Category Archives: Debates

Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Politics

Xenophobia, Racism and Vigilantism – Danger Signals for AAP

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The bizarre drama yesterday, involving one of the Aam Aadmi Party ministers, Somnath Bharti, should make the AAP leadership sit up and think. Here is a brief extract from a report:

Less than 24 hours after he led a midnight raid and tried to bully police into arresting some “Nigerians or Ugandans” who he alleged were members of “a prostitution-and-drug ring”, Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti returned to the very spot on Thursday and asked residents to draw up a list of houses where “such people” live and said he would personally check each one.

The minister got embroiled in a full-scale confrontation with the ACP, BS Jakhar, who insisted, correctly that the police were not legally empowered to do this. According to the same report, Jakhar said, “The minister told me that the women inside are part of a drug racket and that we should conduct a raid in all houses in the area. I told him that the law does not permit us to barge into someone’s house, so late in the night, without a search warrant.” But to not effect. The minister was not only unfazed; he even went on say that he had “received a lot of complaints from women in this locality against foreign nationals, yeh hum aur aap jaise nahin hain (They are not like you or me).” Continue reading Xenophobia, Racism and Vigilantism – Danger Signals for AAP →

Bad ideas, Debates, Movements, Politics

AAP and the Ideology Warriors

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If ideology-warriors had their way, they would rather have Narendra Modi as the next prime minister than have their ideological purity compromised. Soon after AAP’s victory, many secularists rushed to declare, on Facebook and elsewhere, that they do not and will not partake of the AAP euphoria. ‘What is their stand on communalism?’, they asked indignantly. Some other friends insisted that Muslims need an assurance about AAP’s position on communalism and it should clarify its stand if it wanted the Muslim vote.

So what do the ideology warriors want? Just when the political agenda for the elections has decisively changed, throwing the BJP into a complete quandary, upsetting its strategic plans, they want the old familiar, secular/ communal divide back in place, opening up the political field once more to the same Hindu-Muslim polarization that we are so used to. The secular/ communal divide has been the millstone around our neck, preventing any other issue from being brought into public debate at election time and effectively preventing the emergence of any new force or formation. And let there be no mistake that in a communal polarization of Hindus and Muslims, secular forces will always, in the on-going drama of secular masochism, have to deposit themselves tied hand and foot, into the Congress party’s dungeon. The Amit Shahs will have a field day, creating one Muzaffarnagar after another, and erstwhile secular mascots like Mulayam Singh Yadav will vie with them in further entrenching the Hindu-Muslim divide. In all of this, the Congress will present itself as the saviour of Muslims.

The Congress, the BJP, the imaginary ‘third front’ – all have been able players and winners in this game. Continue reading AAP and the Ideology Warriors →

Bad ideas, Debates, Ecology/Environment, Genders, Identities, Images

Who will chop the Tree of Hubris?

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devika

This is a photograph which appeared in the ‘Nagaram’ pullout on city affairs of the Mathrubhumi newspaper (Trivandrum edition,8 January 2014, p. III). The caption to the original photograph reads: ‘A man in Adivasi woman’s dress during the Secretariat March conducted by the Highrange Samrakshana Samithi and other farmer organizations’. The Highrange samrakshana Samity led by the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, as is well-known, has monopolized the identity of ‘farmer’ in the hill districts and has been leading the protest against the implementation of the Gadgil Report and the Kasturirangan Report. Their rhetoric of helplessness in the face of state onslaught often leaves us blind to their history of ruthless exploitation and near-enslavement of adivasi people in these areas.No, they have never been helpless, and they never will be — the most powerful sections of civil and political societies in Kerala are on their side, as always. What else explains their hubris so well-reflected in this photograph? Continue reading Who will chop the Tree of Hubris? →

Debates, Law, Politics, Right watch

Naz and its detractors: A response by Jordan Osserman

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Guest Post by Jordan Osserman

Amidst the outcry of queer rage and mourning against the Supreme Court judgment has emerged a strand of skepticism (For examples See here , here and here)  from within queer circles, directed at the participants in the anti-377 campaign. These skeptics allege that the 377 organizers failed to adequately consider the impact of their activism on the most marginal queers in India (lower class/caste hijras, kothis, MSM, etc.). In the most biting version of the critique, the 377 campaign is portrayed as an elite middle class movement, fueled by foreign-funded NGOs, against a largely symbolic, immaterial enemy. 377, these critics allege, was never a central cause of LGBT oppression; a paper tiger, relatively unknown by police and Indian society writ large until middle-class queers arbitrarily put it on the agenda and invested it with symbolic meaning. To the extent that marginal sexual minorities have been represented at all, their voices have been appropriated in the service of a campaign at best irrelevant, and at worst dangerous, to their lives.

