All posts by Nivedita Menon

Debates, Politics, Right watch

A letter to Father Frazer Mascarenhas SJ

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Endorsed by academics, activists and educationists across India.

Dear Father,
In these troubling times, when the mightiest are being bought over, lured, seduced, or silenced, we salute you for your courage and moral clarity in asking your students to choose wisely. By drawing the attention of your students (who would have voted for the first time) to the seamy underbelly of a ‘model’ that is being promoted unabashedly by the corporate media as the panacea of all that which ails India, we believe you acted responsibly and ethically. The purpose of education is to inculcate critical thinking, to provide
tools of analysis, and to make students sensitive to social realities – no matter how unpleasant they may be. Far from abusing your position, as the BJP is alleging, we think that your advice is the appropriate way for a teacher, and head of an academic institution, to act. Continue reading A letter to Father Frazer Mascarenhas SJ →

Debates, Politics, Right watch

Speak to us, not for us: students respond to media coverage of the St Xavier’s letter

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On April 21st, 2014, Dr. Frazer Mascarenhas, S.J., Principal of St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, posted a letter on the college’s official website. In it, Fr. Mascarenhas, who also teaches a course in Anthropology of Development, dissected the “Gujarat model of development”. He warned against the dangers posed by an “alliance of corporate capital and communal forces coming to power”, and stressing the importance of a strong welfare state, ended by informing students to “choose well.”

The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission, claiming this was “an attempt to influence the minds of students”, and that it “violated the Model Code of Conduct.” A simultaneous campaign on electronic and social media alleged Fr. Mascarenhas had overstepped his authority. Unfortunately, all this is being said on behalf of students of St Xavier’s, without considering their views on the same.

While we as alumni and students might not agree unanimously with Fr. Mascarenhas’ statement, or the method he chose to disseminate it, we strongly oppose the biased media reports and falsehoods propagated on social media, which are twisting this case beyond merit. Thus, we, students and alumni of St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, wish to strongly bring home a few points: Continue reading Speak to us, not for us: students respond to media coverage of the St Xavier’s letter →

Debates, Politics, Right watch

In the Background of Elections – The Development Debate: Frazer Mascarenhas

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This is the post by FRAZER MASCARENHAS, SJ that came under attack from the Moditva Brigade, aided ably by the ‘propaganda machine’ that the media has become, and which has since been taken down from the St Xavier’s College website. We have Fr Mascarenhas’ permission to reproduce it here. As any committed teacher would certify, it is our privilege and responsibility to place before our students a range of views, including our own, provided we make clear what our own views are, and do not cloak these as truth or the only valid view. I believe in this piece Fr Mascarenhas has adhered to this ethical principle.

It is also not a coincidence that the Moditva  Brigade frontally attacks particularly people from minority communities when they express their views fearlessly, whether it be Shazia Ilmi labelled as communal for asking Muslims to vote for their “own” – Arvind Kejriwal, mind you, not a Muslim, thus redefining the very idea of community as has been pointed out here – or Fr Mascarenhas placing his views before his students.

Of course, the fear of the Modi Masks is that “minorities” are communities that are “led” by their own.

The truth that they dare not confront is that Fr Mascarenhas and Shazia Ilmi belong to another community altogether – our community of Indians who believe in a strongly democratic society, a society that secures to its citizens justice, equality and dignity. As the two statements endorsing Fr Mascarenhas (that will shortly go up here on Kafila) show – one from the St Xavier’s academic community and the other from a wider set of people –  “We the People” will never ever fit neatly into the hateful divisions the Hindutvavaadis try so hard – and keep failing – to propagate.

