Category Archives: Politics
Kilvenmani, Karamchedu, Chunduru… Orissa, Pratapgarh?
Reviewing Anand Teltumbde’s book Khairlanji: A Strange and Bitter Crop, Rajesh Ramachandran concludes:
The book however has a serious ideological flaw. It inadvertently falls into the Brahminical trap of theorising class conflicts in terms of positing Dalits against the new Shudra oppressors. Kilvenmani, Karamchedu, Chunduru and other examples are repeated at least seven times in the text to argue that new oppressors are Shudras. If that be, how does Teltumbde explain desperately poor tribals killing and raping Dalits in Kandhamal? The real oppressor is the caste hegemony perpetuated by the core Sangh Parivar constituency of the Brahmin-Bania-Thakur trinity. Is it any surprise that it was Parivar’s Brahminical commentators who first introduced the Dalit-Shudra contradiction to theorise the “failure” of Kanshi Ram’s Bahujan experiment and the split of the unbeatable BSP-Samajwadi Party alliance in UP. Hope the Dalit ‘holocaste’ series doesn’t serve this Hindutva agenda. [Mail Today, 26 October 2008]
Or, indeed, how does one explain atrocities against Dalits by Brahmins?
The Happy Consciousness
Watching the world tumble down around us, the holy markets especially, what has amused and angered is the way in which the media refuses to let go of its Sunny Disposition on Life, the Universe and Everything. This would be pathetic if it wasn’t so rampant. The Times of India has plumped up its Delhi Times this weekend to ten pages filled with exhortations to shop and full-page ads on shiny commodities. Its spectacularly vacuous Sunday Times is bursting with stories about celebrities valiantly keeping up the Diwali spirit, and thumbing their noses at the looming depression by buying more Louis Vuitton bags.
Sadanand Menon: Who speaks on behalf of Lanka’s Tamils?
[I am posting below an article by Sadanand Menon on Lanka’s Tamils and recent political developments in India. Sadanand Menon’s solidarity for Lankan Tamils also reflects the principled and committed journalism that is so much need for and on Lanka. The suffering of people living in the Vanni in northern Sri Lanka is of utmost concern at the moment. Their humanitarian needs have to be met and that requires international concern and support. However, just as the Norwegian Peace Process silenced the politics and presence of the Muslims and Up-Country Tamils (Tamils of Indian Origin) in the interest of simplifying the problem in Sri Lanka as one between Sinhalese and Tamils, the current wave of concern in Tamil Nadu at a time of war should not further entrench the ethnicisation of the conflict. Solidarity from India should be for all the oppressed peoples of Lanka, and should not become an opportunistic game for Tamil chauvinism. This is where conflating the Tamils with the LTTE (the self proclaimed sole-representatives of the Tamils) continues to have a disastrous impact. The ruling regime in Sri Lanka has given Sinhala Buddhist nationalism centre stage and marginalized the political process to address the grievances and aspirations of all the minority communities (Lankan Tamils, Muslims and Up-Country Tamils). As Sadanand Menon says support for a “genuinely democratic political process”, should be the basis for solidarity. – Ahilan Kadirgamar]
Sadanand Menon: Who speaks on behalf of Lanka’s Tamils?
The LTTE, by all accounts, seems to have been lassoed. The dreaded militant outfit fighting for an independent Tamil state within Sri Lanka, is said to be engaged in a last ditch battle from its encircled base in the Vanni region in Jaffna. The Lankan army claims to be a couple of kilometres short of the LTTE’s administrative headquarters in Kilinochchi. Continue reading Sadanand Menon: Who speaks on behalf of Lanka’s Tamils?
Maoist disruption of the non-violent Human Shields movement in Chhattisgarh
[We are posting below a statement issued by some of us on the Maoist threats and intimidation in Chhattisgarh and its most recent manifestation in relation to the human shields programme of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram. It is a distressing but undeniable fact that, by and large, the civil liberties and democratic rights movement has fought shy of condemning Maoist violence. This is a matter of deep concern as the absolutely undefensible, nihilistic violence perpetrated by the Maoists violates all tenets of the great revolutions of the twentieth century that they themselves swear by. Despite their subsequent degeneration (after coming to power), neither the Chinese revolution nor the Vietnamese (the Russian, of course happened without a single shot being fired) made a cult of violence. Never, in any case, did they use violence against defenseless civilians. In fact, revolutionaries have been known to court defeat and annihilation, rather than kill ordinary people – whenever they were presented with the choice between the two. The perverse cult that targets ordinary, unarmed civilians simply in order to have its way can only be seen as, to say the least, a kind of Left-wing Fascism. – AN]
We, the undersigned, are distressed to learn that a peaceful movement in the conflict-ridden Dantewada district, Chhattisgarh to help villagers return to their land has been disrupted by the Communist Party of India (Maoist). The villagers had been displaced earlier by the state-sponsored Salwa Judum campaign that began in 2005 and has resulted in horrific violence against ordinary villagers in the area. Continue reading Maoist disruption of the non-violent Human Shields movement in Chhattisgarh
The Jamia Nagar Encounter: ‘Curioser and Curioser’
The well known journalist Praveen Swami, who is celebrated by some as an ‘encounter expert’ and ‘authority on terrorism’ has finally offered his comment on the Jamia Nagar encounter in the Hindu. See Behind the Batla House Encounter. It smells fresh.
