Countryside, Ecology/Environment, Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Government, Media politics, Mirror Worlds, Violence/Conflict

Sailaab Nama – An Insider’s View of the Flood in Kashmir from the Outside: Gowhar Fazili

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Guest Post by Gowhar Fazili

The floods in Kashmir can provide an outsider a momentary glimpse into the reality of Kashmir behind the corporate media propaganda smokescreen that is fumbling at the moment and like Truman Show (1998) exposing bits of the backstage. At the moment there are three key actors in Kashmir. There are the floods, the state and the people. Each one is on its own. One limb of the state—the state government was the first to crumble before the approaching waters.   The other limb—the mammoth military apparatus that has already inundated Kashmir since several decades, took two days to wake up to the crisis and when it finally did, its priority was to fish out the rich Indian tourists and the people close to the establishment out of the state. In the initial days, local people had to risk their own lives to get their marooned relatives to safety. Some hired local boats, some swam or waded through water, some made makeshift rafts out of anything that floats, including water tanks, car tubes, foam sheets, inflated baby bathtubs, so on and so forth to save their dear ones. The rest either drowned or kept moving up the floors of their houses as the waters kept rising until they reached their attics.

Continue reading Sailaab Nama – An Insider’s View of the Flood in Kashmir from the Outside: Gowhar Fazili →

Education, Feminism, Violence/Conflict

Jadavpur University students struggle against gender violence

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In Jadavpur University (a State aided university of West Bengal), the Arts Students Faculty Union organizes a students’ cultural festival, Sanskriti. On the second night of the festival, an incident of violence occurred in the campus that resulted in a chain of events.

On the night of 28th August, during the ongoing festival, a second year student from the Department of History, Jadavpur University, was allegedly molested inside campus premises by a group of people from the hostel, and her male friend (not a JU student), was beaten up. According to the victim, she had gone near the hostel to relieve herself given the unavailability of bathrooms at the time, accompanied by her friend. On their way back, a group of hostel boys allegedly passed snide remarks which led to a scuffle, and then escalated to something bigger. While her friend was allegedly pulled away and beaten up, she was dragged into the hostel, where she claims she was molested. Continue reading Jadavpur University students struggle against gender violence →

Bad ideas

Thinking through the application for “clarifications” of transgender rights

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Newspapers have been reporting about an application for clarification filed, it appears, by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment with the Supreme Court about the NALSA judgment on transgender rights. Here is the full text of that application, and here is a very useful and short summary of its content. The reflections below follow from that summary.

Any move that makes the inclusion of trans-men, non-hijra trans-women, and genderqueer/trans folks in the SC judgment explicit is welcome. Many had written to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment seeking this, following the MSJE report and the judgment. The principle of self-determination of gender identity without psychological and medical examination or surgery is upheld and that remains critical.
Continue reading Thinking through the application for “clarifications” of transgender rights →

Bad ideas

Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh: Put fire back into firewood

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“ Why did Muktibodh  became uniquely significant in the summer of 1964? Why did …almost all the weeklies, monthlies and dailies started introducing him to their readers?” Fifty years ago, Shamsher Bahadur Singh, asked this question in the preface to Chand Ka Munh Tedha hai, the first anthology of poems of Muktibodh being compiled.

Muktibodh then, was in a state of coma , being brought to Delhi from  Rajnadgaon,a small town in Chhattisgarh, by his young writer comrades – like Harishankar Parsai, Srikant Verma and Ashok Vajpeyi, in a desperate, last ditch attempt to save their beloved elder poet. It was not be . He breathed his last on 11 September, 1964 at the AIIMS , before completing his 47th year. And in  the words of Shamsher, the story of heroic struggle of his brief life and tragic, untimely death turned him into an event for the world of Hindi literature.

Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh continues to be an event of Hindi literature, the full meaning of which is still being discussed. And yet, he as a poet was not interested in portraying events . He was more interested in the drama of the human soul, rather soul of a human being, ravaged, wrecked and fatally wounded by industrial modernity. Living the life of a lower middle class family man, constantly changing jobs and places in search of  a modestly secure life which would allow him to write the kind of poetry he wanted, he witnessed  the humanness and individuality of the people being crushed under the ruthless wheels of capitalist modernity. Continue reading Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh: Put fire back into firewood →

Bad ideas

मीडिया और मज़दूर: फ़ैज़ुल्लाह

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Guest Post by Faiz Ullah

The following text is a version of a text originally written for Faridabad Majdoor Samachar, a workers’ paper distributed in Faridabad, Gurgaon and Delhi. It is an attempt to speak to the concerns often expressed by  workers’ about what they consider to be inadequate and unfair representation of their issues in the mainstream media

Maruti Suzuki Workers Demanding to talk to the Media
Maruti Suzuki Workers Demanding to talk to the Media

मीडिया और मज़दूर

समाज जैसे-जैसे बड़ा और जटिल होता जाता है वैसे-वैसे हमारे एक दूसरे से सम्बन्ध कमज़ोर होने लगते हैं। ऐसे में हम एक दुसरे को कैसे जानें, कैसे समझें? मीडिया के ज़रिये हम अपनी बात आगे रख सकते हैं, दूसरों की सुन सकते हैं और अपने तजुर्बों को साझा कर सकते हैं। चर्चा-बहस भी कर सकते हैं और किस तरह का समाज बनाना है उसकी एक साथ कल्पना कर सकते हैं। समाज में मीडिया की एक बड़ी भूमिका बनती है। वैसे तो मीडिया को आपकी और हमारी बातों को जगह देनी चाहिए पर आमतौर पर ऐसा होता नहीं है। हमारी बातों, हमारे मुद्दों को बड़े टीवी चैनल और अखबार हमेशा ही नज़रअंदाज़ करते रहे हैं।

Continue reading मीडिया और मज़दूर: फ़ैज़ुल्लाह →

Bad ideas

Striving for plurality in Media – The promises and shortcomings of TRAI’s recommendations on media ownership: Smarika Kumar

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Guest post by SMARIKA KUMAR

TRAI published a set of recommendations on issues relating to media ownership on 12 August 2014. A summary of the key points of these recommendations may be found here. But what do these recommendations imply for the freedom of speech and expression in India? This post is an attempt to contextualise TRAI’s recommendations against this question.

From No Regulation on the Business of Speech to Some Regulation on the Business of Speech

In its introductory chapter, TRAI says that the objective of its recommendations is to achieve plurality of views and opinions in media. It states:

“The objective of these recommendations is not, in any sense whatsoever, to curb the media or deprive it of its rights – that, in fact, would be a disservice to the Indian citizen – but to put in place suitable safeguards that would ensure citizens the right to obtain objective, unbiased and diverse views and opinions.” (para 1.5)

This is a remarkable move because the idea of media plurality has remained contested in the understanding of Article 19(1)(a) of our Constitution, which guarantees the right to freedom of speech and expression to Indian citizens. The whole dance began in 1961 with the judgment of Sakal Newspapers v. Union of India, where the government sought to regulate the number of pages a newspaper could carry. Since such regulation would make newspaper prices of smaller newspapers comparable to big newspapers, the government argued that it would enable the smaller newspapers to secure larger circulation. One can clearly see how this was an attempt at enabling plurality in the newspaper business, so that the smaller voices are not stifled by the big voices.

Continue reading Striving for plurality in Media – The promises and shortcomings of TRAI’s recommendations on media ownership: Smarika Kumar →

Debates, Empire/ Imperialism, Government, Identities, Images, Movements, Politics

‘My Heart says Yes, but the Head says No’: Economizing Politics in the Scottish Referendum: Akshaya Kumar