The approaching elections have brought an interesting discussion to the public forum on what constitutes human development and how it is to be achieved. The Gujarat model has been highlighted for our consideration. That is very apt because it puts in stark contrast two current views. Is the growth of big business, the making of huge profits, the achievement of high production – what we seek? Or is it the quality of life for the majority in terms of affordable basic goods and services and the freedom to take forward the cultural aspirations of our plural social groups that make up India? Continue reading In the Background of Elections – The Development Debate: Frazer Mascarenhas →

Capitalism, Ecology/Environment, Politics

Unbroken History of Broken Promises – Adivasis and Election Manifestos: Kamal Nayan Choubey

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Guest Post by KAMAL NAYAN CHOUBEY

Election manifestos of political parties have a distinct and vital role in the parliamentary elections. Parties present their policies on crucial issues of the country and their programmes to address the problems of the country. These elections, however, have seen minimal discussions on the contents of the manifestos of different parties because perhaps these elections are less policy centric and more individual centric. That is why the principal opposition party in the Parliament, BJP had not released its manifesto till the first day of polling. Election manifestos of all parties explain their policy and programme for the each and every section of society. It would be useful to consider that what kind of policies and programmes are promised for adivasis in the manifestos of prominent political parties. This is also necessary because these people have paid the price of the ‘development’ based on the extraction of natural resources and the use of corporate capital for this purpose. (Here I want to clarify that I will not focus on the issue of adivasis of North East India, because their problems are very different from the adivasis of the rest of India and one cannot do full justice by analyzing them as one unit).

In last twenty years this expropriation of resources has increased in the forest areas of the country. In each tribal dominated state, State Governments have signed hundreds of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with many national, international and multinational companies. These are the areas where Maoists have strong influence as the ‘biggest internal security threat’ of the country. So, it is important to ask what the policies of various political parties for adivasis are and is there any continuation in their policies and their actual performance as the ruling party in the Centre or in the States? Can adivasis expect, on the basis of these policies and programmes, that next government would follow more sensitive approach towards their problems? Continue reading Unbroken History of Broken Promises – Adivasis and Election Manifestos: Kamal Nayan Choubey →

Bad ideas

Ab ki baar Modi ki haar!

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Yesterday from about 3 pm, nobody could get into Kafila. All we could see was a notice that said WordPress had suspended the blog for ‘violating terms of service’. We wrote immediately to WordPress, who replied that they would get back to us.  No reply from them so far, but Kafila suddenly reappeared at about 9 pm last night.

On a possibly unrelated note, we have all been noticing the mysterious disappearance from cyber space of much anti-Modi content, sometimes even his own previous speeches that do not fit his currently projected persona. Hmm.

Anyway, we’re celebrating Kafila’s return with this rousing anthem, in solidarity with all of us out there – from Mumbai to Banaras to Kudankulam. We’re here, and here we’ll stay. To Pakistan – a friendly reassurance – don’t bother about preparing for the sudden influx of a billion illegal immigrants!

We’ll see the bubble burst. Hum dekhenge.

 

 

Courtesy Bombay ki Kahani, Mumbai ki Zubani

Debates, Government

Is Arvind Kejriwal dangerous for India? Pran Kurup

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Guest Post by PRAN KURUP

Who is more dangerous for India – Arvind Kejriwal or Narendra Modi? This is a question that India needs to answer. But a recent article titled ‘Arvind Kejriwal: The most dangerous man in India’ has ventured to supply a one-sided answer to this question. The title is as catchy as it is misleading if not subversive. The ensuing ‘analysis’ is sadly not borne out by facts but relies on obfuscation and rhetoric. The tragic outcome is that many pertinent facts have been buried beneath the rubble of unsubstantiated allegations and sinister accusations. On the whole the article is an anti-Kejriwal diatribe disguised as an intellectual treatise.

While conferring on Modi the respectable halo of a “firebrand Hindu nationalist”, the writer goes on to indulge in pure speculation and sweeping generalizations about Kejriwal and other AAP leaders.

Here are some samples:

“Kejriwal spent his time in office preening for the cameras.” Continue reading Is Arvind Kejriwal dangerous for India? Pran Kurup →

Bad ideas, Countryside

Democracy dies in Mewat – Should Gurgaon Elections be countermanded? Vivek Sharma

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VIVEK SHARMA on FaceBook

If elections have been called the ‘dance of Indian democracy’, the number staged in Mewat recently could well be one of the most vulgar yet.  Evidently, the Executive has done the tango with the choreographers. The question now is: will the dance break records at the box-office or will it crash?

Last week Mewat demonstrated at the hustings how a people could be swindled in front of the half-shut eyes of the world’s largest democratic state. Beyond the squeaky clean Nirvachan Sadan on Ashoka Road, the supra-institution of the electoral process flounders in muddy waters. Its grassroots representative, the presiding officer on the last polling outpost, is conceivably either a stooge of the system or just too afraid of it. Mewat stands testimony.

