Category Archives: Metropolis

Capitalism, Debates, Government, Metropolis, Politics

Evening out the Odds, Learning from the BRT Fiasco

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The Chief Minister of Delhi has come out with a very practical idea, an Idea, whose time has come as the American would say. Anyone who says that Delhi’s air is a killer is only putting it mildly. The number of those dying of respiratory ailments on a daily basis stands today at 23, this translates to 161 per week, 644 per month and 7728 per year. The figures were half this 4 years ago.

Even if pollution levels do not worsen in future the cumulative effects of exposure to these high levels of pollution will keep pushing up the death rate and increasingly it will be the kids born today who will grow into wheezing asthmatics, inhaling this deadly cocktail of pollutants increasingly becoming unfit, as they grow, for doing anything that calls for even mild exertions. The resultant costs on medical expenses incurred by their families, in the face of the rapid withdrawal of government spend on public health will assume the shape of a horror movie gone real and it can only get worse unless something is done and done fast. Read the full article, published in Catch News, here

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Centre watch, Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life, Government, Law, Left watch, Media politics, Metropolis, Politics, Right watch, Scams, Violence/Conflict

More than 500 jhuggis demolished in Shakur Basti, slum dwellers left on their own to grapple with bone chilling winter.

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Report by BIGUL MAZDOOR DASTA

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More than 500 jhuggis have been demolished by the Railways in Shakur Basti, Delhi. The demolition took place on last Saturday leading to the death of a six month old child, leaving many injured and an odd 10,000 people homeless in the chilling Delhi winters. The Railway minters Suresh Prabhu is allegedly shocked and unaware. Mr Kejriwal took to twitter to condemn the demolition. Ajay Maken of congress too condemned the demolition. On Monday Rahul Gandhi briefly visited the razed down site where once the shanties stood and thats that! All these electoral political parties have even made what is a tragedy and a very difficult time for the slum dwellers an opportunity of mud slinging onto each other which also doesn’t come as a surprise.

Continue reading More than 500 jhuggis demolished in Shakur Basti, slum dwellers left on their own to grapple with bone chilling winter. →

Bad ideas, Debates, Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Excavation, Identities, Images, Language, Media politics, Metropolis, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Politics, Scams, Violence/Conflict

Of Flags and Fetishes – The Paris Attacks and A Misplaced Politics of Solidarity: Debaditya Bhattacharya

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This is a guest post by DEBADITYA BHATTACHARYA

Megan Garber’s article ‘#PrayForParis: When Empathy Becomes a Meme’, published in The Atlantic (November 16, 2015) has claimed that Paris hashtags and French flag filters on Facebook make for an “act of mass compassion” – a “compassion that has been converted, via the Internet’s alchemy, into political messaging”.

flag filter2

I have absolutely no problems with flag filters on Facebook. Or for that matter, profile-picture revolutions that happen all too often. I’m not, in the least bit indignant about such a competitive exhibitionism of feeling – indexed through a currency of memes and emoticons. In an age of such mass-production of violence (‘terroristic’ or ‘humanitarian’), it is no surprise that the event of mourning must become a symptom of the incompatibility between ‘act’ and ‘response’.

A funereal Facebook must therefore bleed profile pictures, because that seems the only charter of our most intimate emotions. We naturally do not care if Facebook is using the Paris tragedy as a marketing platform, as long as it helps us reclaim a deeply ‘personal’ angst in the face of more-than-a-hundred ‘spectacular’ deaths.

Continue reading Of Flags and Fetishes – The Paris Attacks and A Misplaced Politics of Solidarity: Debaditya Bhattacharya →

Capitalism, Centre watch, Debates, Education, Everyday Life, Government, Identities, Images, Language, Left watch, Media politics, Metropolis, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Scams

We agree passionately: one world, one struggle, education is not for sale!