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Guest post by AKSHAYA KUMAR

I

About two months ago, while walking by the roadside in Glasgow, a middle-aged man handed me out a pamphlet. In an endorsement of UKIP, the pamphlet declared ‘Our government pays GBP 55 million a day in fees to the EU’ (emphasis added). It went on to inform that in return, the EU gives ‘us’ accounts riddled with fraud, no control over ‘our’ own borders – putting pressure on our health, education and welfare services – and a super-government that makes more than 70% of ‘our’ laws. The pamphlet intrigued me a fair bit, not in the least because as an international student in the UK, I wondered if my case was a bigger or smaller burden on the UK defined thus – their UK. But who are they? One might rubbish them as a deviant community, or one might consider them a threat to yet another definition of us – the liberals or suchlike. But what intrigued me was not the neatness of these boundaries, or the speculations about how many of ‘us’ and ‘them’ there are. I was intrigued by the language of the starkly political proposition. Let us tentatively assume that in the pamphlet, ‘us’ meant the citizens of UK and it constructs an antagonistic position vis-à-vis other national citizens who are entitled to living and working within the UK. Surely the two are politically distinguishable? Or are there too many of them living next to us, so they cannot exactly be identified as such? Continue reading ‘My Heart says Yes, but the Head says No’: Economizing Politics in the Scottish Referendum: Akshaya Kumar →

Culture, Debates, Feminism, Genders, Government, Law, Right watch

Temperance in the time of Rahu

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So Onam is here again — despite the fact that several contradictory stars above  now form a malefic conjunction in the fate of poor Malayalis in Kerala. Indeed, rarely has a stranger gang dominated the starry heavens of our destiny: V M Sudheeran’s targeted gullet moralism that promises to close down a very large number of bars in Kerala and pave the way for total prohibition in the future, gangs of Hindu right wing youth and women forcing the government’s liquor outlets to close, policemen puffed up with jingoistic nationalism who hallucinate about Maoists in wake and sleep and declare social activists like Ajitha “dead”, CPM offspring who think that making foul, putrid public statements justifying murder is politics. All these are, well, rather drunk on self-righteousness and to be true, present a slightly ridiculous sight. Even the weather looks ridiculously inebriated – the sky alternates between bright sunny spells and horrid, harsh showers, crazily swinging between sunny smiles and bursts of tears. Continue reading Temperance in the time of Rahu →

Bad ideas

Statement of concern regarding PM’s takeover of the Teacher’s Day

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We are disturbed by the circulars issued by the CBSE and other authorities dealing with different systems like the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Directorate of Education, Delhi, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, etc. asking schools to make arrangements to ensure that all the school children across the country listen to the Prime Minister’s address to the children in their school premises on the occasion of Teacher’s Day on September 5.

It is an extraordinary and unprecedented step in the history of school education in independent India. Not only does this order treat children as passive and captive elements who do not have a view of their own, it also violates the international convention of Child Rights which says that children have a right to form opinion and therefore they need to be asked whether they would like to be part of such an extra-school activity beyond their usual school hours.

Although the MHRD has clarified verbally that this is a voluntary activity and not binding on the schools and children, yet the written orders by the authorities are still in effect asking the schools to furnish the status report by 2nd September and remain prepared for surprise inspections in this regard. Continue reading Statement of concern regarding PM’s takeover of the Teacher’s Day →

Mirror Worlds, Politics

‘Son, you outgrew my lap but never my heart’ – Fauzia Ansari in search of her son: Debangana Chatterjee

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On August 14, 2013, Shivam Vij wrote in Kafila  about Hamid Ansari, a young Management Studies graduate from Mumbai who crossed the border illegally to Pakistan in November 2012, to meet a young woman, and has been missing since. At the time Shivam wrote the post, there were indications that Hamid had been picked up by Pakistani security agencies.

Beena Sarwar, Pakistani human rights activist, wrote in July this year about the possibility of ‘cautious optimism’, following the directive of Peshawar High Court to Pakistan’s defence and interior ministries to provide full information about the forced disappearance of Hamid Ansari and of 25 others, who are Pakistani nationals. Her account is worth reading in full, outlining as it does, the ways in which cross border solidarities of democratic forces consistently work to soar above and also to undermine the barbed wire fences of nation-states.

DEBANGANA CHATTERJEE, a Delhi-based MA student, met Hamid’s mother a few days ago, and wrote this piece after talking to her, outlining some new developments in the case. We have retained Fauzia Ansari’s voice as far as possible in this narrative.

