Category Archives: Culture

Culture, Government, Identities, Language, Mirror Worlds

हिंदी का संकट: कुलदीप कुमार

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जनसत्ता के 23 सितम्बर, 2012 के अंक में प्रकाशित कुलदीप कुमार के स्तंभ “निनाद” को हम थोड़े संशोधन के साथ छाप रहे हैं.

दक्षिण अफ्रीका के जोहान्स्बर्ग शहर में विश्व हिन्दी सम्मेलन हो रहा है। पहला सम्मेलन 1975 में नागपुर में हुआ था जिसमें जवाहरलाल नेहरू विश्वविद्यालय की ओर से एक प्रतिनिधिमंडल शामिल हुआ था। मैं उन दिनों विश्वविद्यालय की साहित्य सभा का सचिव था और पंकज सिंह उसके अध्यक्ष थे। कवि मनमोहन भी प्रतिनिधिमंडल में शामिल थे। तब तक इमरजेंसी नहीं लगी थी। अगर मेरी स्मृति धोखा नहीं दे रही तो वह जनवरी का महीना था। देश में जेपी आंदोलन ज़ोरों पर था और प्रधानमंत्री इन्दिरा गांधी ख़ासी अलोकप्रिय हो चुकी थीं। हम इस सम्मेलन को तमाशा समझते थे और उसका विरोध करने ही नागपुर पहुंचे थे। दिल्ली से ही एक बयान साइक्लोस्टाइल कराके ले गए थे। जैसे ही इन्दिरा गांधी ने अपना उदघाटन भाषण देना शुरू किया, हम सबने उठकर विरोध में नारे लगाने शुरू कर दिये और उपस्थित प्रतिनिधियों के बीच विरोध-वक्तव्य की प्रतियाँ बांटने लगे। सुबह-सुबह कुछ प्रतिनिधियों के कमरों में दरवाजे के नीचे से हम अपने बयान की प्रतियाँ खिसका आए थे। जैसा कि होना था, बाद में हमें पुलिस ने धर लिया। Continue reading हिंदी का संकट: कुलदीप कुमार →

Culture, Mirror Worlds

Memory: An Act of Forgetting

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“Where Memory Resides”: Bridgette Guerzon Mills

Memory: An Act of Forgetting

Right now, just like that
I let a memory of you
Slip through my sleeve
And drop, plop, on the floor.
It had sniveled
Sniveled long
Long up my sleeve!

Really? How did you do it? 

Nothing!
Continue reading Memory: An Act of Forgetting →

Bad ideas, Culture, Government, Identities, Images, Language, Law, Politics, Right watch, Sex, Violence/Conflict

Stuck Between Gandhi and Cultural Crap: Papilio Buddha Reveals Much

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Sometimes a minor cut on the surface of the skin will do to reveal the rot beneath. This is precisely what the film Papilio Buddha, made by the New York-based Malayalee film-maker Jayan Cherian, which draws broadly upon contemporary caste politics in Kerala, has achieved for us. In fact, its achievement on this count is simply amazing. At a single stroke, it has brought to light several stinking sores above which Malayalees, especially many Malayalee intellectuals who  occasionally don the garb of public intellectuals, strut. Continue reading Stuck Between Gandhi and Cultural Crap: Papilio Buddha Reveals Much →

Culture, Everyday Life, Excavation, Identities, Language, Mirror Worlds

अपुन का मंटो: पाकदिल, सियाहक़लम, अपूर्व, अप्रतिम, अखंड

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मंटो ने रचनात्मक अभिव्यक्ति के लिए कला की कोई भी दिशा चुनी हो, हंगामा किसी न किसी तरह अवश्य हुआ।
– बलराज मेनरा व शरद दत्त

 

