Bad ideas, Culture, Empire/ Imperialism

Impossible Lessons: Ravi Sinha

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Guest Post by RAVI SINHA

Far away from Peshawar five men and a woman sat in a physician’s waiting room in Lucknow. The television screen that ordinarily shows some Bollywood film or a cricket match had a news channel on. It was day after the slaughter of children. The assistant who maintains the waiting list of patients and collects the doctor’s fee said something very predictable, even if heart-felt, expressing his horror and revulsion. The matter would have passed as unremarkably as most things do most of the times, except for what an elderly gentleman waiting to see the doctor had to say in response.

In a feeble yet firm voice whose conviction and sincerity was unmistakable, he said – dhaarmikata ko badhaava doge to kattarta badhegi; kattarta badhegi to aatank upajega, haivaaniyat saamne aayegi. (If you will promote religiosity, fundamentalism will grow, and from that will emerge terror and barbarism.) After a pause he added – hamaare desh mein bhee yahee ho rahaa hai, haalaan ki abhee hum pehle daur mein hain, dhaarmikata badhaane ke daur mein. (Same thing is happening in our country too, although we are in the first phase so far – that of promoting religiosity.) Continue reading Impossible Lessons: Ravi Sinha →

Debates, Language, Media politics, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

A Massacre is a Massacre and There is no Good Taliban: S. Akbar Zaidi

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Guest post by S. AKBAR ZAIDI [This post was sent to us by our friend S. Akbar Zaidi. Though published earlier in The International News of Pakistan, we are reproducing it here because it represents a position that is felt by many inside Pakistan but which right-wingers in India would love not to see. Like right-wingers and Talibanis in Pakistan, our very own Hindutvavadis too thrive on presenting a monolithic picture of something called ‘Pakistan’.]

This was a massacre, nothing less. We should call it that, nothing less. We may want to call the children ‘shaheed’, but they were not engaged in any war against anyone. They were too innocent and blameless for this. They were victims. Let us call them that. They were victims of our politics, of our opportunism, of hiding in the dark, and especially of protecting the murderers. Do we simply pray for innocent victims, and absolve ourselves of the crimes that we have allowed to persist which resulted in this massacre? As Mohammad Hanif has so eloquently argued, Pakistan’s civil and military leadership needs to examine their own bloodstained hands when they raise their hands in prayer. It was the bloody Taliban butchers who killed these children, not militants or some obscure, unspecific category called ‘terrorists’. Let us name them for who they are. We cannot hide away from this reality and unless we name names, we will not alter our political economy, our direction. If we are waiting for the good Taliban to emerge and denounce this massacre, we need to stop hoping. We must stop differentiating between different types of killers. There is no good Taliban, just one ideology represented and manifest in different groups and forms. Continue reading A Massacre is a Massacre and There is no Good Taliban: S. Akbar Zaidi →

Debates, Ecology/Environment, Government, Left watch

The Success of Nilppu Samaram: The Victory of Democracy

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This is a guest post by ASWATHY SENAN
The Nilppu Samaram (Standing Strike) by the Adivasis demanding their land rights started on 9-7-12 under the leadership of Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha (AGMS). The protesters stood for 162 days in front of the Secretariat, Thiruvananthapuram. This protest saw the support and intervention of people from all age group from various caste and religious communities (not under the banner of any particular political party or religious organisation) most of whom came to the protest space and stood with them to mark their solidarity. The government had to budge at the end under the pressure of the non-violent democratic protest of the adivasis backed by the civil society and on the 163rd day the ended their standing after the Government of Kerala agreed to all their demands on paper.

Continue reading The Success of Nilppu Samaram: The Victory of Democracy →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Centre watch, Government, Media politics

Make in India – A critical examination of an economic strategy: Leila Gautham

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This is a guest post by LEILA GAUTHAM

‘Make in India’ is now an all-pervasive catchphrase – every newspaper and television channel trumpeting the Modi’s ‘clarion call’ to investors – but surprisingly empty in terms of substance. The website is flashy and vastly different from the run-of-the-mill government-of-India websites one is used to – but one has a hard time imagining the ‘captains of industry’ who attended the Make in India launch on September 25th finding any use for it. One begins to wonder, who exactly is the campaign aimed at? Is it the Indian public? An impressive farce, an ad campaign, the neoliberal dream of the efficient state come true – Make in India is not some brilliant brainwave of Modi’s: it is the culmination of very intensive campaign of worldwide propaganda that has been launched by global corporate capital.

