Category Archives: Politics

Identities, Images, Language, Law, Politics, Violence/Conflict

A Letter to my Indian students on the linguistic effects of shots fired from the deck of an oil-tanker : Alberto Prunetti

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This is a guest post by ALBERTO PRUNETTI

[Translated into English by Francesco Giannatiempo, Eva Salzman and Tommaso Sbriccoli]

Dear Boys and Girls,

For many months I was your teacher in Mumbai and Bangalore. Most of you came from Kerala. Some among your parents were fishermen. I remember the sacrifices of your relatives who had hopes for your future, who worked hard to help you achieve degrees in nursing or Italian. I remember that Italy and Europe represented for you a potential turning point in your lives and careers. I also remember that Italian propositions cause many problems for you, as does for many students. To introduce yourself, you would say “Sono nato a Kerala” [I was born at Kerala]. But, as I explained to you, the grammar rule foresees the use of the preposition “in [in Italian] + name of State” and “a [in Italian] + name of city”. So, one would say, “Sono nato a Roma” [I was born in Rome]. Given that Kerala is a State (to be clear, India is a confederation of States, like the US) one has to say “Sono nato in Kerala, a Trivandrum” [I was born in Trivandrum, Kerala,], as one would say “Sono nato in Colorado, a Boulder”  [I was born in Boulder, Colorado].

Continue reading A Letter to my Indian students on the linguistic effects of shots fired from the deck of an oil-tanker : Alberto Prunetti →

Capitalism, Centre watch, Debates, Government, Politics

जनता की महालूट का तमाशा अनवरत जारी है ! : अनुराग मोदी

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Guest post by ANURAG MODI

हमारा विकास का मॉडल और हमारी राजनीति,  सविंधान कि मूलभावना के ही विपरीत है. सविधान में जहाँ, समाजवादी  गणराज्य की स्थापना, जिसमे हर नागरिक को आर्थिक, सामाजिक और राजनैतिक बराबरी के अधिकार होंगे, की बात है. हमारी राजनीति, यह भूल गई विकास के वैकल्पिक मॉडल के बिना न तो समाजवाद आएगा, और न ही राजनैतिक और सामाजिक और आर्थिक बराबरी स्थापित होगी. बल्कि, हम पिछले ६६ सालों से विकास की मृग-मरीचिका के पीछे भागते रहे, और देश के संसाधन की महालूट का तमाशा अनवरत ज़ारी रहा; जिसके चलते 1% लोगों के हाथों में देश के संसाधन से उपजी कमाई जमा हो गई. और देश की आम-जनता, विकास और राजनीति के हाशिए पर तमाशबीन बनी खडी रही.

यह स्थीति पिछले 10 सालों (2001-11) में और बिगड़ी है : कृषी प्रधान देश होने के बावजूद, 2,70, 940 किसानों ने  आत्महत्या कर ली; जितने लोग रोजगार में लगे हो उससे ज्यादा बेरोजगार हो; गैरबराबर बढी हो;शिक्षा, स्वास्थ्य, बिजली, पानी, सड़क, यहाँ-तक की राशन जैसी सामाजिक सुरक्षा के कामों से सरकार गायब हो गई- उसे निजी हाथों में दे दिया हो. Continue reading जनता की महालूट का तमाशा अनवरत जारी है ! : अनुराग मोदी →

Culture, Debates, Education, Politics, Right watch

CHS, JNU Statement on the Wendy Doniger Issue

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The following is the text of a statement issued by the Faculty of the CENTRE FOR HISTORICAL STUDIES, Jawaharlal Nehru University, protesting against the recent decision by Penguin India to withdraw and pulp all remaining copies of Wendy Doniger’s Hinduism. An Alternative History

We are outraged by the news that Penguin India has agreed to withdraw Wendy Doniger’s much acclaimed book The Hindus: An Alternative History and pulp all existing copies of the book in stock. Professor Doniger is one of the most respected Indologists in the world. She has spent a lifetime exploring the richness of India’s religious pasts, showcasing the creative interplay between multiple traditions — the Puranic and the Vedantic, the folkloric and the Brahmanic. Innovatively drawing on many disciplines, she has investigated the variegated world of Hindu mythology and theology, to explore what they say about order and chaos, morality and ethics, the good and the evil, the erotic and the non-erotic. Her reading of Hinduism has inevitably disturbed those who wish to sanitize and straitjacket Hinduism, and repress the multiplicity of traditions that constitute it. While welcoming all critical engagements with the book, the faculty of the CHS condemns any attempt to curtail the circulation of this book in any form.