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Dangerous Vandals, Goths and Visigoths: Students Demanding the Impossible at #OccupyUGC
Dangerous Vandals, Goths and Visigoths: Students Demanding the Impossible at #OccupyUGC

The Occupy UGC movement looks irrelevant or ridiculous to the middle and upper classes in India because it can be made to appear so by the media. Not surprisingly, television channels and leading dailies either ignored the protests altogether, or worse, focused on the apparently far more *critical* issue of the “vandalism” and “disfigurement” of the ITO metro station by the protesting students. Times of India said they were “brazening it out” after their acts of vandalism, and on social media including Kafila, these student vandals have been additionally belittled by some as misguided pawns in the hands of an apparent conglomerate of ambitious lefty professors from JNU! Basically, anything but a legitimate set of demands, some of which this poster from the movement tries to explain…

Dekh Bhai UGC
Translation: Look here UGC, if you don’t give us the scholarship, I will face marriage pressure, but you will have to face the pressure of the entire student population!!

(Incidentally, it was this image that was painted on the walls of the ITO metro station. Personally I found it cheerful).

Anyway, as Camalita Naicker reminded us in her excellent article on South Africa here on Kafila, student protests against rising student fees and shrinking scholarships and fellowships are no flash in the pan but a burgeoning worldwide phenomenon cutting across political affiliations. This is because you don’t need to be a leftist to understand that in contemporary conditions, pursuing a higher education is both the only guarantee to economic security, and the one thing that may be denied to you if you are from the wrong side of the tracks. 

We post below statements from #OccupyUGC and #Occupy SOAS in support of each other. These have been sent to us by Akash Bhattacharya, research scholar in history at JNU.

Continue reading We agree passionately: one world, one struggle, education is not for sale! →

Capitalism, Centre watch, Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life, Excavation, Government, Language, Law, Metropolis, Scams, Violence/Conflict

Which COURT of Justice for Vinay Sirohi?

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Yesterday, in a corner of Delhi-NCR known as Keshopur, a 22-year old sewage worker breathed his last, a final tortured breath inhaled inside a part of the vast network of sewage pipelines that map the city in their own cartography of waste. The pipeline was owned by the Delhi Jal Board, so its function was not simply to transport sewage, but to transform it into potable water through a portion of the pipeline that resembles a septic tank – a portion known as the ‘digester’.

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The portion of the pipeline containing Vinay Sirohi’s body. Courtesy Indian Express online edition.

That Vinay Sirohi, 22-year old contract worker with the Delhi Jal Board, who got married last year and had taken up part-time employment to help him get through college, lost his life in a part of the sewage pipeline called the ‘digester’ imparts something so grotesquely apposite to this tragedy that one almost doesn’t want to think about it. One often doesn’t, of course. One has the option of of flipping the page of the newspaper, of resting one’s eyes on more life-affirming images – English Premier League, Bollywood, Modi-Cameron Cameron-araderie…even Kejriwal’s homely navy-blue sweater and baggy trousers are a pleasant distraction. Anything that tells us that life as it was meant to be – humans wearing a clean sweater and trousers with a sofa to sit on after their stomachs and minds are fed and sated – is better than the thought of a body inside a pipe under the city. When I tried to save the image that you see above, the caption read djb_body_759. I don’t want to think about what that caption means. Does it mean the 759th body found inside the DJB’s sewage network? Does it mean the 759th body to have been recovered by the police this year, 2015? Does it mean the 759th body to have died in sewage pipelines across the country, or ever?

Continue reading Which COURT of Justice for Vinay Sirohi? →

Bad ideas, Education, Government, Metropolis

BRUTAL CRACKDOWN ON THE STUDENTS IN Day 7 of THE #‎OccupyUGC MOVEMENT in Delhi: Kanhaiya Kumar, President JNUSU

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Guest Post by Kanhaiya Kumar, President, Jawaharlal Nehru Students Union (JNUSU)

BRUTAL CRACKDOWN ON THE STUDENTS IN THE #‎OccupyUGC MOVEMENT: DAY7

Students at the Police Barricades - #OccupyUGC
Students at the Police Barricades – #OccupyUGC

Students from JNU, AUD, DU and Jamia Milia Islamia University who were protesting in front of the UGC building, were brutally lathicharged on 27th October and 33 students have been detained. This is the second time that students have been lathicharged and detained since October 21, 2015. Students across universities in and beyond Delhi initiated the #OccupyUGC movement protesting against UGC’s decision to discontinue non-NET fellowships, refuse any enhancement and introduce ‘merit’ and ‘income’ criteria in allocating fellowships to research scholars. In today’s lathicharge, one student was hospitalized in critical condition, female protestors were mishandled by male police, they were abused verbally and many have been seriously injured.