Now, I really like Lewis Carrol, and am happy that Swami has invoked Carrol, Alice and Wonderland while criticising those (like me) who have chosen to take a skeptical stance towards the official handout of what exactly happened on the 19th of October in L-18, Batla House, Jamia Nagar. With due respect to Praveen Swami, lets read him in the spirit of Carrol and come to conclusions about who is Alice, who is the Red Queen and who is the white Rabbit, in due course.
It takes far more intelligence to read Swami than it must take for Swami to write like Swami. Which is disconcerting, given, that in Swamis case, he has a whole bureau full of intelligence to back him up, and all we have is the stuff between our individual ears, and occasionally our own eyes, our own ears and our own two feet. No wonder, we have to strain our credibility to believe the six and more impossible things that the police’s special cell, the intelligence bureau and its anointed experts would have us swallow whole for breakfast, with each morning’s headlines in the newspapers.
Continue reading The Jamia Nagar Encounter: ‘Curioser and Curioser’
Aisa damru bajaya ke nachey saarey bandar
This is a song by “the small singers of Manav Upkar Sewa Samiti, a registered doctors’ NGO in Lucknow, led by Dr AB Samrat”. Enjoy.
Thanks to Rohit De for the link.
Cities, Cars and Buses: The Modern, the Ideological and the Urban
[This post is a response both to Aarti Sethi’s post on the BRT, as well as to Aman Sethi’s posts recently and this one earlier and as well as to some of the comments it generated.]
In 1970, Henri Lefebvre wrote: “the invasion of the automobile and the pressure of the automobile lobby have turned the car into a key object, parking into an obsession, traffic into a priority, harmful to urban and social life. The day is approaching when we will be forced to limit the rights and powers of the automobile. Naturally, this won’t be easy, and the fallout will be considerable” (The Urban Revolution, 19).
Talking about the BRT corridor in Delhi, its worth remembering many other urban clashes – Hausmann’s broad and open ways that opened up Paris in the mid 19th century, Robert Moses in New York, and Corbu’s (failed but still so real) plans for just about everywhere outside Europe. Hausmann’s boulevards were about a new kind of street for a new kind of urban formation: the boulevard was part of the birth of the industrial, capitalist city, the city of Baudelaire’s Paris and the “Eyes of the Poor” – the city of the current version of the modern that still shapes/haunts us today. Continue reading Cities, Cars and Buses: The Modern, the Ideological and the Urban
‘The Best Form of Saying is Doing’ – Ravikumar on Che
[This is a guest post by well-known Tamil writer RAVIKUMAR on the occasion of Che Guevara’s 40th death anniversary on 9 October. The article was written on the 9th. ]
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna popularly known as ‘ Che’ was born on June 14, 1928 in Argentina. A doctor by profession he involved himself in revolutionary activities from his student days. He was with the political activists of Guatemala when the elected government of Jacob Arbenz was overthrown by a CIA backed coup in 1954. He escaped to Mexico where he met the exiled Cuban revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro. He joined with them in their struggle to liberate Cuba from the Batista regime.
Che was the name his Cuban companeros gave him. It is a popular form of address in Argentina. He sailed with the Cuban revolutionaries in the famous yacht ‘Granma’ as a doctor. Later he was promoted as commander. Che played an important role in the success of the Cuban revolution. He led a guerilla column in the final battle. Finally, Batista fled the country on January 1, 1959.
