Category Archives: Movements

Debates, Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Identities, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Our memories come in the way of our histories: Gowhar Fazili

32 Comments

Guest post by GOWHAR FAZILI

Our Moon Has Blood Clots by Rahul Pandita; Pages: 258; Vintage Books, Random House, India; Price: Rs 499

Rahul Pandita’s book Our Moon Has Blood Clots must be looked at both as a personal account of suffering as well as a political project that implicitly and explicitly makes use of that suffering towards a particular end. The undertaking is a legitimate one on both counts.  What the book manages to achieve on each, warrants a fair and dispassionate assessment.

His narration of events experienced by the Pandits is a welcome exposition of subjectivity around a range of traumatic events, humiliations, killings and betrayals undergone prior to and after the outbreak of mass political rebellion in Kashmir in 1989. The events thus narrated, especially the account of the personal experiences of trauma do make one strongly identify with the suffering of the families involved and agree with the wide swathes of subjective anger and hurt shared by the community.  The chilling accounts of individual and mass killings and the circumstances that made them possible, call for collective self-reflection, remorse and atonement. This account also calls for serious reflection on the fragility of human associations and trust in exceptional circumstances that we normally take for granted.

The book as well as the promotional interviews around the book push the claim that not only certain militants but also many ordinary people, including those personally known to the victims, were responsible for the exodus through their acts of omission and commission.  This claim is substantiated through a range of indictments based on personal encounters with individuals, shared nuggets of information, as well as the interpretation of the larger political symbolism and slogans which were seen as a deliberate attempt to intimidate Pandits, and Pandits alone.  While it is difficult to deny that a number of individuals took advantage of those anarchic times to gratify personal hate and lust for loot, it makes for an overstatement to underplay the equally frequent narrative of mutual support between individuals that one gets to hear during conversations between the members of the two communities privately. Such underplay does violence to those aspects of shared memory.  Continue reading Our memories come in the way of our histories: Gowhar Fazili →

Frontiers, Identities, Mirror Worlds, Movements

India and Pakistan – Peace Now, a global vigil today

8 Comments

Events are planned today in Lahore, Delhi, Mumbai, Karachi, Cambridge MA, Washington DC, New York and Toronto to observe a vigil for India-Pakistan peace. More details given at this Facebook page. Event created by SAMIR GUPTA and disseminated by Aman ki Asha. Given below is a statement.

India – Pakistan Peace Now – Global Vigil

January 27, 2013

Lahore – Lahore Press Club, Shimla Pihari at 6 pm
Mumbai – Gateway of India 7 pm
Delhi – Gandhi Peace Foundation 5:30 pm
Karachi – Karachi Press Club, 5:30pm
Cambridge, MA – Harvard Square Pit, 4-5 pm
Washington, DC – Chutney Restaurant, Springfield, Virginia, 6 p.m
New York – Near Gandhi statue at Union Square, 5 pm
Toronto – 365 Bloor St. East, outside Indian Consulate, 5 pm

The hate mongers have had their moment of fame. It’s time to tell the political leadership of India and Pakistan what we stand for. We, peace-mongers around the world, are gathering on January 27, 2013, in different cities as part of a series of peace events. All we have is some candles, some placards and many hearts full of love. We want the governments of India and Pakistan know that people in dozens of cities across six continents want them to continue the dialogue and take forward the peace process. Continue reading India and Pakistan – Peace Now, a global vigil today →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Debates, Government, Movements

Why the Parliament should reject the standing committee’s recommendations on the Food Security Bill: RTFC

6 Comments

This statement was put out by the RIGHT TO FOOD CAMPAIGN on 24 January

The much awaited recommendations of the Standing Committee on Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution on the National Food Security Bill are a letdown to those who wrote to the Committee urging it to ensure justice to the people of India.  The Committee despite taking a year since December 2011 when the Bill was tabled in the Lok Sabha, has undermined the goal of food security for all the people of India through its recommendations given to the Parliament on 17 January, 2013. Instead of moving forward, the Committee’s recommendations are a leap backward by removing even existing entitlements. If the Committee’s recommendations are to be legislated, then it is the Campaign’s reasoned position that it rather not have a food security law rather than accept one which: Continue reading Why the Parliament should reject the standing committee’s recommendations on the Food Security Bill: RTFC →

Centre watch, Debates, Genders, Government, Law, Movements

The Justice JS Verma committee report

2 Comments

For a summary with commentary, see this guest post by Arvind Narrain.