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JNUSU condemns the brutal lathicharge/crackdown against the protesting students by the Delhi Police and appeals to common citizens to support the cause of the ongoing #OccupyUGC movement.

Kanhaiya Kumar is President, JNUSU

Bad ideas, Education, Law, Metropolis, Movements, Politics, Scams

The Fiction of Fact Finding: Harassment of Delhi University Teachers Union President

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PLEASE JOIN PROTEST AGAINST SHAMEFUL HARASSMENT OF DR. NANDITA NARAIN – MONDAY THE 19TH OF OCTOBER, VICEREGAL LODGE, DELHI UNIVERSITY 10.30 AM- 1.30 PM.

 

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Dr. Nandita Narain, President of the Delhi University Teachers Association.

With apologies to Manoj Mitta’s excellent book on 2002 by the same name, it appears that yet another fact-finding commission has made a mockery of the process of law, not to mention truth and justice. Dr. Nandita Narain – yes that blood-curdling, fearsome figure in the picture above – has been accused of disrupting the work of 3 colleges in Delhi University and asked to appear before a fact finding committee appointed by the University, 10 days before the term of the current Vice Chancellor Professor Dinesh Singh ends. For those not acquainted with Dr. Narain, she is the popular President of the Delhi University Teachers Association, beloved Mathematics professor in St. Stephens’ College and a brilliant scholar in her own right. Having contested and won the recent Delhi University Teachers Association elections against the V.C’s relentless pressure tactics and a blitzkrieg of campaigning and publicity by other parties including the government-friendly National Democratic Teachers’ Front, Dr. Narain has evidently had nothing but her enormous personal integrity going for her.

Continue reading The Fiction of Fact Finding: Harassment of Delhi University Teachers Union President →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Centre watch, Government, Law, Left watch, Metropolis, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Workers right to unionize being trampled upon in yet another factory in Manesar: Report

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Report on the protest by automobile workers in Manesar by BIGUL MAZDOOR DASTA AND AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY CONTRACT WORKERS UNION

 

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On the morning of 18 September 2015 when the workers employed in the Bridgestone company reached their factory gates they were met with Police officers and hired bouncers at the gate. When the workers tried to enter the factory premises they were resisted by the uniformed and the non-uniformed goons of the Factory Management. The Police beat up the workers and prevented them from entering the premises of the factory in spite of having a court order for tool down and without any prior notice the workers were sacked by the company. More than 400 workers employed in Bridgestone Factory in Manesar have been unlawfully sacked by the Company authorities after the workers demanded to get their Union registered. The workers are currently protesting outside the factory and have gathered there to raise their voice against the injustice and oppression that they are facing at the hands of the factory management.

Continue reading Workers right to unionize being trampled upon in yet another factory in Manesar: Report →

Bad ideas, Ecology/Environment, Government, Metropolis, Movements, Politics, Scams

Cheralam to Keralam to Ketta-idam – A Report on ‘Development’ from Trivandrum, Kerala: Sriranjini R

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This is a guest post by Sriranjini R.

Cheralam Sriranjani

ISIS in Syria, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Taliban in Pakistan, Boko Haram in Nigeria, ecological problems, climate change … the list of the world’s ‘security’ problems seems endless. India has its own share of course – the India-Pakistan conflict, India-China problems, Maoism and so on. In Kerala, police have been desperate to find ‘security threats’ of their own. They first tried hunting down a ‘druglord’ whose picture was found on T-shirts of young people suspected of drug use. His name is Bob Marley. Please give the man up if you find him anywhere. Then they tried looking for Maoists. Every state has some, how come we have so few, was their complaint. After going after thin, dark-skinned, bearded fellows, Kiss of Love activists, and sundry others, hoping that one of these will be a Maoist, finally they caught one. And he didn’t look like any threat to most Malayalis.