कोई सत्तावन साल पहले महज़ बयालीस की उम्र में तक़सीम-ए-हिन्द और शराबनोशी के मिले-जुले असर से अकालकालकवलित मंटो आज सौ का होने पर भी उतना ही हरदिलअज़ीज़ है, जितना हैरतअंगेज़, उतना ही लुत्फ़अंदोज़ है, जितना तीरेनीमेकश। शा यद आज भी उतना ही मानीख़ेज़। बल्कि यूँ मालूम होता है कि वक़्त के साथ उसके अनपढ़ आलोचकों की तादाद कम होती गई है और पिछले दो-तीन दशकों में मुख़्तलिफ़ विधाओं में पसरे उसके लघु-कथाओं व बड़े अफ़सानों, मज़ामीन, रेडियो नाटकों, मंज़रनामों, ख़तों, फ़िल्मी संस्मरणों और अनुवादों के बारीकतरीन पाठों का सिलसिला थमने की जगह ज़ोर पकड़ने लगा है। और पाठ-पुनर्पाठ की ये धारा सिर्फ़ उर्दू या हिन्दी में ही नहीं, बल्कि अंग्रेज़ी में भी मुसलसल बह निकली है। जिसके बूते दक्षिण एशिया का यह अप्रतिम कहानीकार अब समस्त दुनिया की एक नायाब धरोहर बन गया है। यह वाजिब भी है क्योंकि मंटो के अदब व फ़लसफ़े में पश्चिम व पूर्व का अद्भुत संगम हुआ। मोपासाँ, चेखव व गोर्की वग़ैरह से उसने अगर तुला हुआ, मुख़्तसर अंदाज़े-बयान सीखा तो एशियाई माहिरों से रस बरसाने वाली दास्तानगोई का चमत्कार, और तफ़्सीलात का इज़हार।

Continue reading अपुन का मंटो: पाकदिल, सियाहक़लम, अपूर्व, अप्रतिम, अखंड →

Culture, Excavation, Frontiers, Images, Mirror Worlds

The abandoned mandirs of Rawalpindi: Shiraz Hassan

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Guest post by SHIRAZ HASSAN

The entry to a temple in Gunjmandi. All photos by Shiraz Hasan

In the early 19th century, the British made Rawalpindi the central seat of military power as they aimed towards Afghanistan. This was in line with their strategic approach towards the Russian Empire in order to enjoy and retain complete control over central Asia. Known as the Great Game, the conflict continues today in another form. Continue reading The abandoned mandirs of Rawalpindi: Shiraz Hassan →

Culture, Debates, Mirror Worlds, Technology

Shadow Libraries

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This is an article that I have written for e-flux which speaks to some of the debates that have taken place in Kafila on the photocopying case at DU. Most of the debates have been framed thus far by  legal questions and  questions of cost and access. While  ideas of cost and access are  useful for pragmatic arguments they fail to capture the delirious thrill  which marks most of our encounters with books (whether purchased, photocopied or  downloaded). In one of the comments to my earlier post Jeebesh Bagchi suggested that we should invoke the idea of shadow libraries and also the fact that our arguments should not be scared of dancing so here goes.

The original article can be found here

Shadow Libraries

Over the last few monsoons I lived with the dread that the rain would eventually find its ways through my leaky terrace roof and destroy my books. Last August my fears came true when I woke up in the middle of the night to see my room flooded and water leaking from the roof and through the walls. Much of the night was spent rescuing the books and shifting them to a dry room. While timing and speed were essential to the task at hand they were also the key hazards navigating a slippery floor with books perched till one’s neck. At the end of the rescue mission, I sat alone, exhausted amongst a mountain of books assessing the damage that had been done, but also having found books I had forgotten or had not seen in years; books which I had thought had been permanently borrowed by others or misplaced found their way back as I set many aside in a kind of ritual of renewed commitment. Continue reading Shadow Libraries →

Bad ideas, Culture

News pornography and mediated cultures of violence: Anirban K. Baishya, Shaheen S. Ahmed and Amit R. Baishya

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Guest Post by ANIRBAN K. BAISHYA, SHAHEEN S. AHMED and AMIT R. BAISHYA

Satyamev Jayate, the popular Aamir Khan-helmed TV show, aired an episode in May this year that praised northeast India [an unfortunate “directional category” (Barbora) that homogenizes a complex, polyglot region] for its virtual absence of dowry-related crimes and its general “liberalism” on gender issues.  Subsequently, one saw a virtual deluge of “Proud to be from the northeast”- type of messages on social networking sites such as Facebook.  June and July, though, were cruel and dispiriting months that belied such declarations of identitarian pride, especially for people from Assam. Continue reading News pornography and mediated cultures of violence: Anirban K. Baishya, Shaheen S. Ahmed and Amit R. Baishya →

Culture, Violence/Conflict

Another Onam – MB Manoj on Dalits, Onam and Malayali identity

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Today is the first day of Onam – and MB Manoj reminds us about other histories of Kerala and other Malayali voices than those of the dominant Nair community.