Debates, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Government, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Reclaiming the Republic from the Alleged Perpetrators of Violence

9 Comments

As I sit writing this, on the 26th of January, 2013, in various parts of the territory of the Republic of India, soldiers either already have, or are about to begin marching in formation. In New Delhi, the capital of India, their parade is accompanied by tanks, heavy artillery and replicas of nuclear warheads. In the part of the province of Jammu & Kashmir administered by the Indian Union, in several provinces of the north-east, and other areas where the writ of the state runs entirely on the basis of its armed might, Republic Day, as this date is called, is an occasion for search and cordon operations, ‘crackdowns’ and the creation of a Potemkin village like ambience in the zones (usually heavily guarded stadia) where the republic insulates itself from the public. In New Delhi, the naked, obscene exhibitionism on the axial avenue of Rajpath of a nuclear weapons power that maintains the second largest armed forces in the world, even as millions of its subjects subsist at sub-Saharan levels, is an annual ritual. Apparently, this ritual is conducted to commemorate the founding of the Indian republic through the coming into force of its constitution in 1950.

Continue reading Reclaiming the Republic from the Alleged Perpetrators of Violence →

Capitalism, Debates, Everyday Life, Genders, Language, Movements, Sex

Patriarchy, Women’s Freedom and Capitalism: Kavita Krishnan

13 Comments

Guest post by KAVITA KRISHNAN

(This article began as a rejoinder to Hindi columnist Raj Kishor [Vaam se dakshin tak ek hi tark, (‘The same argument from Left to Right’), Rashtriya Sahara, January 13 2013], but it has also provided an occasion to address some common misconceptions about women’s freedom and capitalism.)

When women demand ‘freedom,’ why does it immediately raise the spectre of ‘licentiousness’?
Why, in other words, is women’s freedom automatically taken by many as equivalent with ‘licence,’ whereas the similar freedom on the part of men is never branded as ‘licence’?

This question arose in my mind after reading a piece by Hindi columnist Raj Kishor. Raj Kishor’s argument is that those – from Left leaders like I, to those whom he sees as representatives of the market – who are calling for women’s freedom are ‘consigning women into the fire of capitalism.’ When he hears me use the word ‘azaadi’ (freedom) he calls such freedom ‘utshrnkhalta’ (literally ‘unbridled-ness’, or licentiousness). He says and I, and the capitalist market alike, are calling for women to be free to ‘break all bounds of licentiousness’ if they so choose. Of course, Raj Kishor anticipates my criticism of his use of the word ‘utshrnkhalta’, since he says that is a word that ‘has feminists up in arms, demanding with red (infuriated) eyes the definition of ‘utshrnkhalta’.

Continue reading Patriarchy, Women’s Freedom and Capitalism: Kavita Krishnan →

Government, Metropolis, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Seven Propositions and One Challenge from Ejipura

15 Comments

The recent eviction of over 1500 Economically Weaker Section (EWS) households from Ejipura in Bangalore (see here, here and here) to make way for a high-end mixed-use development (with some EWS housing for “original residents”) is just one a series of millennial evictions that have scarred the landscape of Indian cities and yet another instigated by an order of a High Court. Below are seven quick propositions on how to understand these evictions, how to respond in the immediate and near-term.