Even in this day and age, women did not cast their vote in Mewat. Why not? The argument forwarded by one of the ostensibly independent election observers of the Gurgaon Parliamentary constituency – after the AAP team made their complaint – was, they are politically blind. After all, through the mustard-wheat harvest season in Mewat which coincided with the elections on April 10, the women worked in the fields while the men smoked hookahs and sipped on chai discussing politics. Women harvested, tended the cattle, ran the hearths, and raised the long train of children born to them practically every other year. With a life so busy where is the time to exercise their most basic right of casting their vote?

But in fact, not only did women not vote – nor did the youth, the poor and all those placed lower in the social pecking order. And the reason is simple. They did not vote because were physically prevented from reaching the polling stations. Continue reading Democracy dies in Mewat – Should Gurgaon Elections be countermanded? Vivek Sharma →

Bad ideas

Billboards and Booze – Celebrating Indian democracy: Sajan Venniyoor

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Guest Post by SAJAN VENNIYOOR

What is the purpose of a political ad?

The page-killer print ad, the giant hoarding, the radio jingle and the TV spot do not serve to inform or educate the public, but only to impress them. These are peacock tails, gambling on the handicap principle that reliable signals must be costly to the signaler, and cannot be afforded by those with less worth. They are public displays of political virility, the media equivalent of a baboon’s red butt which signals the animal’s potency not just to the female but to the entire tribe.

BABOON
Appealing to a target audience

Last month, DNA newspaper reported that the Congress is ‘buying endless radio air time in Mumbai promoting the Rajiv Awaas Yojana, the UPA’s flagship housing scheme.’ Continue reading Billboards and Booze – Celebrating Indian democracy: Sajan Venniyoor →

Culture, Debates

Some Myths About Muslims

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Received via Shankar Gopalakrishnan

As the 2014 elections begin, the time has come again to state the obvious. In the context of massive propaganda campaigns, the subtle use of stereotypes, and the fact that both the Western and the Indian media share certain basic biases, many people end up believing in a range of myths about the adherents of the world’s second largest religion. This is a quick attempt at exposing those myths.

Myth: ‘Muslim’ countries are never secular. Muslims do not tolerate minorities in ‘their’ countries but demand minority rights in other countries.

The world’s largest Muslim majority country is Indonesia (total population approximately 25 crores, larger than Pakistan). Indonesia is a secular democracy. Indeed, its population is almost a mirror image of India’s – 88% Muslim, 9% Christian, 3% Hindu, 2% Buddhist, etc. (as compared to India, which has a population that is 80% Hindu, 13.4% Muslim, 2.3% Christian, etc.) Indonesia’s national slogan is “Unity in Diversity.” Yes, Indonesia has occasional riots and bomb blasts, but so does India.

In reality the majority of Muslim majority countries in the world are secular. Several large examples include Turkey, Mali, Syria, Niger, and Kazakhstan. Despite having Islam as ‘state religion’, Bangladesh’s government is also secular in law. The same is true of many other countries. Only six countries in the world claim to use Islam as the basis of their law making – and their total population is roughly the same as the population of Indonesia, Turkey and Kazakhstan combined. In other words, the vast majority of Muslim majority countries are secular, and the vast majority of Muslims live under secular governments.

Myth: Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslims.

Continue reading Some Myths About Muslims →

Bad ideas, Feminism, Sex

If you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em: Ayesha Kidwai

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AYESHA KIDWAI on FeministsIndia

Ayesha Kidwai on the need for Left-Secular people to take sexual harassment seriously when it comes home to “us”.

The burning question is why Mustafa and Joseph have done this? Are they misogynistic ‘supporters’ of Tejpal or fearless worshippers of fact and intrepid journalism? While the latter question may be good for an author’s self-image, and the former one can be dismissed as presupposing too tidy a critique, the real issue is a general failure amongst the professionals to come up with an adequate response to what the changed mood in the middle class demands. Mustafa and Joseph’s failures are just repeats of ones that we have witnessed over and over again, and each profession has plunged into a crisis when a colleague has been accused: How does a ‘senior’ professional approach the fact that some young woman has gone and complained about something that wasn’t even a grievance just a few years ago? After all, it is ”her’ word against ‘his’ and we know him; and while he may have his faults, he has done so many good things, and he is above all, secular. In any case, why are these outsiders, this “bunch of feminists” getting so involved in these matters (which are always so stippled with grey when seen from our side)?

