Following is an Open Letter from ALIFA (All India Feminist Alliance ) to Gauri Lankesh, marking 7 years of her cowardly killing.The Open Letter is in both English and Kannada. The Kannada version follows after the English one. ALIFA is linked to NAPM (National Alliance of People’s Movements).ಆತ್ಮೀಯ ಗೌರಿ ಲಂಕೇಶ್ ಅವರ ಹೇಡಿತನದ ಹತ್ಯೆಗೆ 7 ವರ್ಷಗಳಾಗಿ, ಅವರಿಗೆ ಅಲಿಫಾದಿಂದ (ALIFA) ಬಹಿರಂಗ ಪತ್ರ
Gauri Lankesh, image courtesy Asianet Newsable
Gauri, dear sister, dear comrade!
It has been seven years. We still remember the day, the night! 5th September, 2017 – in fact the very moments – when the ‘news’ hit us. Gauri Lankesh shot in cold blood. Details poured in. Number of bullets. At your residence. By two men. We reeled with shock under immeasurable grief, loss and helplessness. Abandoning so many unfinished conversations, you left a void in all our hearts, the shape and size of a star!
The multiple crises humanity confronts require fundamental shifts in how we relate to the Earth and to each other. This entails tackling the roots of these crises head-on, including the structures and relations of patriarchy, racism, colonialism, capitalism, statism, and anthropocentrism. This in turn needs to be done within the context of visions of the ideal society we want. This essay presents a process in India, Vikalp Sangam (Alternatives Confluences), that has attempted for a decade to document, visibilise, network, and create collaborations amongst movements and groups involved in alternative approaches for justice, equity, ecological sustainability. It describes the process and its various components, the challenges and opportunities of bringing very diverse groups from different cultural contexts together, the potential of a bottom-up and participatory visioning process, and the excitement of attempting to bridge conventional traditional-modern, practitioner-intellectual, urban-rural, and other divides.
Keywords: Democracy; Visioning; Alternatives; Environment; Civil society
Introduction: The Making of Vikalp Sangam
A decade is not a short span of time – and yet, it is too short. These are the contrasting thoughts I have as I contemplate a process that I have been part of since its initiation, as I and my colleagues enter into a phase of reviewing whether it is on course to meeting the objectives it began with. This is Vikalp Sangam, or Alternatives Confluence, a national platform established in India in 2014.
Democracy Vikalp Sangam, School for Democracy, Rajasthan, October 2019
This is the recording of a public discussion of a set of proposals to be submitted to the Kerala Labour and Skills Department, addressing the issues raised by the Hema Committee Report which probed the conditions of women workers in Malayalam cinema. The committee was set up in the wake of the kidnapping and sexual assault of a female actor which was allegedly orchestrated by an influential male actor as an act of revenge. Outraged by the attack on their colleague, some women actors in Malayalam cinema came together to form the Women in Cinema Collective. It was their pressure that resulted in the formation of the committee. The committee took up this truly challenging assignment and completed it in December 2019, but the Kerala government delayed releasing it till last month. Only a redacted version was released which led to an uproar about the way the government seemed determined to protect the accused men, rumoured to be the most powerful actors and others in the industry. The uproar led to resignations of powerful peddlers of misogyny and upper-caste violence in the Malayalam cinema industry — notably, Ranjith, Chairman of the Kerala State Chalachithra Academy and the en masse resignation of the executive committee of AMMA, the gatekeeping organisation set up and controlled by dominant elements in the industry. The report’s release encouraged many less-prominent female artists to complain against powerful actors. The resignation of Mukesh, actor and CPM MLA has been demanded strongly by feminists, but the CPM has refused to order him to step down.
The Althea Women’s Collective is a feminist group based in Thiruvananthapuram. This discussion is based on the proposals they intend to add to a petition to be submitted to the Kerala State Labour and Skills Department.
This is the second part of the two-part article by Shahed Suvo, published earlier in Bangla in Ekak Matra on 10 August 2024. The first part appeared yesterday and can be accessed here. This part deals with the last days of the Sheikh Hasina regime and the transition that immediately followed. It has been translated for Kafila by ARUN SINHA.
