Movements, Violence/Conflict

Aluthgama – Thinking about Co-existence and Resistance in a Time of Crisis: Mahendran Thiruvarangan

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Guest post by MAHENDRAN THIRUVARANGAN

I come from a community that was both a victim and a villain in the thirty-year civil war that unsettled all of us. We were victims because the Sri Lankan state killed thousands of us, grabbed our lands and made us homeless; we were villains as we could not question the LTTE strongly when the movement massacred members of the Sinhala and Muslim communities and members of our own community who refused to conform to the movement’s ideology. We witnessed how the narrow nationalist politics that we romanticized, alienated us from the other communities on the island. We witnessed how our failure to criticize the decisions made by our leaders contributed in part to the death of thousands of Tamils in Mullivaikal in May 2009. We witnessed how our obsession with the particular—our language, our culture, our religion and our homeland—incarcerated us within the walls of purism and political decadence. It is true that there was no space for dissent when the LTTE ruled us. But we need to accept as a community that because the LTTE fought against a state that dominated us and persecuted us, many of us often, in our everyday conversations, justified its violence against other communities. Any community that clings to a narrow-minded nationalism has many a lesson to learn from the painful experiences that the Tamils in Sri Lanka went through during the war. When I read about the recent attacks on Muslims in Aluthgama, I remembered the Eviction of Muslims from the Northern Province by the LTTE and the violence that the LTTE directed at the Muslim community in the East in the name of Tamils. Continue reading Aluthgama – Thinking about Co-existence and Resistance in a Time of Crisis: Mahendran Thiruvarangan →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Education, Government

Autonomy for what, from whom, and for whom?

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It seems the unthinkable has happened – the Vice Chancellor of Delhi University has resigned over the UGC’s pressure to withdraw the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP). I won’t go into the debate on the FYUP, which has been covered extensively on Kafila and elsewhere [1]. See particularly this post by Professors at the University. I am only interested in two issues that arise from the news coverage of the event as it has unfolded through the day.

One, the question of autonomy. Prima facie, as Apoorvanand and Satish Deshpande have argued comprehensively on Kafila, the resignation of a VC over pressure from the UGC seems to be evidence of bureaucratic or ministerial over-reach. Questions have been raised (rightly) over the timing of this pressure, coming as it does on the heels of a political shift of colossal proportions at the national level. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (I find myself in agreement with Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari’s language on this) to figure out that the change in Delhi University has political backing. For one, rollback of the FYUP was on the BJP’s agenda/manifesto – that is as political as it gets! Second, it was this very UGC that had been so coy about commenting on the FYUP for the past one and a half years, a coyness that amounted to tacit support. Only very recently had it moved its mammoth bureaucratic feet on the matter, constituting a committee to look into complaints from students and teachers that had finally reached its mammoth bureaucratic ears. The VC, being well acquainted with elephants, would be able to explain the mammoth temporality of this apex organisation better than any of us, having benefited from it for a goodly amount of time. Even after the constitution of the committee, the VC continued to be lauded by the UGC for his efforts at implementation of former HRD minister Kapil Sibal and his successor Pallam Raju’s efforts at radical educational reform. The committee met at a leisurely pace, no doubt fortified by several hundred samosas and robust air-conditioning in the UGC’s Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg office in central Delhi, while anti-FYUP protestors enjoyed the blazing sun or freezing cold outdoors, as they had been enjoying for a year and a half.