Continue reading Seven Propositions and One Challenge from Ejipura →

Everyday Life, Frontiers, Genders, Metropolis, Mirror Worlds, Movements

From Delhi to Djakarta, Protests Against Sexual Violence Across Borders: Bonojit Husain

Image Leave a comment

Guest post by BONOJIT HUSAIN

20130115-211244.jpg

(Photographs courtesy: Pipit Apriani who is a Jakarta based activist and a blogger)

Protests against sexual violence are spreading across Asia. Last week demonstrations against rape and sexual violence were held in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Inspired by the protests held in Delhi for last three weeks, hundreds of university students and activists march on the streets of Jakarta few hundred meters away from the Presidential Palace for a world free of sexual violence. The call for the protest march was given by a coalition of University Students’ Unions and civil society organizations in response to the death of RI, a 11-year-old girl, who died last week after suffering severe vaginal and rectal injuries due to repeated sexual assaults. Continue reading From Delhi to Djakarta, Protests Against Sexual Violence Across Borders: Bonojit Husain →

Everyday Life, Genders, Left watch, Metropolis, Movements, Politics

Some thoughts on rape, sexual violence and protest – responding to responses: Devika Narayan

8 Comments

Guest Post by Devika Narayan

Rarely does a city experience the sort of upheaval that Delhi is witnessing.  Everyone is talking about it. Everyone has an opinion. It is impossible to walk down the street without overhearing snatches of conversation. Issues that usually find brief mention in some obscure corner of the newspaper are now being subject to analysis by every passer-by. A rickshaw driver refuses to take any money when he realises I am on my way to a protest. I remember the old man at a photocopy shop who had looked up and asked no one in particular: do you think she will die? The receptionist at the doctor’s clinic is distraught, providing waiting patients her explanation for the recent events. Men huddled around tiny fires littered across the foggy city carp on about the state of politics, the police and the government. Everyone is invested in this moment of reckoning.

An opportunity, in the most brutal manner, has been thrust upon us to challenge, critique and reconstruct unjust social relations. This is an opportunity to pledge our commitment to a vision of a gender just society. Unless we assert in powerful ways that women are autonomous beings and equal citizens it will not end. Continue reading Some thoughts on rape, sexual violence and protest – responding to responses: Devika Narayan →

Centre watch, Genders, Government, Law, Metropolis, Movements

The epiphanic moment of the lathi charge

5 Comments
At the Khan Market Metro station

The girl wasn’t aware that the Udyog Bhavan Metro station in central Delhi had been shut down. In the Metro going to Gurgaon, she needed to get down at Udyog Bhavan. Her friend was waiting in a car outside the station. She waited at the door. The train stopped too, but the gates didn’t open. The PA system — the annoying PA system of the Delhi Metro that never stops saying something or the other — – fell silent. The station was deserted. Not a soul in sight.

The girl asked fellow passengers — all of us men around her — which would be the nearest station that would be open. All the options were far off. Ramakrishna Ashram station on one end, for instance, was four kms. away. “Now what?” the girl asked her friend on the phone in a tone that blamed him, in a way only lovers can. “Now what?” she kept repeating. Continue reading The epiphanic moment of the lathi charge →

Bad ideas, Debates, Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Identities, Mirror Worlds, Movements

Your rapists and ours

6 Comments

Two interesting articles:

Emer O’Toole in the Guardian CiF:

There’s something uncomfortably neocolonial about the way the Delhi gang-rape and subsequent death of the woman now known as Damini is being handled in the UK and US media. While India’s civil and political spheres are alight with protest and demands for changes to the country’s culture of sexual violence, commentators here are using the event to simultaneously demonise Indian society, lionise our own, and minimise the enormity of western rape culture. [Full article]

And Ananth Krishnan in The Hindu:

The rape case was one of the most discussed topics in Chinese microblogs over the past week, prompting thousands of posts and comments. By Sunday, however, the authorities appeared to move to limit the debate: on Monday, a search for the topic triggered a message on Sina Weibo – a popular Twitter-equivalent used by more than 300 million people – saying the results could not be displayed according to regulations. The message is usually seen as an indicator of a topic being censored by the authorities. [Full article]

 

Debates, Metropolis, Movements

The things you learn at a protest: Aakshi Magazine

3 Comments

Guest post by AAKSHI MAGAZINE

She was sitting among a group of young men and women at Jantar Mantar, shouting “Hang those bastards.” When the slogan lost its effectiveness, it turned to “We want Justice,” “Inquilab Zindabad,” and then “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. Borrowed and heard slogans, but they came from a very real place. “I work in Saket but live in Dwarka.” That is a long distance to travel especially at night. She nodded. “I don’t like it when my parents tell me to come home early just because other people are at fault,” she said anger rising in her voice. She didn’t know any of the people in the group she was sitting with. “We just met here. I had come with a friend who I can’t locate at the moment.” Continue reading The things you learn at a protest: Aakshi Magazine →

