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Jat Quota Stir and Violence in Haryana: Satendra Kumar

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This is a guest post by SATENDRA KUMAR

 

jaat-protest--_647_022016112612
IMAGE COURTESY: INDIA TODAY

There is an uncanny academic public silence over the Jat quota stir and the unjustified violence enacted during the stir in Haryana. The scale of violence and destruction is such that it competes for the worst instance of caste violence in Haryana’s post-Independence history. So far 30 people have lost their lives while over 200 people were injured in the nine-day violent Jat agitation demanding job quotas in Haryana. There is anger, fear and helplessness among those who lost their kin, homes, businesses and properties.At least 10 Haryana districts were severely affected by the violence. After such a huge loss, as if it was a routine, matter the Union Home Minister announced that a committee led by M Venkaiah Naidu will examine the demand by Jats for reservation in central government jobs.

In Haryana, the BJP’s government in the state has promised to bring a Bill granting OBC status to Jats in the upcoming assembly session. The Jats’ demand for reservations in the central OBC list is not new. Since 1995, Jats in Haryana have been demanding an OBC (Other Backward Class) status, which will help them secure the 27 per cent reservation in government jobs. Earlier in 1997, the Jats in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh had demanded themselves to be included in the central OBC list. It was rejected by the National Commission for Backward Classes. Subsequently UPA government’s decision to include Jats from 9 states in the OBC list was also rejected by the Supreme Court in March 2015. Despite all this, political parties such as Congress and BJP continue promising quota to Jats during election campaigns. These promises have encouraged the Jats to organize and agitate for quotas. However, their agitations for reservations have not been so violent. That is why the most pressing and important question that needs analyses is why has the current agitation by Jats been so violent? Perhaps three factors will help us to understand this severe violence and loss of property worth crores of rupees.

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JNUSU Statement of Thanks for Global Support and Call for International Day of Protest and Action in Solidarity with Students in India on 2nd March 2016 : Shehla & Rama Naga (JNUSU)

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Guest Post by Shehla (Vice-President, JNUSU) and Rama Naga (General Secretary, JNUSU)

To all Friends (in Delhi, India and the World) who have Supported the Struggle of JNU students and students elsewhere in India  in the past few weeks.

Thank you for your message of solidarity. In this hour of unprecedented attack on us, what has been a source of great strength are messages like these, which we have pasted all over the Administration Building. We have not been able to respond to each message because of being extremely overburdened. However, we are writing back today, in order to update you regarding the status of the struggle, and with a call to action on the 2nd of March, 2016 in your city.

Call for Global Day of Protest and March to Parliament for JNU - March 2nd, 2016
Call for Global Day of Protest and March to Parliament for JNU – March 2nd, 2016

Continue reading JNUSU Statement of Thanks for Global Support and Call for International Day of Protest and Action in Solidarity with Students in India on 2nd March 2016 : Shehla & Rama Naga (JNUSU) →

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Chalo Dilli! Report on 23 Feb Protest March for Rohith Vemula: Saagar Tewari

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This is a guest post by SAAGAR TEWARI

Rohith Protest 3

rohith-vemula-protest 4
IMAGES COURTESY: INDIAN EXPRESS

The call for a protest rally by the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice, constituted in the aftermath of Hyderabad Central University research student Rohith Vemula’s suicide galvanised large number of students and activists on 23rd February. On a bright sunny day, thousands descended on the streets of central Delhi marching from Ambedkar Bhawan to Jantar Mantar. The attendance was perhaps lower and the organization less cohesive than the JNU protest rally of 18th February. However, it trumped its predecessor in terms of attracting a far-wider political cross-section of the voices openly choosing to dissent against the current ruling establishment. The protestors proudly displayed anti-Brahmanism banners, flags, badges (featuring excerpts of Rohith’s suicide note) and even a radical inversion of Modi-style masks (featuring Rohith Vemula’s smiling face) thereby signaling that the same youth-brigade which was instrumental in BJP’s rise to political power in 2014 has started turning against it.

