Category Archives: Excavation

Excavation, Frontiers, Genders, Images, Mirror Worlds, Violence/Conflict

Shabbo Kumari patrols the border

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Photo by Poulomi Basu

The Lens blog at NYTimes.com has a photo essay by Poulomi Basu about women guards of the Indian Border Security Force.

Most of the recruits were from impoverished rural areas. If she could observe them not only in training but with their families as well, she would be able to tell the story of their transformation from villagers into soldiers.

The most haunting image Basu has  is the one above.

One of the most riveting photographs shows a dead man hanging upside down, his legs caught in the high barbed wire fence that India has constructed to demarcate the border. Guards had shot the man as he and others tried to enter Pakistan near Attari, in Punjab State, Ms. Basu said. Continue reading Shabbo Kumari patrols the border →

Countryside, Excavation, Media politics, Movements, Violence/Conflict

The Unreality of Wasseypur: Javed Iqbal

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Guest post by JAVED IQBAL

Posters for ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ in Dhanbad. All photographs by Javed Iqbal.

‘The ending of the film was shown properly,’ speak unanimous voices, the well-known folklore of Wasseypur, Dhanbad, ‘Gangster Shafiq Khan was really gunned down at the Topchachi petrol pump like it was shown in the first part of the film.’

‘That’s how it’s done in Dhanbad.’ Continue reading The Unreality of Wasseypur: Javed Iqbal →

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 →

Bad ideas, Excavation, Frontiers, Identities, Media politics, Violence/Conflict

How Delhi paper ‘Sahafat’ fell for fake images of violence in Burma

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Yousuf Saeed wrote in Kafila on 13 August how fake images of violence against Muslim Rohingyas in Burma – images that were in fact, of, say, earthquake victims. In his post he mentioned how even some Urdu papers in India were fooled by the images,which provoked violent protests in Mumbai,and recently, Lucknow.

Now, CM Naim describes in detail how Sahafat, an Urdu newspaper published from Delhi, fell for these fake images. Naim translates large parts of two charged-up articles in Sahafat, one of which calls for the boycott of Buddhists in Delhi. One article was published on 10 August and one on 16 August. As Naim says, it’s time for the Press Council of India to take note. One excerpt: Continue reading How Delhi paper ‘Sahafat’ fell for fake images of violence in Burma →

Countryside, Empire/ Imperialism, Excavation, Frontiers, Identities, Violence/Conflict

The Myth of the Bangladeshi and Violence in Assam: Nilim Dutta

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Guest post by NILIM DUTTA

Map credit: idsa.in

The recent spate of violence that began in the Kokrajhar district of Assam in the month of July 2012 and then spread to the adjoining districts of the Bodoland Territorial Council, primarily between the Bodos and the Muslim community of immigrant origin settled in these districts, has once again unleashed a vicious debate on the perils posed by alleged unrestricted illegal immigration from Bangladesh, this time even on the floor of the Lok Sabha.

The situation has been further complicated by a ‘protest’ in Mumbai against ‘violence on Muslims in Assam’ turning into a riot or by sundry attacks as ‘retaliation’ against people from North East elsewhere in India. Thanks to either shockingly uninformed or brazenly motivated opinions being aired around incessantly, much of it in the national electronic and print media, the dominant discourse that has evolved around the issue has created three distinct perceptions:

First, that illegal immigration of Bengali Muslim peasants from neighbouring Bangladesh into Assam has been continuing unabated, leading to skewed demographic profiles of Assam’s districts bordering Bangladesh and thereafter, turning several adjoining districts of Assam to Muslim majority. Continue reading The Myth of the Bangladeshi and Violence in Assam: Nilim Dutta →

Capitalism, Debates, Excavation, Metropolis

Olympics, Art and the Orbit of Capital : Anirban Gupta Nigam

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Guest post by ANIRBAN GUPTA NIGAM

The facts:

In 1992,  Prijedor – a mine in a place called Omarska in Bosnia – was transformed into a concentration camp by Bosnian Serb forces. The number of Bosnian and Croat people held in the camp varies between at least 3,334 and 5000-7000. Many of them – around 700-800 by some accounts, many thousands by others – were murdered.

A little over a decade later, in 2004, the world’s largest steel producing company, ArcelorMittal took control of 51% of the Ljubija mining complex, of which the mine of Omarska is a part. In the former concentration camp where thousands had been detained and many brutally killed, mining activity has now resumed. A year later – 2005 – ArcelorMittal promised it would financially back and oversee the construction of a memorial for the victims at Omarska. They never did. Not only that, according to some reports ArcelorMittal recently enclosed the space around the mine, denying people entrance and effectively privatising a place of great trauma and violence for exclusive reasons of commerce.

