Guest post by GHAZALA JAMIL

I suppose some clarifications are in order. I do doubt that Anna’s Lokpalmobilisation is a movement. Just as Anti-Mandal was, just as Ramjanmbhoomi is, but not the way Dalit Panthers was or NBA and MKSS are.  I also want to clarify that my position is not of frivolous dismissal of this mobilisation as a middle class picnic but one of grave concern against what I feel is a uni-dimensional, one point demand around which an entirely regressive and casteist politics can be and is being wrapped up. A collectivity of SC/ST and Minority groups yesterday organised a protest march in Central Delhi. It was reported in many dailies- highlighted as having affected traffic in the area for 45 minutes thus dismissed as not being any valid counterpoint to ‘I am Anna’ wave.

Continue reading The Fallacy of Progressive Yearnings: Ghazala Jamil →

I’ve been struggling to write on the Hazare moment but in her piece here, Nivedita Menon has begun going where I wanted to so I shall just add to her conversation with a second set of experiences and questions. Forgive the fragments.

In a post earlier that was written after the first stirrings in Egypt, I had asked a set of questions about politics, protests and publics:

“Could reclaiming public space for conversations, debates and voices – regardless of what these voices want to say and whether “we” agree with “them” or not – become a single point agenda for a movement of our own? Could the idea of the public bring urban residents together – regardless of what we want to do once we’re in that space? Could public space be an answer that rallies people together – the more voices, the more noise, the more debates, the more antagonism that come, from any point of view, would that noise not represent a resistance to the single story being told about India today?

Could such spaces be created? Would anyone come? How can they be sustained? How can we use new forms of information flows and technologies in this process? What are the new sites and spaces of struggle open to us?”

I believe, in one sense, this moment has been brought to us. I had been speaking about “inequality” in that post as an ideal broad concept that brings people together. It isn’t what has happened here and that is not something to forget. It is “corruption” – narrowly defined, poorly understood but deeply felt. So be it. The Noise is here. Now what?

I was walking through hordes of people last week in Jantar Mantar, on India Gate. It was the first time I’ve been among publics in this city with city streets so alive and full of people and yet felt totally emotionally, politically and intellectually disconnected from them. It was an uncomfortable, strange feeling. After years of thinking about what it would take to get people onto the streets in anger, seeking change, how could the moment feel so empty? Is Nivedita right – are “we” missing something? Am I? How is one meant to engage?

Continue reading Many Halves of a Split Screen →

The Indian liberal establishment has found a new hero in Kumar Sangakkara. For his now-famous Cowdrey lecture at the MCC on the ‘Spirit of Cricket’ is not just about remedying corruption and decay in cricket (and by extension, in modern sports), but also crucially a rumination on pluralism and integration in postcolonial societies like Sri Lanka. In his speech he had referred to the1983 July riots, the JVP-led insurgency, LTTE terrorism and the heavy price paid by the military to defeat the LTTE. The Sri Lankan Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, had a word of praise for Sangakkara for solidly backing the country’s successful war effort against the LTTE, at a time when a section of the international community is seeking accountability from the Sri Lankan military establishment for its questionable practices during the last few decades.

The speech has also stirred the reformer-liberals of New India, who are not only enthralled by Sangakkara’s refined, rhetorical eloquence but also by his civic, character-building arguments. Mukul Kesavan calls Sangakkara’s first-person-narrative at once a cricketer’s prescription and a citizen’s creed. V. Anantha Nageswaran finds in the speech the unfolding of a triad of competence, integrity and conscience, a ‘lesson’ for our political-reformers. Others rave about how his outstanding legal mind subtly seeks administrative transparency and good governance.

Continue reading A Messiah for our Moderate Liberatti – Guest Post by Brinda Bose and Prasanta Chakravarty →