The decision of Penguin India to sign an out-of-court settlement to withdraw Professor Doniger’s book is therefore an act of abandoning the basic ethics of publishing. What is most disturbing is the fact that Penguin Books — which had in the past a sturdy reputation of defending freedom of expression — has agreed to a settlement even without the Indian state or the Indian judiciary taking a position against the book. This decision will affirm the power of the forces of religious intolerance, encourage further attacks on authors who question the fundamentalist interpretation of the past, and subvert the right to freedom of expression. It will undermine further the rapidly eroding public space wherein critical debates and discussions can take place. This is a space that all who believe in democratic values — publishers included — need to preserve and defend.

Please note that individual names are not being listed in this statement as this is emanating from the entire faculty.

Thank you,

Professor Rajat Datta

Culture, Education, Politics, Right watch

Statement by Scholars in North American Universities on Withdrawal of Wendy Doniger’s book

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This statement expresses the views of the individuals listed below and does not represent the views of the University of Chicago or any of its departments.

We, the undersigned, as students of South Asia, strongly condemn the withdrawal by Penguin Press India of Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History from distribution in India. We believe that this work has been attacked because it presents a threat to orthodox Brahminical interpretations of Hinduism. We believe that this attack is part of ongoing attempts by upper-caste extremist Hindu forces to stifle any alternative understandings of Hinduism. As students in the United States, we are acutely aware that North American organizations of the Hindu right initiated the protests against Wendy Doniger’s scholarship. Hindu right wing organisations in India have worked in tandem with their North American counterparts to suppress alternative voices in India and too often violently. We are deeply concerned about the alarming increase in attacks on any academic study of Hinduism that does not fit these groups’ narrow and exclusionary vision of Hinduism which is part of their desire to create a Hindu India that excludes the religious minorities of Indian Muslims and Indian Christians. Continue reading Statement by Scholars in North American Universities on Withdrawal of Wendy Doniger’s book →

Bad ideas, Culture, Identities, Law, Politics, Right watch

Pulping Doniger Can Put Penguin in Peril

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It was with great anger and sadness that many readers in India heard yesterday of Penguin Books India’s decision to enter into an out-of-court settlement with a group of busy-bodies led by one Dina Nath Batra of the so called ‘Shiksha Bachao Andolan’ (Save Education Movement) – one of the many poisonous heads of the RSS hydra – to recall and pulp all extant copies of Wendy Doniger’s “The Hindus: An Alternative History” (Penguin India, 2009).

Dina Nath Batra (infamous for leading the campaign that led to the withdrawal of A.K. Ramanujan’s essay on the Ramayana from the Delhi University syllabus) and others, through their advocate, one Monika Arora, had filed a suit in a Saket, New Delhi against Wendy Doniger (whom they address, as ‘You, Noticee’) and Penguin Books on the grounds that Doniger’s book offends their religious sentiments. Continue reading Pulping Doniger Can Put Penguin in Peril →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Government, Politics

In Defense of the ‘Post-Ideological’ Aam Aadmi – Yet Again!

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On the morning of 17 January, the very day after Somnath Bharti carried out his vigilante act – and I maintain, despite Arvind Kejriwal and Yogendra Yadav, that it was a vigilante act – I wrote a post relating to the dangers of xenophobia, racism and vigilantism that this act portended. I felt called upon to write that post because one of the valuable political lessons I have learnt over the years is that there can be no unconditional support for any political formation. Every support must be is contextual and conjunctural,  never for all eternity. My criticism was therefore of someone who is invested in the process that AAP and Kejriwal have unleashed and I want it to succeed. In invoking xenophobia and racism, my point, however, was that the leadership of the party has a role to play in relation to political education and cannot simply flow with the local sentiment.