Responding to the call of the anti-discrimination student movement, student-citizens gathered at Shaheed Minar on August 3. Young people continued to gather at Shaheed Minar with separate protest processions. At this time, elderly citizens were also seen participating in the protest march with them. At around 5:30 PM in the afternoon, the coordinator of the organization leading the quota reform movement Md. Nahid Islam announced a one-point demand in a speech to the students-people gathered at Shaheed Minar – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her cabinet must resign.
Asif Mahmud, another coordinator of the movement, announced the outline program of the non-cooperation movement.
The Hema Committee Report has led to a welcome flurry of feminist activism in Kerala, both among the mainstream feminists as well as others. All political viewpoints within Malayali feminism have stood strongly with the WCC and sought to further their fight, with the implicit agreement that the WCC should not perceived as responsible for all further work.
विख्यात अमेरिकी इतिहासकार, नाटककार, दार्शनिक और समाजवादी विचारक हॉवर्ड जिन- जिनकी लिखी किताब ‘ए पीपुल्स हिस्ट्री ऑफ युनाइटेड स्टेट्स’ की लाखों प्रतियां बिक चुकी हैं- के ये शब्द आज भी दुनिया के मुल्कों में दोहराए जाते हैं जब-जब वहां की जनता हुक्मरानों के हर फरमान को सिर आंखों पर लेती है।
बहुत कम लोग इस वक्तव्य के इतिहास से वाकिफ हैं, जिसे उन्होंने अमेरिका के युद्ध-विरोधी आंदोलन के दौरान बाल्टिमोर विश्वविद्यालय के परिसर में रैडिकल छात्रों और परिवर्तनकामी अध्यापकों के विशाल जनसमूह के सामने दिया था। यह वह दौर था जब अमेरिकी सरकार की वियतनाम युद्ध में संलिप्तता को लेकर- जिसमें तमाम अमेरिकी सैनिकों की महज लाशें ही अमेरिका लौट पाई थीं- जनाक्रोश बढ़ता गया था और अमेरिकी सरकार पर इस बात का जोर बढ़ने लगा था कि उसे अपनी सेनाओं को वहां से वापस बुलाना चाहिए।
याद किया जा सकता है कि इस ऐतिहासिक साबित हो चुके व्याख्यान के एक दिन पहले क्या हुआ था। एक युद्ध विरोधी प्रदर्शन में शामिल होने के चलते उन्हें संघीय पुलिस ने गिरफ्तार किया था और हॉवर्ड जिन को कहा गया था कि वह अगले दिन अदालत में हाजिर हों। सवाल यह था कि क्या वह दूसरे ही दिन अदालत के सामने हाजिर हों, जहां उन्हें चेतावनी मिलेगी और फिर घर जाने के लिए कहा जाएगा या वह बाल्टिमोर जाने के अपने निर्णय पर कायम रहें? यानी, रैडिकल छात्रों ने उनके लिए जो निमंत्रण भेजा था पहले उसका सम्मान करें और उसके अगले दिन अदालत के सामने हाजिर हों? जाहिर था कि इस हुक्मउदूली के लिए उन्हें कम से कम कुछ दिन या महीने तो सलाखों के पीछे जाना ही होता।
हावर्ड जिन ने बाल्टिमोर जाना ही तय किया। यहां उन्होंने अपना भाषण दिया। छात्रों एवं अध्यापकों में उसकी जबरदस्त प्रतिक्रिया हुई। वे लौट आए और अगले ही दिन अदालत के सामने हाजिर हुए। जैसा कि स्पष्ट था, उन्हें कुछ सप्ताह के लिए जेल भेज दिया गया। ( Read the full text here : https://junputh.com/open-space/remembering-howard-zinn-in-the-times-of-bulldozer-justice/)
As a lot of motivated propaganda continues to be dished out about the uprising in Bangladesh, with weird and utterly nonsensical stories of it being ‘engineered’ by ‘the CIA’ at one end, and ‘the Islamists’ at the other, we reproduce here this article that gives a virtually blow by blow account of the developments. Published earlier in Bangla in Ekak Matra on 9 August 2024, Twenty Days that Shook the World in two parts, it has been translated for Kafila by ARUN SINHA. This is the first part. Part II can be read here.
