students of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

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Guest post by Concerned Students of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

Universities are thought to be just, equal and free spaces. However the history of access to universities for certain sections of the society is not very old. Discrimination has been institutionalized and structurally carried out on the basis of caste, race, gender, religion and sexual identity even in the space of the university. However, over time there has been an increase in assertion from the marginalized groups in university spaces that has caused some disquiet among administrators. This is evident from various incidents that are taking place on a day to day basis in university spaces.

Kashmir and North East are two regions which have been frequently used by the Indian state to claim its sovereignty through grave violation of basic rights of people residing in these areas. Contrary to our beliefs, campuses and universities also reflect the larger politics of our society.

We, a group of students invited Dr Dibyesh Anand for a lecture titled “Deliberating Kashmir: Beyond AFSPA and Chutzpah” at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai on 3rd January 2015. Dr Dibyesh Anand is the Head of Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Westminster, London. He is an acclaimed scholar on violence and States in South Asia and has also written and published extensively on his area of expertise. He has also been a visiting professor to the University of California Berkeley, the Australian National University, the Centre for Bhutan Studies, the Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Central University of Hyderabad. Following the procedure we had booked the room four days prior to the programme and invited students and faculty in TISS and outside to attend the talk. Continue reading Resist the Shrinking of Democratic Spaces on Campus: Concerned Students of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai →

Debates, Feminism

Is economics sexist? Divya Bhagia

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Guest Post by DIVYA BHAGIA

On the face of it, it is hard to believe that our beloved science of economics that has provided enough space to discuss, and at some levels promote, the idea of women’s empowerment could actually be sexist itself. Earlier, I would have offered an aggressive defence of the dscipline. So before I move on, I need to convince you with some facts, just as I had to convince myself that not everything is as it appears and there is enough reason to probe further in this direction.

Leaky Pipeline

The 2012 Annual Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession reported that there were only 32.5% women amongst all the people who attained a PHD degree in 2012 at 122 economic departments with doctoral programs, and there were only 28.3% women amongst assistant professors, 21.6% amongst associate professors and 11.6% amongst full professors. The fact that an already skewed women-men ratio of 3:7 in the field skews up to 1:9 ratio as we move up does ring the ‘sexist bell’. This pattern which has characterised the participation of women in economics profession for the longest time is referred to as the ‘leaky pipeline’, where we see that women are being dropped out at each step of the academic ladder.

1One reason not to dwell deeper on these numbers maybe that the percentage of women as full professors today should depend on the percentage of women as assistant professors say fifteen years back. But as the figure above shows that the numbers for each category remain more or less the same throughout the fifteen years. Also if we look at similar numbers confining ourselves to only top 10 or top 20 Economic departments in the sample, the ‘pipeline’ is even more ‘leakier’.  Continue reading Is economics sexist? Divya Bhagia →

Capitalism, Countryside, Everyday Life, Politics

Farmers’ Suicides and Fatal Politics: Vasanthi Srinivasan

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Guest Post by VASANTHI SRINIVASAN

With depressing regularity, the newspapers have been reporting farmers’ suicides in many states. Recently, P Sainath wrote on BBC that around 296,438 farmers have committed suicide since 1995. He also mentions that cash crop cultivators of cotton, sugar cane, vanilla, pepper, groundnut etc account for the bulk of those suicides. According to a PIL heard by the Supreme Court in December 2014, around 3146 farmers in Maharashtra have committed suicide this year. Of course, farmer’s suicides only account for a fraction of all suicides reported in India. Besides, farmer’s suicides are a global phenomenon. The litany of woes is also familiar to readers, namely rising indebtedness, crop failures, falling prices, natural disasters etc.

And yet the meaning of these suicides, if any, is worth reflecting upon.