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Purdue University Stands in Solidarity with JNU

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We, the undersigned faculty and students at Purdue University, strongly condemn the arrest of JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar. We oppose the systematic and deliberate attempts to humiliate, bully and terrorize the university’s community of scholars and political activists. It is unethical for a government to spread canards about students with the hope of distracting attention away from its over-zealous, slapdash interventions in academic institutions. We demand that this scapegoating and hounding of Umar Khalid, and all other students, cease immediately.

We salute the courageous JNU community that stands proud and resolute in the face of physical violence, media trials, and sectarian, antediluvian discourses that confuse students for enemies, and dissent – the cornerstone of democracy – for sedition.

More generally, we detect a pattern in this government’s deployment of the state machinery against young adults committed to addressing the inequities and discriminations so blatant in our country today. We insist, therefore, that the central government end its programmatic assault on public educational institutions and the spirit of free-thought. Institutions of higher education must be created and preserved as spaces where caste oppression, gender and minority-exclusion can be studied, and their resistance practiced. JNU exemplifies a dual commitment to combining academic rigor with a political-ethical conscience. We stand in solidarity with JNU’s vision of a diverse campus, charged with a robust polity, where no monolithic, auto-corrected version of the nation or patriotism dominates. We believe that university campuses, like society at large, can thrive only when celebrations of the myriad manifestations of the nation are accompanied by an honest and fearless capacity to criticize its inadequacies. Continue reading Purdue University Stands in Solidarity with JNU →

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Resolution in support of the student protests in India against the militant suppression of intellectual freedom and dissent by the BJP-government

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This is a resolution passed by the Doctoral Students’ Council, City University of New York (CUNY)

WHEREAS, on 12 February, the Delhi Police raided student hostels at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and arrested the JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiyya Kumar on the arbitrary and anti-democratic charge of sedition; and

WHEREAS, this application of a draconian, colonial law which criminalizes dissent stands in stark contradiction to the very democratic character of the nation that affirms an individual’s right to free speech, however radical and unpopular the opinion; and

WHEREAS, this arrest of an elected student representative and the subsequent militarization of the campus with an overwhelming police presence is sanctioned and sponsored by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led ruling regime, in conjunction with its affiliate organizations RSS and ABVP, its student wing; and

WHEREAS, this coercive presence of the police on the university premises and elsewhere is compounded by their complicity in the physical assaults by lawyers of the Hindu Right on JNU teachers and students at the courthouse before Kanhaiyya’s hearing; and

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#StandwithJNU: Solidarity Statement from the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia

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We, graduate students and faculty at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice and the broader University of British Columbia community stand in absolute and resounding support of the students, faculty, staff and allies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). We condemn the political and legal clout being exercised by the Indian government in Kanhaiya Kumar’s arrest and subsequent reaction to protests. Not only is Kanhaiya’s arrest erroneous and suspect to begin with, the consequent unraveling of systematic hatred towards these “anti-national” scholars creates an environment where anyone perceived to be against ‘Hindu’-hence-Indian culture is at risk of personal harm meted out by the State.

It is deeply disturbing to note public debate around this on mainstream Indian media and TV news channels. The contention is that universities should not be spaces of political engagement, but of quiet scholarly repose.  As students and researchers committed to the principles of transnational social justice, it is distressing to note this attempt to depoliticize the university space by dismissing students as undeserving of their spot for being actively engaged in the future of their country.

To term universities and institutions that foster alternative spaces of being and thinking ‘anti-national’ is commandeering an invective that is untrue and wholly vicious.  Moreover, the violence meted out to Kanhaiya as well as journalists at Patiala Court is horrifying, especially noting Delhi police’s inaction and complicity in this, despite tight presence. It is precisely this sort of unprovoked violence by the State apparatus that is undemocratic. It is baffling to note the Delhi police’s apparent inability to track down the people who attacked Kanhaiya, while at the same time it launches a now country-wide witch hunt for another JNU student leader Umar Khalid (who allegedly organized the protest in question), based on completely false Islamophobic allegations.