For an outsider feminist like me, the answer is obvious: no one but this bunch knows what to do when a complaint is made from within one’s own kind. When the complaints have been made from within academia or within the judiciary, it is this bunch that has fought for them to be addressed, protested and thwarted the misuse of hierarchical power and its machinery of slander and intimidation, and reminded their professions that the ideal of equality must first be expressed in the creation of conditions conducive to its access. In doing so, they have imbued the phrase “let the law  take its own course” with substantive meaning.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Bad ideas, Media politics, Sex

Tabloid Law – Framing Sexual Violence: Pratiksha Baxi

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Guest Post by PRATIKSHA BAXI

When an ongoing rape trial becomes a controversial ‘story’, much rests on journalistic practice: how the story is plotted, the metaphors used, and the visuals that accompany the text. Writing about sexual violence is challenging if one wants to resist voyeurism, yet sell a ‘story’. It means resisting reproducing ‘tabloid’ pictures of law.

Given that there is very little literacy about the newly amended rape law, it is not apparent to many why forms of sexual violence, other than forcible penile penetration of the vagina, should be called rape. Nor is it acceptable to many people that a man be sentenced for ten years (or more) for rape when it is not accompanied by annihilating physical violence.

Is it then incumbent on journalists to indicate that the 2013 amendments to the rape law create new meanings of rape, some which are not accepted as rape in society? Indeed, what role do journalists have in interrogating the social and collective toleration of sexual violence?  Continue reading Tabloid Law – Framing Sexual Violence: Pratiksha Baxi →

Bad ideas, Debates, Everyday Life, Feminism, Genders, Images, Language, Media politics, Sex, Violence/Conflict

If a Woman is Raped in the Middle of a Forest and No Camera Sees it Was She Actually Raped? Fulana Detail

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This is a guest post by FULANA DETAIL

When I was 19 years old I developed persistent headaches. My mother took me to the eye doctor to get my eyes checked. The doctor lived in our neighborhood. He was our family’s eye surgeon, he’d operated on both my grandfathers’ cataract, he was (and presumably continues to be) a well-respected doctor.

After the routine eye tests were done, the doctor noted I had slight myopia and that it, “appeared there was a weakness in the eye muscle that may be indicative of a general weakness.” I was anemic and underweight and he recommended a general physical examination. My mother said, “No problem, we’ll go to our GP”. “Why bother?”, he responded, “after all eye doctors are doctors first and receive the same medical training as everyone else”. Rather than bother with a separate visit he would be happy to do it himself, it would only take a few minutes. It sounded odd, but well he was the doctor. My mother knew him, and who were we to question the doctor? Why didn’t my mother step out, he suggested. I would be more comfortable that way. My mother looked at me: was I ok with that? I didn’t see why not, so she walked out.

He closed the door, I sat on the bed. He walked up to me, stood behind my right shoulder, began pressing my neck, unhooked my bra, felt my breasts, moved his hands down my stomach, pushed his hand into my underwear and began pushing his fingers into me. At this point I pushed him away, jumped off the bed and walked out. I didn’t go back in and my mother concluded the consultation. I said nothing to my mother at that point. She dropped me off at college. I felt strange and upset through the day, but I didn’t speak of this to anyone. In the evening I met my then boyfriend told him some of what had happened, but not the details. That evening, or perhaps it was the next day, I told my mother a version of what had happened but again, not in any detail. She asked if I wanted to lodge an official complaint. I didn’t. So my mother went back and confronted him. At which he flat denied anything untoward had occurred. If I were a victim, it was of a grievous misunderstanding. He had two daughters, he was terribly sorry if I had misunderstood, but really it was not his intention. He was only conducting a medical examination. I was not a child. I was a 19 year old, college educated woman. And I had let an eye doctor do something for which the new law prescribes a seven year jail sentence.  Continue reading If a Woman is Raped in the Middle of a Forest and No Camera Sees it Was She Actually Raped? Fulana Detail →