In this post, I’d like to challenge some of these claims. We can summarize the critics’ arguments as follows: 1. Section 377 has not historically targeted LGBT people, and rarely affected the lives of sexual minorities prior to the activist mobilization against it. 2. Instead of fighting 377, activists should have prioritized campaigns which would concretely benefit LGBT people, particularly the most marginalized. Alternately, if the 377 campaign had to go forward, the legal strategy and organizing should have been more inclusive. 3. The “liberal outrage” against 377 may be as much to blame for violence justified in the name of the law as the Supreme Court’s decision. For, now that queer activists and the Indian media have popularized the notion that the Supreme Court has “re-criminalized homosexuality,” homophobes have become aware of a new weapon with which to target sexual minorities. I will attempt to address these interlinked arguments in their respective order, before drawing some final conclusions about activism and organizing.

Continue reading Naz and its detractors: A response by Jordan Osserman →

Debates, Feminism, Sex

The Conundrum of Agency in Sexual Violence

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This is a revised version of an article that appeared in Seminar January 2014.

The past year is bookended by two extraordinary moments, both of them inspired by the courage and determination of young women who refused to take sexual violence as routine.

December 2012 – a young paramedic fought till her last breath for justice.

November 2013 – a law intern exposed the sexual assault she faced from a retired Judge and a Tehelka journalist taught Tarun Tejpal a long deferred lesson – No Means No.

The massive mobilization of public opinion around these incidents has reopened the question of ‘agency’ in familiar and unfamiliar ways.

Feminists have long asserted women’s agency in contexts of sexual violence by attempting to desexualize rape – in law and in everyday life. Taken out of patriarchal discourses of honour, rape is merely an act of violence that violates bodily integrity. This delicate balance between two opposing notions – on the one hand, that sexual violence has a distinctive character, it is more humiliating, more paralyzing than physically less harmful actions; and on the other, that sexual violence is merely another kind of physical violence – this is the razor’s edge occupied by feminist understandings of rape. Continue reading The Conundrum of Agency in Sexual Violence →

Debates, Frontiers, Metropolis, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Violence/Conflict

The Aam Aadmi Party and Animal Farm

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The plot of George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ can be summarized in a single sentence – “This novel demonstrates the consequences of the addition of four important words -‘but’,  ‘some’, ‘more’, and ‘others’ to the phrase – <all animals are equal>”.

In other words, it describes the transition from the axiomatic statement <all animals are equal> to the qualified formula <all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others>.

Aam Aadmi Party founder and Delhi’s new chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s ruling out the possibility of referendums in Kashmir about the presence of the armed forces in Jammu & Kashmir (in response to his party colleague Prashant Bhushan’s endorsement of the idea of such a referendum during a recent television appearance) could signify a shift within the Aam Aadmi Party’s evolving political doctrine that parallels the transition that the pigs in Animal Farm made while turning their revolution into a counter-revolution. Continue reading The Aam Aadmi Party and Animal Farm →

Bad ideas, Debates, Frontiers, Government, Identities, Left watch, Politics, Right watch

Beating AAP with the Kashmir stick

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When Prashant Bhushan first made his remarks supporting a referendum in Kashmir to decide whether Kashmir will stay in India, a hooligan had gone to his office and slapped him. The Aam Aadmi Party made it clear that these were Bhushan’s personal views and were not endorsed by the AAP, but the stick was too good to ignore. At a loss of words to see the rise of the AAP, somewhat dimming the euphoria over the rising fortunes of Narendra Modi, the BJP has gone on and on over Bhushan’s views on Kashmir. Even when the AAP was proving its majority on the floor of the house, the leader of the opposition, Harsh Vardhan, made Prashant Bhushan’s personal views out be somewhat of a national security threat to India. Just saying that a people should be allowed to decide their fate is anti-national because we know that making such an allowance would bring results we’d rather not see. Continue reading Beating AAP with the Kashmir stick →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Debates, Empire/ Imperialism, Government, Identities

National Interest and the Aam Aadmi: Abhijit Dutta

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Guest post by ABHIJIT DUTTA

Yesterday, Delhi Chief Minister and Common Man-in-Chief of the AAP, Arvind Kejriwal, declared that “We don’t agree with what Prashant Bhushan said about Kashmir, it’s his personal view. Whatever the Army wants to do regarding the deployment, there is no question of a referendum on it. We do not support Prashant Bhushan’s statement.”