Bangladesh protest before 5 August, image courtesy Ekak Matra
The students’ community revolution in July 2024 will be etched as one very important and characteristic event in the annals of history of deconstruction of state in Bangladesh. After declaration of Pakistan as a state, the first voices of protest were raised against Jinnah’s policy of declaring Urdu as the state language. That was Bhasa Andolan (Language Movement) in 1952, then came the movement on 1962 education commission, the mass uprising in 1969 culminating in the glorious Liberation War in 1971. The student community always participated in bringing these momentous changes walking hand in hand with the people in Bangladesh. Whenever people lost their way and paths in independent Bangladesh, it is the movement of the students that showed the road ahead. Therefore, for the people of Bangladesh the student community has always been the symbol of truth and justice.
Where are Indians, who like the conscience keepers of Israeli society or the legendary Rachel Corrie, are ready to swim against the tide?
‘Our Problem is Civil Obedience…’
These words of the legendary American historian, playwright, philosopher and socialist intellectual, Howard Zinn (1922-2010), are still repeated the world over whenever people living in a country have no qualms in gulping whatever the rulers do or say.
Not much is known about the brief history of this speech which was delivered in the Baltimore campus during the heyday of the anti-war movement in the US, (1971). That was the period when a mass movement had emerged opposing the US government’s participation in the Vietnam war, where Zinn was invited to address students in one of the universities. ……………..
Zinn left for Baltimore, where he delivered the said speech, which received a thunderous applause from students and teachers, and when he presented himself before the courts the next day, as expected, he was sent to jail for a few weeks.
Time and again, as the phenomenon of, what is popularly known as “bulldozer justice, raises its head in India, which is now called the ‘biggest country that regularly holds elections’, this poser by Zinn in his Baltimore speech sounds more and more appropriate.
[More than 900 organizations and individuals speak out against brutal rape and cultures of impunity from Kolkata and Manipur to Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and other parts of the country. Published below is their statement issued on 26 August 2024.]
WOMEN RIGHTS NOW!
CITIZENS SPEAK OUT AGAINST BRUTAL CASES OF SEXUAL VIOLENCEFROM KOLKATA TO MANIPUR, GUJARAT, UTTARAKHAND, BIHAR, UTTAR PRADESH…
DEMAND URGENT, INDEPENDENT AND UNBIASED INVESTIGATIONS ANDINSTITUTIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY!
NO MORE SHIELDING OF PERPETRATORS AND THEIR PROTECTORS
Letting out one last enormous lie (sigh) that it was taking ‘moral responsibility’ for the allegations of sexual violence and harassment against the shameless men that it protected , the monster passed, with all the executive members resigning together. A new executive committee will be elected two months later by the general body, they said.
‘Reclaim the Night’ is a mass movement demanding justice for the RG Kar rape and murder incident. It has united many people across West Bengal, across the country and even outside India in several places. It has brought people out onto the streets, united them in rage, and one could say it is making – not “history” – but her/queer/trans* story. This movement has brought school and college students, women working in call centres, nurses, doctors, health workers and women working in several other sectors out onto the streets to protest. Women from many villages and rural areas have added their voices to this movement and thousands upon thousands of people have occupied the streets at night, throughout the night, till the wee hours of morning. Muslim women have stepped out to reclaim the streets in several areas and Trans- queer persons have taken part and brought forward their demands. Everyone’s participation has really lifted ‘Reclaim the Night’ to a different height.
Our main objectives are to secure justice in all unresolved cases of sexual violence, including the RG Kar incident, and to secure safety and freedom for women and communities of marginalized genders/sexuality everywhere and at all times. We extend solidarity to all those who are working towards achieving this goal.
तुम हारी नहीं हो, तुम तो हमारी हीरो हो और बनी रहोगी। कल तुमने पेरिस में करके दिखा दिया कि असल में तुम क्या हो। तुम्हारी दक्षता का कोई मुकाबला नही है, और तुम्हारे लिए कोई ऊंचाई ऊंची नहीं है।
इस अयोग्य घोषित किए जाने से मायूस मत होना। हम समझते हैं कि वजन का ध्यान रखने की ज़िम्मेदारी तुम्हारी नहीं थी। इस बात की जांच होनी चाहिए कि इसमें गलती कहाँ और किससे हुई है। हम तुम्हें अयोग्य घोषित किए जाने के लिए अपना विरोध व्यक्त करते हैं और यह कहना चाहते हैं कि तुन इस वक़्त बिल्कुल दुखी मत होना।
तुम ऊंची उड़ान भरती रहोगी, उम्मीद मत छोड़ना। तुम हमारी हीरो हो और बनी रहोगी।
पेरिस से लौट कर जब आओगी तो हम सब जंतर-मंतर पर एक बार फिर मिलेंगे और फिर जश्न मनाएंगे तुम्हारी सफलता का।
मेडल मिलना, नहीं मिलना, जीत का पैमाना नही है। सफलता औऱ जीत का पैमाना तुम्हारी दृढ़ता और हिम्मत है l
भारत के और दुनिया भर के न्याय-प्रिय और नारीवादी साथी तुम्हारे साथ हमेशा थे, हैं और रहेंगे! ✊🏽
हम हैं,
Dear Vinesh,
Congratulations!!