The story of Hamid Ansari, a 28 year old IT engineer and management studies graduate, started unfolding when I came across his mother, Fauzia Ansari at a conference on ‘Challenges to Indian Democracy’ organized in Delhi by the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace a few days ago, on August 30-31. Fauzia Ansari is a lecturer of Hindi at a college in Mumbai. Like other mothers, Fauzia says she too had vibrant dreams of her son’s bright future. But a nightmare has unfolded instead. Continue reading ‘Son, you outgrew my lap but never my heart’ – Fauzia Ansari in search of her son: Debangana Chatterjee →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Politics, Right watch, Sex

‘लव जेहाद’ की असलियत – इतिहास के आईने में: चारू गुप्ता

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Guest post by CHARU GUPTA

लव जेहाद आंदोलन स्त्रियों के नाम पर सांप्रदायिक लामबंदी की एक समकालीन कोशिश है. बतौर एक इतिहासकार मैं इसकी जड़ें औपनिवेशिक अतीत में भी देखती हूँ. जब भी सांप्रदायिक तनाव और दंगों का माहौल मज़बूत हुआ है, तब-तब इस तरह के मिथक गढ़े गए हैं और उनके इर्द गिर्द प्रचार हमारे सामने आये हैं. इन प्रचारों में मुस्लिम पुरुष को विशेष रूप से एक अपहरणकर्ता के रूप में पेश किया गया है और एक ‘कामुक’ मुस्लिम की तस्वीर गढ़ी गयी है.

मैंने 1920-30 के दशकों में उत्तर प्रदेश में साम्प्रदायिकता और यौनिकता के बीच उभर रहे रिश्ते पर काम किया है. उस दौर में लव जेहाद शब्द का इस्तेमाल नहीं हुआ था लेकिन उस समय में भी कई हिंदू संगठनों — आर्य समाज, हिंदू महासभा आदि –- के एक बड़े हिस्से ने ‘मुस्लिम गुंडों’ द्वारा हिंदू महिलाओं के अपहरण और धर्म परिवर्तन की अनेकोँ कहानियां प्रचारित कीं. उन्होंने कई प्रकार के भड़काऊ और लफ्फाज़ी भरे वक्तव्य दिए जिनमें मुसलमानों द्वारा हिंदू महिलाओं पर अत्याचार और व्यभिचार की अनगिनत कहानियां गढ़ी गईं. इन वक्तव्यों का ऐसा सैलाब आया कि मुसलमानों द्वारा हिंदू महिलाओं के साथ बलात्कार, आक्रामक व्यवहार, अपहरण, बहलाना-फुसलाना, धर्मान्तरण और जबरन मुसलमान पुरुषों से हिंदू महिलाओं की शादियों की कहानियों की एक लंबी सूची बनती गई. अंतरधार्मिक विवाह, प्रेम, एक स्त्री का अपनी मर्जी से सहवास और धर्मान्तरण को भी सामूहिक रूप से अपहरण और जबरन धर्मान्तरण की श्रेणी में डाल दिया गया. Continue reading ‘लव जेहाद’ की असलियत – इतिहास के आईने में: चारू गुप्ता →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Excavation, Government, Identities, Left watch, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

A civil-war is on the doorstep of India: Interview with Kancha Ilaiah by Mahmood Kooria

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This is a guest post by Mahmood Kooria

We are publishing an English translation of an important interview of the intellectual and academic Kancha Ilaiah, conducted by Mahmood Kooria for the Malayalam weekly Mathrubhumi. While what I see as Professor Ilaiah’s underestimation and perhaps misreading of the historic role of the Communists in Indian politics leaves me severely uncomfortable, especially when he exonerates the right from commensurate charges of elitism, his framing of Hindustva and Modi’s appeal within the great stream of caste in the subcontinent is brilliant and thought-provoking, as always. 

Kooria conducted the interview as well as translated it in to English. His introduction is as follows, “At a time when there was no any such discussion, in 2002 Professor Kancha Ilaiah predicted that Narendra Modi will be the prime-ministerial candidate of Baratiya Janata Party. It has come true and now Modi is in the office. At this point, I talked with him at Moulana Azad Urdu University Hyderabad where he chairs the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy. In the conversation, he talked about the future of Modi government and he predicted that a civil war is going to break out in India if Modi does not cater the needs of backward classes. A Malayalam-version of this interview was published in the Mathrubhumi Illustrated Weekly (August 24, 2014).”

