A few days ago, in a post on the rally in solidarity with the (then) striking Maruti Suzuki, Suzuki Powertrain and Suzuki Motorcycles Factory workers in Manesar, Gugaon in Haryana, we had reported a worker saying: Continue reading From Manhattan to Manesar: Naeem Moahaiemen
This guest post by ALIA ALLANA is an account of polling day in Tunisia
They had already waited so long, what was a few more hours? Continue reading “We are not like Iran here”: Alia Allana reports from Tunisia
Guest post by SHUJA MALIK
“Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)” is a recent addition in the lexicon of the Kashmir conflict/dispute. IT gained currency after recent confirmation of reports about presence of unmarked, unidentified and mass graves in Kashmir. The idea of a TRC for Kashmir raises questions about its relevance and context, especially unidentified graves and enforced disappearances.
Truth and reconciliation commissions have been established in the past with varied powers and purposes, usually at points where the parties involved are ‘emerging out of conflict’ or are at ‘transitional stage’, and after modalities have been established for conflict resolution.
Continue reading Thinking Truth and Reconciliation in Kashmir: Shuja Malik
This guest post by ALIA ALLANA is a despatch for Kafila from Damascus, the Syrian capital. All photos by Alia Allana
“You don’t think I’m afraid?” asked Bouthaina Shaaban, advisor to Syrian President, Bashar al Assad.
We were sitting in the Ministry of Protocol in Damascus and she tugged on her black pearl necklace and fidgeted with her black and white tweed jacket. She had more reason to be afraid, she said – not just because she was a woman but also because she is a supporter of the current regime.
This guest post by ALIA ALLANA is a despatch for Kafila from Homs, Syria. All photos by Alia Allana
He was found shot in the chest, bleeding on the streets, alone.
He has no name. He’s just another struggling body in the hospital in Homs — only he’s much younger than most. He’s only four. He doesn’t move, his small frail body is gobbled by wires. The doctors say he hasn’t opened his eyes, hasn’t made a sound, nor has he called out for anyone. Saliva runs down his mouth but there is no one to wipe it off his face. This isn’t the first case and the doctors fear it won’t be the last. There will be other children who will take his place, there will be more victims of random shooting, more deaths and no one knows by whose gun. Continue reading A Despatch from Homs: Alia Allana
Guest post by RAZA RUMI
Pakistanis love Bollywood. There is no question about that. Amidst the love-hate perceptions, Indian cinema has for decades fed public imagination. Before the 1965 war that took place when Ayub Khan, Pakistan’s first military ruler, was in power, Indian films were released in Pakistan regularly. They competed with the local cinema. The healthy contest enriched filmmaking and gave choice to Pakistani cinema-goers. The war and competing imaginary nationalism halted this process and for decades, Indian films stayed away from cinemas until another military ruler, Parvez Musharraf, allowed limited releases. Such is the power of Bollywood and its commercial viability that for the past few years, Bollywood flicks have revived cinema in Pakistan. Continue reading Through the screen, not so darkly: Raza Rumi
The report above is by Zanobia Ilyas, who writes: Continue reading Navratri in Karachi
Guest post by NAJEEB MUBARKI
I could have met Sebald.
I went to Britain in September 2001,
And he died in December.
East Anglia wasn’t all that far way
From London, nothing, really,
Is all that far away in Britain.
I could have met him, if I had known him
Then.
What I would have wanted to say, I think Continue reading Untitled: Najeeb Mubarki
Guest post by KAVITA SRIVASTAVA
4 October 2011
More than 3000 Domestic Workers Take to the Jaipur Streets
SHARE THEIR WOES AND DEMAND RIGHTS
PUBLIC HEARING PANEL:
• Aditi Mehta (Principal Secretary Social Justice and Empowerment),
• Anuradha Talwar. Trade Union Activist, Paschim Banga Khet Mazdoor Sangathan, Kolkata
• Jose Mohan, DCP, Jaipur Police Commissionerate
• Bhagwan Sahai Sharma, member Secretary, State Social Welfare Board,
Domestic worker women power made history today in Jaipur when they took to the streets of Jaipur and demanded their rights from the State and society. We are not “naukranis” they said. We are workers in free India and want the dignity of being a worker. We run two homes, yours and ours, can any of you in society do without our labour, they asked boldly. Ninety percent were Bengally with abotu ten percent from who had come from different parts of Rajasthan. Continue reading Bengal Power in Jaipur: Kavita Srivastava
A note from KAVITA SRIVASTAVA
3rd October, 2011
Dear friends,
The police today raided my house between 6.30 and 7 am. I was out of the house when they did it. One of those days when I was not at home. They came with a search warrant and said that a khatarnak Naxalite was being shielded in my house.