You have not lost. You are our hero and will remain so. Yesterday in Paris you showed what you really are. Your skill is unmatched and there is no height that you can’t scale.
Please don’t be disappointed by this ‘disqualification’. We understand that it was not your responsibility to take care of your weight. There should be an investigation as to where and by whom the mistake has been made. We express our protest against your disqualification and would like to request you not to feel sad in this moment.
You will keep flying high, do not lose hope. You are and will remain our hero.
When you return from Paris, we will all meet once again at Jantar Mantar and celebrate your success.
Winning a medal or not is not the measure of victory. The measure of success and victory is your determination and courage.
Justice-loving and feminist saathis of India and around the world were, are and will always be with you! ✊🏽
[Even as the massive Long March in Dhaka’s Shahbagh is going on, reportedly with lakhs and lakhs of people demanding Sheikh Hasina’s resignation, rumours of her having already resigned are coming in. The statement is of course in support of Bangladesh’s struggle for democracy and against the brutal repression unleashed by her Awami League regime.]
We, the undersigned citizens of India, writers, artists, intellectuals and activists, express our deep concern over the recent developments in Bangladesh. As fellow South Asians, we share a common destiny and the destruction of democracy in any part of it is obviously a matter of concern for all of us. The current government that has unleashed massive violence on its own citizens has brazenly hijacked the elections three consecutive times in the last ten years.
The world has been watching in horror the violent crackdown on protesting students and youth in Bangladesh since mid-July. On 15th July, a peaceful protest by students of Dhaka University demanding reform in the quota system was violently attacked by a group of goons said to be from the student wing of the ruling party. The crackdown followed statements by the Awami League general secretary and an important minister that the Chhatra League would teach a lesson to the students, whom the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina had earlier labelled ‘razakars’ – a term used for the collaborators with the Pakistan army during the 1971 Liberation Struggle. Expectedly, the Bangladesh Police, rather than acting against the attackers, started a full-scale crackdown on protesters all across the country from the next day. On 16th July, the police killed Abu Saeed, a student of Begum Rokeya University, as he stood with open arms, without any weapon, in front of the approaching police forces who aimed their guns at the protesters. The murder of Abu Saeed, who posed no threat to the approaching police forces, manifests how the intention behind the crackdown on protesters was not to maintain law and order but to forcefully silence voices of dissent arising from all across Bangladesh.
I don’t have to offer any details of what happened at Wayanad. It is the worst disaster of its kind, or perhaps of any kind, that has ever happened in Kerala. But how could it have been so unexpected to the Malayali mainstream? This is what galls me.
Interview with SARWAR TUSHER, writer and activist in Dhaka. Sarwar is one of the leading critical intellectuals associated with the important journal of political thought in Bangladesh, Rashtrochinta Journal and is also member of its editorial panel.In this detailed interview Sarwar explains not just the movement but also the larger politics of Bangladesh.The interview was taken by Aditya Nigam over email.
