Category Archives: Movements

Movements, Violence/Conflict

Aluthgama – Thinking about Co-existence and Resistance in a Time of Crisis: Mahendran Thiruvarangan

1 Comment

Guest post by MAHENDRAN THIRUVARANGAN

I come from a community that was both a victim and a villain in the thirty-year civil war that unsettled all of us. We were victims because the Sri Lankan state killed thousands of us, grabbed our lands and made us homeless; we were villains as we could not question the LTTE strongly when the movement massacred members of the Sinhala and Muslim communities and members of our own community who refused to conform to the movement’s ideology. We witnessed how the narrow nationalist politics that we romanticized, alienated us from the other communities on the island. We witnessed how our failure to criticize the decisions made by our leaders contributed in part to the death of thousands of Tamils in Mullivaikal in May 2009. We witnessed how our obsession with the particular—our language, our culture, our religion and our homeland—incarcerated us within the walls of purism and political decadence. It is true that there was no space for dissent when the LTTE ruled us. But we need to accept as a community that because the LTTE fought against a state that dominated us and persecuted us, many of us often, in our everyday conversations, justified its violence against other communities. Any community that clings to a narrow-minded nationalism has many a lesson to learn from the painful experiences that the Tamils in Sri Lanka went through during the war. When I read about the recent attacks on Muslims in Aluthgama, I remembered the Eviction of Muslims from the Northern Province by the LTTE and the violence that the LTTE directed at the Muslim community in the East in the name of Tamils. Continue reading Aluthgama – Thinking about Co-existence and Resistance in a Time of Crisis: Mahendran Thiruvarangan →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Frontiers, Law, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

A Renegade’s People: Rupam Sindhu Kalita

1 Comment

This is a guest post by Rupam Sindhu Kalita

What unites anti-homophobia campaigners, defenders of the poor’s right to clean water, university student collectives, women rights’ groups and academics under a premature summer sun in New Delhi on the 30th of March earlier this year? It is the unacceptable means employed by the Indian state in response to armed rebellions in North east India and the threat to civilian life that it has precipitated. The contagion of a military approach to a largely political problem was promulgated as an ordinance in 1958 under the presidency of Dr Rajendra Prasad to help quell the Naga movement and was developed into the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (Assam and Nagaland) later in the same year. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (from here on AFSPA) persists in violating human rights in Kashmir and North east India despite its incompatibility with national and international human rights declarations. Over the years this Act has been sanctified in the inner sanctum of India’s centralised quasi-military administration. The government has been extremely guarded in its approach to growing popular demands for annulling this Act. The civil leadership’s reluctance to temper with the ritualized provisions of this Act has raised the disquieting question of who runs the country.

On 30th March central Delhi woke up to a motley group of protestors unified by a concern for violation of human rights under AFSPA. [Photo credit: V Arun Kumar].
On 30th March central Delhi woke up to a motley group of protestors unified by a concern for violation of human rights under AFSPA. [Photo credit: V Arun Kumar].

Continue reading A Renegade’s People: Rupam Sindhu Kalita →

Capitalism, Ecology/Environment, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Airing the unheard from Polavaram: Mohammed Omais Shayan

3 Comments

Guest post by MOHAMMED OMAIS SHAYAN 

As the Nation is welcoming its 29th state, Telangana is upbeat with hope of starting a new chapter of progress. Amongst the jubilations in Telangana, voices of people affected by the Polavaram dam are being lost. “Dam’ned”, a film by Saraswati Kavula is an attempt to air the unheard voices. It’s a must watch for all concerned as the movie touches the links of people, land, livelihood and development. The film aims to bring ground realities through interviewing the people of the affected region, technical and environmental experts. Before getting into content of the film, a very brief introduction of the project.