I have always maintained, right from the days of the anti-corruption movement led by the IAC, that the movement and its later avatar, the AAP, had opened out a space of new possibilities. The mass support that the movement and now AAP is drawing is primarily, in my view, a function of the fact that it can mean many things to many people. ‘Clarity’ on every issue concerning the world is not its agenda. This is why some of us have been arguing that the movement/ party is still taking shape. It does not yet have a ready-made, given ideological form. This is why it can be shaped. Its future is radically open. I see no reason to change that position yet. Yes, it is in the design of things that there are Kumar Vishwases and Somnath Bhartis in that formation, and it disturbs our sensibilities no end. But that is precisely the challenge – if we cannot deal with them, we cannot deal with ordinary folk either. Moreover, everybody can change and it is simply arrogant upper class presumptuousness to mock at the ‘uncouthness’ of someone or hold their past against them (in the case of Vishwas). In any case, for anyone seriously interested in changing the existing state of affairs, it should be quite clear that the entire business is about changing ‘common sense’, to put it in Gramscian language. We don’t live in an already transformed universe. Continue reading In Defense of the ‘Post-Ideological’ Aam Aadmi – Yet Again! →

Centre watch, Debates, Media politics, Politics

The English Media and AAP – Should One Rush to Endorse the Party: Shankar Gopalakrishnan

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Guest post by SHANKAR GOPALAKRISHNAN

Over the last few weeks, the blizzard of news about the Aam Aadmi Party – and the move of many independent intellectuals and some activists into the party – has seemed like a roller coaster ride. One week we were told the world had changed, the following week that it had collapsed, and now we have no idea what next week is going to bring. But the roller coaster should not blind us to the deeper dynamics at work. In particular, there’s one that is uncannily familiar – the role being played by the English media. Those rushing to endorse and celebrate AAP should pause to consider recent events before they do so.

A good place to start is the India Against Corruption protests, which were clearly a media mobilisation. It was the media – particularly the English and Hindi electronic media – that called people on to the streets, that announced the locations and demands of the protests, and that consistently described the movement as being “universal” and about “ordinary people” (for examples, see the paragraph in this article on Times Now’s role in April 2011; or The Hoot’s analysis of TV coverage). Social media, the Sangh Parivar and the IAC’s local committees did so too, but they all jumped in after the mainstream media did, and they continued to rely on it. No other mass mobilisation of recent times, except the anti-rape protests, has received this kind of treatment at the hands of the media. Continue reading The English Media and AAP – Should One Rush to Endorse the Party: Shankar Gopalakrishnan →

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

We The People, Reclaim the Republic: Various Citizens Groups

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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

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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 →

Centre watch, Debates, Government, Politics

Of AAP, dreams and nightmares: Nityanand Jayaraman

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Guest post by NITYANAND JAYARAMAN

I am avowedly anti-police. I am only half-convinced when I say that they are a necessary evil. The “necessary” part is what I get doubtful about. This last Saturday was different. I found myself uncomfortably on the same side as the police as I read the newspapers about Somnath Bharti’s self-righteous and racist escapades. To tell the truth, I did not immediately believe what I read. That was not because I had some personal knowledge of Bharti’s antecedents. But because, AAP was a phenomenon that I wanted to work.

These last few weeks, ever since AAP’s dramatic rise to power, I have been wafting in and out of mental states, between dreams and wakefulness. Dreams are fragile things. For me, AAP’s upsurge was a dream coming true. I come from a generation of Tamils that takes joy no matter whether AIADMK or DMK wins as long as the ruling party loses horribly. Ditto with Congress and BJP.
Now, this AAP thing was an early morning dream. I could see it, feel the joy of seeing disbelief and confusion writ large in the faces of BJP and Congress wallahs. I loved it. I did not know whether I liked AAP or not. But I liked what they did, how they did it. In terms of what they proposed to do, I had questions, suggestions and critical comments. To me, the stated lack of ideology – to begin with – was both an opportunity and a challenge. Continue reading Of AAP, dreams and nightmares: Nityanand Jayaraman →

Bad ideas, Government, Politics

Notes of Dissent on the AAP Dharna

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I have no issues with anyone using dharnas as a political strategy, whether or not they are the Chief Minister. The “inconvenience” and “dignity of office” arguments being made by some also hold little truck with me. I write here then to mark my dissent on three specific fronts against the recently concluded AAP dharna from a different vantage point. As with all thoughts on things emergent, they are offered in the making with all their attendant uncertainties.

Continue reading Notes of Dissent on the AAP Dharna →

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

सतत क्रान्ति की पैरोडी

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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, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Kunan Poshpora – The Other Story : Shrimoyee Nandini Ghosh

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This guest post by SHRIMOYEE NANDINI GHOSH is based on two essays about the men and women of Kunan Poshpora, that appeared in the Kashmir Reader dated 1 September 2013, and 13 January 2014. 