Mahmood Kooria: Ten years ago you wrote that Modi will be the prime ministerial candidate of BJP. What would be your response as your prediction has come true?

Kancha Ilaiah: Well, at that time I was predicting that based on the Left parties’ indifference to understand the caste question. The caste question is not been seriously taken by the Left parties. And, after Mandal, the BJP and the RSS wings started looking at caste-question seriously because when Babari Masjid was demolished they mobilized a lot of backward classes. Though they oppose Mandal reservation, they wanted the backward classes to be part of the Hindu religion. Around 1994, a non-Brahmin called Rajju Bhaiya became the Sarsanghchalak of the RSS. Then he recruited a large number of backward classes, large number of youth, and he promoted the people like Narendra Modi, Uma Bharati at that time. Earlier, the first backward-class chief minister of Uttar Pradesh was a BJP man: Kalyan Sing. He was the chief minister in 1992 when the Babri Masjid was demolished.

The Sangh Pariwar was responding to the backward class demands more. But the Left or the Congress was not responding to the OBCs. The Congress was responding to the Dalits and Muslims. There was upper caste all the time on the top. So, when Narendra Modi became the chief minister and this whole atmosphere was created, I was writing a column in The Hindu. I thought that this seems to be cause/course of India, since the Hindu religion is surviving because of the backward classes. It is inevitable for the Hindutva organizations that they will have to project an OBC for the prime-ministership. But there was resistance from within itself. It is not that the Brahmins have given up the principle of varna-dharma. After that article came and of course after my writing Why I am not a Hindu itself, the backward classes even within RSS seemed to use that material for their advantage. The communists did not use or recognize it. The question of labour and caste which I have been consistently raising, which was also part of their theory, they did not care about. So the Communist Party remained tightly under the control of upper castes.

Continue reading A civil-war is on the doorstep of India: Interview with Kancha Ilaiah by Mahmood Kooria →

Empire/ Imperialism, Politics, Violence/Conflict

The European Union And The Twin Civil Wars In Syria/Iraq: Peter Custers

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Is this one of those rare occasions where policymakers self-critically correct a gigantic blunder? Or is it a cold turn-about guided by pure self-interest? On August the 15th, the Foreign Ministers of EU-countries gathered in Brussels and decided that each would henceforth be free to supply arms to Kurdish rebels fighting Sunni extremists of ISIS in the North of Iraq. Even Germany which in the past had been unwilling to furnish military supplies to warring parties  in ‘conflict zones’, is now ready to provide armoured vehicles and other hardware to the Kurds opposing ISIS’ advance. The decision of Europe’s Foreign Ministers may surprise some, for barely a year and four months ago, in April of 2013, the European Union had lifted a previously instituted ban on all imports of Syrian oil (1). Moreover, the lifting of this boycott was quite explicitly intended to facilitate the flow of oil from areas in the North-East of Syria, where Sunni extremist rebel organisations had established a strong foothold, if not overall predominance over the region’s oil fields (2). ISIS was not the only Sunni extremist organisation disputing control over Syrian oil fields. Yet there is little doubt but that the fateful decision the EU took last year has helped ISIS consolidate its hold over Syrian oil resources and prepare for a sweeping advance into areas with oil wells in the North of Iraq (3).  Continue reading The European Union And The Twin Civil Wars In Syria/Iraq: Peter Custers →

Debates, Education

The Wrongs In The Right To Education: Noyonika Bose

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Guest Post by  NOYONIKA BOSE

In the winter of 2013 I had carried out a survey as part of an NGO CRY, Child Rights and You in 10 schools in the heavily populated slums of Rajabazar, an area in north Kolkata. The objective of the survey was to see whether the Right To Education (RTE) Act was being properly implemented in these schools.  The findings of the survey though not absolutely abysmal, were not positive either. However what I learnt is that it is not entirely the fault of these government and government aided schools that they were unable to provide their students with quality education. It has also to do with the basic structure of the RTE act which is peppered with several flaws. This article is a critique of the RTE and some possible solutions. Continue reading The Wrongs In The Right To Education: Noyonika Bose →

Bad ideas, Politics

Strange yet familiar – race politics in the USA

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images (1)

Here is a link to Jon Stewart on race politics in the USA, in the context of the recent shooting by a white cop of a black unarmed teenager in Ferguson.