We believe that universities are sites of active engagement, and using an old colonial remnant that is the sedition charge betrays intent to suppress the voice of a democracy. To hold debates and discussions is not anti-national, even more so when there is overwhelming testimony that Kanhaiya Kumar was not involved in the particular sloganeering for which he was arrested. An active and thriving student body presence is what makes JNU one of Asia’s premiere institutions. It is deeply disappointing to note the efforts by the current government to clamp down on this. It is with rising alarm that we register the chain of events that connect other established institutions like the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and the University of Hyderabad (UoH).

Continue reading #StandwithJNU: Solidarity Statement from the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia →

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS STANDS WITH JNU

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Students and Faculty, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign in Solidarity with JNU
Students and Faculty, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign in Solidarity with JNU

We, the undersigned students, faculty, staff, and other members of the University of Illinois community are in solidarity with students, faculty and staff at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), India, against the ongoing anti-democratic actions by the Indian state. We demand an immediate end to the police action against students on campus, and withdrawal of all charges against Kanhaiya Kumar, President of the JNU Students’ Union. We unequivocally condemn the witch hunting of students, using archaic laws of sedition, who organized the cultural event questioning capital punishment and the deliberate vandalism and violence unleashed by those affiliated with Hindu Nationalist groups. We are also dismayed at the violence used by lawyers aligned with the government in their acts of vigilantism which are aimed at using the garb of patriotism to impose their ideology through violence.

We strongly believe that the charge of sedition against Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and the other 6 students are based on spurious evidence. This arrest is an excuse for the state to root out dissenting voices on JNU campus, a move towards converting educational institutions like JNU into an arm of the authoritarian state. Attempts of a similar nature have been witnessed recently at other Indian educational institutions such as Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and Hyderabad University. The growing threat to academic freedom and the practice of fundamental thinking and critique, posed by the current political climate is transnational, and extends beyond India to other parts of the world–it is a threat we face here in the United States, too.

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Solidarity Statement for JNU by IIT Scholars

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This is a statement issued by the undersigned, scholars of Departments of Humanities and Social Sciences of IITs across the country.

We, the undersigned, scholars of Departments of Humanities and Social Sciences of IITs across the country, condemn the police action in JNU and the arrest of the JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar on the charge of sedition. We also denounce the repeated acts of violence unleashed by some lawyers and others at the Patiala House Court against faculty, students and the media, as well as police inaction regarding the same.

In addition, we appeal for media and public trials to cease and for civil society to instead focus on debating issues in an amicable and reasonable manner, without slandering JNU or questioning the academic integrity or patriotic fervour of JNU and its supporters. We criticise the general atmosphere of fear and intimidation that is being created to target the entire university. Given the fast polarizing political atmosphere in the country, we appeal to the media organisations to display greater responsibility and conduct television debates in such a manner that no prejudicial public opinion is created while there is an ongoing enquiry into the entire episode by the authorities concerned. Resorting to jingoism and sensationalism may cause avoidable hazards. Continue reading Solidarity Statement for JNU by IIT Scholars →

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Delhi Stands With JNU Students and Against the Evil Modi Regime

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“Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are...”-

Bertholt Brecht

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This afternoon saw an amazing, uplifting show of peaceful, joyful strength by students, young people, teachers, friends in Delhi, in support of JNU, in memory of Rohith Vemula, in solidarity with Kanhaiya, Umar and all the students in JNU who are being so stellar in their principled opposition to this evil, venal Modi regime. Reports of massive protests are coming in from Kolkata, Russia to and elsewhere. Something is changing in the air.
It was a perfect spring afternoon, overcast like our times, but breezy like our morale. There must have been at least 15,000 people on the march today. We met old and long lost friends and made new ones.

The gathering was totally peaceful. Young  women and men, student profits from JNU in the eighties, grey haired, felt young again as their student held aloft flowers, flags, signs and homemade banners. Everyone looked their best, as if they had come to a massive street party.

It was so infectious, the mood this afternoon, such a contrast to the vile bad temper of the men who attacked Kanhaiya and his supporters two days in a row at the Patiala House Courts two days in a row that the difference between two entirely different visions of politics was palpable on your skin. The contrast sent a clear message to all our senses.