I tried to probe deeper, to tease out concrete details if any – and the following article reflects my understanding, incomplete though it may be.

Continue reading Make in India – A critical examination of an economic strategy: Leila Gautham →

Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Statement on Peshawar Massacre: People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism, Delhi

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People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism, Delhi, condemns the ghastly attack on school children in Peshawar (Pakistan) by Tehreek-e-Taliban in which over 140  innocent lives were lost. It is a plain case of murders by the people spewing venom in the name of religion and ideology with no regard for human life. PADS demands that such fundamentalist violence be dealt with firmly by the authorities in Pakistan and expresses its solidarity with the parents of the children whose lives were snatched away by the murderous gang which, only to hoodwink the people, claims to be fighting imperialism. By their act they have shown how dangerous they are for the common citizens of Pakistan.

It is also important to note that people in general in Pakistan have to stand up against all kinds of violence. There is no acceptable violence and unacceptable violence. Violence, under the illegitimate legal cover of Blasphemy Laws is being perpetrated, and celebrated in the name of religion in the country. Condoning any kind of violence against the innocent people in the name of religion, provides raison d’etre to the forces like TTP. The ghastly murders in Peshawar is a signal for the Pakistani society  to look inward and work in unison to keep religion away from State to avail the benefits of the democratic rule.

The Indian school children and Parliament have shown solidarity with people of Pakistan by keeping a two minutes silence, on the suggestion of Prime Minister Modi. Such solidarity, however, should be expressed not only at the moment of grave tragedies, but should become a normal state of affairs between the two countries. The political and military leadership of the two countries should avoid aggressive rhetoric and militarisation and peacefully settle all outstanding issues.

PADS notes with the sense of urgency that the Taliban-like Hindutva forces have grown in size, influence, and impact in India orchestrating killings and triggering mass displacement of the people. PADS would like to forewarn the people of India that communalists of any religion have the same traits and ultimately, it is the members of the same community, whose interests such groups claim to espouse, become their targets. This is the time for the peoples of India and Pakistan to unite against the use of religion for committing murders of the innocent.

18.12.2014

Everyday Life, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Remembering 1992: School of Media and Cultural Studies, TISS Mumbai

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Dislocation

Hardening Divides

Remembering 1992 is a site that seeks to revisit and remember the violence that the city of Bombay/Mumbai experienced in December 1992 and January 1993. This site includes 6 films, video interviews and transcripts, news clippings, reports and other resources. The project started with the films that were made by students (Class of 2013) and faculty and used as a part of the campaign Bombay ki Kahani Mumbai ki Zubaani, held between December 2012 and January 2013.

In a political and social context where the memory of this violence has been rewritten and all but erased, it is crucial to remember, to explore the contours of normalised prejudice and to understand how the survivors have struggled with the denial of justice. It is also necessary to think about how and why the memory of such a watershed event gets erased and who benefits from this erasure.

The website explores different kinds of memory, organised around themes and uses a timeline and map to list the events of the 1992-93 riots,based on the Justice Srikrishna report.

Identities, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Taliban Attack – the Limits of Savagery: Akhlaq Ahan

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Guest post by AKHLAQ AHAN

Every sane person is aghast to see what has happened in Peshawar, where Taliban’s attack on a school has crossed all limits of savagery and senselessness. They killed over 140 innocents mostly children, after taking them hostage, burned a teacher with gasoline and made the students watch the ghastly act.

Historically the area is part of the region known as ‘Khorasan e Buzurg’ or the greater Khorasan spanning over the so called North West Frontier, Afghanistan, North East Iran and erstwhile Emirate of Bukhara. The area, for thousands of years, has been the heart and mind of Asia; as this was the region where Gathas of Avesta and Vedas were compiled, Buddhist teachings flourished and survived, Persian traditions were revived, the seekers of truth flocked around Sufi masters to be enlightened. This is the land that produced personalities like Zarathustra, Panini, Alberuni, Khwaja Ansari, Data Ganj Bakhsh, Khwaja Gharib Nawaz, Rumi, Jami, Rahman Baba and hundreds of others. Scores travelled to the region to seek knowledge and training like Faxian, Xuanzang, Yijing, Shams Taprez (Tabrez), Amir Khusraw, Guru Nanak, Jamali and countless others. Though the region has seen occasional strife in the past too but the traditions of inclusion had continued to prevail till about a couple of centuries ago, when these values began to face systematic attacks. A few like Bacha Khan, in his autobiography, gauged the extent of the spread of these exclusionist ideas and warned against them. Continue reading Taliban Attack – the Limits of Savagery: Akhlaq Ahan →