Continue reading Autonomy for what, from whom, and for whom? →

Bad ideas, Education, Law, Politics

स्वायत्तता की फिक्र किसे है? अपूर्वानंद, सतीश देशपांडे

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पिछला एक हफ्ता भारत के शैक्षणिक समुदाय के लिए, खासकर उनके लिए जो किसी न किसी रूप में दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय और विश्वविद्यालय अनुदान आयोग से जुड़े रहे हैं, सामूहिक शर्म का समय रहा है. यह अकल्पनीय स्थिति है कि आयोग एक सार्वजनिक नोटिस जारी करके किसी विश्वविद्यालय के पाठ्यक्रम में दाखिले की प्रक्रिया के बारे में निर्देश जारी करे. आयोग ने दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय के स्नातक पाठ्यक्रम में दाखिले के सिलसिले में अभ्यर्थियों को कहा है कि वे विश्वविद्यालय द्वारा विज्ञापित चार वर्षीय स्नातक पाठ्यक्रम में प्रवेश न लें. उसने विश्वविद्यालय प्रशासन को फौरन यह पाठ्यक्रम वापस लेने और 2013 के पहले के पाठ्यक्रम को बहाल करने का आदेश दिया है. उसने विश्वविद्यालय के सभी कॉलेजों को भी सीधे चेतावनी दी है कि उसका आदेश न मानने की सूरत में उन्हें अनुदान बंद किया जा सकता है. किसी विश्वविद्यालय को नज़रअंदाज कर उसकी इकाई से उससे सीधे बात करना अंतरसांस्थानिक व्यवहार के सारे स्वीकृत कायदों का उल्लंघन है. व्यावहारिक रूप से यह दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय का अधिग्रहण है.यह भारत के विश्वविद्यालयीय शिक्षा के इतिहास में असाधारण घटना है और सांस्थानिक स्वायत्ता के संदर्भ में इसके अभिप्राय गंभीर हैं. Continue reading स्वायत्तता की फिक्र किसे है? अपूर्वानंद, सतीश देशपांडे →

Culture, Sports

Growing up with the Cup (Part Two): Hartman d Souza

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Second Part of Growing Up With the Cup by HARTMAN DE SOUZA.

Part One can be read here.

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Brazil playing the Soviet Union in the 1958 World Cup, ‘stamping their imprint on the game’, as Hartman puts it below. (Image from here).

It is an interesting coincidence that my mother ended her part of the scrap book for me, with the World Cup in Sweden 1958: while I ended that scrap book in 1963 with the World Cup in Chile in 1962.

In both tournaments, for contrasting reasons, Brazil played an important role. So, at the outset, it ought to be said that the style of playing they gave the world – by virtue of stamping their imprint on the game in 1958 – continues to be the universal model aspired to.  You can always find reasons to deny this, rationalize matters, but when push comes to shove the whole world knows who plays authentic football!

This is largely because the Brazilians continue to bring their gifts and place them on a football field where everyone partakes, rival players as well as spectators. The élan with which they play is an inspiration that is duly acknowledged, respected, bowed to and imitated, in every single part of the world where they learn to love playing with a ball and get to see re-runs of Brazil’s old matches. While rival players may hate them with a vengeance, no spectators whose teams have lost to them ever bear them a grudge. Continue reading Growing up with the Cup (Part Two): Hartman d Souza →

Capitalism, Everyday Life, Government, Law

From Baghdad to Bolangir – Labour Laws in India: Saba Sharma

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Guest post by SABA SHARMA

From the crisis in Iraq, a story is emerging of 40 construction workers in Mosul who have gone missing, some reports claim because they were trying to escape from the city and were captured by militants in the process. Many of these workers, feared kidnapped by ISIS, refused both their employers’ and the Indian government’s help to evacuate, as many have not been paid up to five months’ wages. Another report reveals that a group of 46 nurses from Kerala, working in a hospital in Tikrit, have refused to leave despite an offer from Delhi to help them evacuate. They need the money, as do their families back at home, so they would rather move to a safe zone in Iraq than return. Two nurses in the same hospital, who are on holiday in India, told the BBC that they would return despite the travel advisory issued by India advising citizens not to travel to Iraq. For them, failing to return means defaulting on loans taken to pay recruitment agents.

A few days before, on June 16, the NDA government announced that it was looking at liberalizing labour laws, primarily to make easier the retrenchment of workers. The UPA, and former PM Manmohan Singh in particular, also had labour law reform as an agenda, propelled by constant laments from industry saying ‘obsolete’ labour laws hindering growth and holding back the economy. The Vansundhara Raje government is already amending some state-level acts in Rajasthan to ‘liberate the corporate sector from the shackles of stringent requirements of the laws’, as one report put it.

Continue reading From Baghdad to Bolangir – Labour Laws in India: Saba Sharma →

Culture, Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life, Images, Metropolis

Eta Kolkata (This is Kolkata): Kaveri Gill

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Guest post by KAVERI GILL

Today comes the surreal news that anyone painting their house or apartment white or sky blue in Kolkata can claim a waiver on property tax for a full year, a horror conjuring up a city that looks like a crumpled weave of Mother Teresa’s saree. Now, towns of Regency England and the Cornwall coast have uniform building and color restrictions to maintain historical continuity, but this idea is more in the perverse vein of babus suggesting that the burning ghats at Varanasi be “white-washed” for “freshness”.