Meanwhile the company, through the artistic prowess of Anish Kapoor, spearheaded the construction of a massive public art monument meant to become one of the symbols of the forthcoming London Olympics. The Olympic Tower – also known as the ArcelorMittal Orbit – has, from its very beginning, been subject to both massive criticism and support. The back and forth over its status as genuinely “great art” or “fascistic gigantism” and a “waste of public money,” has centred on how people respond to the physical structure, as well as on the merits and demerits of having a large corporate house direct a public art initiative of this kind. On the 14th of April this year, Mladen Jelača, Director of ArcelorMittal in Prijedor, verified to Milica Tomic (from the Monument Group in Belgrade) and Eyal Weizman (professor in Goldsmiths, University of London) that iron from the same ore that was mined in Omarska had indeed been used in the construction of the ArcelorMittal Orbit.

Continue reading Olympics, Art and the Orbit of Capital : Anirban Gupta Nigam →

Excavation, Left watch, Politics, Theory

MEGA, the recovery of Marx and Marxian path: Sankar Ray

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Guest post by SANKAR RAY

In sharp contrast to the scenario of the unprecedented debt-driven crisis of neo-liberal world economic order, a new era of radiant expectations seems to open up for Marx-followers and Marxists around the international project, Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe or complete works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (MEGA) and it’s hitherto ‘unexplored Marx’. MEGA , a collation of original texts is ‘the historical-critical edition of works of Marx and Engels’, an imperative ignored during the 20th century by official Marxists. Fifty-nine out of 114 volumes , have already been published. The MEGA editorial board, following prolonged debate decided to put together the whole of 164 volumes of original manuscripts in 114 volumes.

A critical approach to history  is essential for scholarly inquiry. Yet  scholarship alone isn’t enough where an enterprise such as this is for it also requires unbiased collation and editing. The development of Marxist studies had been throttled due to widespread vulgarisation which had dominated Marx studies from the 1890s to the end of the 20th Century. Early Marxists like Franz Mehring and Vera Zasulich – and Rosa Luxemburg – adopted a more critical approach which is a essential for the ‘Marxist temper’. Marx’s prescription, de omnibus dubitandum (doubt everything), wasn’t meant to be just a quotation. Unfortunately, Lenin and his followers often deified Marx. Lenin’s words – “Marxism is omnipotent, because it is true” – is one such instance as if Marxism represents the end of philosophy. Continue reading MEGA, the recovery of Marx and Marxian path: Sankar Ray →

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 →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Excavation, Government, Law, Technology

India asks Google to remove 2 items every 3 days

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Google’s just released fourth biannual Transparency Report says that between January and June 2011, India asked it to remove 358 different items from various Google-owned web services such as Orkut and YouTube. Google complied in 51% cases. The requests were made by various central and state government departments through 68 different requests. The fourth such report, it goes against communications minister Kapil Sibal’s claims that internet companies are not willing to “self-regulate”.

Worryingly, the report also confirms the allegations that what bothers government officials the most about the internet is not defamation or hate speech but government criticism. Continue reading India asks Google to remove 2 items every 3 days →
Bad ideas, Centre watch, Excavation, Government, Law

(Updated) List of websites blocked in India

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Given below is a list of websites blocked in India by one or more Internet Service Providers. This list was hacked from Reliance servers by the hacker group ANONYMOUS, which claimed in a web press conference that while most of this list of 434 is blocked as a result of government or court orders, some have been blocked by Reliance on its own. The ones blocked by Reliance on its own relate to Satish Seth, a Reliance ADAG executive. Continue reading (Updated) List of websites blocked in India →

Debates, Excavation, Identities, Language

This, that and other cartoons: Prabhat Kumar

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Guest post by PRABHAT KUMAR

I wish to intervene in the ruckus over usage of Shankar’s cartoon in the NCERT’s political science text book. At the outset I want to clarify my personal impression (although inconsequential!) of the book and the cartoon therein. I feel the textbook in general is pedagogically superior to the previous ones for it does not infantilise young students as lacking critical ability. I also believe, as Aditya Nigam has rightly pointed out, it has accorded Ambedkar the status of a leading political and intellectual figure so far ignored. The cartoon in particular, both in the context of the narrative of the textbook as well as of its production in 1949, is not attacking Ambedkar the crusader of Dalits’ rights.