Capitalism, Centre watch, Government, Media politics, Politics

Why Should Adivasis Bear the Burden of ‘National Development’? Deba Ranjan

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Guest post by DEBA RANJAN

On 25th August 2014 large number of armed police including CRPF with magisterial power reached at the top of the Baphlihill, where Utkal Alumina of Aditya Birla – Hindalco is continuously transporting bauxite through trucks to its Doraguda Alumina Plant. They started beating the villagers of Paikakupakhal. “They were in 25 four wheelers and one bus” Padman Nayak of the same village said. Many got the injured and three dalit villagers namely Mangaldan Nayak (30 years), Kalendra Nayak (30) and Ms Kiyabati Nayak got seriously injured. Kalendra got treatment outside but again was lifted from the Medical by the police so that he may not speak about such action of police to the outside world. Both print media and TV channels (except one newspaper) did not cover the incident. The local journalist of that newspaper later on was harassed by the goons not to write more on it.

I had been to Siju Mali few days before and went to the top of the Hill. It falls in Kashipur area of Odisha just behind the Niyamgiri hill. For last few months this Siju Mali and its adjacent Kutru Mali, two bauxite hill ranges, have been in news because the Vedanta International Limited (VIL) has kept its eyes on it.

After the Lok Sabha election, between April and November 2014, Anil Agrawal, director of VIL has met Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik thrice and every time he comes out with fully glowing remarks that the latter assured him of transferring the bauxite hills to the Company. It is quite possible too. Election experts have highlighted corporate funding behind Biju Janata Dal’s election campaign and the State Election Commission is unmoved on such complaints. Continue reading Why Should Adivasis Bear the Burden of ‘National Development’? Deba Ranjan →

Mirror Worlds, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Condemns Killing of Children in Taliban Attack

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The HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF PAKISTAN has issued the following statement on the Taliban attack on school children in Peshawar

December 16, 2014

Lahore, December 16: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has called the killing of more than 120 children in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar a national tragedy which it said must open the eyes of anyone still harbouring any doubts that Taliban and Pakistan could coexist.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Commission said: “HRCP is deeply saddened by the large number of children killed in the Taliban attack on ArmyPublic School in Peshawar. This is a national tragedy of immense proportions, and an extremely sad day for Pakistan. Our heart goes out to the families of the children whose lives have been cut short by this abhorrent act of terrorism.

“The target was an army-run school, but it was a school nonetheless. It is not children who fight against the Taliban. And yet the choice of the target and the heavy casualties among the children leave no doubt that the massacre was aimed at killing as many children as possible.

“Nothing, including religion, norms of armed conflict or even common decency, justifies such brutal targeting of children. But it is no secret that the killers and those who dispatched them to attack the school have respect neither for religious commandments nor notions of civilised or decent behaviour. The targeting of children made sense to them because they stand for blood-letting and not much else.

“HRCP reiterates its firm belief that Taliban and Pakistan cannot coexist and anyone still harbouring any notions to the contrary is naive beyond belief.

“It had already been established, much before Tuesday’s massacre of children in Peshawar, where the Taliban stood in terms of education or value of children’s lives. Their actions today have shown once again that Pakistan will not know peace until this madness is taken on in all its manifestations and defeated. Continue reading Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Condemns Killing of Children in Taliban Attack →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Excavation, Frontiers, Language, Law, Media politics, Violence/Conflict

Statement on David Bergman Case in Bangladesh: Concerned South Asian Journalists and Others

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Guest Post. Statement by Concerned South Asian Journalists, Writers, Historians and Activists

We, the undersigned journalists, writers, historians and activists from South Asia,  are deeply concerned about the use of ‘contempt of court’ law to curb freedom of expression. The conviction and sentencing on December 2, 2014, of Dhaka-based journalist David Bergman by the International Crimes Tribunal 2 on charges of “contempt of court” for citing published research on killings during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, is a serious set-back to Bangladesh’s commitment to free speech and independent scholarship.

At the outset, we reiterate our belief that those responsible for genocide and international crimes during the Liberation War must be prosecuted and punished through an open and transparent process.