The interview is entirely in Malayalam. But here’s a short account of what Manoj says in both videos below:

Reading Onam through the eyes of Dalits, the festival loses its “natural” association with the Malayali identity. In fact, in the words of Manoj – “Onam is a black day for Dalits, a day of murder, even as it is a day of happiness for the upper castes”. The coming of Onam also marks the coming of the caste system and slavery in Kerala. Manoj talks about Dalit cultural life in Kerala and its relation to Onam. There are folk songs which criticise the upper-caste nature of Onam and its vegetarianism. Similarly, there are songs which criticise the temple entry proclamation of Kerala. There is a realisation among Dalits that Onam is a celebration of the murder of their king by the upper castes. As part of this realisation, Dalit movements, and especially the Indian Dalit Federation, have observed hunger strikes during Onam days. Manoj reminisces participating in one of these hunger strikes in Idukki town in Kerala during his college days. Manoj stresses that most Dalits, tribals and backward castes eat meat during Onam and their culture fall outside the cultural milieu of Onam. Therefore, for the lower-castes, Onam is neither a cultural nor a national festival, but a festival of the upper-castes.


Bad ideas, Culture, Identities, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Strangers in a Place They Call Home: Lawrence Liang

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Publishing a post for Lawrence Liang who is unable to do so himself at the moment. This piece also appeared in the Hindu this morning. I flew in myself from Bangalore last night and scenes of departure, though not nearly similar to those at the train stations, were palpable at the airport as well. Let me add to Lawrence’s words below three more thoughts that are still forming in my head. The first is the weakness of the word of public institutions and officers in our cities and how little solace they seem to offer or reliability they seem to have, particularly for “minority” residents — (how that word seems to have lost all other meaning other than identifying targets). Panic is also evidence of the fragility of structures that are meant to protect difference rather than just tolerate it. As Lawrence says below, the empirics do not negate how real the fear itself is.

The second is the limits to ideas of “tolerance” in response to diversity versus a more affirmative and protective inclusion — what would it take for the space between rumour and panic to be wider, deeper and further so it is not so easy to bridge?  Here a range of global experiences on cities and their attempts to hold difference are well worth looking at — we are not the first and nor will we be the last to fight this battle which is, in a sense, as old as cities themselves. But, to take one example, would we tell a different story today if public services in Bangalore were framed in response to the diversity of the residents — where they were offered, in all the languages really spoken by residents including the hundreds and thousands of residents from the states of the Northeast? Would the word of the Law minister have more power then? Would panic hesitate? 

The third is a reminder of how Indian cities still belong to states. The supposed linguistic and ethnic organisation of our federal structure has scripted a different urban future for many of our cities — how can Lawrence’s desired anonymity and cosmopolitanism take root if Bangalore still belongs not to its residents but to the idea of Karnataka?  Onto Lawrence’s much more articulate thoughts.

Strangers in a Place They Call Home

Lawrence Liang

One of the underrated pleasures of living in a city is anonymity —guaranteed not by the fact that you look the same as everyone else but that no one really cares that you look different. And a truly cosmopolitan city is one in which everyone looks different. I have been fortunate that for the 30 or so years that I have lived in Bangalore I have not had to deal with the fact that I look different. Save for occasional reminders of my Chineseness, the city has given me enough space to be who I am — cinephile, bibliophile, foodie — without having to bother too much about questions of identity. It is therefore disconcerting to suddenly step out into public spaces self-conscious of my Mongoloid features. Paranoia is not a grand sensation and it manifests itself in the myriad minute gestures and encounters. It seems unbelievable that the experience of a city can change so rapidly because it is clear to me that the last few days in Bangalore have been precisely about that. A miasma of fear, doubt and anxiety has descended on the city. It is possible that much of this has been fuelled by rumours and hearsay; and while the rumours may be false the fear sadly isn’t.

Continue reading Strangers in a Place They Call Home: Lawrence Liang →

Bad ideas, Countryside, Culture, Everyday Life, Genders, Language, Sex

Yo, Yo Honey Singh and Other Implied Learnings: Aprajita Sarcar

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Guest post by APRAJITA SARCAR

Kudiye ni tere brown rang ne, munde patt te ni saare mere town de…..Hun bach bach ke, tenu rab ne husn ditta rajj rajj ke/Main keha kaali teri Gucci, te Prada tera laal/ Kithe challo oh sohneyo, sajh dajh ke ke/ Tere wargi naar ni honi, mainu munde kehnde si /Hoge ni tere charche Star News to BBC /Ho brown brown skin wali, let me tell you one thing /Rab di saunh you so sexy! Continue reading Yo, Yo Honey Singh and Other Implied Learnings: Aprajita Sarcar →

Culture

Review: ‘Impeachment’ by Anjali Deshpande

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Guest post by KIRAN SHAHEEN

Impeachment by Anjali Deshpande, published by Hachette India, is a well-told fictional narrative skilfully woven around the aftermath of the shameful disaster commonly known as the Bhopal Gas Tragedy.