The RSS-ABVP-BJP brand of politics is diseased. It’s on its last legs and that is why it is so desperate. It cannot perform, it has no ideas, it is morally and culturally bankrupt.

Universities are in crisis and all that the bad TV actress who makes a joke of her ministry (HRS) every day can think of today while thousands March against her and her boss is about sticking giant flagpoles into the ground and stitching gigantic silk shrouds for her  government and her party.

Modi, Rajnath and Manusmriti Irani should quake in fear. Their time is up.

Very proud of JNU students and the people of Delhi today.

#StandwithJNU #StandwithKanhaiya

#StandwithUmar

#Standwithallstudents

#NowitchHuntofStudents

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JNU Teachers Statement

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After the arrest of JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar on 12 February and the entry of the police into JNU Campus, the situation has worsened for our students over the last few days. Sections of the mainstream and social media have carried unsubstantiated rumours targeting students, and organised groups have been making threats against them and indulging in hate speech in order to intimidate. The viciousness of this section of the media and amounts to a public trial and the frightening abuses being hurled at them make us feel deeply concerned for their personal safety and possibilities of their obtaining justice.

We strongly condemn these acts that create an environment of extreme prejudice and potential violence. We demand that the campus be allowed to return to normalcy at the soonest, so that students can return to their regular academic life in an atmosphere of trust and safety. The slander campaign against the University based on unsubstantiated claims not only tarnishes JNU’s image as one of best regarded institutions of higher education in the country, it also destroys JNU’s peaceful academic life. We are deeply concerned about the students’ future, which is being affected by this malicious campaign against JNU.

We the teachers of JNU wish that the Indian people should see through this orchestrated design to transform JNU into a space which will be unable to encourage or sustain critical thinking, so vital to the functioning of our democracy and our nation. It will also endanger the futures of thousands of students who are uncertain about the consequences that such a sustained campaign will have on their futures. We call upon the broadest possible sections of the Indian people to preserve the character of this much cherished national institution.

 C.P. Chandrasekhar

G. Arunima

Ayesha Kidwai

Udaya Kumar

Pratiksha Baxi

Chirashree Dasgupta

Saradindu Bhaduri

Rajat Datta

Vinay Kumar Ambedkar

Ranjani Mazumdar

Jayati Ghosh

Navaneetha Mokkil

Rohith Azad

Ameet Parameswaran

Joy Pachuau

Yashadatta Alone

Rajarshi Dasgupta

Mohan Rao

Vikas Bajpai

Sujatha V

Parul Mukherjee

Ramila Bisht

Surinder Jodhka

Happymon Jacob

Supriya Varma

Mallarika Sinha Roy

Parnal Chirmuley

Nivedita Menon

Hemant Adlakha

Lata Singh

Urmimala Sarkar

Rajib Dasgupta

Rama Baru

Prachin Ghodajkar

Vikas Rawal

Partho Datta

Papia Sengupta

Ira Bhaskar

Sandesha Rayipa-Garbiyal

Veena Hariharan

Pradipta Bandyopadhyay

Biswajit Dhar

Neera Kongari

Geetha Nambissan

Brahma Prakash

Brinda Bose

Maitrayee Chaudhuri

Rashmi Barua

 

 

 

 

 

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Statements of Solidarity For JNU From Various Quarters

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We at Kafila have been receiving amazing statements of solidarity with JNU and its elected students’ President Kanhaiya Kumar over the past three days. We are posting them below, along with affiliations: South Asia University (teachers and students); Grinnell College, USA, Ambedkar University Delhi Faculty Association, Democratic Teachers Network, Hyderabad, and over a hundred students from Department of English, Delhi University.

 

STUDENTS OF SOUTH ASIA UNIVERSITY

We, the students of South Asian University, New Delhi (comprising of students from eight SAARC nations – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) strongly oppose the idea that one’s nationalism be defined in terms of hatred towards another nation (for example, Indian nationalism be defined as hatred towards Pakistan, or vice versa). We cherish the common cultural and social heritage of the South Asian region, and shall not let any kind of jingoist nationalism being endorsed by any religious group, political party or state hinder our shared solidarity. However, in recent times, such groups and establishments have unleashed an attack on democratic and critical voices in our universities across the South Asian region, masked under religious conformity, state intervention or sometimes in the form of an act of terrorism.