Continue reading ‘The Best Form of Saying is Doing’ – Ravikumar on Che
Of “Killer” Buses and Car Lobbies: The Coincidental Death of the BRT
The sustained campaign by the elite press to jettison Delhi’s first mas transit bus system has been remarked upon and documented on Kafila. Today morning’s newspapers carries news of an accident in which 32-year old Poonam Sharma was killed as she tried crossing the road and was hit by an oncoming bus. Delhi’s record when it comes to road safety is abysmal and this is yet another instance of the the terrible and tragic fate that befalls many pedestrians every year on Delhi’s roads. What is interesting though is the way in which accidents on the BRT are reported compared to the reportage of other road fatalities. Here are some headlines from the recent past:
BRT Corridor Claims One More Life
BRT Delhi: Death Toll Continues, Pedestrians Blamed
BRT Claims another Life: Woman run over by Bus
Continue reading Of “Killer” Buses and Car Lobbies: The Coincidental Death of the BRT
Converting lions to elephants
As the most hideous kinds of violence are unleashed on Christians in Orissa and Karnataka by proud Hindu terrorists, one issue that the liberal Hindu mind-set stumbles over is that of conversions. Of course, violence is bad, it bleats, nothing justifies killings, but mass conversions, you know…
Conversions. Images of Muslim hordes waving their fierce banners, sweeping across the North Indian plains; images of sly Christian missionaries swindling innocent tribals and dalits with food and education and social status, into accepting an alien god. The liberal Hindu, who would never dream of converting anybody to Hinduism, shrinks at these images.
Aditya has drawn our attention to Ambedkar’s clear-eyed insight into why Hinduism is not a proselytizing religion. Can you convert a non-Hindu into a Brahmin? Nope.
Freedom of Conscience and Attacks on Christians
The idea that fundamental rights are enjoyed by all, without any distinction of race, sex, language, ethnic origin, nationality and religion, is a basic principle of democracy and international human rights law. Violent attacks on the Christian minorities in different parts of the country are an assault on the very notion of democracy and universal human rights. Despite the country’s obligation to respect and protect the right to freedom of conscience and religion, the wave of killings, beatings, sexual assaults, looting, destruction of property, and displacement have created a climate of fear and insecurity, particularly among the Christians. Representatives of Christians and minorities are exposed to the grave risk of communally motivated verbal abuse and physical attacks.
Worst, the governments of Orissa and Karnataka continued to deny the extent of violence prevalent, and failed to face up to their minimum responsibility of securing the life of their people. If India has to live up to any human rights standards, it must show a clear political will to combat attacks on Christians: speaking out strongly, and at all levels of governance; publicly acknowledging the seriousness of the issue; and the need to take concerted action. This is not ‘hooliganism’ or ‘anti-social’ activity, motivated by some hooligans and anti-social elements. It is a violent, and apparently a communal attack, carried out by organized groups. Crimes which are communally motivated must be effectively and thoroughly investigated and prosecuted as such. Treating communally induced violence and brutality on an equal footing with cases that have no communal overtones would be to turn a blind eye to the specific nature of the acts that are particularly destructive of fundamental rights.
Continue reading Freedom of Conscience and Attacks on Christians
“India’s Anti-Christian Violence Unparalleled Among World Democracies”
As Maoists confirm that they were behind the murder of Laxmananda Saraswati and give their reasons, two notes below from Madhu Chandra of the All India Christian Council.
Hi Friends,
Hindutva forces – Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bajrang Dal knew very well that the Maoists have killed their Swami Lakshmanananda on August 23 but intentionally denied it and alleged Christians so that they could do what they have done to Dalit Christians of Orissa.
Orissa Government who runs on mercy of BJP and Hindutva forces believes the allegation and allowed the religious ethnic cleansing of Christians in Kandhamal district of Orissa. Continue reading “India’s Anti-Christian Violence Unparalleled Among World Democracies”
“Gentle persuasion” in Kashmir
Some intelligence agencies have also warned of a low-poll percentage. But a senior police official said: “One cannot wait for the perfect situation in Kashmir.” According to him “gentle persuasion” in rural and border areas will help improve turnout. “After all, it is not a crime to ask people to vote. In several countries, voting is mandatory,” he argues. [George Joseph, Sakaal Times]
What an admission, what a giveaway! Indian democracy never went beyond Lakhanpur anyway. Nationalists and the weak hearted, please be ready to shut your eyes and ears for the next two months. The Indian state is planning to show its ugliest face in the Valley. Get ready, get ready.
Your Dera Ghazi Khan, and mine
In Mehrauli, the Khattars insisted that after noting down the damage, in lakhs, that the blasts caused to their shops, the second most important detail was that they were from Dera Ghazi Khan.
