Category Archives: Bad ideas

Bad ideas

आओ हम ढोएं हिन्दुत्व की पालकी

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अस्सी के दशक में उत्तर भारत के कुछ शहरों में एक पोस्टर देखने को मिलता था। 

रामबिलास पासवान के तस्वीर वाले उस पोस्टर के नीचे एक नारा लिखा रहता था ‘मैं उस घर में दिया जलाने चला हूं, जिस घर में अंधेरा है।’ उस वक्त़ यह गुमान किसे हो सकता था कि अपनी राजनीतिक यात्रा में वह दो दफा राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ के आनुषंगिक संगठन भारतीय जनता पार्टी का चिराग़ रौशन करने पहुंच जाएंगे। 2002 में गुजरात जनसंहार को लेकर मंत्रिमंडल से दिए अपने इस्तीफे की ‘गलति’ को ठीक बारह साल बाद ठीक करेंगे, और जिस शख्स द्वारा ‘राजधर्म’ के निर्वाहन न करने के चलते हजारों निरपराधों को अपनी जान से हाथ धोना पड़ा, उसी शख्स को मुल्क की बागडोर सम्भालने के लिए चल रही मुहिम मंे जुट जाएंगे।

मालूम हो कि अपने आप को दलितों के अग्रणी के तौर पर प्रस्तुत करनेवाले नेताओं की कतार में रामबिलास पासवान अकेले नहीं हैं, जिन्होंने भाजपा का हाथ थामने का निर्णय लिया है। Continue reading आओ हम ढोएं हिन्दुत्व की पालकी →

Bad ideas

Condemn the Vengeful Actions of the Gujarat Government – A Statement In Solidarity with Teesta Setalvad and her Comrades

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The following is a statement issued by activists and intellectuals in solidarity with Teesta Setalvad and her comrades

We, the undersigned express our deep shock at the rejection of the anticipatory bail application of Teesta Setalvad and four others in what is being called the Gulberg Embezzlement Case, by the City sessions court of Ahmedabad. From its beginning, the so-called embezzlement has been the concoction of elements instigated by the state government of Gujarat, including the Gujarat Crime Branch. In January 2014, an FIR was registered against the five accused for defrauding the members of the Gulberg Society of funds meant for the building of the Gulberg Memorial commemorating the state sponsored carnage.

It may be in order to recall the facts of the case, especially, since a section of the media is spreading canards that the funds thus raised were used for buying jewellery, wine and such like, and gloating over the possibility of the arrest of Teesta Setalvad and others.

Continue reading Condemn the Vengeful Actions of the Gujarat Government – A Statement In Solidarity with Teesta Setalvad and her Comrades →

Bad ideas, Culture, Language, Mirror Worlds, Right watch

फेकू की भजन मंडली उर्फ़ खिसियानी बिल्ली खम्बा नोचे

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फेकूराम की भजन मंडली का ‘नमो नमो’ मन्त्र तो एक लम्बे अरसे से चल ही आ रहा था, मगर भक्तों में होड़ लगी तो कुछ को लगा की अब शिवजी की जगह इन्हीं को बैठा दिया जाए – सो ‘हर हर महादेव’  भी हड़प लिया गया. भला हो शिव भक्तों का कि उन्होंने यह दांव चलने नहीं दिया. और फिर खुद शंकराचार्य ने इस पर एतराज़ कर दिया. खैर, यह तो रहा परिवार के भीतर का झगडा. सुलट जायेगा.

मगर इसी बीच एक मोर्चा बनारस में खुल गया. फेकूराम के बैंड बजे तो दिल्ली तक में हमारी नींद उड़ाये हुए थे ही मगर अचानक एक अदना सा आम आदमी जा कर उसे ललकार आया. भक्तों ने अंडे फेंके, स्याही फेंकी – हर जतन कर के देख लिया. मगर आख़िरकार उसने पोल खोल ही दी. कहने लगे कभी इन्होने कांग्रेसियों को या कांग्रेसियों ने इन्हें काले झंडे दिखाए? अंडे फेंके? तो ये बौखलाहट किस लिए है जी? आप दोनों की नूरा कुश्ती चलती रहती और सब आपस में बाँट कर लूट लेते – जैसे करते आये हैं – तो कोई परेशानी नहीं होती. आप की बौखलाहट से हे तो कई राज़ एक साथ खुलने लगे हैं.