Continue reading Cheralam to Keralam to Ketta-idam – A Report on ‘Development’ from Trivandrum, Kerala: Sriranjini R →

Debates, Ecology/Environment, Government, Metropolis, Movements

Cities, Smart or Self Reliant? Rajendra Ravi

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Guest post by RAJENDRA RAVI

The incumbent government has reportedly resolved to build a hundred smart cities in near future. And the concept seems to have taken our world by storm offering little space, if any, for a dissenting voice. Of course, a few tremors of resistance have emerged from areas where the lands are being acquired or have been marked for acquisition. For, resistance is something that is perennial: it never fails to strike back when the forces of eviction and deprivation come together to uproot people from their habitats. Human history stands witness to the fact that it is the mass protest and organized resistance that have compelled the development machinery to re-evaluate its orientation. Arguably, the tendency has actually reinforced and deepened the institution of democracy.

However, let us not overlook the fact that every community or a social group on this globe has taken the course of migration in its quest for development either as a conscious decision or compulsion. As a consequence, the phenomenon has substantially influenced the nature and configuration of habitats, leading the small hamlets to become large villages and bigger villages morphing into towns. Eventually, these very towns end up being cities. This has been quite a predictable trajectory of human development. Historically speaking, the process has involved efforts both at the level of government and the society at large. But, at the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that the government has a far more crucial role to play in it – a role, which is always informed by the ideological outlook of various political parties and governments. This role is also conditioned by the fact whether or not the parties and governments in question seek to build an egalitarian and democratic society. Continue reading Cities, Smart or Self Reliant? Rajendra Ravi →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Metropolis, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Enabling Dissent, Defying Silence – In Memory of Sabeen Mahmud: Yaminay Chaudhri and Mariam Sabri

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Sabeen Mahmud's Slippers

Guest Post by Yaminay Chaudhri and Mariam Sabri

[ This is a post from two friends in Pakistan responding to the tragic assasination of Sabeen Mahmud, activist and director of ‘The Second Floor’ (T2F) – a space that hosted many wonderful conversations and brave events. Sabeen was killed as she was going home after an event dedicated to a public discussion of disappearances and human rights violation in Balochistan.]

A normally quiet and desolate gali is packed with camera crews and hundreds of attendees for the funeral of Sabeen Mahmud. While there is a steady trickle of mourners entering and exiting the premises of the vibrant community space Sabeen created, the crowd waiting in the gali outside seems to be arrested by a mixture of disbelief, anger and grief.

Similar emotions paralyze us as we write about Sabeen in the past tense. It is difficult to believe she is gone, infuriating to think about the way she went, and, perhaps, the hardest to accept the beginning of her absence.

While watching her interview with PBS NewsHour last month, one is struck by how her cavalier attitude to fear and security, reverberates eerily in the wake of her murder.

“I grew up playing cricket on the streets” she said, “I just feel when the time comes, the time will come”.

Continue reading Enabling Dissent, Defying Silence – In Memory of Sabeen Mahmud: Yaminay Chaudhri and Mariam Sabri →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Centre watch, Countryside, Government, Law, Metropolis, Movements, Politics, Right watch

“Those Backward People” – Arun Jaitley and a Long Ugly History

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Two days ago, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley sought to make a special mention of “poor, dalits, tribals, backwards, those who are landless.” The occasion was the the Land Acquisition Bill, which,

“we are bringing, as per that the industrial corridors which would be set up in the country, those backward people, the 300 million landless people would get employment opportunities,”

First, Mr Jaitley, what exactly is the mechanism your government proposes by which the “backwards” released from the land will be absorbed into industry? Is there a guarantee by the industry owners? Is there a provision for skill training in the same industrial corridors? Are there ITI institutes being set up? Forget these, is even primary or secondary education going to be expanded so that farmers’ children, at some point in the distant future can take advantage of the supposed industrial boom? Continue reading “Those Backward People” – Arun Jaitley and a Long Ugly History →

Debates, Everyday Life, Images, Metropolis, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Are Jibran Nasir and his friends Game Changers in today’s Pakistan? Fawzia Naqvi

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Guest Post by FAWZIA NAQVI

One cold Karachi Night

On the night of February 1st, Jibran Nasir Pakistan’s leading activist and a handful of peaceful protesters sat on a road in Karachi near the Sindh Chief Minister’s house for more than 24 hours, demanding the arrest of terrorists responsible for the January 30th Shikarpur attack which killed 65 Shias during Friday prayers, and demanding action against banned sectarian organizations. There were only 20 protesters, their average age 25, outnumbered it seemed by riot police with water cannon and batons at the ready.