See any resemblances to our own fair country and the politics of caste, class, gender and community here? So familiar are the doubts expressed, questions raised, biases proudly stated, you could be pardoned for thinking it’s not the US of A, but Mera Bharat Mahan.  Continue reading Strange yet familiar – race politics in the USA →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Debates, Government, Right watch

Reading the Debate on the Planning Commission

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I find it hard to think through the current debate on the Planning Commission (PC) outside a few things. The first is a clear centralisation of power at and within the PMO which I cannot help but be alarmed by. It’s all well and good when the decisions are those you agree with and all to easy to forget what centralisation does in the hands of, let’s please not forget so easily, a man whose IMHO has no H.

Its faults are easy to list but the PC (when it worked) did remain a space for thinking through a centre-state relationship and a development vision outside the government. It was a moment of articulation of intent with an (albeit diminishing) ability to put some weight behind it. I can’t quite bring myself to defend it because of what it refused to become in the more recent years, and the fights it refused to fight, but the need for such an autonomous voice remains. I don’t believe this new body will be anything other than a rubber stamp for a deeply authoritative PMO. In that, I am cautious of what will come. And by cautious, I mostly mean afraid.

Continue reading Reading the Debate on the Planning Commission →

Capitalism, Centre watch, Debates, Identities, Law

If Gail Omvedt is Katherine Mayo, then Sugatha Kumari is …? Thoughts on Salman’s Predicaments

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Salman Zalman is a young man from Kerala who has recently been arrested for an alleged act of disrespect towards the Indian National Anthem. As an observer in Kerala, I think young people like him who choose to get involved in public struggles for justice face a number of predicaments that were perhaps not so severe for my generation when we were young. For this reason, I do feel that members of my generation, those of us alive to public issues, need to be more open to the challenges that public-minded younger people face today. Continue reading If Gail Omvedt is Katherine Mayo, then Sugatha Kumari is …? Thoughts on Salman’s Predicaments →

Bad ideas

In The Virile God’s Graveyard

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( I had spent a week in Gujarat in February-March,2007 and published two reports in TEHELKA. Reproducing the first part to remind myself that it was again in  Gujarat where  the fear of ‘Love Jihad’ was invented in its present incarnation.)

For many Gujaratis, Narendra Modi is a man who provides material and spiritual comforts to his people.Gujarat is calm. And is on the march. Every village of the state is a jyotigram. Narmada water is flowing in abundance in the canals quenching the thirst of Gujaratis. “Was not Surat flooded a few months back and did not the people of Gujarat suffer?” I ask my driver. “No, was not Narendrabhai there to take care of everything?”, he replies. How can anything go wrong when Narendrabhai is keeping watch!

Narendra Modi, you see, does not have a family and he works round the clock, we are informed. I find Modi smiling down at us benevolently from the digital billboards that dot Ahmedabad. There is no escaping his firm developmental smile. “The man has impressive qualities. Gujarat is bound to forge ahead under this workaholic chief minister. A citizen may have doubts about  his secularism, but even his enemies don’t doubt his competence,” writes Gunawant Shah, a popular Gujarati columnist. Continue reading In The Virile God’s Graveyard →

Left watch, Movements

Reflections on Solidarity for Palestine in India: Urvashi Sarkar

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Guest post by URVASHI SARKAR

Some sections of Indian civil society have reacted to Israel’s most recent brutalities in Gaza with outrage, and rightly so. In its pounding of Gaza which lasted over a month, Israel destroyed essential services and infrastructure, razed houses to debris and wiped out entire families.  Over 2000 Palestinians were killed, many of them civilians, and of which over 400 were children. On the Israeli side, sixty-four soldiers and four civilians died. A shaky ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, announced in early August, did not last, with hostilities resuming almost immediately.