Polavaram project is going to be the largest dam in terms of number of people being displaced. The dam will be constructed at Polavaram village in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. The dam aims to irrigate 2910 km2 of area in Andhra Pradesh [1]. It will also provide drinking water to Vishakapatnam City and many villages besides water for industries in Vizag. The project aims to transfer 80 TMC water from Godavari to Krishna basin. The dam will submerge 300 villages of Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Orissa. This submergence area will cover 3,500 acres of biodiversity rich forest and also partially submerge the Papikundulum wildlife sanctuary [2]. The people living in these areas are predominantly ‘adivasis’ belonging to Koya and Konda Reddy tribes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7myuXBpdzGg

Continue reading Airing the unheard from Polavaram: Mohammed Omais Shayan →

Law, Movements, Politics, Right watch

Honouring Mukul Sinha: The Struggle of Memory Against Forgetting: Saumya Uma and Arvind Narrain

3 Comments

This is a guest post by Saumya Uma and Arvind Narrain

Among the miniscule tribe of human rights lawyers, even one loss is irreplaceable. We felt that way when we lost K. Balagopal in 2009, K.G. Kannabiran in 2010 and most recently when, Mukul Sinha passed away on 12 May 2013. Each of these figures were giants in the world of human rights activism who struggled for an idea of India which all too often remained an ideal and a vision, sometimes far from reality. Regardless of how distant the vision of a real and functioning democracy, founded on the ideals of social and economic justice was, these three figures never lost heart, always communicating a spirit of hope about the future based on concrete and grounded work in the present. Continue reading Honouring Mukul Sinha: The Struggle of Memory Against Forgetting: Saumya Uma and Arvind Narrain →

Centre watch, Identities, Movements, Politics

Shazia Ilmi – Why Her Exit is Such a Blow: Jyoti Punwani

11 Comments

Guest post by JYOTI PUNWANI

Shazia Ilmi’s exit marks a real blow for AAP supporters. Her frequent TV appearances as AAP spokesperson made her out to be an articulate, confident woman who didn’t need to assert her religious identity to prove a point, which is a rare thing in today’s politics. Her participation in the Anna andolan was as much a pointer to its inclusive nature as it was to the emergence of a new kind of Muslim in public life: one who had no hesitation plunging into a mass movement which had strong nationalist overtones, was avowedly against the political system and had little to do with minority concerns.

When Shazia almost won from Delhi’s R K Puram constituency, it suddenly came home – for the first time in years, a Muslim candidate had been fielded from a Hindu-dominated constituency, and the Hindus had voted for her. In Mumbai, a Muslim political activist who’s friendly with every political party, has for long told Shiv Sena leaders that the moment they field a Muslim from any of their strongholds, he would join them. “The ability to take the other community along, that’s the test of a secular politician,’’   a senior Congress Muslim in Nanded  told me, rueing the fact that Muslims who could do this were ignored by his leader Ashok Chavan (one of the two Congressmen to win in the state this time). Continue reading Shazia Ilmi – Why Her Exit is Such a Blow: Jyoti Punwani →

Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

क्या निराश हुआ जाए?

5 Comments

क्या निराश हुआ जाए? कल सुबह से हजारी प्रसाद द्विवेदी  का एक अन्य  प्रसंग में किया गया यह प्रश्न मन में घूम रहा है. चुनाव नतीजों के पहले ही चरण में पिता ने फोन पर कहा: “यह तुम्हारा पहला कड़ा इम्तहान है.”पिता ने, जो अब जीवन की सांध्य वेला में हैं, कहा, “हम तो किनारे पर खड़े लोग हैं, तुम सब अभी इस जिंदगी के रेले के ठीक बीचो-बीच हो, भागने का न तो कोई उपाय है और ऐसी कोई भी इच्छा कायरता होगी. इसका सामना करो और इसे समझो.” हजारीप्रसाद जी और अपने पिता को कहना चाहता हूँ, वह जो रवींद्रीय ब्रह्मांडीय उदारहृदयता का स्वप्न आप सबने दिखाया था, कामकाजी रोजमर्रापन की तेज रौशनी में खो गया जान पड़ता है. शायद हम सब अब तक सो रहे थे,अचानक जगा दिए गए हैं. निराश या हताश होने की सुविधा नहीं है. समझने की कोशिश ही शायद इस यथार्थ का सामना करने के साधन देगी! Continue reading क्या निराश हुआ जाए? →

Bad ideas, Debates, Education, Everyday Life, Movements

EFLU Hyderabad Rusticates Students for Wanting to Keep Library Open: Sudha and Muhammad Afzal

3 Comments

Guest Post by Sudha K F and Muhammed Afzal P

The semester break seems to be the most active time for the English and Foreign Languages University (Hyderabad) administration. What are these activities that the administration invests so much of its energies in, when most students have left the campus for their vacation? It is sending memos, show cause notices and the latest: the RUSTICATION of two significant student leaders on the EFLU campus.