Protest in Karachi against Terrorism and Secterian Violence
Protest in Karachi against Terrorism and Secterian Violence

Continue reading Are Jibran Nasir and his friends Game Changers in today’s Pakistan? Fawzia Naqvi →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Government, Left watch, Metropolis, Politics, Right watch

An Election of Hope Versus Fear

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Yes it’s a simplistic dichotomy, but there is really no better way to describe the current Delhi elections. On the one hand, a little ragtag army of Davids behind “Mufflerman”, as his faithful supporters affectionately call him, a person in baggy sweater and sneakers, one you wouldn’t look at twice if you passed him on the road.

Mufflerman Business Standard

  Kejriwal

On the other hand, a massively funded, aggressively confident Goliath, openly backed by the corporate bodies and full-page ads, riding a  national “Wave” higher than most Tsunamis, topped by the 56-inch chest of “Modiman”, even if recently modestly covered by a 12-lakh rupee vest.

56-inch Modi78c0d4d3-be9e-4afb-b034-1247529df720wallpaper1

On the one hand, a fearful and awed media establishment donating PR for free to the seemingly invincible King of Gujarat, and on the other, an aam aadmi, a volunteer-cadre run campaign and a palpable vibe of trust and openness on the ground. I know I know, some will say it’s all ‘perception management’ and PR, but barring the googly of the 2 crores party donation thrown at the opportune moment, if Mufflerman’s party was any cleaner, it could have given Lalita ji’s Surf a run for its money. Whatever the result on the 10th (and there is reason to be hawk-eyed about the possibility of tampering as Nivedita Menon’s post has urged), how does anybody not get what a miracle this alone is, in a political economy with a black economy of a size that is higher than the GDPs of most smaller countries? Perhaps this is in fact about hope and fear after all, however clichéd that sounds.

Continue reading An Election of Hope Versus Fear →

Debates, Everyday Life, Feminism, Genders, Government, Metropolis, Politics

A Women’s Charter for Delhi Elections: Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression

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Guest Post by Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression

The elections in Delhi are approaching.

Violence, as well as discrimination against women, and sheer denial of women’s dignity and rights, has been a huge concern for Delhi’s citizens.

This is the time when women are looking towards the political parties, to see what place women’s rights and freedoms have on their agenda.

We are disturbed to see that while most parties pay lip service to the cause of women’s rights, they blithely field candidates accused of violence against women, and they play to the patriarchal gallery on a range of issues, ignoring the voices of the women’s movement.

We, the undersigned would like to put the following concerns on the agenda of the Delhi elections, and we ask the political parties contesting Delhi elections to respond to them with urgency and seriousness. We appeal to all women voters to place this charter before every candidate and every party campaigner, and ask them for a clear position on each of its points.

1. We are alarmed at the spiralling of communal violence towards the Delhi elections. We are shocked that, instead of nabbing those who are fuelling the violence in a planned way, the Delhi Police has instead beaten up and brutalised innocent women in Trilokpuri. Above all, we are appalled at the attempts to justify communal, caste, racial or homophobic/transphobic violence in the name of ‘protecting women’. We assert that women are invariably rendered most unsafe by such violence. We seek a commitment that no party will promote leaders – either as candidates or as campaigners – who are accused of stoking violence against women, as well as communal, caste, racial or homophobic/transphobic violence. Specifically, we do not want the notorious 1984 duo Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, we do not want to see Gugan Singh (who made communal speeches in Bawana) or Sunil Vaidya (who incited riots at Trilokpuri), or Somnath Bharti (charge-sheeted for racist and anti-women violence at Khirki) to be candidates or campaigners. Continue reading A Women’s Charter for Delhi Elections: Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression →

Culture, Debates, Everyday Life, Feminism, Images, Language, Metropolis, Movements, Sex

‘Kiss of Love’ in Delhi, confronting the RSS: Vasundhara Jairath and Bonojit Hussain

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Guest Post by Vasundhara Jairath and Bonojit Hussain 

In the first of its kind in India, youth in Kochi launched a campaign called ‘Kiss of Love’ to challenge the moral policing of the Hindu Right. While that protest was attacked by right wing thugs and suppressed by the police, this form of protest has since spread to different parts of the country like Hyderabad, Bombay and Calcutta. Today, the ‘Kiss of Love’ protest was held at nowhere short of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) head office in New Delhi. A few individuals took the initiative and gave a call for this protest on Facebook with the title, ‘Sanghi Gunde Hoshiyar, Tere Samne Karenge Pyaar’ (Sanghi thugs beware, we will love in front you). Continue reading ‘Kiss of Love’ in Delhi, confronting the RSS: Vasundhara Jairath and Bonojit Hussain →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Government, Identities, Metropolis, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

On The Recent Communal Disturbances in Trilokpuri: People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism

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Guest Post by People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (P.A.D.S)

NOVEMBER 2, 2014

(Members of P.A.D.S. have been interacting with and visiting residents of Trilokpuri ever since the communal disturbances started on Oct 23. Along with many other citizens we are involved in efforts to re-establish peace and in providing legal aid to those wrongfully arrested. This statement is based on the experiences of P.A.D.S members.)

The inhabitants of Trilokpuri, a densely populated neighbourhood of working people in Delhi, went through a harrowing week after Diwali night on 23 October. A brawl around two places of worship that night proved to be the first event. Although the situation appears to have settled down that night, some motivated planning and mobilisation must have taken place that night itself, because the next day it was a full scale communal clash. Armed mobs from outside the locality are reported to have joined the rioting that involved brick throwing. Firearms were also used and two boys suffered critical bullet injuries.  Inhabitants are emphatic that the police fired into the crowd. The police first denied firing at all. Its latest claim is that it fired only in self defense. One apparel show room owned by a Muslim resident was gutted. Police intervened in force only two days after the clashes started. It turned the neighbourhood into an occupied war-zone. More than fifty men and minor boys were arrested randomly, many picked up forcibly from their houses amid verbal abuse and physical violence. Road intersections were barricaded and entry and exit points were closely monitored. Drones were used in surveillance and houses systematically searched. Essential supplies were in short supply. Daily wage earners, contract workers, and self employed who could not go out lost their source of livelihood. Seriously wounded and ill had no access to medical aid. While the entire neighbourhood suffered in one form or another, inhabitants of three blocks in particular, nos 15, 27 and 28, and attached  jhuggi clusters, mainly occupied by citizens who are Muslims bore the brunt of police action.

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Education, Identities, Images, Language, Media politics, Metropolis, Mirror Worlds, Movements

Hok Kolorob! A Strange Chatter in the Air – Ranabir Samaddar’s Fictofacts: Anindya Sengupta

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This post continues the ongoing debate on Kafila occasioned by the charge made by Prof. Ranabir Samaddar in the DNA Newspaper about what he thinks is the ‘elitist’ character of the students movement that is continuing at Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

Guest Post by Anindya Sengupta

Now Ranabir Samaddar has done it. This charge of elitism – as evident in his article’s title ‘Elitist Protest in Jadavpur’ – is not new; it was in the air right from the onset of the movement, evident in numerous threads of comments in social networks. But when such labelling, as is regularly dished out by a Trinamul Congress backed Bengali daily like Khobor 365 Din, finds an echo in left-wing scholars, it hurts. It was almost a relief that Prof. Samaddar didn’t repeat the accusation that these rebelling students are a doped and debauched lot.

Looking up for the word ‘elite’ in the dictionaries yielded this among many: “A group or class of persons enjoying superior intellectual or social or economic status”.