Continue reading Statement on David Bergman Case in Bangladesh: Concerned South Asian Journalists and Others →

Culture, Debates, Feminism, Images, Movements, Politics

നിലനില്പിനു വേണ്ടിത്തന്നെയുള്ള സമരം : ഫാസിസ്റ്റ് വിരുദ്ധ ചുംബനസമരം തിരുവനന്തപുരത്ത്

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നിങ്ങൾക്ക് സദാചാരപ്പോലീസിനെതിരെയുള്ള സമരം ഓപ്ഷണൽ ആയിരിക്കും. ഞങ്ങൾക്ക് അത് ജീവൻമരണപോരാട്ടമാണ്.

 

അടക്കാൻ ഞങ്ങൾ ശവങ്ങളല്ല.

ഒതുക്കാൻ ഞങ്ങൾ വീട്ടുസാമാനങ്ങളല്ല.

ഫോട്ടോ എടുത്തുകളിക്കാൻ ഞങ്ങൾ

കടമുന്നിൽ തുണി ഉടുത്തും ഉടുക്കാതെയും

ചിരിച്ചു കൈകൂപ്പുന്ന പാവകളല്ല. Continue reading നിലനില്പിനു വേണ്ടിത്തന്നെയുള്ള സമരം : ഫാസിസ്റ്റ് വിരുദ്ധ ചുംബനസമരം തിരുവനന്തപുരത്ത് →

Bad ideas

Claiming the Right to Life: Kiss Against Fascism at IFFK

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Maybe fighting moral policing is optional for you. But for us women, it is life and death.

We do not need swaddling clothes of modesty

For we are not corpses yet.

We are not lifeless chattels

To be put away in good order.

Nor are we  shop-front mannequins 

with  folded palms and plastic smiles,

Saree-clad, or stripped naked.

Continue reading Claiming the Right to Life: Kiss Against Fascism at IFFK →

Identities, Images, Law, Politics, Right watch

Wave after Wave, We Refuse to Die Down: Kiss Protest Against Fascism at IFFK

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If you are in Thiruvananthapuram, please do join us at one o’clock at noon in front of the Kairali-Sree theatre complex at Thampanoor, the main venue of IFFK.

We do believe that the rising tide of fascism in Kerala, the creeping fear of the sheer violence of fascist goons, can be combated only through love, humor, and moral courage. The victory of Hindutva right wing forces in the national scene seems to have emboldened them in Kerala. They are attempting to import here the instruments of terror that they brazenly unleash on people in the states which have become laboratories of their hate-politics. We will not let their evil grow; we will fight it with love.

We will use as an instrument of self-defense precisely all that which fascist forces deny us in this society. We will reclaim that ultimate symbol of tender and intimate human contact, the Kiss; we will kiss against fascism.

And each of us has different, but interconnected reasons, for kissing against fascism.

sunilKissable boymikek edited 3aswatyrenuedited 2nisaaratrikasinghabipshaKAF solidarity

 

Culture, Identities, Images, Law, Movements, Politics

ഫാസിസത്തിനെതിരെ സമരചുംബനം; ചെയ്യുക, ഫാസിസം അനുശാസിക്കുന്ന അരുതായ്മകളെ

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Kiss against Fascism

Continue reading ഫാസിസത്തിനെതിരെ സമരചുംബനം; ചെയ്യുക, ഫാസിസം അനുശാസിക്കുന്ന അരുതായ്മകളെ →

Everyday Life, Feminism, Violence/Conflict

Before the Killing, the End of Honour: Rina Ramdev and Debaditya Bhattacharya

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Guest Post by RINA RAMDEV AND DEBADITYA BHATTACHARYA