It is not uncommon to hear Indian voices supporting Palestine even at a time when right wing forces hold sway in the country; yet there is more to this support than meets the eye. There are internal differences on the matter of Kashmir for instance, regarding the extent to which parallels can be drawn between the Palestine and Kashmir conflicts.  The actualization of both conflicts dates back to the 1940s.  Both regions are heavily militarized; its people suffer routine human rights violations and both are undergoing prolonged self-determination struggles. Each year, Kashmir joins different parts of the world to observe Al-Quds day, held on the last Friday of Ramzan, to observe solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.  Popular anti-India protest sites in Kashmir, such as Ramban Chowk and Maisuma, are referred to as ‘Gaza’ in local parlance.  A Kashmiri teenager lost his life during firing by security forces, in an anti-Israel protest in South Kashmir in July this year. Continue reading Reflections on Solidarity for Palestine in India: Urvashi Sarkar →

Bad ideas

Strength Of A Woman? Surabhi Shukla and Anubha Singh

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Guest post by SURABHI SHUKLA and ANUBHA SINGH

The Sports Authority of India recently excluded Dutee Chand from the Commonwealth Games on the basis that her androgen level exceeds the ‘normal’ range thus enhancing her performance and giving her a competitive advantage over other women athletes. This test seeks to eliminate any ‘unfair’ advantage which some women may draw from tested ‘elevated’ androgen levels and is invoked only when women perform excellently in non-traditional competitive sporting arena. Failing to accommodate the role of environmental factors and variations in ‘female’ bodies, such tests are deep rooted in the ideas of gender stereotyping and discrimination and question women’s abilities to perform beyond traditional gender defined roles. Understanding international standards and the constitutional guarantee of fundamental rights in tandem, the unconstitutionality of these tests and the various rights violations visited upon the athlete Dutee Chand begin to surface. Instead of focusing on this incident as a conspiracy or a political scheme, it is time that the matter is seen as violation of rights of Dutee Chand both on the grounds of the test failing to meet international standards and on its patent unconstitutionality.

 

“I am completely shattered over the development. I am an athlete and wanted to bring glory to my country. All my efforts have gone astray,”

Dutee Chand as reported to the Daily Excelisor, 19th July, 2014 Continue reading Strength Of A Woman? Surabhi Shukla and Anubha Singh →

Debates, Everyday Life, Government, Identities, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

When David Became Goliath: Lee-Alison Sibley

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Guest post by LEE-ALISON SIBLEY

Back in the 1960s when Hollywood was making a number of movies based on biblical stories, they came out with Orson Welles as King Saul in “David and Goliath.” I was a little kid when I saw this movie, but I remember identifying with little David who yes, played beautifully on his harp, and used his slingshot with divine accuracy. I also remember the monster Goliath – he was huge and ugly and represented the Philistines, our enemies.  I cheered in my head and my heart for David to defeat the monster and he did, so that I could feel the good guys won and God was indeed on our side, the side of the Israelites.

Like any idealistic Jew, though not religious, I went to Israel to work on a kibbutz in the summer of 1971.  I was in the south, near Eilat and the border with Jordan.  Young and naïve, I was friendly with everyone I met — the Sabras of Israel, the Christians in Bethlehem, and Arabs in Gaza. In Gaza?  Yes, I was there with a British fellow from the kibbutz who was picking up some cane furniture he had ordered.  I wasn’t supposed to be there, of course, and when an Israeli army jeep spotted me, my friend was in big trouble.  “Get her out of here immediately!” was the order he shouted.  I guess it had something to do with my appearance and that there were no other women on the street at that time.  Like I said, I was friendly with everyone – my parents did not raise me to hate, they raised me to love.  The Israelis tried to make me feel guilty for not staying in Israel, but I kept saying, “I’m an American, my home is the U.S.A.”  Still, I certainly supported Israel and every person I met there had lost someone, a family member or a friend in a war and I felt very sad for them and angry that they lived with the constant threat of attack. Continue reading When David Became Goliath: Lee-Alison Sibley →

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