Politicians, who are used to massive debts, seem to think this is an ‘extreme step’ on the part of farmers. In 2003, the then Union Minister for Agriculture hinted that indebtedness alone may not be causing the ‘extreme step’, and that ‘family problems’ may also be a reason. In Karnataka, the Veeresh committee report had earlier identified depression, alcoholism and marital discord rather than the rising debt as the relevant causes. Never one to lag behind, the hi-tech Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Chandrababu Naidu  announced compensations and proposed to get psychiatrists to rural areas. One scholar has pointed to the increasing isolation of cultivators and high levels of anxiety about failure suffered by some farmers [1]. These attempts at ‘personalizing’ the farmers’ problems may be necessary but not sufficient as long as other factors remain unexplored – increasing cultivation costs, crop failures, water shortages and falling product price. Citing the high figures of suicides (204) in Maharashtra for 2014 until April, followed by Telangana (69 until October), the Times of India  (dated Nov 26, 2014), reported that the present Central government admitted indebtedness as a possible factor.  There are also calls to increase monetary compensation to families affected by such suicides.   Continue reading Farmers’ Suicides and Fatal Politics: Vasanthi Srinivasan →

Capitalism, Everyday Life, Politics

The Other America: Martin Luther King

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January 19th was Martin Luther King Day. To honour him, here is the recording of his famous The Other America speech at Stanford in 1967.

Too many, far too many tragic resonances with 21st Century India. 

There are literally two Americas. One America is beautiful for situation. And, in a sense, this America is overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies; and culture and education for their minds; and freedom and human dignity for their spirits. In this America, millions of people experience every day the opportunity of having life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in all of their dimensions. And in this America millions of young people grow up in the sunlight of opportunity. But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the ebulliency of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America people are poor by the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.

The one difference being that in 21st Century India, there are lonely islands of prosperity in the midst of a vast ocean of deprivation, human misery and injustice.

Culture, Debates, Everyday Life

Caste, Class and the ‘Classical’ – FAQs about the Urur Olcott Festival, Chennai: Nityanand Jayaraman

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Guest post by NITYANAND JAYARAMAN

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On 15-16 January, 2015, a much talked about festival of dance and music, that intends and promises to be different, is to be held in Chennai. The Urur Olcott Kuppam Margazhi Vizha means different things to different people. But for those who do not know what Urur Olcott Kuppam is or what the Tamil phrase Margazhi Vizha means, the Vizha may have no significance. These answers to FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) is for such people, and for those who know what it means and have sent many bouquets and a few brickbats my way for being engaged in the organising of this Vizha. The views expressed here are personal and do not reflect a consensus within the group of organisers. However, the process of organising, the event and post-event engagements are itself likely to provide a platform for discussing such views and counterviews.

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T.M. Krishna performs at Besant Nagar beach as a part of the Urur Olcott Kuppam Margazhi festival

What is Urur Olcott Kuppam?

Urur Olcott Kuppam is a centuries-old fishing village in South Chennai. By rights, the Kuppam ought to be the landmark for Besant Nagar as in — “You know Besant Nagar, that newly settled neighbourhood near Urur Olcott Kuppam?” But that’s not how it is. Besant Nagar’s residents are predominantly upper class, upper caste. Urur Kuppam’s are predominantly from the fisher community of Pattinavar. The hip and happening Besant Nagar is well-known; the kuppam is invisible. The injustice doesn’t stop with geography. Dominant history also begins where dominant geography begins – with Besant Nagar. Ask Besant Nagar residents what existed 40 years ago in this area, and people are likely to say “Nothing” or “Nothing but the beach.” It’s as if the fishing villages did not exist before the government decided to carve residential plots for middle and high-income people out of sand dunes carpeted with cashew, palmyra, casuarina and screwpine.  Continue reading Caste, Class and the ‘Classical’ – FAQs about the Urur Olcott Festival, Chennai: Nityanand Jayaraman →

Bad ideas, Debates, Identities

‘To those who attacked Charlie Hebdo yesterday shouting Allahu Akbar’: Karima Benoune

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KARIMA BENOUNE in Open Democracy

We are all Charlie!

To those who attacked Charlie Hebdo yesterday shouting “Allahu Akbar,” I would like to say that your kind of God – a God of Hate and Murder – is not Great. Nor is that God the God of most Muslims, but rather of your own Islamist cult – which so many people of Muslim heritage oppose. You are incapable of understanding satire; you openly revile the beliefs of others but brook no criticism of the medieval notions you believe. You claim to defend Islam while bringing only shame upon it. You are offended by cartoons but not by killing. You claim to have avenged the Prophet Mohamed but have instead defamed him with your cowardly attack on unarmed journalists in his name.