Bad ideas, Media politics, Sex

What do Tejpal supporters choose to see? Team FeministsIndia

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[FROM THE BLOG FEMINISTSINDIA]

Tarun Tejpal, who was the editor of Tehelka magazine, is alleged to have sexually assaulted his junior journalist in a lift in a Goa Hotel. The past few days have seen subtle and direct statements that seek support for Tejpal based on the CCTV footage of the survivor and Tejpal outside the lift. While senior journalists Manu Joseph and Seema Mustafa wrote articles dissecting the incident in favour of the accused, well known film maker Anurag Kashyap accused the survivor of not telling the truth – they all were basing their opinions on the CCTV footage they saw. The campaign coincides with a bail application made to the Supreme Court.

Feminists Vrinda Grover and Kavita Krishnan analyse flaws in the arguments made in support of Tarun Tejpal in media and social networks by those who have illegally watched sub judicial CCTV footage.

Read the rest here.

Bad ideas, Media politics, Sex

Letter to Press Council re Tehelka case from Network of Women in Media

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Dear Justice Katju,

The Network of Women in Media, India is deeply concerned about what appears to be a renewed media campaign that threatens the course of justice in the sexual assault and rape case involving the former editor of Tehelka, Tarun Tejpal.

In this connection we would like to call the attention of the PCI to two recent articles on the subject in two publications, The Citizen and Outlook. The article in the former, headlined “Alleged victim’s testimony in the Tarun Tejpal case at variance with CCTV footage” which originally appeared under the byline of senior journalist Seema Mustafa, was later credited, on 31 March evening, to ‘Citizen Bureau’. [This piece has by now been removed altogether]. The article in the latter, headlined “What the elevator saw” is by senior journalist Manu Joseph.

While ostensibly seeking to set the record straight, both articles are clearly biased in favour of the accused and seem to be a deliberate attempt to adversely influence public opinion against the complainant. Indeed, these articles appear to follow the familiar Standard Operating Procedure to silence women in cases of sexual violence, and bolster the impunity of perpetrators. Continue reading Letter to Press Council re Tehelka case from Network of Women in Media →

Bad ideas

Cricket and Communal Identities in South Asia: Raoof Mir

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Guest post by RAOOF MIR

In the Hindi movie Bheja Fry (2007), there is an archetypal abominably portrayed Muslim Character, Asif Merchant, the caricatured Indian Muslim who supports the Pakistan cricket team over the Indian cricket team. Asif Merchant is shown as a comical, hideous, perfidious character with loyalties to Pakistan despite living in India – taunted with Yahan ke khaate ho, aur wahan ke Gaate Ho (You eat here but sing their praises). It is a well established fact that Muslims in India have from time to time been subjected to periodic tests of loyalty.  There is a rich history of sectarian violence between Hindus and Muslim in independent India, in which it is mostly Muslims who have suffered. However, these tensions are exacerbated whenever there is a cricket match between India and Pakistan. Continue reading Cricket and Communal Identities in South Asia: Raoof Mir →

Culture, Everyday Life

Fundamentalism, Liberalism and Muslims – Review of Hasan Suroor’s ‘India’s Muslim Spring’: Abhay Kumar

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ABHAY KUMAR reviews Hasan Suroor’s India’s Muslim Spring: Why is Nobody Talking about It?, Rupa Publications, New Delhi, 2014.

Hasan Suroor is a London-based veteran journalist. He began his career with The Statesman and later he worked as The Hindu’s UK correspondent for over a decade. He continues to write in newspapers on important issues such as Muslim identity, secularism, communalism and Islam. He was brought up and educated in Delhi after his family left Lucknow for the national capital post-Partition. Their new destination, at least in the beginning, did not receive its guests warmly as his parents’ identity as Muslim worked as a hurdle for them to rent a flat in New Delhi. Eventually they had to seek refuge in the Muslim-majority Ballimaran of the Walled City where his mother worked as a Communist Party activist. Suroor, who is regarded as one of the “progressive” and “liberal” voices among Muslims, has recently been in news for an interesting thesis which he offers in his new book, India’s Muslim Spring: Why is Nobody Talking about It?