The novel is dedicated to Dr Heeresh Chandra, a name we have seldom heard in the 28 years since the tragedy. Who is this doctor to whom the book is dedicated? The author, in a conversation says that for her, this doctor of the dead is not simply unsung but the only true hero of Bhopal.

While reading Impeachment it is difficult to decide whether it is history claiming to be fiction or fiction masquerading as history. The novel recounts actual incidents that still haunt us, intertwined with the fictional private lives of activists that are also the arena of intense gender and caste politics.

Continue reading Review: ‘Impeachment’ by Anjali Deshpande →

Bad ideas, Culture, Frontiers, Mirror Worlds

In Solidarity with Oprah

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I recently read a scathing article on Oprah Winfrey. I was quite shocked. The journalist made such fuss about her honest observations as if it’s criminal to not know something. However, what were more astonishing were the serendipitous parallels between her journey to Indian and mine to US. And when I read the article, I almost felt as if someone was mocking at me. I felt outraged and decided that I’ll write this note in solidarity with Oprah. Perhaps then, people will see the injustice done to her. Well, I am a celebrity too, here in this country. Not as big as Oprah but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter even if you’re not able to place me at all. The real celebrities don’t publicize themselves anyway. They’re obscure, consigned to oblivion, with some quaint looking academic in some foreign university (probably US) fawning at the greatness of their work. These days all it takes to be a celebrity is to be notorious with your face pasted everywhere. You’d be surprised by the lack of work backing most people you take for celebrities. Anyway, I am notorious enough for the people who’ve suffered me on stage, I really don’t have much work to support me, and I guess I have had had enough presence in media to statistically pass off as a celebrity. Continue reading In Solidarity with Oprah →

Culture, Mirror Worlds

The Poet, His Poems and His Tales

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Faiz Ahmed Faiz: His Life, His Poems: The Way It Was Once by Ali Madeeh Hashmi/ Shoaib Hashmi; pp 256; Rs 499; Harper Collins Publishers India, 2012

After a decade without a day job, and associating with Dastangoi for over six years, I can safely say that I am a career storyteller. And one of the things I have learned is that resumes don’t make a person, stories do. Often these stories are not our own stories, but stories we’ve heard amongst loved ones, extended families, friends, work places, milieu; stories we’ve grown up with, stories distilled deep enough to become an integral part of our existence. We may not often identify with our resume but with our stories, always – acquaintanceship strikes, the moment our stories resonate. Continue reading The Poet, His Poems and His Tales →

Bad ideas, Culture, Left watch, Politics

Mad Rush for Top CPM Jobs!: CPI (Mohammad Rafi) News Service

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Guest Post by CPI ( Mohammad Rafi) News Service

Mad Rush for Top CPM Jobs!:  CPI (Mohammad Rafi) News Service

New Delhi, 15 July 2012: The CPI(M) headquarters saw a mad rush of job applicants after General Secretary Prakash Karat said in a magazine interview that his party paid Rs. 3000-4000 to its whole-time cadre as salary every month. Job seekers from around the country clamoured for immediate appointment to as full time party cadre amidst unruly scenes reminiscent of a typical day at the Indian Parliament.

Karat had mentioned this figure while answering a question as to why the Party’s leaders were mostly from upper caste and middle class backgrounds. According to the CPM General Secretary working class members were hesitant to become whole-timers as ‘ it’s not easy to survive on this small amount’. Continue reading Mad Rush for Top CPM Jobs!: CPI (Mohammad Rafi) News Service →

Culture, Everyday Life, Identities

Discordant notes: A review of Sadia Dehalvi’s “The Sufi Courtyard: Dargahs of Delhi”

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The Sufi Courtyard: Dargahs of Delhi by Sadia Dehlvi; pp 252; Harper Collins Publishers, India, 2012