My family was unable to gather the name, but they had come looking for a woman they said some Sunit / Sumit Sodi. The Bajaj Nagar police station of Jaipur, which very well knows my house, brought them. It was led by the DY SP of our area Rajendra Singh Shekhwat and they also sent police outside the People’s Union for Civil Liberties office. The Chhattisgarh raid was led by one Mr. Memon who was in plain clothes. His rank we do not know. He got papers from a court that my house has to be searched. Continue reading Kavita Srivastava: ‘Chhattisgarh Police Raided My House Today in Collusion with Jaipur Police’
The fishing season has begun couple of days ago and boats in a big number go to the mid-sea to catch and earn some money. Both the governments need to recognise the fact that these traditional fishermen go to the mid-sea for their livelihood. Arresting them and confiscating their boats means depriving their families from the livelihood, and causing them extreme distress. Continue reading Release Indian and Pakistani fishermen with their boats
STATEMENT OF PROTEST
We write to protest the denial of entry to David Barsamian by Immigration Authorities at the New Delhi airport in the early hours of September 23, 2011, and we write to draw attention to the growing arbitrariness of the Indian Government in dealing with dissent of any kind.
David Barsamian is a veteran broadcaster, and founder and director of Alternative Radio, a weekly one-hour public affairs program offered free to all public radio stations in the US, Canada, Europe and beyond. For more than 25 years Alternative Radio has provided information, analyses and views that are frequently ignored in other media. Structured around intensive interviews conducted by David Barsamian, these programs are carried by over 125 radio stations and heard by millions of listeners. He is the author of numerous books with Edward Said, Eqbal Ahmad, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy and Tariq Ali.
Continue reading David Barsamian’s Deportation: Statement of Protest
The Ministry of Higher Education has issued a directive that all state universities should hire the services of Rakna Lanka Ltd for provision of security services. The undersigned of the University academic community considers that directive to be in complete contravention of the norms and conventions by which universities are expected to function.
The letter issued by the Secretary to the Ministry of Higher Education seeks to bypass standard procedures that are followed in the university system in the hiring and outsourcing of services. That process requires tenders to be called for and for a suitable company to be selected in a transparent and independent manner. The Secretary’s instruction therefore is in violation of established processes and is contrary to the underpinning principles of governance and the autonomy of academic institutions.
Read the whole article here.
Senkodi, a 20 year old woman, part of Makkal Mandram a commune in Kancheepuram immolated herself outside the collector’s office on the 29th of August in Kancheepuram. She left a letter saying that it was in solidarity with the campaign against the death penalty awarded to Perarivalan, Murugan and Santhan in the case relating to Rajiv Gandhi’s killing. Growing up in the commune Senkodi was part of the struggles that were around her such as those for land and other rights of marginalised communities. Much has been written about her both maligning her and her comrades as well as hailing her ‘martyrdom’. Below is a piece that brings into question the reasons for her death and the reactions to it. It is translated as accurately as possible in language and tone from it’s original Tamil version. It is a piece written to raise questions within progressive spaces in tamilnadu, but can be easily read into similar contexts.
Guest post by PREMA REVATHI
Translated from the Tamil by Ponni
The human heart is a strange creature. The utter helplessness and pathos I felt after I heard of the death of Senkodi reminded me of lines I had heard ages ago which stuck with me;
Guest Post by PREMA REVATHI
An English translation, with a background note, is available here.
மனித மனம் விசித்திரமானது. செங்கொடியின் மரணச்செய்தியை கேட்டதும் ஆறாத இயலாமையின் இருள் சூழ்ந்துகொண்டுவிட்ட மனதில் எப்போதொ ஒரு காலத்தில் மனதில் ஆழப்பதிந்துபோன
“ இந்த பூமியின் தேசங்களில்
ஒளி வீசுக செங்கொடியே…”
என்ற பாடல் வரிகள் மீண்டும் மீண்டும் அலையாடியது.
புரட்சிகர போராட்டத்தால் இந்த பூமியையே மாற்றிவிடும் ஒரு பெருங்கனவு இன்று முள்ளாய் உறுத்தும் ஒரு பழங்கனவாய் விடைகள் இல்லாத திசைவழிகள் இல்லாத நம்பிக்கைதரும் தலைமைகள் இல்லாத இத்தனிமையான அரசியல் இரவில் துறுத்திக்கொண்டிருக்கும் வேதனை முகத்தில் அறைகிறது.