Continue reading This, that and other cartoons: Prabhat Kumar →

Excavation, Government, Identities, Images, Movements

Resisting the Second Childhood: Towards Universal Pension in India

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Guest post by AKHIL KATYAL

Ashiya Begum, an elderly widow, had worked as a road construction labourer after her husband’s death. She recalls that when all the workers used to have lunch by the construction site, she tried to sleep under the bushes as there was no food and it was better than seeing others eat. When the pangs of hunger grew insistent, she would drink a lot of water and then tie her saree end tightly around her stomach and continue to work. At night if the children cried and she had nothing to feed them, she peeped out of her tent to neighbours’ utensils and used to beg a glass of ganji (water which is to be drained out of rice once it is cooked) from them. Everybody got 5-6 spoonfuls of ganji before sleeping. Sometimes in the evening, after the road construction work, she cooked in other people’s houses. They gave her four rotis that the entire family ate…‘Even if I tell you (what we eat to survive),’ she told the researcher, ‘will you ever be able to feel what we eat?’
–          from the ‘Study on Destitution and Hunger’, Centre for Equity Studies, Delhi

Old age mostly inspires the sentiment of the universal in us, the aesthetics of the general, so much so that when we speak of the old, we often let go of the specific and relish statements that tend to be as wide-ranging as they could be naïve: the old are wiser, we say, the age is just a number, our frames turn more literary, more contemplative, it is the dusk of life, we think, or sometimes being metaphorical, we consider to be old to be in a second childhood. The last one is Aristophanes, no less. Continue reading Resisting the Second Childhood: Towards Universal Pension in India →

Culture, Everyday Life, Excavation

Where have all the ghosts gone?

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Two friends and I had gone to interview an old lady born 90 years ago in 1922. We had hoped to jog her memory about events that she had seen unfold, and events that she had heard her parents and grandparents talk about. We were hoping to get a slice of history going back a century and a quarter, but things did not work out as well as we had thought. Nevertheless, we got lucky through Saeed-ur-Rehman, her 72 year old son. He told us much about Delhi and about a real life encounter that his maternal grandfather and uncle had with the Jinn of Ferozeshah Kotla.

 This is how he related the encounter:

 “My Nana [maternal grandfather] was a great one for fishing and his favourite spot for fishing was the Firozeshah Kotla. In those days the Jamuna used to flow right next to the Kotla wall, and my Nana would go there often. He would carry his huqqa with him, cast the line and sit puffing away at and wait for the fish to take the bait. He would spend the better part of the day there and return with a bagful of fish in the evening. One afternoon he asked our Mamu [maternal uncle] to accompany him and this is what our Mamu told us about the events of the day. Continue reading Where have all the ghosts gone? →

Bad ideas, Excavation, Genders, Movements

What I learned from “The Patriarchy”: Nilanjana S. Roy

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Guest post by NILANJANA S. ROY

Reading Saba Dewan’s post, on patriarchy and St Stephen’s, was a release. For years, I had struggled to make sense of two contradictory things—my years at college were some of the happiest of my life, but the institution that was held up to us as one of the best in India was also built on a flawed and deeply discriminatory set of beliefs.

(It’s hard to write about this in part because it always felt like complaining about what was, in essence, a very privileged life–those of us who went to St Stephen’s were by definition lucky, in our acquisition of English, in our officially liberal families, in our assumption of a secure place in the hierarchies of power in India.) Continue reading What I learned from “The Patriarchy”: Nilanjana S. Roy →

Bad ideas, Excavation, Genders, Movements

Of chick charts, hen charts and other such women’s stories: Saba Dewan

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Image credit: Tribhuvan Tiwari / outlookindia.com

Guest post by SABA DEWAN

(For Vrinda, Uma, Sukhpreet, Dipta and all of us who found strength in each other to raise our voices in protest…) 

A few months back I visited St. Stephen’s College in Delhi University for a screening organized by the students there of my film, ‘The Other Song.’ It was my first visit after 26 years when I had been an undergraduate student here from 1982 – ‘85. I confess I have never felt any urge to go back nor have I suffered nostalgia about the three years I spent in St. Stephen’s College although I have carried vivid memories of that time. Sharp, brittle memories that defined many of the choices I have made in life over the years; the most important being of believing in and hopefully practicing a feminist politics based on equality and respect for all. Feminism truly has been a legacy that St. Stephen’s College inadvertently bequeathed to many of its women students of my generation. Continue reading Of chick charts, hen charts and other such women’s stories: Saba Dewan →

Bad ideas, Culture, Ecology/Environment, Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Excavation, Identities, Violence/Conflict

Delhi 1803-2012: A Brief Biography

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Delhi, Or Dilli has been a city and a capital for a long time and even when it was not the capital, during the Lodi and early Mughal period, and later between 1858 and 1911, it continued to be an important city. We are of course talking of what is historically established and not of myths and legends. During this period there have been 7 major and several minor cities within the territories now identified as the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCR-Delhi). New Delhi is the eight city. This piece marking the hundred years of the shifting of the colonial capital to Delhi from Calcutta in 1912, will talk about both Shahjahanabad and New Delhi. We will see how  Shahjahanabad the once most powerful and rich city of its time and the last capital of the Mughals was gradually  ruined, plundered and virtually reduced to a slum  while next door arose, a new enclave of Imperial grandeur known now as New Delhi. Continue reading Delhi 1803-2012: A Brief Biography →