There is a sudden spurt of interest in Sufism among a section of our population that did not have such an interest a decade or two ago. Some were introduced to Sufism and its spiritual philosophical moorings through interactions with those who knew something about it, and realised that the ideas of Wahdat-ul-Wujood had parallels in the Adwait philosophy and it was this consonance that intrigued many to an extent that they got interested in exploring Sufism a little more. There were others who discovered Sufism through the west. Just as many had discovered Hindustani classical music when George Harrison began to learn the Sitar from Pandit Ravi Shankar in the ’60s, there are those who discovered Rumi when there was a spurt of interest in Jalal-ud-Din Rumi in the west, particularly in the US, with several translations appearing within a short span. Rumi has been known for centuries in our parts as Maulana Room; his poetry was quoted by Persian-knowing Indians till the 1950s and early 1960s, in conversations and writings, almost as often as Mir and Ghalib are quoted by the Urduwallas. An introduction to Rumi in the last decade or so has led eventually and inevitably to Sufism and a kindling of interest in our own indigenous Sufis. Continue reading Discordant notes: A review of Sadia Dehalvi’s “The Sufi Courtyard: Dargahs of Delhi” →

Culture, Debates, Identities, Language, Left watch, Theory

Satyashodhak: Brahminical Manoeuvre: Madhuri M. Dixit

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Guest post by MADHURI M. DIXIT

G. P. Deshpande’s play Satyshodhak is currently being performed in Maharashtra and Delhi and has received positive reviews in print and electronic media1 .It is praised for portraying Jotiba Phule’s life and work, its relevance for dalit emancipatory politics and also for the participation of the Pune Municipal Corporation’s workers as actors. There is a mood of celebration and a congratulatory back patting tone in the appraisal of a supposedly qualitatively different production. In addition to that, the writer has claimed that the production means a ‘successful and meaningful experiment of political education’ 2 of the workers/actors who are dalits. However, the flaunted success of the play and claims about its political import are belied by a performance that offers a very brahmanised Phule. It is very interesting to see that the author claims ‘a meaningful experiment’ of political education of the workers by offering them a pro-upper caste version of Phule. The very choice of producing a play about Phule in 2012 after a shelf life of twenty years 3, the writer’s articulated positions regarding it and the knowledge of Phule delivered through it, involve, I suggest, an upper caste cultural politics embodied in the brahman friendly figure of Phule.

Continue reading Satyashodhak: Brahminical Manoeuvre: Madhuri M. Dixit →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Countryside, Culture, Ecology/Environment, Identities, Images, Media politics, Technology

Creating Happiness – Rijul Kochhar

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Guest post by RIJUL KOCHHAR

 

It is a minute and a half long, and from the moment you see it, you will know that there is something sinister about it—a scenario of forced forgetfulness. It is displacement incarnate, and what is it doing, this aesthetic of obscenity? Is this retribution or charity, or retribution through charity, the developmental discourse of murderous sustainability through erasure? You will be puzzled and worried, harried and then it will make you sleep again in pious numbness, for isn’t the world—its deep blue sky and crystal fluid and cleansing sunlight, and bright flowery faces, its innocent time—just so beautiful! You will find that you cannot respond to it, physically, humanly, for it is not receptive to the organic. It cannot be mediated. It is a ghoul, perched to haunt and hypnotize us out of the memory of its past terrors. You remember, lenore, and wasn’t it to be nevermore? It is an electrical transmission and nothing more, or is it? It is a triumph of pre-postmodern, oily chic, so cloaked in ancient blood, that the blood has caked and turned black and fallen off, revealing the identical colour of the master’s heart, now you see it, now you don’t. The laceration has been hidden by the three-day apoptosis—the extra-cellular matrix, the forgetful memory’s collagen. But you will need to dig outward and inward from here, and very deep. It is there on my screen, this light of blood-lust, “Vedanta: Creating Happiness”, and every time a new or repeated tale from half way across the world is beamed, news every quarter of an hour, this monstrosity accompanies those facts like some leech feeding on reality. You remember Sontag, and isn’t she who had her way with those words: “Now there is a master scenario available to everyone. The color is black, the material is leather, the seduction is beauty, the justification is honesty, the aim is ecstasy, the fantasy is death.”

Continue reading Creating Happiness – Rijul Kochhar →

Culture, Debates, Excavation, Genders, Identities, Images, Movements

Satyashodhak – A Performance

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(A shorter version of this review appeared in Tehelka)

Writer: G P Deshpande

Director: Atul Pethe

Performed by Pune Safai Karmacharis Union

Image

It was apt that a landmark production of G P Deshpande’s 1992 play Satyashodhak on the life of the 19th century anti-caste crusader Jyotiba Phule was performed in a week that witnessed the killing of the head of the Ranbir Sena – a week in which we were reminded that the bitter legacy of caste haunts us as strongly as ever. It was unusual however, that the performance should be held at the recently-opened May Day café and bookstore in Delhi – a space dedicated to the different and more hopeful legacy of the international working class movement, and located close to the heart of a former industrial district in a city that practices careful amnesia about its working classes. It is entirely unusual further that the performers were both Dalit and members of the Pune Municipal Safai Karmacharis Union. While the ancient, poisoned streams of caste and class have often overlapped on the subcontinent, they have not, as we are aware, produced unified or even similar political responses.