When the word ‘fascist’ has become an everyday term, to talk about the Modi nightmare and its anxieties, we have more to add to that list from EFLU, Hyderabad. Mohan Dharavath, President of Dalit Adivasi Bahujan Minority Students’ Association and Satish N, General Secretary of Telengana Students’ Association, have been rusticated from the University for two years, the latest in a series of draconian and undemocratic moves, on the part of the autocratic EFLU administration. The two students, along with another student, Subhash Kumar, were given show cause notices by the Proctor’s office on 24 March, to which they responded, denying the baseless charges levelled against them. The rustication is part of the disciplinary action against these students who were part of a massive protest that took place against the administration, called forth by the EFLU Students’ Union. This protest was against the absolute closure of the only 24-hour reading room, and library, on the small EFLU campus in the first week of March 2014.

Continue reading EFLU Hyderabad Rusticates Students for Wanting to Keep Library Open: Sudha and Muhammad Afzal →

Capitalism, Debates, Everyday Life, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Two Tendencies in Industrial Areas: From Faridabad Majdoor Samachar

1 Comment

Even as news of elections seemingly eclipses everything else in India.  life, in the industrial suburbs of the National Capital Region, continues as usual. A report from Faridabad Majdoor Samachar. New Series 310, April, 2014.

Continue reading Two Tendencies in Industrial Areas: From Faridabad Majdoor Samachar →

Capitalism, Debates, Left watch, Movements, Politics, Theory

Capital, Growth and Molecular Socialism

3 Comments

A slightly modified version of a talk delivered at the Conference on ‘Democracy, Socialism and Visions for the 21st Century’, 7-10 March, at Hyderabad 

Today we stand at a moment of history that is very different from the conjuncture at the turn of the 1980s and onset of the 1990s, which marked the collapse of actually existing socialism and the eventual victory of neo-liberalism. ‘Capital’ looked victorious and invincible and everything that was associated with socialism stood discredited. This is no longer the case today. The struggle for a new kind of left imagination, for a re-signification of the idea of socialism, is now evident in large parts of the world. The neo-liberal emperor has been revealed to have no clothes. Many neoliberals, incidentally, still live in the 1990s, sincere in their belief that History had come to an end at that moment. Simply because twentieth century socialism stood discredited, it was assumed that that meant the end of popular struggles and challenges to capital’s domination over the world. Today, two and a half decades after the collapse of socialism and the victory of neoliberalism, the latter stands challenged as perhaps, never before. 

The difficulty however, is that while the spirit of the Left animates struggles and movements, an actual programmatic vision is still not quite in sight.  The weight of dead generations still weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. Revolutionaries have long conceded defeat and accepted that capitalism is the only salvation and that they too must build capitalism wherever they are in power, even if rhetorically, they still hold on to the idea of transcending capitalism. The problem has little to do with the intentions of the revolutionaries; it is fundamentally a matter of a vision that is predicated upon the productivist and ‘progressist’ imagination of the past three centuries or more. In our contemporary everyday language, we could even call it the growth-fetishist vision – a vision that fails to differentiate between cancerous growth of capital on the social body, and the all round improvement in the lives of ordinary people. The fact that twentieth century socialists too remained captive to that vision is perhaps the reason they could not pose any serious challenge to capital.