Thus, we stand in complete solidarity with the student and faculty community of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in their collective struggle against the ongoing police intervention by slapping the baseless charges of sedition on many students, including the arrest of JNUSU President – Kanhaiya Kumar, and against the massive propaganda terming the JNU as ‘a den of anti-nationals’. We would like to reiterate that our collective nationalism stands responsible only to the interests of our people and our land, and not to the divisive forces which have had and are still trying to create boundaries between us.

STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY WITH STUDENT PROTESTS IN INDIA, FROM STUDENTS, FACULTY, AND STAFF OF GRINNELL COLLEGE

Grinnell-JNU Solidarity

Continue reading Statements of Solidarity For JNU From Various Quarters →

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On framing JNU for an imaginary crime: Aditya Sarkar

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This is a guest post by ADITYA SARKAR

JNU has entered an indefinite state of siege. Police have been swarming all over campus, raiding hostels, picking up students and interrogating them. The ABVP, predictably, have been directing them to the lairs of ‘anti-national elements’. When immense demonstrations of public solidarity with the accused students were organized, ABVP activists have attacked these, in one case mounting a violent physical assault on a visiting speaker. The JNU administration has gone to the extent of cutting off the power supply to the microphones used at a protest meeting. At Patiala House on Monday the 15th of February, the BJP’s MLAs and what appear to be a group of lawyers have assaulted JNU students, faculty and supporters in full view of the police, with what can only be regarded as smug impunity. More than one observer has remarked that this is the Emergency all over again.

It is clear that the arrayed forces of the central government are pitted against a campus which has long been an object of hatred for the Right. There’s no telling how matters will develop in the days and weeks to come. So it might be necessary to step back a bit and consider the sequence of events that led to the current situation.

In the past month, JNU students organized a protest meeting which raised the issue of Kashmiri rights, and drew attention – just as Rohith Vemula’s protest in Hyderabad had done – to the execution of Afzal Guru in 2013. Since the mainstream news outlets systematically censor any attempt to reopen that extremely murky case, it’s worth reminding ourselves of precisely why the execution was so controversial. The terrorist attack on Parliament in December 2001 produced a police investigation on which serious doubt was cast from the beginning. Afzal Guru’s laptop and mobile phone, key pieces of evidence, had not been sealed prior to investigation. One of the other accused in the case, a Delhi University lecturer (who was later emphatically acquitted) was viciously framed by Zee News, which used the police charge-sheet to make a documentary ‘establishing’ his guilt. The court proceedings were even more revealing. The Supreme Court admitted that there was no hard evidence to conclusively establish Afzal Guru’s involvement in criminal conspiracy. But these admissions were merely qualifications to what was perhaps the most extraordinary decision in the history of the judiciary in independent India. Afzal Guru was eventually hanged in 2013 on the basis that only this would appease ‘the collective conscience of the nation society’.

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JNU Bashing is an old pastime, but things just got much, much worse

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In light of the glorious vigilantism being witnessed today, in which the lumpen lawyers at Patiala House are joining hands with Guardian of the Nation Horn-nob Go-Swamy on primetime TV A few years ago, finding myself in a heated but very enjoyable argument on why women change their surnames after marriage, somebody yelled from across the room, “What has JNU done to you?!”

I wasn’t surprised, only annoyed. Reducing my entire biography and political beliefs to an institution I attended once upon a time is a favourite pastime in India, when that institution happens to be JNU. I could have explained to the genius who shouted this that if I do have political opinions, neither were they surgically implanted in me at JNU nor will they wither away like the bourgeois state in Marxism if JNU ceases to exist. I should have been grateful that the JNU-phobia was posed through the formal courtesy of a query. Usually, it takes the form of a statement, “You JNU folk are all lunatics!”

In family settings, JNU-bashing is the preferred insult to shut down an argument, “It’s the JNU in you speaking!” At seminars, a question or a paper can be made illegitimate with the simple investigative exercise of determining if you’re from ‘a particular institution with a particular ideology’. Of course, the person asking the question has miraculously escaped institutions and ideology, remaining gloriously neutral in this fractured world.