Centre watch, Excavation, Government, Movements

‘Sau Mein Pachees Haq Hamara’: Caste of a Scam

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This press release was put out by the SC/ST BUDGET ADHIKAR ANDOLAN after a large protest in Delhi on 24 April

Massive uproar and agitation by over a thousand SC/ST’s marked the initiation of the campaign “Sau Mein Pachees Haq Hamara” at Jantar Mantar on 24 April, 2012. The protesters flooded the roads of Jantar Mantar as they marched along the high pitch drum beats, adding to the rhythm of the march. Even the scorching heat did not deter those who joined the protest march from several other states. They hooted in unison, “Hamara Haq Idhar Rakho!” Continue reading ‘Sau Mein Pachees Haq Hamara’: Caste of a Scam →

Excavation, Government, Language, Law, Violence/Conflict

My name is Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan ‘Ghalib’ and I am not a terrorist!

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Image from http://www.the-south-asian.com

Update: If you’re on Twitter please help make #Ghalib trend @ Twitter India – Tweet his sher’s!

That is what it has come down to. DNA reports that according to Maharashtra police, a Ghalib couplet on a piece of paper is proof the Students Islamic Movement of India is into the business of mass violence:

Of the several affidavits — filed in court asking for the ban on the group to continue — accessed by DNA, one by inspector Shivajirao Tambare of Vijapur Naka, Solapur, cites a Ghalib verse — as part of evidence — to show how dangerous SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India) is.

Mauje khoon ser se guzer hi kiyon na jay, Aastane yaar se uth jaein kaya! A loosely translated Marathi version in the affidavit concludes that these lines speak of bloodshed and animosity. Continue reading My name is Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan ‘Ghalib’ and I am not a terrorist! →

Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Everyday Life, Excavation, Government, Images, Language, Metropolis

Review: ‘Behind the Beautiful Forevers’ by Katherine Boo

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Guest post by MITU SENGUPTA

In a remarkable book about slumdwellers in Mumbai, Katherine Boo brings to light an India of “profound and juxtaposed inequality” – a country where more than a decade of steady economic growth has delivered shamefully little to the poorest and most vulnerable.  But though indeed a thoroughgoing and perceptive indictment of post-liberalization India, the book fits into a troubling narrative about the roots of India’s poverty and squandered economic potential.

This is a beautifully written book.  Through tight but supple prose, Boo offers an unsettling account of life in Annawadi, a slum near Mumbai’s international airport.  In Boo’s words, this “single, unexceptional slum” sits beside a “sewage lake” so polluted that pigs and dogs resting in its shallows have “bellies stained in blue.” It is hidden by a wall that sports an advertisement for elegant floor tiles (“Beautiful Forevers” – and hence the title).  There are heartrending accounts of rat-filled garbage sheds, impoverished migrants forced to eat rats, a girl covered by worm-filled boils (from rat bites), and a “vibrant teenager,” who kills herself (by drinking rat poison) when she can no longer bear what life has to offer.

Continue reading Review: ‘Behind the Beautiful Forevers’ by Katherine Boo →

Excavation, Law, Violence/Conflict

The Case That Never Was: A JTSA Report on the ‘SIMI’ Trial of Jaipur

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In September 2001, the central government banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) through a notification. Since then, the ban has become a convenient pretext for the police and investigative agencies to arbitrarily pick, detain and then arrest and frame Muslim youth, ostensibly on charges of carrying on the activities of the banned organization. Sections 3, 10, 13 of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA 1967) have been invoked against scores, if not hundreds of Muslim youth across the country. Some of these men had been active in SIMI prior to its ban; some had outgrown the organization because they had crossed 30 years—the age limit for membership in the organization; some were guilty of having acquaintances, friends or relatives who had been involved or had been office bearers in SIMI.  On most occasions, the cases against former members or purported activists of SIMI have rested on seizure of banned literature, namely copies of magazines published by SIMI before the ban. The flimsiness of evidence –and the sketchiness of charges— has resulted in dozens of acquittals; but equally true is the fact that the overwhelming nature of the ‘war on terror’ discourse and its institutional structures has allowed the conviction of many even in face of glaring lack of evidence.

The JAMIA TEACHERS SOLIDARITY ASSOCIATION (JTSA) profiles here one such case, which came to be known as the Jaipur blasts case, even though the accused were not charged with either conspiracy or execution of bomb blasts in Jaipur in 2008.  So what were these men guilty of? According to the FIR and chargesheet, they were responsible for carrying out activities of the banned SIMI.  How and why did these men come to be identified with the Jaipur blasts? Theirs is a terrible and tragic tale of frame up by the Rajasthan police.  It is above all testimony to the employment of UAPA against alleged or former members of SIMI and of the manner in which rule of law is subverted, violated and discarded as soon as the ‘T’ word is uttered.

Download the full report here (.pdf, 1.1 MB, 36 pages).