Productivism and Progress

This productivist imagination was put in place over a few centuries through the conjunction of a range of new bodies of knowledge – moral philosophy, Lockean political theory and political economy – later economics. At one level, the twentieth century socialist imagination too partook of the fundamental assumptions that lay behind this modernist vision and sought to defeat capitalism on its own ground. That was an impossible task. It was impossible for it never radically questioned the fundamentals of the new capitalist creed, namely economics. Economics was and remains a discipline constituted by capital and ‘socialist economics’ is, strictly speaking, an oxymoron. For, apart from the ecological imperative, to which I will turn in a moment, the discipline was fundamentally hostile to all but bourgeois forms of property and production. Continue reading Capital, Growth and Molecular Socialism →

Centre watch, Government, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Protesting the Indian Republic at Kangla Fort, Manipur

2 Comments

A-police-personnel-tries-toREPEAL ARMED FORCES SPECIAL POWERS ACT

The Sangai Express (Imphal) reported that women from different corners of Manipur staged a demonstration on January 25, 2014 in front of the Western Kangla Gate to denounce Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s failure to keep his promise to replace Armed Forces Special Powers Act with a humane legislation.

Displaying placards and festoons inscribed ‘Remove AFSPA,’ ‘Save Sharmila,’ the demonstrators also raised slogans demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Pandemonium erupted at the site when police personnel tried to seize the festoons from the agitating women.

Later, RK Radhyasana Devi, one of the protestors speaking to media persons, highlighted that the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, while handing over the historic Kangla Fort to the people on November 20, 2004, had assured the people of the State that AFSPA would be replaced with a more humane Act .

She pointed out that the promise Dr Manmohan Singh made a decade back has not been translated into action till now.

Strongly demanding that the AFSPA, 1958 should be repealed, Radhyasana further asserted that the movement of Meira Paibi organisations would go on until the Act is scrapped from the State.

In 2004, at the same historic Kangal Fort, Manipuri women had staged a militant nude protest to denounce AFSPA in the aftermath of the extra-judicial killing of Thangjam Manorama Devi by Assam Rifles troopers.

And meanwhile, Irom Sharmila, in the 14th year of her fast against AFSPA, continues to be held in isolation by the Indian state, a prisoner of conscience.

 

Culture, Debates, Everyday Life, Government, Identities, Language, Metropolis, Movements, Politics

We The People, Reclaim the Republic: Various Citizens Groups

5 Comments

Call given by VARIOUS CITIZENS GROUPS

As we commemorate another Republic Day, We The People proclaim that the parade of the powerful at Rajpath does not represent us. We The People, Reclaim our Republic.

As members of the LGBT community, women, workers, sex workers, students, teachers, activists, persons with disabilities, health rights activists, Dalits, indigenous people, farmers, those affected by unconstitutional military rule, we are united not as “minorities” or “others,” but as the people. We invoke the promises of the Constitution of India in our name. Our struggle will continue until all arms of the state are unwavering in their constitutional promises towards the marginalized in our society, rather than only representing the powerful.

Continue reading We The People, Reclaim the Republic: Various Citizens Groups →

Bad ideas, Culture, Everyday Life, Feminism, Genders, Government, Language, Law, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Sex, Violence/Conflict

For the sake of Form

9 Comments

The Aam Admi Party it seems has now decided to hit back at critics by uploading videos on Youtube to defend the controversial actions of Somnath Bharti, its Law Minister in Delhi done purportedly ‘in public interest’. Bharti has been chastised even by AAP supporters for his vigilantism and for trying to force the Delhi police to raid the house of suspected sex and drug racketeers and who in fact ‘helped’, along with his followers to catch two of the fleeing women.

Eight videos have been uploaded. They, according to the party contain incriminating evidence to prove that sex and drug racketeers were very much active in that area. Reporting the videos The Times of India says “… some of the scenes are not so easy to judge. Two clips show an African national walking around naked in the area. In another, three women in a car are rubbing some substance in their hands. Yet another shows several condoms lying about a car.” .

We do indeed see an African national moving around naked in the video. This is supposed to prove the allegation by the party that drugs are being used as according to one AAP worker “Walking around naked like this is an after-effect of drugs and this is a regular occurrence in the area”. You can also see for yourself condoms lying in the car. Do you need any more evidence to prove that the occupants of the car were indeed prostitutes carrying condoms with them and luring men to indulge in sex? Why are these three women rubbing some substance in their hands or trying to hide something by putting on gloves? Continue reading For the sake of Form →

Bad ideas, Culture, Education, Everyday Life, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

सतत क्रान्ति की पैरोडी

1 Comment

पिछले कुछ समय से नागार्जुन और हरिशंकर परसाई की याद बेइंतहा सता रही है: भारतीय राजनीति के इस दौर का वर्णन करने के लिए हमें उनकी कलम की ज़रूरत थी !