He argues that for the first time since Independence a “seismic” and “tectonic” shift has taken place in Indian Muslim community with an emergence of “liberal spring” among new generations Muslims, who were born after the late 1970s. For Suroor, the elder generations of Muslim were “fundamentalist” and “emotional”, “intolerant” of freedom of speech, prioritized “cultural” and “identity” issues over substantive ones, had “contempt” for women and blamed others for the plight of Muslim community while the young Muslims are just the opposite of their elders; they, are  “tolerant”, “pragmatic”, “moderates”, “secular”, “cosmopolitan”, “optimistic” and “confident” and “forward-looking” as well as “nationalistic”. In short, he creates a binary between fundamentalist old Muslims versus liberal young Muslims. Continue reading Fundamentalism, Liberalism and Muslims – Review of Hasan Suroor’s ‘India’s Muslim Spring’: Abhay Kumar →

Debates, Everyday Life, Law

Disability Rights And Parental Activism – Can They Co-Exist? Shubhangi Vaidya

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Guest Post by SHUBHANGI VAIDYA 

Parents are valuable allies in the Disability Rights Movement thanks to their intimate engagement with persons with disability. To view them as representatives of a ‘disabling’ society does them a grave injustice. However, the heated debates over the new Rights for Persons with Disabilities Bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha  have seen a confrontation of stances between two groups along these lines.

The first group consists of vocal self-advocates who point out a number of weaknesses and contradictions in the Bill from a Rights perspective, citing the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability ratified by India in 2007.

The other group is a loose coalition of ‘cross-disability’ activists including lobbying for a speedy passage of the Bill, with crucial amendments, in what is the last session  of this Parliament and of the government of the day, which just happens to be UPA.

It is important to note that this Bill has not just dropped down from the heavens; it is the end result of years of protracted consultations, contestations, confrontation by stake-holders across the sector. I do not propose here to go into the pros and cons of its provisions; rather, I wish to highlight a rather disturbing trend that I discern in the frenetic exchanges between some self-advocates in the sector and parent activists on the social media.  Continue reading Disability Rights And Parental Activism – Can They Co-Exist? Shubhangi Vaidya →

Bad ideas, Debates, Right watch, Sex

The Buttocks of Naked Women and Further Meditations on Sacred Art: Sajan Venniyoor

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Guest Post by  SAJAN VENNIYOOR

“There is no Hindu canon,” declares Wendy Doniger in The Hindus. “The Vedas did not constitute a closed canon, and there was no central temporal or religious authority to enforce a canon had there been one.”

This is a curious argument in defence of heterodoxy. Canons don’t spring fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus, or drop from the lips of a passing Archangel. Someone has only to do the hard work, and it’s never too late to make a nice hard canon.

As Doniger says, Hinduism as we know it today “is composed of local as well as pan-Indian traditions, oral as well as written traditions, vernacular as well as Sanskrit traditions, and nontextual as well as textual sources.” That’s good news – plenty of material there to choose a canon from.

Back in the 16th century, the Church found itself up the creek without a canon. Plagued by fifteen hundred years of heresies and heterodoxies, disagreements over the sacraments and the scriptures, not to mention a perfect storm of lusty, busty images in Renaissance religious art, the Catholic Church sat in ecumenical council between 1545 and 1563 and decided, once and for all, what was IN and what was OUT.

Index of Prohibited Books (1)

Index of Prohibited Books 

It took the Church just over 1500 years – from the crucifixion of its founder to the Council of Trent – to decide which of its written books and unwritten traditions were truly sacred and which were profane (and which were to be banned).  Continue reading The Buttocks of Naked Women and Further Meditations on Sacred Art: Sajan Venniyoor →

Culture, Debates, Feminism, Right watch

The Embarrassed Modern Hindu (Upper Caste Man)

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Perhaps the clearest statement on what exactly it is in Wendy Doniger’s work that bothers some people – and who these people are – is outlined in Jakob De Roover’s empathetic account of the imagined ‘Hindu boy with intellectual inclinations’ born in the 1950’s.  This boy grows up going to the temple, hearing stories about Bhima’s strength, Krishna’s appetite, Durvasa’s temper. If you were this boy,

Perhaps you rejoice when Rama rescues Sita, feel afraid when Kali fights demons, or cry when Drona demands Ekalavya’s thumb as gurudakshina.