Information and updates about the campaign for justice and truth for the survivors of Mass Rape and Torture in Kunan Poshpora are available at https://www.facebook.com/KunanposhporaCampaign.

Beneath the horrors of the mass rape committed by  Indian troops in the twin villages that night in February 1991, lies the untold story of systematic torture of men, carried out by the same forces with the precision and deliberation of a planned military operation.

In June 2013, a Public Interest Litigation filed in the  Jammu and Kashmir High Court,   by fifty Srinagar based women, supported by human rights group Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil society (JKCCS) had resulted in a Magisterial order for the  further investigations of the mass and gang rape by Indian army personnel of the women of Kunan, and neighbouring hamlet Poshpora, in Kupwara District of North Kashmir on the night of February 23rd-24th 1991. The police, it appears from the lack of any remotely investigative activities in the villages to have done little if anything, by way of following the court order in the last six months. On 14 September, 2013 they asked for and were granted an additional three months time for further investigations, without notice to the survivors who are legally represented in the case.

However, the closure report, which police had failed to file for twenty – two years, and which had been presented before the Magistrate of Kupwara just weeks before the Public Interest Litigation, in March 2013, had yielded several important previously unavailable official documents. Continue reading Kunan Poshpora – The Other Story : Shrimoyee Nandini Ghosh →

Culture, Media politics, Politics, Right watch

Why I joined AAP and Quit the CPI: Kamal Mitra Chenoy

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Guest post by KAMAL MITRA CHENOY

I first became conscious of politics as a student of economics in Kirorimal College, Delhi University in 1969 when I was elected to the students union executive committee. The same year I was persuaded by a senior to stand for the Delhi University Students Union’s Supreme Council. The latter body elected the DUSU office bearers. These were heady days with some of the leading pro- Naxalites students, students like Avdesh Sinha, who later became a highly respected IAS officer, and Rabindra Ray now a sociology professor in Delhi University. Another leading star who has written on his experiences was Dilip Simeon. I also became Left but did not agree with armed struggle. At this stage I watched the mainstream Left parties and along with Marxist texts read some Left Party pamphlets.

However, a deeper and much more expansive debate was snowballing where I joined in JNU in 1972. Prakash Karat who had earlier written a thought provoking book on the nationality and language question in India was widely respected as a political leader of the JNU students and a formidable theorist. In 1973, the Student Federation of India and the All India Students Federation of which I was the unit secretary aligned for the first time after the split in the communist movement in 1964. We called the alliance progressive democratic front. We were also attacked by an extremely erudite Trotskyist Jairus Banaji who considered us revisionist and quoted extensively from Marxist classics as well as literature, philosophy and the social sciences. Because of this challenge all of us had to do our readings. Continue reading Why I joined AAP and Quit the CPI: Kamal Mitra Chenoy →

Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Politics

Xenophobia, Racism and Vigilantism – Danger Signals for AAP

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The bizarre drama yesterday, involving one of the Aam Aadmi Party ministers, Somnath Bharti, should make the AAP leadership sit up and think. Here is a brief extract from a report:

Less than 24 hours after he led a midnight raid and tried to bully police into arresting some “Nigerians or Ugandans” who he alleged were members of “a prostitution-and-drug ring”, Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti returned to the very spot on Thursday and asked residents to draw up a list of houses where “such people” live and said he would personally check each one.

The minister got embroiled in a full-scale confrontation with the ACP, BS Jakhar, who insisted, correctly that the police were not legally empowered to do this. According to the same report, Jakhar said, “The minister told me that the women inside are part of a drug racket and that we should conduct a raid in all houses in the area. I told him that the law does not permit us to barge into someone’s house, so late in the night, without a search warrant.” But to not effect. The minister was not only unfazed; he even went on say that he had “received a lot of complaints from women in this locality against foreign nationals, yeh hum aur aap jaise nahin hain (They are not like you or me).” Continue reading Xenophobia, Racism and Vigilantism – Danger Signals for AAP →

Government, Left watch, Movements, Politics

The Party Left and Aap: Satya Sagar

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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

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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, Law, Politics, Right watch

Naz and its detractors: A response by Jordan Osserman

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Guest Post by Jordan Osserman

Amidst the outcry of queer rage and mourning against the Supreme Court judgment has emerged a strand of skepticism (For examples See here , here and here)  from within queer circles, directed at the participants in the anti-377 campaign. These skeptics allege that the 377 organizers failed to adequately consider the impact of their activism on the most marginal queers in India (lower class/caste hijras, kothis, MSM, etc.). In the most biting version of the critique, the 377 campaign is portrayed as an elite middle class movement, fueled by foreign-funded NGOs, against a largely symbolic, immaterial enemy. 377, these critics allege, was never a central cause of LGBT oppression; a paper tiger, relatively unknown by police and Indian society writ large until middle-class queers arbitrarily put it on the agenda and invested it with symbolic meaning. To the extent that marginal sexual minorities have been represented at all, their voices have been appropriated in the service of a campaign at best irrelevant, and at worst dangerous, to their lives.