क्रान्ति सतत चलने वाली प्रक्रिया है और असली विद्रोही वह है जो छह महीने बाद अपनी कुर्सी खुद उलट दे. आम आदमी पार्टी और दिल्ली सरकार के मुखिया ने केंद्र सरकार के खिलाफ़ बगावत की शुरुआत की,तो ऐसा ही लगा. दिल्ली के केंद्र में रेल भवन के पास दिल्ली की पूरी सरकार  अपने समर्थकों के साथ दस दिनों के धरने पर बैठ गए. उन्होंने धमकी दी कि वे राजपथ को लाखों लोगों से पाट देंगे और केंद्र सरकार की नींद हराम कर देंगे.किसान और सैनिक जब मिल जाएं तो क्रांति शुरू हो जाती है. इसकी पैरोडी करते हुए अरविंद ने दिल्ली के पुलिसवालों को वर्दी उतार कर धरने पर शामिल होने का आह्वान किया. कुछ लोगों को जयप्रकाश नारायण की याद आ गई. एक साथ लेनिन, लोहिया,क्रोपाटकिन और जयप्रकाश का तेज अरविंद केजरीवाल के रूप में पुंजीभूत हुआ. गांधी का आभा वलय अन्ना हजारे से हट कर अरविंद के माथे के पीछे पीछे तो तब ही लग गया था जब उनका भरपूर इस्तेमाल कर ठिकाने लगा दिया गया. क्या यह 2014 का भारतीय तहरीर चौक होने जा रहा है?

दिल्ली के मुख्य मंत्री ने एक बार फिर  आज़ादी की  नई लड़ाई की घोषणा की.यह दृश्य क्रांतिकारियों,समाजवादियों,अराजकतावादियों, सबके के लिए एक पुराने सपने के  पूरा होने जैसा ही था. एक पुरानी, दबी हुई इच्छा के पूरा होने का क्षण!यह आज़ादी झूठी है वाले नारे , वंदे मातरम और भारत माता का जयकार से रोमांचित होने का सुख!! Continue reading सतत क्रान्ति की पैरोडी →

Government, Left watch, Movements, Politics

The Party Left and Aap: Satya Sagar

32 Comments

GUEST POST by Satya Sagar

“Comrade! There is a man dying of thirst at the door. What is the Party line on giving water to thirsty people?”

There was a moment’s silence at the other end of the telephone and then the Great Ideologue said, “That is reformist activity. Tell him we can give our lives for the Revolution but cannot- as matter of policy- give water to the thirsty”

“But Comrade, he will die at our doorstep if we don’t give him water. Think what the bourgeois media will say then”

“You are right. Positive media coverage is important as that is the only way we reach the masses these days. But before you give him water to drink first ask him whether he believes in public or private supply of water” Continue reading The Party Left and Aap: Satya Sagar →

Bad ideas, Debates, Movements, Politics

AAP and the Ideology Warriors

29 Comments

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

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

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

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

The Aam Aadmi Party and Animal Farm

28 Comments

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

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

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

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

Azadi in the Lexicon of the Aam Admi: Gowhar Fazili

5 Comments

Guest Post by GOWHAR FAZILI

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

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

Bad ideas, Genders, Identities, Law, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Sex

Sex and the courtroom

3 Comments

A politician is exposed using State surveillance to allegedly woo his love interest. An editor tells a reporter his daughter’s age that the easiest way for her to keep her job would be to have sex with him. A godman and his son are both arrested for sexual assault and rape. A riot in Muzaffarnagar over false rumours of inter-religious ‘eve teasing’ left 48 dead and 15,000 homeless. The debate on rape, consent, gender relations sparked by December 16, 2012 continued throughout 2013. And by the end of it the Indian Supreme Court decided that the Indian Constitution’s letter and spirit were not being violated by criminalising consenting adults for having sex, in case the sex happened to be anything other than peno-vaginal.