तभी एक भक्तिन को लगा की उनकी भारत माता के साथ ‘गैंगरेप’ हो रहा है. देखिये नीचे इन भक्तन की ट्वीट. जैसे उन्हें मजबूर किया जा रहा है की वे अपनी माँ का सामूहिक बलात्कार देखें. अब तक तो अम्बानी, मनमोहन, चिदम्बरम, सिबल और फेकूराम की फ़ौज भारत माँ की आरती उतार रही थी – कहाँ से चले आये ये बलात्कारी! आरती उतर रहे थे वो विहिपई और बजरंगी सेनानी जो प्रेमी युगलों को सरे बाज़ार बेआबरू कर रहे थे. पबों से निकाल निकाल कल निर्वस्त्र कर रहे थे. आरती उतार रहा था राज ठाकरे. किसी ने इन भक्तिन के उद्गार उस वक़्त देखे?

 
Photo: The shamelessness of Madhu Kishwar... Her employer CSDS as well as her political mentor Mr Narendra Modi must clear their stand on this...
भारत माता की 1984 में आरती उतारी गयी, 1992 में बाबरी मस्जिद का ध्वंस करके आरती उतारी गयी और फिर 2002 में गुजरात में उतारी गयी.

Continue reading फेकू की भजन मंडली उर्फ़ खिसियानी बिल्ली खम्बा नोचे →

Bad ideas, Education, Identities, Media politics

Dalit Students and Journalists – from Classroom to Newsroom: Shivnarayan Rajpurohit

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This is a guest post by SHIVNARAYAN RAJPUROHIT

The conscious or unconscious exclusion of Dalits (SC/ST) from the Indian mediascape has given way to a lopsided public sphere which hardly manages to generate comprehensive debates. Corporate interests have aggravated this malaise, given the indifference of the corporate sector towards fomenting a diverse media, cutting across caste, religious and class lines. The following paper looks at the absence of Dalit journalists and students from English press and journalism schools. The primary conclusion of my research is that English-language media as an institution has been undemocratic because it draws its workforce from a homogenous set of people, overlooking the urgent need for diversity. In that sense it is hostile to opposing viewpoints and diversity of arguments. The paper is primarily divided into five parts: counting Dalit journalists, reason for exclusion, classroom to newsroom, need for Dalits in media and Blacks in USA.

Continue reading Dalit Students and Journalists – from Classroom to Newsroom: Shivnarayan Rajpurohit →

Bad ideas, Politics, Right watch

Narendra Modi’s Plans for India if He Becomes PM!

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Narendra Modi’s Plans for India
For a detailed explanation of how Mr. Narendra Modi plans to run the country if elected Prime Minister, Click here.
Bad ideas

नरेंद्र भाई मोदी के करियर में एक और मील का पत्थर, चुटकुलों की किताब में होंगे शामिल

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GUEST POST BY PANINI ANAND
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● मोदी के गुजरात में भ्रष्टाचार रोकने के लिए कंप्यूटर का भी इंटरव्यू लिया जाता है
● एक बार मोदी नशे में लड़खड़ाए तो गुजरातियों ने डांडिया का स्टेप बना लिया
● महमूद गजनवी तभी भारत पर हमला करता था जब मोदी गुजरात से बाहर रहते थे Continue reading नरेंद्र भाई मोदी के करियर में एक और मील का पत्थर, चुटकुलों की किताब में होंगे शामिल →

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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 →

Bad ideas, Identities, Language, Politics, Right watch

Jamaate-E-Islami’s Tryst With Politics – Tilting at the Electoral Windmills: Fahad Hashmi

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Guest Post by FAHAD HASHMI

‘It was all very well to say “Drink me”, but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, “and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not”; for she had read several nice little stories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts, and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that, if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked “poison,” it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.’

(Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland)

Continue reading Jamaate-E-Islami’s Tryst With Politics – Tilting at the Electoral Windmills: Fahad Hashmi →

Bad ideas

साम्प्रदायिक फासीवाद की चुनौती – नयी ज़मीन तोड़ते हुए

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यहुदी तथा ईसाई, हिन्दू तथा मुस्लिम ‘मूलवादी/बुनियादपरस्त’ श्रेष्ठ भिन्नता (सुपीरिअर डिफरेन्स) की बात करते हैं। हरेक का मुक़ाबला एक कनिष्ठ और डरावने अन्य से होता है। हरेक असमावेश की राजनीति में सक्रिय रहता है। इसलिए हरेक अपने दायरे में अल्पसंख्यक समुदायों के लिए खतरे के तौर पर उपस्थित होता है।.. मुस्लिम मिलिटेण्ट के लिए ‘अन्य’ यहुदी होते हैं, कभी ईसाई होते हैं और दक्षिण एशिया में हिन्दू, ईसाई और अहमदी होते हैं। मैं ऐसे किसी धार्मिक-राजनीतिक संगठन को आज नहीं जानता जिसके सामने एक दानवीकृत, डरावना अन्य नहीं है।

अन्य हमेशा एक सक्रिय निषेध (active negation) होता है। ऐसे तमाम आन्दोलन नफरत की लामबन्दी करते हैं और अक्सर इसके लिए अभूतपूर्व सांगठनिक प्रयास करते हैं।..
हिंसा का सम्प्रदाय और दुश्मनों का विस्तार भिन्नता की विचारधाराओं में निहित होता है। सभी अन्य के प्रति अपनी नफरत को संगठित ंिहंसा के जरिए अभिव्यक्त करते हैं। सभी धर्म और इतिहास की दुहाई देते हुए अपनी हिंसा को वैधता प्रदान करते हैं। लगभग सभी मामलों में दुश्मनों की संख्या बढ़ती जाती है। पहले भारतीय परिवार के निशाने पर मुस्लिम अन्य रहता था और अब उसने ईसाइयों को उसमें शामिल किया है।
( प्रोफाइल आफ द रिलीजियस राइट – इकबाल अहमद, 1999)

1.
मुखौटा और आदमी

बच्चों की फन्तासियां अनन्त एवं अकल्पनीय होती हैं।

वह शेर का मुखौटा पहनेगा और अपने आत्मीयों को अपनी गुर्राहट से ‘डराने’ लगेगा और दूसरे ही क्षण वह स्पाइडरमैन का मुखौटा पहन कर कल्पना करेगा कि वह हवा में उड़ रहा है। आप ने किसी वयस्क को शायद ही कहीं देखा हो जो बच्चे की उन शैतानियों से परेशान हो उठे, भले ही उसके लिए वह बच्चा बिल्कुल अजनबी हो।

क्या होगा कि किसी अलसुबह आप को वयस्कों का एक समूह या उसी तरह शरीर से दृष्टपुष्ट लोग सड़कों पर घुमते मिलें जिन्होंने उसी किस्म के या वही मुखौटे पहनें हों ? आप निश्चित ही उन बुजुर्गों की मानसिक स्थिति को लेकर चिन्तित होंगे और उन्हें यह सलाह देना चाहेंगे कि वह नजदीकी मनोवैज्ञानिक से अवश्य मिल लें।

जनाब नरेन्द्र मोदी के सियासत में आगमन – पहले गुजराती हिन्दुओं के एक नेता के तौर पर, जिस वक्त ‘गुजरात का शेर’ के तौर पर उन्हें सम्बोधित किया जाता था और बाद में ‘भारत माता के शेर’ के तौर पर राष्ट्रीय राजनीति में पदार्पण – के साथ हम ऐसे ही मुखौटा पहननेवाले वयस्कों से रूबरू हैं जो एक ऐसे चेहरे में अपनी पहचान ‘विलीन’ कर देना चाहते हैं जो 21 वीं सदी में सबसे ध्रुवीकृत करनेवाली छवियों में शुमार की जाती है। Continue reading साम्प्रदायिक फासीवाद की चुनौती – नयी ज़मीन तोड़ते हुए →

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Hidden in Plain Sight – Problems of Democracy Under Capitalism: Ravi Sinha

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Talk delivered by RAVI SINHA at the International Seminar on “Democracy, Socialism, and the Visions for the 21st Century”, 7th to 10th March, 2014 Hyderabad, India

If one has to say something brief and short about a large and complex subject, which is also a much discussed topic, one always runs the risk of stating the obvious. But one may also chance upon the unexpected and the counter-intuitive. Problems of democracy under capitalism and under socialism have by now a ring of tiring familiarity around them, but they also contain surprises that are hidden in plain sight. While fixing my coordinates by recounting the obvious, my hope is to point towards aspects that may be counter-intuitive to the political common sense prevalent in much of the left and the social movements.