The Chief Minister's radio and music in public places scheme
The Chief Minister’s radio and music in public places scheme

Thankfully, another Humphrey shot that idea down, yet the decimation of the architectural integrity of the façade of these famous ghats continues apace, with sealed air-conditioned buildings overlooking the burning bodies at Manikaran. Bengal’s Chief Minister has been known to remark that the colours “promote happiness” and accordingly, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) Mayor has incentivised citizens to embrace the “theme colours of the city”[1]. Coming on the heels of a general election, where the TMC won 34 seats out of 42, up from 19 in 2009, and compared to only 2 each for the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (with 18% of the vote share, not to mention an almost win in the city), even discounting for dirty tricks appropriated by their cadres from the Left of old, the scorn must be tempered by what this result says about the contemporary citizen of this state and city. Continue reading Eta Kolkata (This is Kolkata): Kaveri Gill →

Culture, Sports

Growing up with the Cup: Hartman De Souza (Part I)

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Guest post by HARTMAN DE SOUZA

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Boys playing football in Bangladesh. The only thing this has to do with Hartman’s post is that it has boys playing football. Also, it’s a lovely picture. (From the UNCHR Bangladesh website)

I only knew there was something called the World Cup courtesy an eccentric mother who kick-started a thick scrap book dedicated to football, to get me to start reading the newspaper. I was ten years old, and lived in Mombasa, on the coast of Kenya.

In it, my mother had gummed various newspaper and magazine articles and features on football. In 1960 when she handed it to me to continue, the last entry was her exhaustive coverage of the World Cup in Sweden in 1958, with reports of every one of the qualifying rounds and all the internationals friendly matches leading up to it. The very last clippings were news-items and commentaries talking about the next World Cup in Chile, in just two years time.

My tasks were cut out. Armed with a dictionary, I may have been one of the first ten year olds in Kenya if not the so-called Commonwealth, to discover Brian Glanville, a very bright and daring football columnist; a man who still writes about the game as if it was the only pleasure worth pursuing with passion.

I spent days and nights reading and re-reading my scrap book. I replayed countless matches in my head so that I could tinker with them and change the results. I always changed the results in my head, so logically the teams I supported always won. Continue reading Growing up with the Cup: Hartman De Souza (Part I) →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Frontiers, Law, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

A Renegade’s People: Rupam Sindhu Kalita

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This is a guest post by Rupam Sindhu Kalita

What unites anti-homophobia campaigners, defenders of the poor’s right to clean water, university student collectives, women rights’ groups and academics under a premature summer sun in New Delhi on the 30th of March earlier this year? It is the unacceptable means employed by the Indian state in response to armed rebellions in North east India and the threat to civilian life that it has precipitated. The contagion of a military approach to a largely political problem was promulgated as an ordinance in 1958 under the presidency of Dr Rajendra Prasad to help quell the Naga movement and was developed into the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (Assam and Nagaland) later in the same year. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (from here on AFSPA) persists in violating human rights in Kashmir and North east India despite its incompatibility with national and international human rights declarations. Over the years this Act has been sanctified in the inner sanctum of India’s centralised quasi-military administration. The government has been extremely guarded in its approach to growing popular demands for annulling this Act. The civil leadership’s reluctance to temper with the ritualized provisions of this Act has raised the disquieting question of who runs the country.

On 30th March central Delhi woke up to a motley group of protestors unified by a concern for violation of human rights under AFSPA. [Photo credit: V Arun Kumar].
On 30th March central Delhi woke up to a motley group of protestors unified by a concern for violation of human rights under AFSPA. [Photo credit: V Arun Kumar].