For daring to elope and marry outside the dictates of caste-community honour codes, a young Delhi University undergraduate came to a brutal death at the hands of her family. The incident since then has become part of public discourse, thanks to our newspaper-educated sensibilities. But the ‘popular’ set of responses that this event has generated from our newsreaderly selves is worth some reviewing. While there has been a large-scale condemnation of this incident from ‘civilized’ quarters of the media-enlightened, the most commonly employed terms of this debate have veered around an imagination of a ‘civilizational modernity’ versus an ‘aggressive-savage primitivism’. Are we still in the Dark Ages, most have asked. Is not ‘love marriage’ a civilizational mandate of the age of the modern, others have comfortably posed and then gone on to conclude that the fact that we – as a ‘society’, metropolitan-converts in this case – have not yet made our peace with a civil code of morality relegates us to a ‘rustic-primitive mindset’. The muse of Indian judicial processes and imaginations of penal justice – ah! the “collective conscience” – has spoken thus and gone back to catching up on Ramzaadas and terror attacks on national ‘honour’. And just while we were conveniently conceding to the relative insignificance of an undergraduate girl’s ‘honour’ compared to the prime-time rhetorical spectres of ‘national honour’ in Jammu & Kashmir, a leading English daily attempted to bring back a few ‘dark’ images from Bhawna Yadav’s past.  Continue reading Before the Killing, the End of Honour: Rina Ramdev and Debaditya Bhattacharya →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Politics

Stop Manual Scavenging in JNU: Forum Against Manual Scavenging

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Authors’ Note:

The Chennai based Forum Against Manual Scavenging, (FAMS) can be contacted at famschennai@gmail.com. We have tried to create some awareness on this issue especially among student community (with the assistance of some of the Professors/Faculty based in Chennai) in which we were guided by Safai Karamchari Andolan, Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front, Janodayam Social Education Centre,  Republic Trade Union of India,  Red Flag Union of Tamil Nadu and other similar organizations (in and outside Chennai) struggling on this issue which are led primarily by the Dalit Women from the community itself.  

A documentary, ‘Sahar se Pehle’ (Before the Dawn) on sanitation workers in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus in Delhi was made by some students of the university. The JNUSU has been consistently raising the issue of abysmally bad condition of sanitation workers in JNU for quite some years now. Earlier in 2012, JNUSU had also participated in a signature campaign against manual scavenging (signed by the then JNUSU President). The documentary shows the manual scavenging is still prevalent in the premier university even after the ban on manual scavenging by the Delhi government (sanitation is a State subject according to the Constitution of India) and after the enactment of “The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.”

This documentary was also selected for the Canadian Labour International Film Festival, 2014, and was available online on YouTube and other sites from February 2014, but was not widely circulated on mainstream media or social media. We also came to know about it only a fortnight ago because the write-up attached to it does not explicitly mention manual scavenging.

The JNU student community has started a campaign called Stop Manual Scavenging in JNU, with the message “Use hashtag #StopMSinJNU to SPEAK OUT against the inhuman practices of manual scavenging and hazardous cleaning in #JNU.”  Continue reading Stop Manual Scavenging in JNU: Forum Against Manual Scavenging →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Government, Violence/Conflict

Demolition Drive in Vadodara, 2014: Kathyayini Dash, Rushabh Vishawakarma, Hussain Sabu, Bhagwati Prasad Suryavanshi

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Guest post by KATHYAYINI DASH, RUSHABH VISHAWAKARMA, HUSSAIN SABU & BHAGWATI PRASAD SURYAVANSHI

Untitled

In Tarsali, 10 kilometers from Vadodara

Note from authors:

We are a group of friends and students from MS University, Baroda. One of us, Rushabh, lives in Kalyannagar which has partly been demolished and this house too is slated for demolition. We have written this to bring to the surface what demolition and displacement means, from the perspective of those who live in places like Kalyannagar, which cannot even be called a ‘slum’. We could see first hand what happened during the demolition because our friend lived there.  We all have spent happy times at Kalyannagar, Rushabh’s home. We felt we owe it to these memories to at least record these events. You can visit us at BarodaBeat.

Development they say…

They say by 2015, not one jhopdi will be seen…Vadodara’s landscape would be studded with flyovers, high rise buildings, malls, clean pothole-free roads. There will be no stench of garbage, leave alone the sight of it.

The recent floods in Vadodara set off an alarm, urging the quick setting up of “river-front projects” which included the demolition and re-location of slum dwellings near the river which were so awfully affected during the floods.