 Let me begin with the status of democracy under capitalism. Popular mind considers them complementary to each other. Ancients – whether in Greece or in India – were familiar with the concept of democracy and, at least in some famous examples, they are also supposed to have practiced it. But the large-scale acceptance and practice of democracy overlaps with the history of capitalism. In addition, the history of socialism of the twentieth century has been such that this association got further entrenched in the popular mind. I will come to the socialism question a little later. For now, let me stay with the relationship between democracy and capitalism.
If I were to say, then, that at the core of this relationship lies a tension that is fundamentally irresolvable, it would appear counter-intuitive to the popular common sense. On the other hand, it would appear obvious to a leftist. On both counts there are reasons to dig a little deeper. Truth is often counter-intuitive for the wrong reasons, but at times it is also obvious for the wrong reasons.
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Correcting Inconsistencies – A response to Anusha Rizvi and Manisha Sethi: Rebecca John

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Guest Post by REBECCA JOHN

(Rebecca John is a Senior Advocate at the Delhi High Court)

This is in response  to some popular misconceptions about the 2013 amendments relating to sexual offences against women and some of the issues raised by Manisha Sethi and Anusha Rizvi  in HardNews, (Confronting Certainties, posted on the Hardnews website on March 9, 2014)

1) Suo moto action by the police leading to the registration of an FIR:
There is no requirement in law that an FIR  must be registered only on the complaint of a victim. If a police force  receives information  about the commission of a  cognisable offence , it can register an FIR on it’s own. This is not the first time this has happened, almost all CBI cases are registered on ” source information ” and not on actual complaints made by aggrieved persons.
 
2) Bail in non-bailable offences of a serious kind is not usually granted:
Let us not trivialize the offence of rape and treat the dismissal of a bail plea as the worst kind of crime. Pretrial detentions are the rule in India – so if we want that practice changed, and I certainly do, let’s start with all under-trials and lets not  just shed tears  for the rich and powerful and pretend that this is an unusual occurrence. Please come to courts and see how the system works .
 
Bad ideas

1933 of 2014 ? : Time to break New Grounds in Confronting Communal Fascism

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( To be published in the coming issue of ‘Critique’ a magazine published by  ‘New Socialist Initiative’s Delhi University team )

The Jew as well as the Christian, the Hindu no less than the Muslim ‘fundamentalist’ plies an ideology of superior difference. Each confronts an inferior and threatening Other . Each engages in the politics of exclusion. Hence each poses a menace to the minority communities within its boundary…For the Muslim militants the Other are the Jews, occasionally Christians and, in South Asia, the Hindus, Christians, and Ahmedis. I know of no religio-political formation today which does not have a demonized, therefore threatened, Other.

The Other is always an active negation. All such movements mobilize hatred, and often harness unusual organizational effort to do so. ..

The cult of violence and proliferation of enemies are inherent in ideologies of difference. All express their hate for the Other by organized violence. All legitimize their violence with references to religion and history. In nearly all instances the enemy multiplies. At first, the Indian Parivar had the Muslim Other for target. It has now turned on Christians.

Profile of the Religious Right – Eqbal Ahmad (1999)

I.

Masks and the Man

Child’s fantasies are endless and unimaginable.

It will wear a mask of a tiger and start ‘scaring’ it’s near and dear ones with a growl and the very next moment would imagine itself to be flying in the air with the mask of a Spiderman. Have you ever noticed any adult -may be completely stranger to the kid – getting annoyed with such tantrums of a child. Definitely not.

What will happen if you tomorrow discover the same group of adults or similar physically grown-up people moving on the streets or herding together wearing similar masks or identical masks? You will have sincere doubts about their mental faculties and if possible, would love to advise them that they consult the nearest psychiatrist. Continue reading 1933 of 2014 ? : Time to break New Grounds in Confronting Communal Fascism →

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 →

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अपराध के साथ सहजीवन Reading The Fiction of Fact Finding – Modi and Godhra

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मैं 2014 की सबसे महत्वपूर्ण किताब पढ़ रहा हूँ. यह है मनोज  मित्ता की किताब  द फिक्शन ऑफ़ फैक्ट फाइंडिंग: मोदी एंड गोधरा  यह सौभाग्य बहुत कम किताबों को मिलता है कि वे अपने समाज की अंतरात्मा की आवाज़ की तरह उभरें जब ऐसा लगे कि वह पूरी तरह सो चुकी है. वे हमें खुद अपने सामने खड़ा कर देती हैं और मजबूर करती हैं कि हम अपने आपको पहचानें,खुद को दिए जाने वाले धोखे से निकल सकें और खुद को इम्तहान की खराद पर चढ़ा सकें.ऐसी किताब लिखने के लिए निर्मम तटस्थता चाहिए और सत्य के लिए अविचलित प्रतिबद्धता. इसमें तात्कालिक आग्रहों से स्वयं को मुक्त रखना एक चुनौती है.