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Spring Comes to JNU : Love, Laughter and Rage

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A Small Fragment of the Human Chain in JNU, 14th February, 2016
A Small Fragment of the Human Chain in JNU, 14th February, 2016

February is a beautiful time of the year in Delhi. It inaugurates Basant, spring, the season for love. And it is made more beautiful by an incandescent, insurgent spirit, that spreads in the air like a loving contagion, especially around what the Hindu Right rehearses for months on end to spoil – the new found festival of Valentine’s Day.

Traditionally (or at least since as long ago as the late twentieth century CE), on Valentine’s Day, the loony Hindu right goes looking for lovers in the parks of Delhi and tries to ply its own line in the extortion trade. This time, they have been joined by some big guns. The Delhi police descended on some young people belonging to a theatre group who had stepped out to have tea during a poetry reading at the IGNCA on the grounds that they ‘looked like they were JNU students’. Meanwhile, their boss, the Honorable Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh (who deserves a Bharat Ratna all by himself for skills as a performance artist) regaled a press conference with a poker faced comic act –  his revelation of the Lashkar e Taiba’s links to the JNU protests on the basis of the discovery of a fake twitter handle. The fact that Rajnath Singh still has his job is because his boss Narendra Modi, our ‘dear leader’, is the chief architect of  the ‘Fake in India’ campaign.

Holy Cow
Holy Cow (courtesy, ‘Guess Who’)

One needs love, and laughter, plenty of laughter, to survive these times, and the antics of these men. Over the last two days, it is love, laughter, sorrow and rage, in equal proportion that have been most evident in the JNU campus in Delhi. Their signs were evident again, appropriately,  yesterday, on Valentine’s Day. A student population of thousands has been able to transform its rage at the capitulation of the recently appointed vice-chancellor and his cronies to the diktats of an incompetent home minister and his minions in the Delhi Police apparatus into a deep and abiding sense of good humoured solidarity. This is demonstrated by the support that they have readily offered Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of their students union, who is currently detained, facing ridiculous charges of sedition, and several other students, including some JNUSU office bearers, who the police are still reportedly hunting for. The hashtag #StandwithJNU has gone viral, spreading, connecting, bringing people together like the sudden awakening of spring after a cruel winter. What better way can there be of celebrating Valentine’s Day than to declare, en masse, a love for liberty, and for learning?

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JNUSU Statement on the Police Action and ABVP slander in JNU: JNUSU

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Guest Post by Kanhaiya Kumar, Shehla Rashid Shora and Rama Naga, office bearers, JNUSU

We, the office-bearers of JNUSU, are appalled at the way an uproar has been created over the 9th February incident that happened in JNU and the way the entire incident is being used to malign JNU students and the democratic traditions of JNU.

At the outset, we condemn the divisive slogans (‘bharat ke tukde honge hazar’) that were raised by some people on that day. It is important to note that the slogans were not raised by members of Left organizations or JNU students. In fact, when such sloganeering took place, it was the Left-progressive organizations and students, including JNUSU office-bearers who asked the organizers of the programme to ask the people who were raising the slogans to stop slogans that are regressive. The divisive slogans and the ideology behind it has never been a part of the progressive tradition that JNU and the JNUSU uphold. On the contrary, the unity of the people of different parts of the country in challenging divisive, authoritarian, anti-people and anti-student forces is what we stand with and look up to. Even in the recent times, the JNU student community and the JNUSU have joined nation-wide students’ voice to defend the country against casteist and authoritarian power lobbies. The Left-progressive organizations were present at the programme only to ensure that no violence takes place, as ABVP had called in hooligans from DU to disrupt the program and the general atmosphere in the campus. And so, to interpret our presence as endorsement of some divisive slogans which were raised by some (and was protested and stopped) is extremely mischievous and manipulative. Continue reading JNUSU Statement on the Police Action and ABVP slander in JNU: JNUSU →

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Restore Normalcy in JNU, Release All Detained Students, Delhi Police Quit JNU

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12716438_10153221773131150_2421721007167708352_o
Students, Professors and Staff of JNU Stand Together in Protest on February 12, 2016 against the Police Action on Campus and the Assault on JNU by ABVP-BJP

In an unprecedented and draconian move, Delhi Police personnel entered the precincts of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi yesterday afternoon, and began a search operation based on malicious complaints against ‘unnamed persons’ filed by a Delhi BJP leader in response to an event titled – ‘Country Without a Post Office’ – organized by some students to commemorate and protest against the execution of Afzal Guru on February 9th.