They say, “this is not fair. They sure need help; first priority in fact. They have to be the first to be taken into consideration before going on to people who have it all: a raised plinth level, a well cemented house, resources to recover the losses incurred in the floods. The jhopdiwaale, well, they have nothing at all, don’t they? Already low on the economic scale, they have no resources to recover the losses incurred during the floods, they don’t even have pakka houses to resist the floods. And on top of it all, they have houses built along the river itself. Poor things, where else would they build their houses. But then, these houses shouldn’t be there in the first place isn’t it? Because this is government land, and they don’t have the right to live there. What good is it anyway?” they say. “It is near the river, there is always a dangerous risk of the river flooding and them and their houses drowning,” they say. Continue reading Demolition Drive in Vadodara, 2014: Kathyayini Dash, Rushabh Vishawakarma, Hussain Sabu, Bhagwati Prasad Suryavanshi →

Culture, Debates, Identities

സെക്യുലറും ഭരണകൂടസെക്യുലറിസവും തമ്മിലുള്ള ദൂരം – ടി. മുഹമ്മദ് വേളത്തിന് ഒരു തുറന്ന കത്ത്

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പ്രിയ മുഹമ്മദ്

ചുംബനസമരങ്ങളുടെ പശ്ചാത്തലത്തിൽ ഉയർന്നുവന്നിരുക്കുന്ന ധർമ്മസങ്കടങ്ങളും ആശയസംഘട്ടനങ്ങളുമാണ് എന്നെ ഈ കത്തെഴുകാൻ പ്രേരിപ്പിക്കുന്നത്. Continue reading സെക്യുലറും ഭരണകൂടസെക്യുലറിസവും തമ്മിലുള്ള ദൂരം – ടി. മുഹമ്മദ് വേളത്തിന് ഒരു തുറന്ന കത്ത് →

Culture, Education, Everyday Life, Government, Identities, Movements

Is Standing with Young People Yet Another Fad? Reflections on the Young and Kiss Protests in Kerala

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My arguments supporting young people in some recent debates, notably, the ones around the International Film Festival of Kerala and the ongoing Kiss protests, have apparently irritated a number of people, especially friends who belong to my own generation. From more than one source (hardly ever directly, though) I hear that they grumble that I am biased towards the young. That, apparently, is the latest fad. And Devika, it appears to them, has a tendency to support fads. Continue reading Is Standing with Young People Yet Another Fad? Reflections on the Young and Kiss Protests in Kerala →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Empire/ Imperialism, Identities, Law

From Ferguson to Pune—The Minority Report: Archit Guha

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This is a guest post by ARCHIT GUHA

Prima facie, the grand jury decision in the United States to not indict a white police officer, Darren Wilson, in the murder of a black teenager, Michael Brown, and the flurry of protests that have occurred since the incident in August are distinctly symptomatic of the structural racism that continues to plague the settler colonial nation that institutionalized slavery nearly 500 years ago, but claims to be post-racial today. Continue reading From Ferguson to Pune—The Minority Report: Archit Guha →

Debates, Everyday Life, Feminism, Genders, Government, Metropolis, Politics

A Women’s Charter for Delhi Elections: Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression

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Guest Post by Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression

The elections in Delhi are approaching.

Violence, as well as discrimination against women, and sheer denial of women’s dignity and rights, has been a huge concern for Delhi’s citizens.

This is the time when women are looking towards the political parties, to see what place women’s rights and freedoms have on their agenda.

We are disturbed to see that while most parties pay lip service to the cause of women’s rights, they blithely field candidates accused of violence against women, and they play to the patriarchal gallery on a range of issues, ignoring the voices of the women’s movement.

We, the undersigned would like to put the following concerns on the agenda of the Delhi elections, and we ask the political parties contesting Delhi elections to respond to them with urgency and seriousness. We appeal to all women voters to place this charter before every candidate and every party campaigner, and ask them for a clear position on each of its points.

1. We are alarmed at the spiralling of communal violence towards the Delhi elections. We are shocked that, instead of nabbing those who are fuelling the violence in a planned way, the Delhi Police has instead beaten up and brutalised innocent women in Trilokpuri. Above all, we are appalled at the attempts to justify communal, caste, racial or homophobic/transphobic violence in the name of ‘protecting women’. We assert that women are invariably rendered most unsafe by such violence. We seek a commitment that no party will promote leaders – either as candidates or as campaigners – who are accused of stoking violence against women, as well as communal, caste, racial or homophobic/transphobic violence. Specifically, we do not want the notorious 1984 duo Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, we do not want to see Gugan Singh (who made communal speeches in Bawana) or Sunil Vaidya (who incited riots at Trilokpuri), or Somnath Bharti (charge-sheeted for racist and anti-women violence at Khirki) to be candidates or campaigners. Continue reading A Women’s Charter for Delhi Elections: Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression →

DISSENT, DEBATE, CREATE