Bhushan’s comments, made on NDTV’s ‘We The People’ show, which, in a matter of happy coincidence happens to be the Constitutional term for Aam Aadmi, was simply this: wishes of the people of Kashmir be taken into account while determining whether the Army was needed for internal security or not. Unreasonably, and with shattering common sense, Bhushan had argued that if the Armed Forces deployed within Kashmir (as opposed to the border areas) were meant to protect the general Kashmiri population, might it not be a good idea to ask that population whether they wanted the protection or not. Continue reading National Interest and the Aam Aadmi: Abhijit Dutta →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Education, Everyday Life, Identities, Politics

On A Prayer and a Petition: Babu Gogineni

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This is a guest post by BABU GOGINENI

“What exactly happened, and what gave you the strength to fight your case, Mr. Salve?” I asked. “Your job as an English teacher was at risk, and your own colleagues shunned you. You are from the Dalit community, and you live in Maharashtra state where militant religion has frequently silenced dissenters – how could you hold out for 7 years?” Continue reading On A Prayer and a Petition: Babu Gogineni →

Debates, Everyday Life

Of Indians and Justice – The Khobragade Affair: Godfrey Pereira

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Guest Post by GODFREY PEREIRA

Devyani Khobragade was arrested on December 12th on charges of visa fraud and misrepresentation. At the time of her arrest, she was functioning as deputy consul general at the Indian Consulate in New York.

Soon after her arrest, the Indian government hastily transferred Khobragade to the permanent mission of India to the United Nations (UN), hoping that that this would give her the necessary Diplomatic immunity from arrest. Diplomatically this move was a “by the book” maneuver.

Question: If she had Diplomatic Immunity, why was she transferred to the permanent mission?

Question: If she had Diplomatic Immunity, why was a formal official application forwarded to U.S. authorities for full Diplomatic immunity AFTER she was arrested? Legally the Indian government should have, could have stood their ground, if they really believed that she had diplomatic immunity in the first place; because that’s what they were shouting about through their malfunctioning megaphones from the beginning. Right…Yes…No….Maybe… Continue reading Of Indians and Justice – The Khobragade Affair: Godfrey Pereira →

Debates, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Language, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Politics

Azadi in the Lexicon of the Aam Admi: Gowhar Fazili

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Guest Post by GOWHAR FAZILI

During the swearing in speech at Ram Leela Maidan, the word Azadi found its place of pride on Arvind Kejriwal’s symbolic cap. ‘ Mujhe Chahiye Poori Azadi’ it said.   The word Azadi has travelled from the freedom struggle in Kashmir, to the movement against gendered violence in Delhi and is now entering the lexicon of Aam Aadmi.  The Aam Aadmi’s historic ascension to power through a referendum resonates well with the long standing demand in Kashmir seeking to let the people decide their political future directly.

Continue reading Azadi in the Lexicon of the Aam Admi: Gowhar Fazili →

Debates, Genders, Sex

Homosexuality and Islam – Indian Muslims’ Responses: Abhay Kumar

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Guest Post by ABHAY KUMAR 

No sooner had the Muslim minority of India come to terms with a sudden surge of the Hindu right BJP in four assembly elections, seen as the ‘semi-final’ ahead of the General Election scheduled for early 2014, than their attention was gripped by yet another controversy. On December 11, 2013, the Supreme Court recriminalized homosexuality, overruling the three-year old  judgment of Delhi High Court.[1] The bench comprising Justice G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadaya ruled that homosexuality or unnatural sex between two consenting adults under section 377 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) is an offence.[2] The judgment has evoked mixed response. The political elites and parties[3] along with religious leaders have responded in more than one way and some have supported the Supreme Court judgement while others are against it.[4]  But a strong protest against the verdict has been lodged by progressive, left circles backed up by English language media.[5]

Contrary to this, Muslim religious leaders and those politicians whose primary constituency is the Muslim belt, have wholeheartedly welcomed the ruling. While the English language media has acted as a ‘torch-bearer of liberal’ values, the Urdu press, on the other hand, has fought a spirited battle against the western ‘disease’. [6]