Continue reading Hok Kolorob! A Strange Chatter in the Air – Ranabir Samaddar’s Fictofacts: Anindya Sengupta →

Debates, Metropolis, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Jis tann lãgé soee jãné – Delhi, November 1984, 30 Years After: Gauri Gill

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Guest Post and Photographs by Gauri Gill

[30 Years ago today, Delhi, and some other cities in India saw the beginning of days of organized massacre of Sikhs, ostensibly as a response to the assasination of Indira Gandhi. In memory of that dark time, we present a documentary text-photographic project by Gauri Gill. Gauri revisits the survivors of the 1984 violence in Delhi, and invites artsits, writers, and others to consider their memories of that dark time. An earlier version of this project by Gauri Gill was uploaded on Kafila in April 2013 by Shivam Vij. We are posting an updated version of the project, with fresh material, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the November Pogrom. ]

In 2005, when I heard Nirpreet Kaur relate her story, she had to have a psychologist present in the room. For us, it was too much to fully absorb. I did not know what to do with the weight of her words. We urged her to write a book, I hope she does someday.

Continue reading Jis tann lãgé soee jãné – Delhi, November 1984, 30 Years After: Gauri Gill →

Centre watch, Genders, Metropolis, Movements, Violence/Conflict

On a Long Road to Justice: Simin Akhter

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This is a Guest post by Simin Akhter, with inputs from Kamal Pant, Naina Singh and Vikas – 16 December Kranti

(Notes from the ongoing protests in the child sexual abuse case against Toddlers International Playschool, Rohini)

In a heinous and unfortunate show of power and violence, a two and a half year-old girl was raped by a male attendant at Toddlers International playschool (Rohini). Though the parents could manage to file an FIR, the management has threatened them with dire consequences. The principal has been openly shielding the accused, Amit Kumar, despite prior complaints of inappropriate behaviour by aggrieved parents and was allegedly shameless and audacious enough to tell the parents, ‘The police have been fed too well enough to open their mouths’! It also came to light during the protest yesterday that a similar FIR was filed two years back too but no police records could be found for the same; no wonder!

Almost 30 other girls have been detected with a certain strain of bacterial urinary infection, indicating the said two-year old is not the only victim. Many other children have been suffering from mouth-ulcers and a general loss of appetite too, reflecting also on the general lack of health and hygiene practices in the school. A group of parents, grandparents and concerned citizens, mostly young women and men, from in and around Rohini have got together for a relay protest but parents of other victims have not been forthcoming with formal complaints. Needless to say, the greater the delay in filing the complaints, the more legal intervention will get delayed.

Continue reading On a Long Road to Justice: Simin Akhter →

Culture, Education, Identities, Images, Metropolis, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Missing Person Notice: Ben Zachariah

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Guest Post by Benjamin Zachariah

Looking for Prof. Bose
Looking for Prof. Bose

It was not so long ago that Sugata Bose, now Lok Sabha Member for Jadavpur, made his way back from Harvard to serve his people. West Bengal had voted for ‘poriborton’, ‘change’, and as everybody assumed that Bengalis loved their fellow-men who had been anointed abroad, Sugata Bose returned to conquer the heights of Bengali higher education. The plan was to use a brand name within a brand name to shore up another brand name : Harvard, Netaji, Presidency. The Trinamul Congress, Bose was confident, would not interfere with his plans. Or so he said in public; his mother, Krishna Bose, had been the Trinamul Congress’s Presidential candidate, and long regarded as the force behind the attempted bhadramahilafication of Didi, apparently a prerequisite for political acceptability in West Bengal (otherwise known as Waste Bengal or Poschimbongobongo). It was therefore no surprise that his plans did not diverge from the plans of the TMC, although ‘internal differences’ were often heard of. It was also no surprise that, as the attempts to turn Presidency ‘University’ into the font of moral and intellectual legitimation for the TMC faltered, Bose took the mantle of his great-uncle upon himself and stood as a candidate for the TMC in the Lok Sabha elections, from the Jadavpur constituency. There was not even the pretence that Sugata Bose stood on his own credentials: his campaign marches were led by a child in Netaji uniform and Netaji glasses, prompting a complaint to the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights.

Now, in the Jadavpur constituency, duly won by Netaji’s heir, and not by a hair’s breadth, developments at Jadavpur University are cause for concern.

Continue reading Missing Person Notice: Ben Zachariah →