Dera Ghazi Khan? Oh, in Multan you know, we are all from there, 300 families. Yes, yes, after Partition, in the Sarai area of Mehrauli, we’ve always lived here, forever…
And then I see the subject line of a thread on a Sindhi mailing list: “Capital be shifted from Islamabad to Deira Ghazi Khan/ Bahawalpur/ Raheemyar Khan.” Continue reading Your Dera Ghazi Khan, and mine
Shiver… down the spine: My tryst with the e-messengers of terror
Guest post by SHAHINA K K
[This is the fuller version of an article published today in the Hindustan Times. This longer version is crossposted from the e-discussion group, Greenyouth. The specific article referred to – ‘Bombs Defused in Newsrooms’ was crossposted in Kafila ]
Since 14th September 2008, writing has become a laborious exercise for me. It was all of a sudden that words turned heavy, staring at my own convictions, political thinking and journalistic vigor. It was on a gloomy Sunday (the day after the bloody Saturday on which the life of twenty odd people had been taken away by some body called Indian Mujahideen)that things turned upside down. It’s difficult to describe my terrible sense of shock when it came to my notice that a part of the email sent by perpetrators of the Delhi blasts laying claim to the deadly bombs on the day, had been written by me! It was lifted verbatim from a piece of mine (‘Bombs defused in News rooms’) which appeared in the media watchdog portal, The Hoot. Newspapers had given extensive quotes wondering at the ‘journalistic character’ and ‘impeccable English’ of those who prepared the mail. Even when everybody calls it plagiarism I was not spared because my name carries the identity of a community which is put in the dock for all that happens dreadfully around us. I wrote about what the media does, how it deals with the unending episodes of terror strikes juxtaposing with the violence by Hindu extremists and how flagrantly they fail in the ‘balancing’ act! Continue reading Shiver… down the spine: My tryst with the e-messengers of terror
The Greatest VP debate since – like ever!!!
Good morning, Good evening, to people across the globe. In our attempt to cater to our world wide audience at Kafila; we have decided – in collaboration with several heavily funded political lobbyists – to bring you a semi-realtime commentary on the first and only vice presidential debate in what promises to be the USA’s most interesting election since – like ever.
Much has been written about Sarah Palin – especially since her somewhat surprising comments on a whole variety issues – most recently her interviews with Katie Couric of CBS news. You can access two parts here and here. Much was also made of her famous “We can see Russia from Alaska” comment.
Continue reading The Greatest VP debate since – like ever!!!
“Gandhi would be in your jail”: Protests against CSPSA at Berkeley
The Center for South Asia, University of California Berkeley and Foundation for Democratic Reforms in India jointly organized a seminar (September 27, 2008) on Indian Democracy where the Director General of Police of Chhattisgarh was a speaker. Continue reading “Gandhi would be in your jail”: Protests against CSPSA at Berkeley
Bye Bye Reliance: Pen Tehsil Says No SEZ!
In our continuing concern with the strange times that seem to have befallen our cities, lets not lose sight of the historic battle underway in the countryside. In the first instance of its kind, the referendum on the Maha-Mumbai Special Economic Zone being set up by Reliance has unambiguously returned the verdict of the farmers of Raigad- no SEZ in Pen! As Sanhati notes, the Tata’s 1500 crore investment in Singur sounds like loose change when compared to the one lakh crore that Reliance is planning to sink into 10,000 hectares. 22 villages in the Pen Tehsil voted against the acquisition of their lands at the paltry sum of 10 lakhs per acre. Unsurprisingly, Reliance Industries Limited has said the referendum is “not genuine”:
Prachanda in New York: Ahilan Kadirgamar
Guest post by AHILAN KADIRGAMAR
Maoist leader and the first Prime Minster of Republican Nepal, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, more commonly known as Prachanda, was in New York these last few days. I heard him speak at the Asia Society and at the New School for Social Research, where he fielded questions from the audience. The webcast of Prachanda’s address to the UN is here.
Prachanda opened his speech at the Asia Society, by saying it is like a sweet dream to be in New York. Continue reading Prachanda in New York: Ahilan Kadirgamar
On Being Muslim: Shahrukh Alam
Guest post by SHAHRUKH ALAM
This afternoon, I saw on TV, the ticker advertising a Special Feature. The programme was going to be aired later in the day and was called “Young, Educated Killers”. And for the next few seconds, I wondered who the title might be referring to: not the ‘encounter specialists’, surely? The economists who frame policies for the new, resurgent India, perhaps? People on the National Disaster Management Commission, possibly? Or since it was of topical interest, The Board of Directors for Lehman Brothers? Or even Patent attorneys for multinational Pharmaceutical companies? But then the visuals came on and I have to admit I was most embarrassed at having thought such dark thoughts about the aforementioned good people. Continue reading On Being Muslim: Shahrukh Alam
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 