Turbulent July, Photo courtesy Rahat Karim
[After a round of massive repression and killings, the details of which the reader will find below, the movement is now back with renewed strength. This time it is not just the students and youth demanding an end to quotas but rather huge popular movement that is demanding nothing less than resignation of the Sheikh Hasina government and radical reform of the state. The conception behind this demand for “radical reform of the state” has been spelt out by Sarwar Tusher in detail below and the reader can see how it has grown in conjunction with mass movements of the past. Critical political thinking in tandem with the experience of mass movements has now led to the demand also of a new Constituent Assembly and the drafting of a fresh Constitution. It is also significant that “July” is no longer the name of a month but the name of the struggle itself as it reappears with greater vigour. I should add one more point here, which as to do with some misgivings in India about the quota and reservation question. Though Sarwar deals with it at greater length in different part of the interview, my own sense on reading his responses as well as following the discussions over the past one month, is that the situation is more akin to what might have been (and still is) in countries of state-socialism where the communist party certification was crucial in getting jobs and rising in the bureaucracy and other state institutions. The party certified whether you were “revolutionary” (muktijoddha) or “counter-revolutionary” (razakar) and it is not difficult to see why those regimes became so seriously unpopular (to put it mildly) in their own countries. AN]
This is a guest post by the well known Bangladesh photographer, SHAHIDUL ALAM. The article was earlier published in NEW AGE BANGLADESH and sent to us by SIMONE RUDOLPHI. The photographs are courtesy DRIK.Shahidul’s article actually answers many question that have been on Indian readers’ minds, including, not the least, the question of “quotas.”Interested readers may also find this article by academic Naveeda Khan useful, written as it is from within Dhaka, though she herself is based in the USA.
It would be a mistake to see this as simply a demand for more jobs. The quota movement, justified as it is, is simply the tip of the iceberg. A rampant government running roughshod over its people for so very long has led to extreme discontent. The quota issue has merely lit the fuse to this tinderbox. As citizens counted the dead and the injured, the prime minister fiddled, advising attendees at an aquaculture and sea food conference on tourism prospects in Cox’s Bazaar.
The original quota had been designed, shortly after independence in 1972 to be an interim arrangement to acknowledge the contribution of freedom fighters who constituted less than 0.25% of the population. Since a government known to be incredibly corrupt is responsible for creating the list of freedom fighters, over 50 years later the 120 fold allocation through a 30% quota has become an easy back door for party cadres to much sought after government employment. Confirmation came through senior Awami Leaguers saying, ‘just get through the initial screening and we’ll get you through in the viva’ and more tellingly, ‘government jobs will only go to party people.’
[भारत में 1 जुलाई से लागू हुई नई न्याय संहिताओं के साथ-साथ महाराष्ट्र में एक नया जनसुरक्षा कानून भी आया है। यह कानून उस ‘शहरी नक्सल’ के खतरे पर अंकुश के लिए बनाया गया है, जिसके बारे में इस देश का गृह राज्यमंत्री संसद में कह चुका है कि गृह मंत्रालय और सरकार की आधिकारिक शब्दावली में यह शब्द है ही नहीं। ऐसे अनधिकारिक और अपरिभाषित शब्दों के नाम पर बनाए जा रहे कानून और की जा रही कार्रवाइयों के मकसद और मंशा पर नजर ..]
ऐसे अवसर बहुत कम आते हैं जब कोई साधारण सा ट्वीट सामने आ रही वास्तविकता को स्पष्ट शब्दों में रेखांकित कर दे। जानी-मानी वकील और मानवाधिकार कार्यकर्ता इंदिरा जयसिंह का 30 जून को किया ट्वीट ऐसा ही था, जिसमें उन्होंने अगली सुबह से लागू होने वाले तीन नए फौजदारी कानूनों पर चिंता जाहिर की थी।
इंदिरा जयसिंह के ट्वीट में ‘पुलिस राज’ का रूपक इस बात का संकेत था कि सत्ताधारी केवल ताकत की भाषा समझते हैं। वे न तो संवाद में विश्वास करते हैं और न ही किसी के साथ संवाद करने को तैयार हैं- सिवाय अपने मित्रों के एक चुनिंदा गिरोह के।
इस चिंता में वे अकेली नहीं थीं। अन्य प्रमुख वकील और मानवाधिकार कार्यकर्ता भी इस बारे में समान रूप से चिंतित हैं।
ऐसे खतरों को समझते हुए भी उस वक्त शायद किसी को इस बात का जरा सा भी अंदाजा नहीं था कि इसके आगे भी कुछ और होने वाला है, जिसके संकेत आम चुनाव के बाद महाराष्ट्र के मुख्यमंत्री एकनाथ शिंदे ने अपने एक भाषण में दे दिए थे। ..उस समय किसी को भी यह अनुमान नहीं था कि इस भाषण के एक महीने के भीतर ही राज्य सरकार अर्बन नक्सल के ‘खतरे’ को रोकने के लिए एकविधेयक लेकर आ जाएगी। [ Read the full article here :https://followupstories.com/politics/a-police-state-in-the-becoming-the-maharashtra-special-psa-2024/]
One of the innumerable anti-quota protests across Bangladesh, image courtesy Pressenza – International Press Agency
This post is dedicated to the innumerable young students of Bangladesh who have lost their lives in the last few days of struggle. This wasn’t supposed to be our first post on the Bangladesh students’ struggle because our friend Sarwar Tusher, one among the group of dynamic young critical intellectuals associated with the journal Rashtrochinta, was supposed to write a first hand analytical account. Meanwhile, from Thursday night (18 July) the Sheikh Hasina government enforced a total internet shutdown as the Army moved in to quell the protests. Tanks had already been seen moving in some streets and the protesters were expecting an exponential increase in state violence. Another Tienanmen Square seemed to be in the offing.