Continue reading A Renegade’s People: Rupam Sindhu Kalita →

Debates, Government, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

PUCL Petition to NHRC Urges Inquiry in the Case of Human Rights Defenders Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand

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The following is the text of the PUCL petition to NHRC in the case of Teesta Setalvad, Javed Anand and the Citizens for Justice and Peace

PEOPLE’S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES

270-A, Patpar Ganj, Opposite Anand Lok Apartments, Mayur Vihar I, Delhi 110 091 Phone 2275 0014 PP FAX 4215 1459 Founder: Jayaprakash Narayan; Founding President: V M Tarkunde President: Prof. Prabhakar Sinha; General Secretary: Dr. V. Suresh

E.mail: puclnat@gmail.com; pucl.natgensec@gmail.com

7th June, 2014

TO: THE HON‟BLE CHAIRPERSON AND HON‟BLE MEMBERS,

NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION,

Manav Adhikar Bhawan Block-C, GPO Complex,

INA, New Delhi – 110023

SUB.: SEEKING AN INDEPENDENT REVIEW AND INTERVENTION IN RESPECT OF CONTINUING PERSECUTION AND PROSECUTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS, TEESTA SETALVAD AND JAVED ANAND OF CITIZENS FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE AND OTHERS

Continue reading PUCL Petition to NHRC Urges Inquiry in the Case of Human Rights Defenders Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand →

Capitalism, Ecology/Environment, Politics, Right watch

When Are Foreign Funds Okay? A Guide for the Perplexed

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The Intelligence Bureau has, as we know prepared a document, updating it from the time of the UPA regime (which had reportedly started the dossier) indicating large scale foreign funding for subversive anti-development activities. Such as claiming that you have a greater right to your own lands and to your livelihood than monstrous profit-making private companies. Or raising ecological arguments that might stand in the way of the profits to be made by private corporations and the corrupt state elite, from mining, big dams, multi-lane highways and so on.

The IB report, signed by IB joint director Safi A Rizvi — alleges that the “areas of action” of the foreign-funded NGOs include anti-nuclear, anti-coal and anti-Genetically Modified Organisms protests. Apart from stalling mega industrial projects including those floated by POSCO and Vedanta, these NGOs have also been working to the detriment of mining, dam and oil drilling projects in north-eastern India, it adds. 

Imagine – working against the interests of POSCO and Vedanta! Is there no end to the depraved anti-nationalism of these NGOs!

These folks must have made millions of dollars

narmada

In 2012, people affected by the Omkareshwar and Indira Sagar dams protested the raising of dam storage levels by staying in neck-deep water for over a fortnight (Photo: Narmada Bachao Andolan). 

The average observer of Indian politics – being like me, not as sharp as the IB – might be a little befuddled by this apparently anachronistic allergy of two successive governments and its intelligence gathering organization, towards foreign funding, in an era in which the slightest slowing down of the pace of handing over the nation’s resources to multi-national corporations,  is termed as “policy paralysis”, and attacked as detrimental to the health of the mythical “Sensex”. Older readers might remember that the  inspiring slogan of the legendary Jaspal Bhatti’s Feel Good party was Sensex ooncha rahe hamara.

This post is just to help you figure out then, when it is Okay to applaud foreign funding and when it is not – because otherwise you might post something on your FaceBook page that attacks foreign funding when it is actually Okay – and then how stupid and anti-national you’ll look.   Continue reading When Are Foreign Funds Okay? A Guide for the Perplexed →

Capitalism, Ecology/Environment, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Airing the unheard from Polavaram: Mohammed Omais Shayan

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Guest post by MOHAMMED OMAIS SHAYAN 

As the Nation is welcoming its 29th state, Telangana is upbeat with hope of starting a new chapter of progress. Amongst the jubilations in Telangana, voices of people affected by the Polavaram dam are being lost. “Dam’ned”, a film by Saraswati Kavula is an attempt to air the unheard voices. It’s a must watch for all concerned as the movie touches the links of people, land, livelihood and development. The film aims to bring ground realities through interviewing the people of the affected region, technical and environmental experts. Before getting into content of the film, a very brief introduction of the project.

Polavaram project is going to be the largest dam in terms of number of people being displaced. The dam will be constructed at Polavaram village in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. The dam aims to irrigate 2910 km2 of area in Andhra Pradesh [1]. It will also provide drinking water to Vishakapatnam City and many villages besides water for industries in Vizag. The project aims to transfer 80 TMC water from Godavari to Krishna basin. The dam will submerge 300 villages of Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Orissa. This submergence area will cover 3,500 acres of biodiversity rich forest and also partially submerge the Papikundulum wildlife sanctuary [2]. The people living in these areas are predominantly ‘adivasis’ belonging to Koya and Konda Reddy tribes.