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Tibetan Artists Silenced at Dhaka Art Summit: Ahmad Ibrahim

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This is a guest post by AHMAD IBRAHIM

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These pictures, which depict blank walls, are symbolic of the attack. Pictures of the original art cannot be shared due to copyright issues.

On the 7th of February, Tibetan artist Nortse and Indian artists Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam had their photographs and art installations removed at the behest of the Chinese ambassador to Dhaka from the Dhaka Art Summit taking place in Shilpakala Academy in the capital of Bangladesh. The art project by Nortse was titled Prayer Wheel, Big Brother and Automan (2007) which showed the artist don traditional Tibetan clothes along with modern objects to show the surveillance that marks their lives. .Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam produced a piece called “Last Words”, which consists of five facsmilies of five last messages written by the self-immolators in Tibet, along with their English translations. Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam depicted Tibetan monks in the act of self-immolation as a way of political and religious protest against the occupation of Tibet by the Chinese government. At the end of the 6th of February, both artists were still depicted on the walls of the Art Summit. On the 7th, what greeted the visitors and patrons were blank stretches of white wall with white frames. It was as if the works had never existed. This is not the first time the Chinese government has tried to shut down political art work that aims to show the real face of Chinese occupation of Tibet. What is even more reprehensible is that it happened inside the walls of an institution that was proclaiming itself to be a haven of bold art and artistic expression. That the Chinese government could go to such lengths to silence an exhibition happening thousands of miles away shows the depth of their oppression over an entire country. Since February 2009, 142 Tibetans have self-immolated in their homeland, 120 dying from their actions.

A link to Tenzing Sonam’s twitter:

A Facebook link to a picture when the exhibit was still standing. 

Ahmad Ibrahim is a Dhaka based journalist.

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Education, Everyday Life, Government, Identities, Metropolis, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Operation Ekalavya : Jhandewala, New Delhi, Rohith Vemula’s Birthday, 30th January 2016

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Dear young friends who went to Jhandewala on Rohith Vemula’s birthday,

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And all those who were there in spirit, in Delhi, Hyderabad and elsewhere. I am writing to you because I think you might have all taken things much further than anyone can quite imagine or understand at present.

I am writing to you, for today and for tomorrow, so that every time in the future that young people gather to celebrate their friend Rohith’s birthday, we might all begin to have a different kind of conversation. So that the boundaries between mourning and celebration, between anger and joy may always remain blurred enough for us to know what to do next, each time.

Since you had a close encounter with the police and their colleagues in the RSS on Rohith’s birthday, I want to spend a little time thinking about them with you. Bear with me. I sincerely hope we will not have to bear with them for much longer.

Continue reading Operation Ekalavya : Jhandewala, New Delhi, Rohith Vemula’s Birthday, 30th January 2016 →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Centre watch, Education, Excavation, Government, Identities, Left watch, Metropolis, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Reclaiming academia: understanding the student movement of our time: Tony Kurian and Suraj Gogoi

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This is a guest post by TONY KURIAN and SURAJ GOGOI

Students from different parts of the country started protesting since a Dalit student from one of the premier universities of the country (University of Hyderabad) committed suicide on account of caste discrimination by the administration. This new wave of protests can be traced back to Occupy UGC which erupted when University Grants Commission (UGC) decided to stop the monthly research stipend known as non-net fellowship of Rs 5000 and 8000 for MPhil and PHD respectively. The ministry concerned has since constituted a panel to review the decision on account of student’s protests. On the other hand, we are seeing India becoming part of World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement on higher education. These instances should not be regarded as isolated moments but should be viewed as an integral part of a story unfolding. It is in this context that one should locate the student movement of our time. The movement itself is receiving much media attention, and, it was mostly couched as a student’s movement against the government. For sure, the immediate demands of the students is to ensure justice to Rohith Vemula. The present wave of student movement is aimed at reclaiming academia both from an exclusivist culture which permeates much of our academic institutions, and increasing influence of free market logic in our higher education.