However, unlike these ‘guardians’ of the community, there are some other Muslim voices, who have broadly opposed criminalising people on the basis of their sexual orientation. This paper attempts to discuss the responses of Indian Muslims on the question of homosexuality. Continue reading Homosexuality and Islam – Indian Muslims’ Responses: Abhay Kumar →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Debates, Government, Politics

Corporate Sabotage and AAP’s Chavez Moment

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Even as the new AAP government was preparing to take oath of office, the news came of an unprecedented hike in the price of CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) – a hike of Rs 5.15 per kg. In principle, there is nothing wrong with a price-hike that is supposedly necessitated by the need to reduce supplies to metropolitan centres in order to ensure a more equitable distribution to other towns. However, knowing the way the Congress Party functions, the timing of this hike gives rise to legitimate suspicion that the intention is mala fide. At the very least, the decision could have waited till the new government assumed office and some consultation with the new government was carried out. This move shows up the nature of what can be expected from Congress and its ‘outside support’ to the new government.

Expectedly, auto-rickshaw drivers have started making noises about going on strike if fares are not commensurately hiked. If auto fares are raised, it hits the middle class, and if they are not, it alienates the auto-drivers.This clearly throws any new government into a quandary. Continue reading Corporate Sabotage and AAP’s Chavez Moment →

Debates, Government, Identities, Left watch, Politics

Arvind Kejriwal, master-blaster

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Arvind Kejriwal is the new Sachin Tendulkar. You throw him the most difficult googly and he sweeps it to add runs for his century. In 2011, he started a national anti-corruption movement with the specific aim of setting up an anti-corruption ombudsman called Lokpal. The movement’s public face and leader was Anna Hazare, a respected social leader, who like Gandhi, believes in fasting for politics. The critics said Anna is just a puppet and it’s Kejriwal’s movement, and that such sophistry showed Kejriwal (who takes oath as chief minister of Delhi tomorrow) had sinister motives.

Kejriwal’s critics said that fasting unto death was a blackmail strategy not suited to a democracy. Kejriwal can’t have a Lokpal just because he wants it. His popular support is just media hype. If he really wants a Lokpal, why doesn’t he form a political party and contest elections?

Kejriwal’s critics said he was supported by the RSS and the BJP, that he is a BJP stooge, that the Lokpal movement was a right-wing conspiracy to remove pristine, super-secular, people-loving, chosen-by-god Congress party from power. Continue reading Arvind Kejriwal, master-blaster →

Debates, Everyday Life, Feminism, Genders, Language, Left watch, Sex, Violence/Conflict

In Tragic and Tough Times – Thoughts in the Wake of A Rape Charge and a Suicide: Sucheta De and Shivani Nag

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Guest Post by SUCHETA DE and SHIVANI NAG

In Tragic and Tough Times, Let Us be True to Our Democratic and Gender-Just Principles.

We are confronted by a painful episode involving a rape charge and a suicide, that poses many tough and tangled questions to us – as the JNU community and also as individuals and activists committed to secularism, democracy and gender justice. Let us, for a moment, reiterate what one of the late Khurshid Anwar’s friends has said in his recent post on Kafila: the suicide does not prove him guilty of the charge of rape, and it does not prove his innocence either.

The suicide is a horrible, tragic occurrence – and it is a tragedy we should not compound with irresponsible utterances. A charge of rape does not necessarily turn the accused into a convicted rapist. True. And equally truly, it does not turn the woman making the charge, overnight, into a slut, a murderer, or a communal/political conspirator. Continue reading In Tragic and Tough Times – Thoughts in the Wake of A Rape Charge and a Suicide: Sucheta De and Shivani Nag →

Bad ideas, Debates, Everyday Life, Identities

Cultures of Servitude and the Khobragade-Richard Issue: Nissim Mannathukkaren

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Guest Post by Nissim Mannathukkaren

When the great lord passes the wise peasant bows deeply and silently farts. (Ethiopian proverb)

When progressive politics finds itself in agreement with Arnab Goswami, then it is time for the alarm bells to ring. What has been unfolding over the last week has been nothing but spectacular: a wronged and humiliated ‘Third World’ nation (finally) standing up to the imperialist Satan over the Devyani Khobragade episode. A story supposedly fit for lore. But in reality it would have been comical only if it did not have serious consequences.