Continue reading Airing the unheard from Polavaram: Mohammed Omais Shayan →

Capitalism, Debates, Excavation, Theory

Ideas to Occupy Economics – A Note on Michal Kalecki: Pranjal Rawat

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Guest post by PRANJAL RAWAT

A revolution of sorts is on the cards for the students of economics amidst a great surge of international support for radical restructuring of the subject and its pedagogy. From the politically incorrect ‘Non-Autistic Economics’ movement to the Post-Crash Society in Manchester to the Jadavpur University Heterodox Economics Students’ Association (JUHESA) in Kolkata we see an underlying common theme. The narrowness of the neoclassical economics is being criticized. Take for instance what the preamble of JUHESA has to say about Neoclassical Economics, “Students have rightly found it appalling that a theory which could neither predict nor suggest remedies to the biggest recession in more than half a century, continues to be taught as the sole approach to economic analysis the whole world over.” This so-called revolution will remain just a source of media income and wash over without changing much, unless scholars of economics take it upon themselves to destroy the inertia and raise arms against the old order. Revolutions exists only in retrospect, the rest is all popular gossip. For that purpose, it would do well to draw strength from the life and work of Michal Kalecki (1899 – 1970), a post-keynesian economist, whose work has remained relevant for a period longer than it took for American economy to recover from the Great Depression only to crash in the Great Recession. Continue reading Ideas to Occupy Economics – A Note on Michal Kalecki: Pranjal Rawat →

Bad ideas

दीनानाथ बत्रा और उदार बुद्धिजीवी

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दीनानाथ बत्रा की आलोचना में एक और टिप्पणी पहुँचने से किसी भी सम्पादक को कोफ़्त होगी:आखिर एक ही बात कितनी बार की जाए!लेकिन खुद दीनानाथ बत्रा और उनके ‘शिक्षा बचाओ आंदोलन’ को कभी भी वही एक काम बार-बार करते हुए दुहराव की ऊब और थकान नहीं होती. इसीलिए कुछ वक्त पहले वेंडी डोनिगर की किताब ‘एन अल्टरनेटिव हिस्ट्री ऑफ़ हिंदुइज्म’ के खिलाफ मुकदमा दायर करके और प्रकाशक पर लगातार उसे वापस लेने का दबाव डाल कर ‘आंदोलन’ ने जब पेंगुइन जैसे बड़े प्रकाशक को मजबूर कर दिया कि वह उस किताब की बची प्रतियों की लुगदी कर डाले और भारत में उसे फिर न छापे, तो आपत्ति की आवाजें उठीं लेकिन उसके कुछ वक्त बाद ही जब उन्होंने ‘ओरिएंट ब्लैकस्वान’ को 2004 में छापी गई शेखर बन्द्योपाध्याय की किताब From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India पर कानूनी नोटिस भेज दी और उस दबाव में मेघा कुमार की किताब(Communalism and Sexual Violence: Ahmedabad Since 1969) ,कई और किताबों के साथ,रोक ली गई तो कोई प्रतिवाद नहीं सुनाई पड़ा. यानी आखिरकार अभिव्यक्ति की आज़ादी के पैरोकार थक गए लगते हैं. Continue reading दीनानाथ बत्रा और उदार बुद्धिजीवी →

Bad ideas

Statement on the Murder of Three Young Persons in Badaun and Pune: P.A.D.S.

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People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (P.A.D.S.)  Statement on the murder of three young persons in Badaun and Pune
 
 
While introducing the Draft Constitution in the Constituent Assembly, Dr B. R. Ambedkar had observed, “Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic.”  The same continues to hold true sixty four years later. A few weeks ago the people of India participated in the largest-ever election of their representatives in a largely free and fair process. However, other events since then have revealed the shallowness of this democratic top-dressing along with the tyrannical side of our society and polity.
 
On 27 May two girls aged 12 and 14 from an oppressed caste family of Katra Sadatganj in Badaun district of UP were sexually assaulted and killed when out to answer nature’s call. The rapists, belonging to the local dominant caste, hung their bodies from a tree in a public display of their power.
 
On 2 June in Pune, twenty-eight year old Mohsin Shaikh, an information technology professional was beaten to death by a group of men belonging to an outfit called Hindu Rashtra Sena. The killers even celebrated their cruelty in messages declaring that the ‘the first wicket is down’.  