As a Tunisian woman wrote to me afterwards, “It is so horrible, claiming the name of God while killing these poor people. But, about which God are they speaking?”  With an ironic outrage, worthy of Charlie Hebdo itself, she insisted the deity would be “gratified” that they are “making him a God of intolerance and blood.”  In the name of tolerance and peace, and in memory of the tragically murdered victims in Paris, and of so many others – even more numerous – in places like Peshawar, let us commit after this bleak January day to make 2015 the year we finally put an end to this ghastly jihad.

While first information suggests the authors of the Paris attack may have claimed affiliation with Al Qaeda in Yemen, others suspect an “Islamic State” link. In any case, their indisputable connection is with the pernicious ideology of international Islamism and its myriad armed manifestations.  These are, to quote Algerian sociologist Marieme Helie-Lucas, “political movements of the extreme right that… manipulate religion to achieve their political aims.” We must collectively denounce that ideology and do all we can to defeat these movements.  As Helie-Lucas and Maryam Namazie wrote in an online petition in denunciation of the Charlie Hebdo attack, a statement rapidly signed by activists from Iran to Sudan, “What is needed is straight-forward analysis of the political nature of armed Islamists: they are an extreme-right political force, working under the guise of religion and they aim at political power. They should be combated by political means and mass mobilization….”

Continue reading ‘To those who attacked Charlie Hebdo yesterday shouting Allahu Akbar’: Karima Benoune →

Culture, Debates

Qalam chhin gayi to kya ghum hai/Snatch my pen away, I remain defiant (Faiz Ahmed Faiz)

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Post jointly authored by ADITYA NIGAM AND NIVEDITA MENON

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This image celebrating the power of dissent and creativity over forces of tyranny, circulated widely after the murderous attack on the French satirical journal Charlie Hebdo and the shooting of cartoonists Charbonnier, Wolinski, ‘Tignous’ and Cabut, among others. The cartoonists of the ‘equal opportunity offender’ journal were called out by name and coldly slaughtered in the name of Islam.

It seems appropriate now to remember Faiz’s words on censorship and the violent closing of minds:

Mataa-e- lauh-o-qalam chhin gayi to kya ghum hai 

Ke khun-e-dil men dubo li hain ungliyan maine

Zuban pe muhar lagi hai to kya,

ke rakh di hai har ek halqa-e-zanjeer mein, zubaan maine.

Snatch away my ink and pen, I remain defiant,

For I have dipped my fingers in the blood of my heart.

Chain shut my lips, I don’t give a damn,

For in every link of the chain I have placed a tongue ready to speak.

Feminism

Matargashti on New Year’s Eve, Take Back the Night 2015: Citizen’s Collective Against Sexual Assault

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Citizen’s Collective against Sexual Assault (CCSA) is a Delhi/NCR-based group of individuals and organisations that works towards preventing and addressing issues of sexual violence against women, girls and transgender people, including raising awareness among the public, media, administration and the police on issues of women’s rights. CCSA organized for the third year in succession, a Take Back the Night rally on December 31, 2014, ending at 12.30 am on January 1, 2015. The New Year was welcomed with songs of protest, dance, street plays, with everyone meeting at PVR Anupam Saket, walking towards Saket Metro Station. Below is the statement they produced for the occasion, and some photographs.

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Matargashti is an expression of freedom, vibrancy, happiness, consent, confidence like reaching out to the clouds and bursting them like bubbles! Matargashti (or “loitering”) should be an essential part of each one’s life. Fearlessly roam on the roads, sprawl in the park, jump on to buses, metro and trains or laze around at a chai stall. I may be anyone — woman, man or transgender. Fearlessly be out at any time, travelling by public transport or in my own car. Proudly flaunting my wheelchair or crutches or tap-tapping my way around with my white cane. Someone who lives on the streets because I have nowhere else to call home. Fearlessly wear whatever clothes I feel like. And regardless of which region of India I belong to – North, South, the Northeast or anywhere else.