India 2013 is like a pubescent 13 year old realising there’s something about the body that the mind needs to grapple with. There’s something about power, pleasure, social mores, class, law and so on, that comes together in the body and negotiates its way through bodily desire. There’s a sexual churning out there, and it’s not as titillating as the annual sex surveys news magazines do, nor is it as literary and profound as the language an incarcerated editor wields. Continue reading Sex and the courtroom →

Government, Identities, Movements, Politics

Why AAP is the new Congress

8 Comments

There is nothing novel about new parties upsetting the two-party binary. We have seen that happen through the process of Mandalisation in many states. But all those new parties have come up in the name of one or more identities caste, community, region. The BJP is the Brahmin-Bania party of Hindu nationalism. The BSP is the party of the Dalits, the JD(U) of the Kurmis, the BJD of Odisha. Many of these parties don’t have ambitions to rival the Congress or the BJP on the national stage.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is an exception in that its central ideology is good governance. This helps it escape identity politics. At the same time, the AAP embraces identity politics like everyone else does: its symbol, the broom, was from day one targeted at the Valmikis. Be it Muslims or Dalits or Brahmins, the AAP quietly takes note of identity politics and gives lip service, even as the party as a whole does not identify itself with any one community. The only other party which handles identity politics this way is the Congress. Continue reading Why AAP is the new Congress →

Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Hayaat-e-Azadi, The Life of Freedom: Suvaid Yaseen

12 Comments

Guest Post by SUVAID YASEEN

Ho Agar Khudnigar-o-Khudgar-o-Khudgeer Khudi
Ye Bhi Mumkin Hai Ke Tu Mout Se Bhi Mer Na Sake

[If the ‘ego’ is self‐preserving, self‐creating and self‐sustaining, 
Then it is possible that even death may not kill you.]
— Allama Iqbal,  Hayaat-e-Abadi, Zarb-e-Kaleem

Hayaat / Life
Hayaat / Life

The News

On the evening of 14th July 2013, I received a text message from a friend saying Hayaat had been hit by pellets in the eyes. Both his eyes were damaged. As I read the text, I became numb. I was at loss how to respond, trying to sink in what had just happened.

Continue reading Hayaat-e-Azadi, The Life of Freedom: Suvaid Yaseen →

Culture, Language, Law, Movements

An Appeal for restraint to all by the family and friends of Khurshid Anwar

5 Comments

Guest post by The Campaign for Khurshid Anwar

We are friends, family and well-wishers of the late Dr. Khurshid Anwar.  We have come together to keep alive the memory of his signal contribution to peace, secularism and communal harmony in the subcontinent, including his pioneering work in training thousands of volunteers to uphold these ideals over a long career as a grassroots activist.

We are deeply shocked and concerned at the trial by media and social media, which he was irresponsibly subjected to in the last few months, on a matter which had never been subjected to any kind of formal scrutiny by any responsible authority.

We seek to catalyze discussions on these aspects, via blogs, social media as well as public events and in responsible sections of the mainstream press. We strongly affirm the freedom of expression of the press as well as of individuals, but insist that such freedoms place an onus upon all to act with responsibility.

In keeping with this spirit of responsibility, we strongly discourage and dissociate ourselves from any attempts to reveal the identity of, or otherwise target the lady who has leveled serious allegations against Dr Anwar. As his family, personal friends and comrades, we do find it impossible to believe such allegations against a fiercely committed feminist such as himself, but do not presume to judge the matter ourselves.

Anybody who is indulging in any irresponsible statements about the lady in question is only doing a disservice to the memory of Khurshid Anwar.

We request all those commenting on the matter to desist from any conjectures and speculation upon the matter, and let the investigation take its course.

Ali Javed
Meenakshi Sundriyal
Ritwik Agrawal

On behalf of:

The Campaign for Khurshid Anwar

campaignforkhurshidanwar@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Justice-For-Khurshid-Anwar-STOP-the-Media-Trials