Continue reading Statement on the Murder of Three Young Persons in Badaun and Pune: P.A.D.S. →

Culture

“Trashy Tastes” and Permeable Borders – Indian and Iranian Soap Operas on Afghan Television: Wazhmah Osman

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We apologize to readers for having to take down this guest post by WAZHMAH OSMAN, which was a chapter from her Ph.D thesis from New York University, Thinking Outside the Box: Television and the Afghan Culture Wars.

The author has since written to us that she does not have permission to reproduce the entire chapter. Apologies to everybody all round!

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A young Afghan poster seller displaying Smriti Irani as Tulsi

Image: Reuters/Ahmad Masood 

Education

History Scholars Write to UGC on Need to Radically Restructure NET

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To:

The Chairman, University Grants Commission.

Dear Sir,

The University Grants Commission has mandated that an exam i.e. the National Eligibility Test, be passed as a requirement for the teaching of History at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels, except in the case where the candidate has a PhD. Those who score highly are given the Junior Research Fellowship which greatly strengthens their candidacy for the Ph.D. program.

We the undersigned, as teachers and researchers of History, believe that the NET exam as it exists does not measure competence in History as a discipline in any imaginable sense. The NET’s own understanding of History is fundamentally different from the practice of the discipline across the world. This understanding, as reflected in the question papers, holds History to lie solely in the memorization of facts. Therefore, in the NET’s version of History, the mechanical retention and retrieval of information appears to be the only competence required for the teaching of the subject.  Continue reading History Scholars Write to UGC on Need to Radically Restructure NET →

Government, Media politics, Mirror Worlds, Right watch

Media Freedoms, Coercive regimes and Blasphemy-mania: M. Amer Morgahi

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Guest post by M. AMER MORGAHI

[What the corporate interests have done to the Indian media the military is doing in Pakistan. In the continuing face-off, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has suspended Geo TV’s license for fifteen days and imposed a fine of $ 104, 000 on it. See report here]

Media revolutions in different developing countries are seen as an important factor in democratic process, in acquiring information and in enhancing consciousness. However, the media can be manipulated, coerced and used to develop certain consensuses that favors the ruling groups, as the example of recent happenings in Pakistan shows.

Photo: Anjum Naveed
Photo: Anjum Naveed

Continue reading Media Freedoms, Coercive regimes and Blasphemy-mania: M. Amer Morgahi →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates

#youhadonejob: Or, A Quick Legal Primer for Publishers. Or, What (Not) to Do When Dinanath (and other busybodies) Strike

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This post is co-authored by Aarti Sethi and Shuddhabrata Sengupta

Dinanath Batra is at it again. Not content with having bullied Penguin and Aleph into withdrawing Wendy Doniger’s “The Hindus: An Alternative History”, and “On Hinduism”, respectively, he has now trained his guns on Orient Blackswan. And, in what seems to be emerging as a frighteningly predictable pattern, Orient Blackswan has succumbed to Dinanath Batra’s “legal suits”, not just by agreeing to consider the withdrawal of  a book that had attracted Batra’s attention, but also by withdrawing another book, on sexual violence during communal riots in Gujarat, as a ‘preventive measure’ regardless of the fact that it had not even been targeted by Batra and his organization. Clearly these are interesting times for publishing in India.

There is no need to rehash arguments on the importance of free speech and the circulation of books and words and texts. These have been extensively discussed here on Kafila, and everywhere else. At this stage it might be useful to simply clarify some pressing “legal” matters as there seems to be a bewildering confusion rife amongst publishers as to what exactly a legal notice is. Thus, to begin:

What a Legal Notice Is:

A Legal Notice is a grouse sent by registered post and has the same legal standing. Namely, none whatsoever. Any crank with half an hour, a typewriter and money for postage can send a legal notice to anyone about anything. You do not even have to get a lawyer to draft it. You just need a few minutes on the internet where pre-drafted forms are available for free. Or, just for fun, try drafting one yourself. Since it has no legal validity anyway, be creative! Continue reading #youhadonejob: Or, A Quick Legal Primer for Publishers. Or, What (Not) to Do When Dinanath (and other busybodies) Strike →

Bad ideas

Statement on the Hate Crime in Pune: Concerned IT professionals

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Circulated by Concerned IT professionals from Pune

We, the undersigned express our deep shock at the gruesome incident of hate crime reported in the city of Pune earlier this week. A 28 year old IT professional Shaikh Mohsin Sadiq was thrashed to death by a group of people suspected to be connected with a radical Hindu outfit called Hindu Rashtra Sena.