““I am reminded of Pandit Nehru ‘s speech “ At the stroke of midnight India will awake to freedom” . At the stroke of midnight night 1st July 2024 India will awake to police raj,” (1)
There are rare occasions when a simple tweet underlines the unfolding reality in stark terms.
Noted lawyer and human rights activist Indira Jaising’s tweet a fortnight back created similar ripples. Her concern was over the three new criminal laws coming into operation the next morning.
And she was not alone, other leading lawyers and human rights activists seemed equally concerned about it …
But perhaps nobody had a faint idea that more was in the offing.
Post elections, Eknath Shinde, Chief Minister of Maharashtra in one of speeches had talked of Urban Naxals ‘penetrating NGOs and help creating ‘..false narratives against the government’ A speech made during a rally for BJP Konkan Graduates Constituency in the MLC polls was considered out of tune with the ambiance.
The Establishment’s desperation is becoming clearer by the day. And by ‘Establishment’ here, I do not mean simply the ruling duo in power today but a constellation of forces, many of whom congregated at a mega-wedding event in Mumbai recently. The embryonic New Congress thankfully stayed out of it – though the Old Congress is pretty much part of the Establishment, as we will see below.
Popular Delhi chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal has finally got bail from the Supreme Court – both interim and regular – in the totally fictitious Enforcement Directorate (ED) case in which he has been framed. Yet he must remain in jail because on the eve of his release by a Delhi court and Additional Sessions Judge Nyay Bindu, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) went and arrested him while he was still in jail!
Image courtesy The Economic Times
This arrest-within-arrest shows a desperation of the Establishment that has rarely ever been seen before. The desperation was even more evident in the fact that the High court judge, Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain went ahead to uphold the ED plea against the bail order by Judge Nyay Bindu, even before the order had been uploaded to their website. 157 lawyers wrote to the CJI alleging that the brother of the Judge, Anurag Jain is one of the counsels for the ED, which showed a clear conflict of interest. More importantly, referring to the urgent listing, hearing and stay of the trial court’s bail order by the high court, the lawyers’ letter said,
Bhakti Era as the Plebeian Plateau in the Civilizational Landscape of India
Guest Post by Ravi Sinha on a possible framework for looking at the millennial trajectory of Indian civilization
We have by now devoted several sessions to mapping the millennial trajectory of the Bhakti Movement across the history and the cultural geography of the subcontinent. Starting with the Tamil lands in the 7th century we followed Bhakti performing the pradakshina of the cultural landmass of the subcontinent, crossing the Vindhyas in its northward journey sometime in the 13-14th century. Our endeavour has been to understand the role of Bhakti in shaping the cultural and the civilizational mind of India. This, in turn, has been motivated by task of making sense of the role this mind plays in contemporary politics and in the rise of fascistic Hindutva in recent decades.
As we stated in the proposal to a previous session, we seek to understand the impact of Bhakti at two different time-scales. On the shorter time-scale of contemporary politics one looks at the phenomenon of communalism. The mainstream of the anti-colonial national movement considered Bhakti Movement as the harbinger of religious tolerance and syncretism that would help evolve the Indian brand of secularism. The subsequent history, however, paints a mixed picture. A social fabric and a cultural mind weaved by the Bhakti ideologies do not offer the kind of resistance to communalism and sectarianism as was expected of them. In our previous sessions we mainly stayed with evaluating the impact of Bhakti at the political-historical time-scale characterized by the problem of communalism and the rise of Hindutva.