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Continue reading Matargashti on New Year’s Eve, Take Back the Night 2015: Citizen’s Collective Against Sexual Assault →

Bad ideas, Debates, Everyday Life, Right watch

An old RC ruminates on his ‘Pseudo-Secularist’ roots: Hartman de Souza

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Guest post by HARTMAN DE SOUZA

The background and context to this not-so-enigmatic title is very simple. By today’s standards, I am old – I get a hefty discount travelling by train which I am still hooked on, and I am still counting the years and sniffing my coffee. The ‘RC’ is a lot simpler:

Travelling by train from Mumbai to Delhi many, many moons ago, a man in the compartment, in his thirties, got into conversation with me. After I had answered his opening bullet shot questions – You are from? You are doing what? Your father is doing what? – he told me I spoke English like a ‘foreigner’.

I was still fresh from Kenya those days, where I was born, so I got a lot of grief from having a different accent that no one could place.

This was of course much, much before you could study for an undergraduate degree in India (where you were born) and then, if you had the means and the SATs, go and study in the US for a few years. There, in the land of beef and honey, as we now note with pride, many Indians also discovered the ‘free market’ and their ‘authentic’ Hindu roots – then came back to spew communal venom with a makeshift American accent and the dollars to back it.

As if it was stamped on my bloody forehead, he then asked: “You are Christian?” He pronounced this as “Kir-tchin’.

I pretended I hadn’t heard. So he repeated the question. I nodded, hoping he would disappear and let me get on reading my book.  He did not. Instead had a broad grin on his face, like he knew in which bag he could drop me in.  “You are RC!” he said, almost triumphantly.

For a few seconds, he almost had me stumped. I raised my eyebrows.

“Ro-maan Catholic,” he offered.

I shook my head and smiled back. “No,” I replied “Retired Catholic…”

He didn’t get the joke. Guys like that still can’t. Continue reading An old RC ruminates on his ‘Pseudo-Secularist’ roots: Hartman de Souza →

Culture, Debates, Right watch

Celebrating ‘Good Governance’ : Mary E John and Satish Deshpande

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Guest post by MARY E. JOHN AND SATISH DESHPANDE

It seems odd to associate words like ‘mean’ and ‘petty’ with entities like states.  But it is hard to avoid them when confronted by the despicable attempt of the Modi regime to cancel or restrict the holiday for Christmas.  On the other hand, these words are far too mild to capture the poisonous malice behind this small-minded act that, despite its clumsiness, is clearly part of a systematic campaign to cultivate a culture of vicious aggression towards select “minorities”.

How should one respond to such pettiness, knowing that it is only the surface of a deep reservoir of violent hatred?  One could light heartedly point to the irony that 25th December happens to be the birthday of not only Madan Mohan Malviya (1861) and Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924), but also a certain Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876).

Alternatively, one could argue, in a spirit of liberal reasonableness, that Christmas has for long been much more than a holy day for Christians.  The secularisation of Christmas is apparent not only in its relentless commercialisation (much like Deepavali), but also in its longstanding status as a broader symbol of festive good cheer marked by giving and sharing.   Continue reading Celebrating ‘Good Governance’ : Mary E John and Satish Deshpande →

Bad ideas, Culture, Right watch

Peace on Earth and Social Justice – Christmas greetings!

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Protest at Delhi Police Headquarters after the burning of St Sebastian’s Church in Dilshad Gardens/ Image from The Indian Express

We observe Christmas today under the ominous cloud of Hindutvavaadi violence against minorities, which began on the very day of the BJP electoral victory seven months ago, and their determined attempt to obliterate all religious identities other than their own narrow version of Hinduism, a Hinduism that brutally excludes even large numbers of people who would consider themselves Hindu. From burning churches to physically attacking ‘Muslim-looking’ men, to trying to erase Christmas under the banal bureaucratese of Good Governance Day – Hindutvavaad has never had it so safe, never has it been so arrogant, as under the protective gaze of Modi, a Prime Minister who produces reams of flowery prose in his speeches, but through his public silence on these atrocities, satisfies both Hindutvavaad and his neo-liberal supporters – the one recognizing his benign encouragement, the other fooling itself that his silence shows displeasure. Continue reading Peace on Earth and Social Justice – Christmas greetings! →