सत्य की खोज के मायने क्या हैं? क्या यह सिर्फ इरादे से जुड़ा मसला है? अभी हम आध्यात्मिक स्तर पर सत्य की खोज की बात नहीं कर रहे.वहाँ भी यह मात्र नेक इरादे से हासिल नहीं किया जा सकता.दुनियावी मसलों में, खासकर राज्य के संदर्भ में इसका क्या अर्थ है? ऐसे अवसर आते हैं जब उसकी भूमिका और निर्णयों पर  प्रश्नचिह्न लगता है और सच जानने की मांग होती है. उस वक्त अपेक्षा की जाती है कि वह ऐसे उपाय करेगा कि  उसके सीधे प्रभाव से मुक्त प्रक्रियाओं के माध्यम से सत्य का पता किया जा सके.आधुनिक राजकीय संरचना में न्यायालय को अपेक्षाकृत स्वायत्त संस्था माना जाता है,ऐसी व्यवस्था जो कार्यपालिका के सीधे नियंत्रण में नहीं है और इसलिए जो उसके बारे में भी सच बोल सकती है. लेकिन क्या भारत में यह हो पाया है? क्या सबसे संकटपूर्ण क्षणों में न्यायपालिका से जुड़े लोग इस भूमिका का निर्वाह कर पाए हैं? Continue reading अपराध के साथ सहजीवन Reading The Fiction of Fact Finding – Modi and Godhra →

Bad ideas, Debates, Law, Right watch

The Double Cruelty of the Rights of Persons With Disabilities bill: Rijul Kochhar

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Guest Post by Rijul Kochhar

In the lives of the disabled, the disability certificate is a commanding entity. It is the artefact of government and the state that interprets the myriad experiences of persons dealing with disabilities, translating and transforming those experiences into a public fact. Thus, the disability certificate offers a particular form and definition of disability, with its attendant mathematical percentage, supplanting the shards of experience with bureaucratic rationality and certitude. This transformation of messy lived experience into mathematical and medical certainty, at once, also affects that larger lived experience of lives lived with a disability[1].

Continue reading The Double Cruelty of the Rights of Persons With Disabilities bill: Rijul Kochhar →

Bad ideas

Whose “Hurt Sentiment”? On Pulping of Wendy Doniger’s Book: Association of Students for Equitable Access to Knowledge (ASEAK)

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Issued by Association of Students for Equitable Access to Knowledge (ASEAK)

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From Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses to Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History, we are witness to an increasingly regressive trend of banning books, films and art in the name of ‘hurt sentiments’. However, while in a plural and diverse society as ours where sentiments are routinely hurt, when do certain instances of ‘hurt sentiments’ translate into the clamping down of such ‘hurtful’ narratives, leading to their censorship and banning? The aggressive intolerance towards any effort that challenges the dominant discourse on religion, caste, gender, sexuality, nation, etc. points us in a direction where knowledge produced takes the shape of propaganda. In the face of this attack, let us reclaim our right to think, question, challenge and criticize – the pillars of knowledge production. Continue reading Whose “Hurt Sentiment”? On Pulping of Wendy Doniger’s Book: Association of Students for Equitable Access to Knowledge (ASEAK) →

Bad ideas, Government, Law, Violence/Conflict

Police Attack Youth at Thrissur: No, We Won’t Be Swept Away

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I mean evil is not radical, going to the roots …that it has no roots, and that for this very reason it is so terribly difficult to think about it, because thinking, by definition, wants to reach the roots. Evil is a surface phenomenon, and instead of being radical, it is merely extreme. We resist evil by not being swept away by the surface of things, by stopping ourselves and beginning to think, that is by reaching another dimension than the horizon of everyday life. In other words, the more superficial someone is, the more likely will he be to yield to evil …

Hannah Arendt Continue reading Police Attack Youth at Thrissur: No, We Won’t Be Swept Away →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Language, Law