 Why are we seeing a new wave of student protests?

To understand why a movement like that we are witnessing now is extremely important for a vibrant and democratic academic space, we should explore some of the unwritten rules of academia itself and our academic institutions. Research is a long-term investment for the person who undertakes it. Every day he or she spends as a full time researcher is a day forgone from the job market. For a research scholar to earn a permanent job, it can take anywhere between five to ten years after the master’s programme.

Continue reading Reclaiming academia: understanding the student movement of our time: Tony Kurian and Suraj Gogoi →

Culture, Debates, Identities, Language, Metropolis

Translators’ Dilemmas and Entering ‘South Asian Literature’

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Ever since Hangwoman, my translation of K R Meera’s modern epic in Malayalam, Aarachaar was published, I have been repeatedly asked whether I edited it to ‘shape’. The question sometimes irritated me, because it was posed as if I had carried out the intellectual equivalent of cosmetic surgery on that fine work.

I struggled to communicate the subtlety of the editing that translation demands. One is always conscious of the fact that the readership of an English translation is qualitatively different from that of the original Malayalam text, but editing in the process of translation is not primarily aimed at making the text palatable to the former. Much more significant is the fact that what may need a whole sentence in the source language can perhaps be conveyed in a word in the target language or vice-versa. And, more importantly perhaps, any translation is hugely dependent on the translator’s reading of the text. The translator is constantly faced with the problem of how to interpret – is a certain word or phrase or sentence a simple description, or a complex one, or perhaps a metaphor or a simile? Editing rests quite decisively on such micro-decisions.

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Ecology/Environment, Government, Metropolis, Politics, Scams

Slow violence and the Spectacle – Dispossession, segregation, and the Chennai Floods: Priti Narayan

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Guest post by PRITI NARAYAN

[This article is followed by a detailed survey report on the losses sustained by people during the Chennai floods, which can be read here.]

“How, in an age that venerates the instant and the spectacular, can one turn attritional calamities starring nobody into stories dramatic enough to rouse public sentiment,” asks scholar Rob Nixon, in his discussion of Rachel Carson’s seminal 1962 book Silent Spring. It is a question worth asking now, in the aftermath of the floods in Chennai.

The floods were spectacular, the initial neglect by the national Indian media notwithstanding. Enough has been written about both about the floods themselves, and the spectacle of thousands of Chennai residents pouring onto the streets and into the water to undertake rescue, relief and rehabilitation work. Now that the spectacle is fading and the celebration of the city’s spirit is dying down, perhaps we can examine the floods more objectively. Not that the deluge has not deserved the attention it has received – reports estimate that over 400 lives have been claimed, and anywhere between 1.8 to 2 million people have been displaced.

But we do not talk as much about the “attritional calamity” that involves the dispossession of the poor of their land  and their subsequent displacement to the peripheries of the city.The lack of affordable housing stock has historically led the poor to occupy land in the central city, from where they access livelihood and educational opportunities. Their location in the city has enabled them to contribute invaluable labour and services to the city’s economy. Off late however, development projects are putting immense pressure on land in the Indian city. Strategies to make a world class city –“beautification”, “development” and “eco-restoration” – envision no place for the poor in Chennai.Transparent Cities Network estimates that at least 1,50,000people from 63 slums have been displaced for development projects over the course of the last 15 years. Not all those displaced have been rehabilitated: at least 22,000 people have been left homeless. There are no estimates of the number of people who have died during displacement or after resettlement, but the instances of crime(including trafficking, prostitution, and mafia-style murders) and suicides in these government-created ghettoes tell a sordid tale. Continue reading Slow violence and the Spectacle – Dispossession, segregation, and the Chennai Floods: Priti Narayan →