Debates, Everyday Life, Right watch

Converting Religion, Converting law: Rajshree Chandra

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Guest Post by RAJSHREE CHANDRA

The right to freedom of religion  (Art. 25 of the Indian Constitution) in a country like India has a burden so extensive and a content so capacious that the same right functions both as an instrument of individual liberty As well as a mode through which the state intervenes to discipline and curtail religious freedom. It has a history so diverse and conflicted that the right often become a mode of settling quid pro quo battles between religious publics, and law often becomes hostage to the principle of ‘historical correction’.

There have been various modes of historical corrections. If the demolition of Babri Masjid was one, ghar wapasi – a return home to one’s religion – is another. The recent ghar wapasi episode in Agra, where RSS affiliate Bajrang Dal converted 57 Muslims to Hinduism; the proposed and then withdrawn conversion of Muslims and Christians in Aligarh on 25th December 2014 by the RSS’s Dharm Jagran Samiti; and the scheduled holy dip of an expected 50,000 “reconverts” (of the last five years) in the Godavari during the Kumbh at Nashik next August are instances and signs of the “re-conversion” rhetoric steadily mainstreaming itself. The question is how does the state and law respond to this?

‘Re-conversions’ are not new in Indian history. Katju & Sikand document instances of mass conversions of Muslims into Hinduism from 1947 onwards, and more forcefully and openly from the 1990s onwards, as part of the Shuddhi (purification) movement. The VHP, an adjunct of the Sangh, extols the practice of ghar wapasi and had claimed that over 200,000 Christians had been converted to Hinduism. The re-conversion argument – of shuddhi and ghar wapasi – is invoked by the various factions of the Sangh Parivar as a modus that aims to correct the history of conversions away from Hinduism.  Continue reading Converting Religion, Converting law: Rajshree Chandra →

Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Statement on Peshawar Massacre: People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism, Delhi

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People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism, Delhi, condemns the ghastly attack on school children in Peshawar (Pakistan) by Tehreek-e-Taliban in which over 140  innocent lives were lost. It is a plain case of murders by the people spewing venom in the name of religion and ideology with no regard for human life. PADS demands that such fundamentalist violence be dealt with firmly by the authorities in Pakistan and expresses its solidarity with the parents of the children whose lives were snatched away by the murderous gang which, only to hoodwink the people, claims to be fighting imperialism. By their act they have shown how dangerous they are for the common citizens of Pakistan.

It is also important to note that people in general in Pakistan have to stand up against all kinds of violence. There is no acceptable violence and unacceptable violence. Violence, under the illegitimate legal cover of Blasphemy Laws is being perpetrated, and celebrated in the name of religion in the country. Condoning any kind of violence against the innocent people in the name of religion, provides raison d’etre to the forces like TTP. The ghastly murders in Peshawar is a signal for the Pakistani society  to look inward and work in unison to keep religion away from State to avail the benefits of the democratic rule.

The Indian school children and Parliament have shown solidarity with people of Pakistan by keeping a two minutes silence, on the suggestion of Prime Minister Modi. Such solidarity, however, should be expressed not only at the moment of grave tragedies, but should become a normal state of affairs between the two countries. The political and military leadership of the two countries should avoid aggressive rhetoric and militarisation and peacefully settle all outstanding issues.

PADS notes with the sense of urgency that the Taliban-like Hindutva forces have grown in size, influence, and impact in India orchestrating killings and triggering mass displacement of the people. PADS would like to forewarn the people of India that communalists of any religion have the same traits and ultimately, it is the members of the same community, whose interests such groups claim to espouse, become their targets. This is the time for the peoples of India and Pakistan to unite against the use of religion for committing murders of the innocent.