Continue reading Satyashodhak – A Performance →

Culture

A Pilgrimage to Ajmer: Kaveri Gill

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Guest post by KAVERI GILL

There is no point living in India if one cannot make spontaneous journeys, of all kinds and in all directions, for there is scarcely another country in which one can move so seamlessly and rapidly between such different worlds, both literal and metaphorical. It is the great charm of not residing in the bosom of the capitalised, industrialised west, with its clockwork uniform comforts. So when the serendipitous sighting of a photo of Ajmer Sharif, all lit up for Urs – celebrating the death anniversary of Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti, in this case – prompted a yearning to be there, I decided for once to ignore the rational self with all its programmed misgivings, and just go. Continue reading A Pilgrimage to Ajmer: Kaveri Gill →

Culture, Images, Metropolis

KK Aziz and the Coffee House of Lahore: Chris Moffat

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Guest post by CHRIS MOFFAT 

During a recent trip to Lahore, I visited the Sang-e-Meel bookshop on Lower Mall Road in search of K.K. Aziz’s The Coffee House of Lahore. Happily, the store was well stocked with the late historian’s final work, and I spent the afternoon reading the text at a table outside the nearby Tollinton Market. It was a betrayal, perhaps, to read the book in this way, sipping cold drinks from the Hafiz Fruit and Juice Corner rather than something appropriately caffeinated, purchased amidst a flurry of conversations in a busy café. I took some solace in the fact that I was sitting not a stone’s throw away from the former Pak Tea House, once a hub of cultural life in the city and among the many spaces of discourse and dissent mapped by Aziz in his narrative of mid-twentieth century Lahore.

Today, the Pak Tea House appears hollowed and shuttered, no longer decorated with a sign to declare its name or to suggest life inside. In spite of recent rumours of a revival, its vacant façade appears a testament to Aziz’s loud lament in The Coffee House of Lahore: that the city’s culture has “disappeared from view”, that its original landmarks “have been obliterated”. The book emerged out of the historian’s desire to capture, before it is lost, the memory of a period of free thought, argument and cultural effervescence, encapsulated in the life of institutions like the Tea House, the Indian Coffee House, the Arab Hotel, the Nagina Bakery, and other important places of assembly, all of which have now vanished from the urban fabric. Aziz chooses to focus on the particularly tumultuous period between 1942 and 1957, when he was an active participant in this culture as a student of politics and later as a lecturer in Lahore’s Government College.
Continue reading KK Aziz and the Coffee House of Lahore: Chris Moffat →

Culture, Debates, Identities

Humiliation condemned to remain ‘Hurt’ – Notes from a talk by Gopal Guru: Parth Pratim Shil & Ankita Pandey

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Guest post by PARTH PRATIM SHIL and ANKITA PANDEY

Unni [a cartoon character] asks:

“Am I just a figurehead or am I asking real questions? Did the textbook writers give me power to ask questions I wish to ask or am I asking questions they have in their mind?” [Page 85, Chapter 4: Executive, Indian Constitution at Work, for class XI]

This cartoon appears in the context of the discussion on the powers of the President of India in the political science textbook of NCERT. It seems this question has a function far wider than the limited task of revealing the institutional blueprint of Indian politics. It pushes the student to ask something very uncomfortable. Am I really the one asking the questions I ask? Or am I rehearsing questions that someone else has decided for me?

As teachers of political science, our constant effort is to understand the ways in which power operates. None of the themes of our syllabi can be taught without reference to the resistance, critique and offending positions taken by groups who challenge the status quo. Sanitizing the history of critique and resistance that is encapsulated in satirical modes of representation like cartoons, can only be at the cost of keeping the discipline of political science uprooted from its very object of study. In the recent cartoon controversy, however, the issues at stake are many more than a defence of critical pedagogy.

Continue reading Humiliation condemned to remain ‘Hurt’ – Notes from a talk by Gopal Guru: Parth Pratim Shil & Ankita Pandey →