The boy goes to school and learns about caste discrimination in Hinduism (that he had to go to school to learn about caste discrimination establishes his own caste position very clearly).  This makes

You feel bad about your “backward religion” and ashamed about “the massive injustice of caste.”

But

You sense that it misrepresents you and your traditions—it distorts your practices, your people, and your experience…Everywhere you turn, people just reproduce the same story about Hinduism and caste as the worst thing that ever happened to humanity: politicians, activists, teachers, professors, newspapers, television shows… Continue reading The Embarrassed Modern Hindu (Upper Caste Man) →

Capitalism, Countryside, Everyday Life, Violence/Conflict

Can there be a ‘socially responsible’ tea? Ashwini Sukhtankar and Peter Rosenblum

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Guest post by ASHWINI SUKHTANKAR AND PETER ROSENBLUM

Almost four years ago, we first traveled to Rungamuttee, a tea estate in the Dooars, so far north that it nuzzles the Bhutan border. The region has recently fallen prey to the craze of “tea tourism,” and the estates jostle for space with eco-green-homestay lodges that lure middle class families with the opportunity to play at a mythic British sahib-memsahib life, sitting on verandahs sipping tea while gazing out over vast reaches of picturesque monoculture, with rows of squat green bushes as far as the eye can see.

We were not unmoved by the beauty and the weight of history, but we were there to talk to workers and to understand what plantation life meant for them in the 21st century.

At Rungamuttee, we sat perched in red plastic chairs, almost brushing knees with a sinewy old man, also in a red plastic chair in the tiny “labour quarters” that he shared with his children and grandchildren.

The old man at Rungamuttee in his red chair

The old man at Rungamuttee in his red chair

He leaned forward and unfurled the frayed scroll in his hand. It was his “depot challan,” the document that he had been given when he showed up at the labour depot in Ranchi in 1955, and it told him that he had been assigned a job as a tea labourer in Jalpaiguri District, more than three days’ journey away. Continue reading Can there be a ‘socially responsible’ tea? Ashwini Sukhtankar and Peter Rosenblum →

Culture, Debates, Right watch

Terrorized By The Past: Janaki Nair

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Kafila normally does not carry guest posts that have appeared elsewhere, but I think JANAKI NAIR’s article from The Telegraph needs to be read widely – a scholarly, lively, feminist take on sexuality in Hindu traditions.

It is our good fortune that our knowledge of Hinduism does not come from the authorized versions that Dina Nath Batra and his Shiksha Bachao Andolan wish to propagate. Neither does our collective imagination remain reined in by his fantasies about the Indian past. This large and luxuriantly complex society, even when all else has been brutally taken from its wretched millions, has its imagination intact. And, we fervently hope, for some time to come. Therein lies the challenge to our desperately needed “historical temper”.

As an 18-year-old, I had read the sexually frank passages of the Rig Veda with wonder and amazement. In a small village called Sanehalli, Karnataka, where the performing arts have been vigorously patronized by Swami Panditaradhya, I recently watched, along with the people from surrounding villages, the Kathakali performance at the annual theatre festival, in which Shakuntala incrementally raised the decibel level and shouted “Anarya!” at Dushyanta, violating all norms of womanly behaviour and appropriate performance voice. There was thunderous appreciative clapping at the end. I have filed past, with lots of ardent devotees of Krishna, the brilliant murals at the Cochin Palace at Mattancherry, where Krishna does not waste a single digital extremity of his eight hands and two feet in pleasing his gopis (his two flute playing hands excepted). Ditto the Guruvayur Temple, whose sexually explicit murals are now, alas, being modestly covered in (NRI-sponsored) gold plate. The erotic sculptures at the Nellaiappar Temple at Tirunelveli, the great Chalukyan temples at Aihole Pattadakkal and Badami, all visited daily by hundreds of chattering and irreverent school children, continue to stand as testimony to what our illustrious forebears were also preoccupied with. One could go onad nauseum, about the little and great traditions of Indian mythology which are not only sexually explicit but bloodstained to boot. It is Wendy Doniger’s triumph that she brings us these complexities in just one book. Continue reading Terrorized By The Past: Janaki Nair →