18.12.2014

Everyday Life, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Remembering 1992: School of Media and Cultural Studies, TISS Mumbai

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Dislocation

Hardening Divides

Remembering 1992 is a site that seeks to revisit and remember the violence that the city of Bombay/Mumbai experienced in December 1992 and January 1993. This site includes 6 films, video interviews and transcripts, news clippings, reports and other resources. The project started with the films that were made by students (Class of 2013) and faculty and used as a part of the campaign Bombay ki Kahani Mumbai ki Zubaani, held between December 2012 and January 2013.

In a political and social context where the memory of this violence has been rewritten and all but erased, it is crucial to remember, to explore the contours of normalised prejudice and to understand how the survivors have struggled with the denial of justice. It is also necessary to think about how and why the memory of such a watershed event gets erased and who benefits from this erasure.

The website explores different kinds of memory, organised around themes and uses a timeline and map to list the events of the 1992-93 riots,based on the Justice Srikrishna report.

Everyday Life, Feminism, Violence/Conflict

Before the Killing, the End of Honour: Rina Ramdev and Debaditya Bhattacharya

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Guest Post by RINA RAMDEV AND DEBADITYA BHATTACHARYA

For daring to elope and marry outside the dictates of caste-community honour codes, a young Delhi University undergraduate came to a brutal death at the hands of her family. The incident since then has become part of public discourse, thanks to our newspaper-educated sensibilities. But the ‘popular’ set of responses that this event has generated from our newsreaderly selves is worth some reviewing. While there has been a large-scale condemnation of this incident from ‘civilized’ quarters of the media-enlightened, the most commonly employed terms of this debate have veered around an imagination of a ‘civilizational modernity’ versus an ‘aggressive-savage primitivism’. Are we still in the Dark Ages, most have asked. Is not ‘love marriage’ a civilizational mandate of the age of the modern, others have comfortably posed and then gone on to conclude that the fact that we – as a ‘society’, metropolitan-converts in this case – have not yet made our peace with a civil code of morality relegates us to a ‘rustic-primitive mindset’. The muse of Indian judicial processes and imaginations of penal justice – ah! the “collective conscience” – has spoken thus and gone back to catching up on Ramzaadas and terror attacks on national ‘honour’. And just while we were conveniently conceding to the relative insignificance of an undergraduate girl’s ‘honour’ compared to the prime-time rhetorical spectres of ‘national honour’ in Jammu & Kashmir, a leading English daily attempted to bring back a few ‘dark’ images from Bhawna Yadav’s past.  Continue reading Before the Killing, the End of Honour: Rina Ramdev and Debaditya Bhattacharya →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Politics

Stop Manual Scavenging in JNU: Forum Against Manual Scavenging

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Authors’ Note:

The Chennai based Forum Against Manual Scavenging, (FAMS) can be contacted at famschennai@gmail.com. We have tried to create some awareness on this issue especially among student community (with the assistance of some of the Professors/Faculty based in Chennai) in which we were guided by Safai Karamchari Andolan, Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front, Janodayam Social Education Centre,  Republic Trade Union of India,  Red Flag Union of Tamil Nadu and other similar organizations (in and outside Chennai) struggling on this issue which are led primarily by the Dalit Women from the community itself.  

A documentary, ‘Sahar se Pehle’ (Before the Dawn) on sanitation workers in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus in Delhi was made by some students of the university. The JNUSU has been consistently raising the issue of abysmally bad condition of sanitation workers in JNU for quite some years now. Earlier in 2012, JNUSU had also participated in a signature campaign against manual scavenging (signed by the then JNUSU President). The documentary shows the manual scavenging is still prevalent in the premier university even after the ban on manual scavenging by the Delhi government (sanitation is a State subject according to the Constitution of India) and after the enactment of “The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.”

This documentary was also selected for the Canadian Labour International Film Festival, 2014, and was available online on YouTube and other sites from February 2014, but was not widely circulated on mainstream media or social media. We also came to know about it only a fortnight ago because the write-up attached to it does not explicitly mention manual scavenging.

The JNU student community has started a campaign called Stop Manual Scavenging in JNU, with the message “Use hashtag #StopMSinJNU to SPEAK OUT against the inhuman practices of manual scavenging and hazardous cleaning in #JNU.”  Continue reading Stop Manual Scavenging in JNU: Forum Against Manual Scavenging →