Demand to Reconsider and Revise Sections 153a and 295a of the Indian Penal Code to Protect Freedom of Expression in India: Concerned Academics and Public Intellectuals

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Statement by Concerned Academics and Public Intellectuals: Ananya Vajpeyi, Sheldon Pollock, Partha Chatterjee, Laurie Patton, Romila Thapar, David Shulman and many others

We the undersigned are appalled by the recent settlement reached between Dina Nath Batra for the Shiksha Bachao Andolan and Penguin Books India, to cease the publication of Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History (Penguin USA 2009; Penguin India 2010), and to withdraw and destroy remaining copies of the book on Indian territory. Continue reading Demand to Reconsider and Revise Sections 153a and 295a of the Indian Penal Code to Protect Freedom of Expression in India: Concerned Academics and Public Intellectuals →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Education

Legal notice to Penguin Books India for violation of rights of readers

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Advocate LAWRENCE LIANG  has served this legal notice to Penguin Books, India, on behalf of Shuddhabrata Sengupta and Aarti Sethi. 

Under instructions from, for and on behalf of my clients Sh. Shuddhabrata Sengupta and Ms. Aarti Sethi, both residing at New Delhi, I serve upon you this legal notice for the following reasons and purposes:

  1. My client, Mr. Sengupta, is an artist and writer based in New Delhi with a longstanding interest in the comparative history of religions. Ms. Sethi is an anthropologist with a deep interest in Hindu philosophy. Both Mr. Sengupta and Ms. Sethi are avid bibliophiles, ardent supporters of freedom of speech and expression and have in the past been admirers of Penguin Books.
  2. My clients were delighted when YOU NOTICEE published Wendy Doniger’s  “The Hindus: An Alternative History” and as people who have closely followed the scholarly contributions of the said author they regard this book to be a significant contribution to the study of Hinduism. They consider Ms. Doniger’s translations of Indian classical texts and her work on various facets of Hinduism from morality in the Mahabarata to the erotic history of Hinduism as an inspiration for their own intellectual pursuits.
  3.  It has come to the notice of my clients that YOU NOTICEE have withdrawn publication of the book “The Hindus: An Alternative history” pursuant to an agreement entered between YOU NOTICEE and Shri. Dinanath Batra; O.P.Gupta, Sharvan Kumar and a few other busybody etcetera’s on the 4th of February 2014. YOU NOTICEE have further agreed not to sell, publish or distribute the book and also to pulp all unsold copies of the book. Continue reading Legal notice to Penguin Books India for violation of rights of readers →
Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Right watch

This is not Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus – An Alternative History

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download

“This is not a pipe” (Rene Magritte)

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This is not Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus. An Alternative History

None of the following are, either. They are links from which you can download the entire text:

Epub version
pdf version 

 

 WENDY DONIGER: Finally, I am glad that, in the age of the Internet, it is no longer possible to suppress a book. The Hindus is available on Kindle; and if legal means of publication fail, the Internet has other ways of keeping books in circulation.

People in India will always be able to read books of all sorts, including some that may offend some Hindus.

And no, this is not a penguin, a notoriously brave bird!
chicken
Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Identities, Mirror Worlds

Open Letter to AAP and the Public on Continuing Racism in Khirkee Village: Aastha Chauhan, Malini Kochupillai & Friends

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Guest Post by AASTHA CHAUHAN, MALINI KOCHUPILLAI, and several AFRICAN RESIDENTS OF DELHI

Dear Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, Mr.Yogendra Yadav and Aatishi Marlena,

Being witness to the events occuring in Khirkee this past month, we, a group of artists, architects, activists and local residents have felt  the need to frame an open letter addressed to your party, the AAP & the public. The media-frenzy associated with these events has been accompanied by the usual kind of misinformation and hyperbole. However, in the ensuing noise, the real stories of the underlying racism that afflicts our society and the negative repercussions of the raid on the African residents of the neighborhood, have been lost.  We hope this letter will clarify some facts and put across a few of our concerns.

Our intention is not to encourage confrontation, it is to propose solutions. Delhi is a tough place for all immigrants alike, how will we make this a more inclusive compassionate city? These are the larger questions. These were the issues we were hoping to tackle. Continue reading Open Letter to AAP and the Public on Continuing Racism in Khirkee Village: Aastha Chauhan, Malini Kochupillai & Friends →