Culture, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Genders, Images, Movements

Naye Saal Mein Azaadi – Freedom from Fear in the New Year

6 Comments

[ Click to play above Youtube video of young women and men, led by Com.Lokesh (‘Lucky’) of Stree Mukti Sangathan (Women’s Liberation Organization) articulate their desires on the ‘Take Back the Night’ night walk and street party from Anupam PVR Complex to the road outside Select City Walk in Saket, New Delhi on the night of the last night of 2012 and into the early hours of 2013. ]

Delhi took back the night as we moved into the new year. Took it back from fear, from patriarchy, from misogyny and a stupid state. They said it loud and clear. This is what I remember, roughly in this order. Continue reading Naye Saal Mein Azaadi – Freedom from Fear in the New Year →

Debates, Everyday Life, Genders, Language, Metropolis, Movements, Politics

Notes from a Night Walk in Delhi University

38 Comments

[ B&W pictures, courtesy Chandan Gomes. Colour pictures and cell phone video footage, courtesy, Bonojit Husain, New Socialist Initiative ]

Dear young women and men of Delhi,

I am writing to you again because I have been listening to you. This is a strange time, when everybody is talking, and everybody is listening, and the unknown citizen, who could have been any one of you, has transformed us all.

I was with you last night, from five thirty in the evening to around nine at night, while we walked together from the Vishwavidyalaya (University) Metro Station to Vijay Nagar, Kamla Nagar and the North Campus of Delhi University. There were around twelve hundred of you. Several of you held candles. You made yourselves into a moving blur of light. As the shopkeepers of Vijay Nagar, as the rent collecting aunties of paying guest accommodations, as the men and boys and girls and women on the streets and in the verandahs looked at you in wonder, you looked back at them, many of you smiled and waved. I could see some people in the crowd lip-synch with your Hallabols.

[ video of the night march near Delhi University ]

Continue reading Notes from a Night Walk in Delhi University →

Genders, Identities, Movements

In Memory of The Unknown Citizen

13 Comments

We may never know her name. But not every memory needs a name or a pile of stone. Her memorial need not claim space on a city street, or square, or on the river-front. Let the well-known Leader and the Unknown Soldier have their real estate, but for the Unknown Citizen, let us not fire gun salutes, fly flags at half-mast or build portals and pedestals. And let us not for even a moment imagine that instituting police measures against the people the Prime Minister calls ‘foot-loose migrants’ will mean anything remotely resembling justice.

We can think about what the contours of enduring justice can be without being hangmen. Only safe cities, safe towns and safe villages, and freedom for all men and women will mean justice. Justice does not come from the gallows. It springs from a freedom from fear, and the gallows only perpetuate fear. Hangmen will turn the bullies who rape into the cowards who will automatically murder so that there may not be a trace of their rape. It will make fathers who rape their daughters into fathers who rape and murder their daughters. Capital punishment will lead to less, not more convictions for rape and heinous sexual violence. That can never lead us to justice. Continue reading In Memory of The Unknown Citizen →

Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Metropolis, Movements, Politics, Sex, Violence/Conflict

Evening at Jantar Mantar.

Leave a comment
Candles at,Jantar Mantar
Candles at,Jantar Mantar
The Wake
The Wake
Armed, Cold, Bored
Armed, Cold, Bored
Genders, Language, Media politics, Movements, Violence/Conflict

For Anonymous: Nilanjana Roy

11 Comments

Guest post by NILANJANA ROY

Photo: Ruchir Joshi
Photo: Ruchir Joshi

That girl, the one without the name. The one just like us. The one whose battered body stood for all the anonymous women in this country whose rapes and deaths are a footnote in the left-hand column of the newspaper.