What is comical is a nation whose elites and middle classes are perfectly in sync with the American worldview (India is among the top America-loving nations in the world) and think that America is the epitome of democracy (a survey from a couple of years ago showed that Indians, more than any other people in the world, think that the United States is a multilateral rather than a unilateral actor), whose students and youth dream the American dream (the largest number of foreign students in America are from India), whose rulers salivate at the prospect of an eternal soiree with the American establishment (after all, the Indo-American strategic partnership has been called the ‘defining alliance of the 21st century’) have suddenly woken up to the rude reality that maybe the Americans do not think about us in the same way! Hence our petulant reactions – like a spurned lover.  Continue reading Cultures of Servitude and the Khobragade-Richard Issue: Nissim Mannathukkaren →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Centre watch, Debates, Government, Language, Media politics

Aam Aadmi, Khaas Politics: Satya Sagar

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   Guest Post by SATYA SAGAR                                          

From time to time in the history of every nation there emerges a maverick force that collapses the existing system by taking its logic to the extremes.  Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party are precisely that, a ‘wild card’ in Indian politics, threatening to turn it upside down in ways no one could have imagined before.

Ever since they were born out of the throes of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement, a couple of years ago, everyone has tried to slot the AAP in the regular political categories of right, left and center. Some have dubbed the Aam Aadmi Party as the ‘new Congress’ and others as the ‘B Team’ of the BJP. Supporters of the party have hailed its leader Arvind Kejriwal as a ‘modern day Gandhi’ while one opponent has intriguingly called his party ‘right wing Maoists’! Continue reading Aam Aadmi, Khaas Politics: Satya Sagar →

Debates, Feminism, Genders, Language, Media politics, Sex

On the Death of Khurshid Anwar: Kalyani Menon Sen and Kavita Krishnan

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Guest Post by KALYANI MENON SEN & KAVITA KRISHNAN

(Find Hindi translation below the English statement)

We are deeply shocked and saddened by the death of Khurshid Anwar.

As activists committed to ending violence against women, we have been trying to ensure the due process of law and justice in relation to the allegations against Khurshid Anwar. Continue reading On the Death of Khurshid Anwar: Kalyani Menon Sen and Kavita Krishnan →

Culture, Debates, Government, Right watch

Statue of Unity – How the Varna Media is Loving It !

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..The man who belonged to the whole country has now been abducted by Narendra Modi, a pracharak of RSS, the communal organization who the Sardar fought against throughout his life. ..The only purpose of the construction of the Sardar Patel statue which was declared by Narendra Modi after he was anointed as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial Candidate is to collect votes for the 2014 elections in the name of this leader of India’s freedom struggle. It is therefore a downright irony that the RSS pracharak is trying to build the facade of unity by erecting the statue of one of the staunchest opponents of RSS. (Facade of Unity – RSS Abducts Sardar Patel, Pratik Sinha October 31, 2013 |

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History bears witness the fact that the attitude to appear ‘big’ or ‘tall’ so that even posterity remembers you is very evident in every megalomaniac. It is a different matter that due to a poor sense of history, such megalomaniacs cannot even comprehend that thanks to the way they subdued a population, or cleanse it of ‘others’, actually overwhelms the giant monuments they build or the memorials they erect to commemorate their bloody victories. The Halakus, the Chengiz Khans, the Menanders or the Mussolinis of the world are remembered today not as noble representatives of humanity but as its other. Continue reading Statue of Unity – How the Varna Media is Loving It ! →

Bad ideas, Debates, Law, Sex

Dear Supreme Court: Inder Salim

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Guest Post by INDER SALIM

Dear Supreme Court,

I am personally glad that your recent verdict on Article 377 has sparked a debate on the nature of “SEX “in India.

Continue reading Dear Supreme Court: Inder Salim →

Debates, Identities, Movements, Sex

Queering Christianity: Janice Lazarus

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Guest Post by JANICE LAZARUS

While there have been several writings, posts and comments on the web and in the print about the connection between homosexuality and Hinduism, there has been almost nothing said about the outlook of Christianity on homosexuality. One of the petitioners in Kaushal vs. Naz case is the Utkal Christian Council represented by its Secretary; and so I feel that it is crucial to write about Christianity and the way in which in many parts of the world a Queer Theology is embracing those previously deemed sinful by the Church. While I am in no way a theologian, I do feel that the Bible is open to be read by all and can be interpreted differently by many (as do the different sects within Christianity).

Continue reading Queering Christianity: Janice Lazarus →