In this post, I’d like to challenge some of these claims. We can summarize the critics’ arguments as follows: 1. Section 377 has not historically targeted LGBT people, and rarely affected the lives of sexual minorities prior to the activist mobilization against it. 2. Instead of fighting 377, activists should have prioritized campaigns which would concretely benefit LGBT people, particularly the most marginalized. Alternately, if the 377 campaign had to go forward, the legal strategy and organizing should have been more inclusive. 3. The “liberal outrage” against 377 may be as much to blame for violence justified in the name of the law as the Supreme Court’s decision. For, now that queer activists and the Indian media have popularized the notion that the Supreme Court has “re-criminalized homosexuality,” homophobes have become aware of a new weapon with which to target sexual minorities. I will attempt to address these interlinked arguments in their respective order, before drawing some final conclusions about activism and organizing.

Continue reading Naz and its detractors: A response by Jordan Osserman →

Feminism, Politics

Anatomy of a Take Back the Night campaign : Nandini Rao

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Guest post by NANDINI RAO 

Picture credits: Rakesh and Alana

TBTN

 “I want to break free…”. The Freddy Mercury anthem rang out in the cold winter night, in the middle of a busy marketplace in Delhi. One by one, a group of women appeared out of the crowd and started dancing to its compulsive beat. People gathered around, cheering them on and some women from the audience joined in too. Synchronising steps, the dancers swayed to the medley of music as it moved on to Hindi songs, a snatch of Spanish and finally, the compelling Punjabi phrase “Sadda haq, aithey rak!”. This was officially the first flash mob (or “mob dance”, as we call it) of the members of the Citizens’ Collective against Sexual Assault (CCSA).

The Citizens’ Collective against Sexual Assault (CCSA) is a Delhi/NCR-based group of organisations, individuals and activists from women’s movements and progressive movements. It works towards addressing issues of sexual violence against women, girls and transgender people. It raises awareness among the public, media, administration and the police on issues of gender rights. It works collectively to build an environment of safety in Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon. Continue reading Anatomy of a Take Back the Night campaign : Nandini Rao →

Bad ideas, Debates, Frontiers, Government, Identities, Left watch, Politics, Right watch

Beating AAP with the Kashmir stick

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When Prashant Bhushan first made his remarks supporting a referendum in Kashmir to decide whether Kashmir will stay in India, a hooligan had gone to his office and slapped him. The Aam Aadmi Party made it clear that these were Bhushan’s personal views and were not endorsed by the AAP, but the stick was too good to ignore. At a loss of words to see the rise of the AAP, somewhat dimming the euphoria over the rising fortunes of Narendra Modi, the BJP has gone on and on over Bhushan’s views on Kashmir. Even when the AAP was proving its majority on the floor of the house, the leader of the opposition, Harsh Vardhan, made Prashant Bhushan’s personal views out be somewhat of a national security threat to India. Just saying that a people should be allowed to decide their fate is anti-national because we know that making such an allowance would bring results we’d rather not see. Continue reading Beating AAP with the Kashmir stick →

Capitalism, Centre watch, Countryside, Ecology/Environment, Government, Politics

March to Implement the Gadgil Committee Report in Kerala: An Appeal and Some Dilemmas

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Tomorrow, Thiruvananthapuram will witness a protest march to the Kerala Legislative Assembly  by those who feel that the recommendations of the report of the Western Ghats Ecology Experts Panel (WGEEP 2011), popularly known as the Gadgil Committee Report, submitted to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in August 2011, and published recently following an order from the Central Information Commission, must be implemented. Kerala is one the states affected deeply by the recommendations of the report. Please join the march from the Secretariat Gate in Thiruvananthapuram at 11 AM. Continue reading March to Implement the Gadgil Committee Report in Kerala: An Appeal and Some Dilemmas →