Sometimes, when we talk about the history of women in India, we speak in shorthand. The Mathura rape case. The Vishaka guidelines. The Bhanwari Devi case, the Suryanelli affair, the Soni Sori allegations, the business at Kunan Pushpora. Each of these, the names of women and places, mapping a geography of pain; unspeakable damage inflicted on women’s bodies, on the map of India, where you can, if you want, create a constantly updating map of violence against women. Continue reading For Anonymous: Nilanjana Roy →

Genders, Movements

Hope

2 Comments

Some images from Jantar Mantar today.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Genders, Metropolis, Movements

Remembering the 23 Year Old Who Brought Delhi Together

1 Comment
Sucheta Dey (AISA) and Kavita Krishnan (AIPWA) just before they spoke at the condolence meeting
Sucheta Dey (AISA) and Kavita Krishnan (AIPWA) just before they spoke at the condolence meeting

This morning, Delhi woke up to the news that the 23 year old Paramedic that the city had taken to its heart had breathed her last at around two in the morning at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore. From early morning, sms messages, phone calls and facebook and twitter posts and updates, informed the city about a condolence meeting scheduled for 11 am in the morning at Jantar Mantar. I was there by 11, and realized that a lot of people were having problems getting there because a shameless administration had decided to shut down entry and exits on to reportedly ten stations of the Delhi Metro. Buses were also being diverted. Despite this, a sizable crowd had gathered by around noon. Two minutes silence was observed. Sucheta Dey (AISA, JNU) and Kavita Krishnan (AIPWA) spoke briefly.

Both emphasized the need for a peaceful, dignified gathering to pay respects to the brave fighting spirit of the deceased woman. Kavita Krishnan spoke about the need to combat patriarchy everywhere, in the family, at home, in the workplace, in colleges, schools and universitities. And called for an to end the culture of impunity that lets men think that they can get away with rape and sexual violence. Continue reading Remembering the 23 Year Old Who Brought Delhi Together →

Genders, Movements, Politics

Men against Sexual Violence, Men for Gender Justice

19 Comments

Statement by Men for Gender Justice, Bangalore

Public Protest on December 30th


Men against Sexual Violence, Men for Gender Justice

As men, we are ashamed over the continuing domination of men over women!!

Women and men are Equal. Men should understand and accept this!!

Men should become responsible, humane and non-violent!!

As protesters are pouring into the streets all across the country and demanding justice for the recent brutal gang-rape of a 23 year old woman in Delhi, we as men who stand for justice and equality are ashamed, as a large section of men in our country are committing abuses against women – rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence, economic and legal discrimination.

Continue reading Men against Sexual Violence, Men for Gender Justice →

Everyday Life, Genders, Government, Language, Movements, Violence/Conflict

An ‘I Witness’ Account of Delhi Police and RAF Violence at India Gate on 23 December: Sangeeta Das

26 Comments

Guest post by SANGEETA DAS

[The Delhi Police has begun systematically lying about what has been happening in the past few days. We have seen spin doctoring around the unfortunate death of Constable Subhash Tomar. There has been efforts to plant generalized and unsubstantiated rumours about the presence of ‘terrorists’ amongst the crowds at India Gate. We have even seen the Chief Minister of Delhi, Shiela Dikshit and a sub divisional magistrate complain about the Delhi Police trying to interfere and influence that process of the recording of testimonies. Here is an important account by an eyewitness, Sangeeta Das, about the way the police behaved on the evening of the 23rd of December. Please note the kind of language that she says policemen were using. Can we trust the city to be safe in their hands.]

I am appalled at the lop-sided relay of events and incomplete images being telecast by some of the NEWS channels on TV, regarding the incident that happened at India Gate yesterday (this is an account of what happened on 23rd of December) at around 5:30 PM.

I was there. We were all on the other side of India Gate towards the Dhyan Chand Stadium.

I think I need to paint the correct picture for the nation. Except for CNN IBN and NEWS X, most other channels are not showing the peaceful gathering. Thus it gives out the wrong message to the nation, to the politicians, to other women that there was violence. Continue reading An ‘I Witness’ Account of Delhi Police and RAF Violence at India Gate on 23 December: Sangeeta Das →