ஆயிரமாயிரம் வார்த்தைகள் செங்கொடி பற்றி எழுதப்பட்டுவிட்ட, எழுதப்பட்டுகொண்டிருக்கும் இக்கணத்தில் நெஞ்சுருக்கும் இந்த இன்மையும் புகைப்படத்தில் தீர்க்கமாயொளிர்ந்து கொண்டிருக்கும் அவள் விழிகள் கேட்கும் கேள்விகளும் அலைகழித்துக் கொண்டே இருக்கின்றன.
Wars, insurgencies, floods, an economy in the doldrums, and now dengue. If Pakistan is not a “failed state,” some credit must go to the Pakistani sense of humour.
There’s been terrible out break of Dengue fever in Lahore. 39 have died and the toll keeps rising – it was 36 when I began collecting the material for this post. Sohaib Gulbadan tweets: “My Hizb-ut-Tahrir friend is sharing articles suggesting dengue outbreak in Lahore is a CIA strategy. Acha.”
Perhaps it is in response to that sort of stuff that Haseeb Asif writes this hilarious blog post:
This is a statement put out by the JAMIA TEACHERS’ SOLIDARITY ASSOCIATION
Punish those guilty of misleading probes
Compensate the victims NOW!
13 September 2011: The NIA has finally put the official seal on what many activists, the families of the accused and the people of Malegaon had been saying for long: that the arrest of nine Muslim men for the 2008 Malegaon blast was a result of a communal witch-hunt, which passes for investigations into terror charges. As a consequence of the investigating agencies’ hubris and prejudice, nine innocent men had to spend five long years in jail, while their families suffered and they were stigmatized. Continue reading Lessons from Malegaon: JTSA
Guest post by HILAL MIR
I woke up this morning in an utterly confused state of mind. During the night I dreamt about having the tour of the Harud Literary Festival. My first astonishment came while in a queue outside the venue. Like the French streaming Parisian streets in teary-eyed joy at the sight of American liberators after having secreted themselves in root cellars for months from the sniffing gaze of Nazi jackboots, I felt similar joy at observing Indian soldiers not hurling ritual abuses from vehicle rooftops while asserting the right to overtake from any side and any crevice on the busy Panthachowk intersection.
The venue, Delhi Public School, is stone’s throw away from the intersection and within the earshot of any moist abuse hurled from those ubiquitous army trucks. Kashmiris finally had a dry day. Continue reading On a Lit Note: Hilal Mir
In a post on the Wall Street Journal’s India Realtime blog, journalist Tom Wright says at one point:
In the open letter, the signatories said it was impossible to have a literary festival in Kashmir [Link]
I asked him on Twitter as to where the open letter says that. He replied:
the opening graph says you can’t hold a literary festival in the context of kashmir [Link]
Given that he was being specific about the location of the “impossible to hold” claim in the open letter, I wondered for a moment if I was wrong. I checked the first two paragraphs of the open letter I had posted but found no such claim: Continue reading Harud Literary Festival: The Misrepresentation Continues
An elderly, bed-ridden man sentenced to life imprisonment in an ‘enemy’ country for a murder he didn’t commit awaits the signature on his clemency petition. By Beena Sarwar and Shivam Vij
Human rights activists in India are renewing their efforts for the release of the elderly Pakistani prisoner Dr Khalil Chishty lodged in Ajmer prison hospital, whose mercy petition awaits just one signature from the Rajasthan Governor Shivraj Patil. The mercy petition had earlier been approved by the state government and had reached Patil in June this year. At that point, it was expected that Dr Chishty, 78, a renowned virologist bed-ridden with various illnesses in jail, would soon be released.
Instead, Governor Patil raised a set of questions for the state government to answer. The Rajasthan government has answered all the queries, but has not submitted the file to the Governor again – perhaps because, according to sources, the Governor has already indicated that he will not sign the petition. Continue reading Bring Dr Chishty home – alive
*
In the Courtyard of the Beloved is a visual and aural portrait of Nizamuddin Auliya Dargah, a Sufi shrine in New Delhi, India. Made from over 18,000 still images and ambient sounds recorded on-site, rapid-fire bursts of kaleidoscopic imagery assemble into fractured collages.
Each day, hundreds of pilgrims travel by airplane, train, car, rickshaw and foot to reach this shrine, which honors a 12th century Sufi mystic who believed in drawing close to God through renunciation of the world and service to humanity. Beginning with imagery from these journeys, the film then enters the physical space of the shrine; a unique nexus of marketplace, social space and spiritual haven, where devotees come to offer their prayers and find a moment of reflection away from the din of Delhi traffic. As the sun sets behind the dome, musicians begin the qawwali, a style of Sufi devotional music that ranges from contemplative religious elegy to raucous crescendo.
Executive Producer Samina Quraeshi
Original tabla score by Suphala
Audio post-production by Paul Bercovitch
Produced by Sadia Shepard
Photographed and edited by Andreas Burgess
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 