On a longer – millennial – time-scale, however, one can evaluate the Bhakti phenomenon in the civilizational context. One can ask something like the Needham Question – why did the Indian civilization, despite its glory and accomplishments in the ancient and the medieval periods, fail to realize its cultural and scientific potentials? Why was it defeated often and why was it eventually colonized? Why did the West forge ahead, why has India lagged behind? Did the cultural mind and social ethos prepared by the Bhakti Movement play a role in the civilizational decline of India? These are very large questions not amenable to easy answers. But one must prepare to wrestle with them as they are of crucial importance for imagining and fashioning a desirable future for India. In this session, we finally arrive at the task of outlining a framework for asking and answering these questions.
For this purpose, we propose to take help of two large concepts – one of Axiality and the other of Modernity. The idea of axial revolutions was proposed for the civilizational breakthroughs that happened in the middle centuries of the first millennium BC in several different and unconnected societies – Judea (land of the Old Testament in the era of prophets), Greece (of pre-Socratic philosophers as well as of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle), China (of Confucius, Mencius and others) and India (of Upanishads, six systems of philosophies, and of Buddha) being the prime examples. We will briefly go through the idea of Axiality and see how we can understand it in the sequence of human cultural and cognitive evolution progressively from the mimetic (pre-linguistic, primarily based on gestures, rituals and body-language) to the mythic (linguistic but largely oral and narrative-based) to the theoretic (rational, abstract, normative and self-reflective). We will try to locate the Indian antiquity in the sequence of cultural evolution.
We will then make a millennial jump and outline the idea of Modernity, which can, in this context, be seen as a new kind of axial transition. The first axial transition did take the civilizations concerned from the mythic era to the theoretic era, but it still depended on the idea of the transcendental to reorder life in the realm of the mundane. The transition to Modernity, for the first time in human history, brings human autonomy to the centre-stage of history and civilization. Elimination of human dependence on the super-natural and on the transcendental is brought explicitly on the agenda and an objective and scientific knowledge of the cosmos is deployed into the service of human emancipation and freedom.
While the Indian civilization was a key example of the axial breakthrough two and a half millennia ago, its transition to Modernity has been faltering and patchy. While this may be true for many civilizations, it is especially disconcerting in the case of India which has had such a glorious antiquity at least in the domains of the mythic and of the theoretic. Of course, entire history of the intervening two millennia culminating in the colonial subjugation at the hands of the modernist imperialists is implicated in the complex and faltering progress of Modernity on the subcontinent and it cannot be explained on the basis of one cause or developments in any single arena. But one can be reasonably certain that the developments in the cultural-religious-civilizational arena play an important role in the civilizational transitions and transformations. The role of the millennial march of Bhakti must be assessed and evaluated in this context.
We will also engage with the theoretical issues that arise in this context of the materialist explanation of historical progress. There is no doubt that the historicalbreakthroughs and the transitions from one stage of history to the next happen through the push of advancing forces of production and, in this respect, the cultural-civilizational transformations are correlated with the developments in the material conditions of life. But there is a significant difference between the respective dynamics of systems and civilizations. While history progresses through replacement of one system by the next, in case of civilizations the older ones never entirely go out of existence. The older ones merely become the subterranean layers on which new layers arise or get deposited. The mimetic-ritualistic and the mythic, for example, have not disappeared from human civilization even after the axial-theoretic and the modernist-scientific stages have become increasingly entrenched.
Once again, I am not sure whether all this can be covered in one session even at the level of very sketchy outline of the argument. But the idea is to start thinking about these issues which, abstract and theoretical as they may sound, are of critical importance in making sense of contemporary politics and history.
Select Bibliography
Johann P Arnason, “The Labyrinth of Modernity: Horizons, Pathways and Mutations”, Rowman and Littlefield, 2020
Robert N Bellah, “Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age”, Harvard University Press, 2011
S N Eisenstadt, “The Great Revolutions and the Civilizations of Modernity”, Brill, 2006
Neville Morley, “Antiquity and Modernity”, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009
Sheldon Pollock, “The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Pre-modern India”, University of California Press, 2006
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 