Mohsin was reportedly returning home after offering namaz at a mosque on Monday night when he found himself caught by the mob. As is the case in every hate crime, a skull cap on head and beard were enough for the killers to pounce on him with deadly intentions. The city was witnessing bandh and violent street protests by Shiv Sena, BJP and other radical Hindu organizations in the wake of Facebook post(s) with allegedly derogatory references to Shivaji and former Shiva Sena Chief Bal Thackeray. The assailants were apparently involved in similar protests when they spotted Mohsin on Monday night in Bankar colony in Hadapsar area of Pune.

One cannot help seeing this incident vis-à-vis forthcoming assembly elections in Maharashtra. As a run-up to the elections which are due in a few months, an attempt to polarize the masses on communal lines with the sheer intention of electoral gains, as we have seen elsewhere, seems to be on the cards. We appeal to the state government to thwart any such attempts with alacrity while ensuring safety to every citizen; we also appeal to the people of Maharashtra to not fall prey to such hideous designs and uphold the progressive tradition of the state that has seen peaceful co-existence of various sects, religions and cultural groups with no place for hatred.

While offering our deepest condolences to the bereaved family members and friends of Mohsin, we extend our heartfelt solidarity to each and every member of minorities/disadvantaged communities in struggle to preserve the values of democracy, secularism and justice.

Sd/—

Neeraj Kholiya

Dhanesh Birajdar

Bharatbhooshan Tiwari

Nitin Agarwal

Vinod Pillai

Kamesh

Gokul Panigrahi

Rajat Johari

Ujjwal Barapatre

Kshitij Patil

Sanind Shaikh

Akbar Ali

Prince Shelley

Mohamed Shazad

Shaikh Asfaque Hossain

Debates, Politics, Theory

Religion, Modernity and Politics – Some Reflections on ‘Secularism’

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I am grateful to Ravi Sinha for his post responding to the question of religion and politics that arises out of the brief exchange between Subhash Gatade and myself on Subhash’s post some time ago. Much has happened since the first draft of this response was written and with the advent of Narendra Modi as prime minister, ‘secularism’ too is back in public debate with renewed vigour.

Meanwhile, with Shiv Visvanathan entering the debate, flogging the long dead secularist horse, sections of the liberal and left intelligentsia seem to have gone into a tizzy. Shiv’s argument merely restates in 2014 what political analysts like Ashis Nandy had been saying at least since the mid-1980s and it does so without its nuance. The long and short of this argument is that secularism is the creed of a deracinated English-speaking, West-oriented elite which cares little about the beliefs and ways of thinking and being of the majority of their compatriots. (See also Visvanathan’s piece in Economic and Political Weekly, May 31, 2014, on ‘Narendra Modi’s Symbolic War’)

Somewhere between the two poles of the fast-dwindling tribe of the Leftist gung-ho secularist and the breast-beating liberal, the possibility of a serious debate dies a quiet death. The 1980s-1990s debate on secularism had raised all the important questions about secularism and its problematic practice that Shiv Visvanathan’s piece raises but which, it seems bypassed a whole generation of Leftists who either still seem to find it scandalous to relate to religion or are suddenly discovering their alienation or worse, the virtues of religiosity. Needless to say, such a rediscovery, in the face of political adversity is not likely to be anything more than instrumental use of religion.

The issues in 2014 invite us to revisit and indeed, go beyond what the earlier debate allowed for. Continue reading Religion, Modernity and Politics – Some Reflections on ‘Secularism’ →

Capitalism, Government, Politics, Right watch

Looking back – and forward – from Modi’s election: Shashank Kela

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Guest post by SHASHANK KELA

So now the gloves are off. For the BJP, that is, whose victory in these elections gives India not only its most right-wing government, but, more to the point, a prime minister to the right of his party – more laissez faire, openly contemptuous of minorities, authoritarian in style. What the party, and Narendra Modi, will make of its – and his – comprehensive victory will soon be apparent, but the omens are far from good. Working in a coalition and under the supposedly moderate leadership of Atal Behari Vajpayee, the BJP between 1998 and 2004 achieved quite a lot – not just in the cultural wars that are its forte, but also in terms of putting economic “reform” on steroids. Now that it is being advised by that distinguished dispenser of received opinion and tireless self promoter, Dr Jagdish Bhagwati – an economist whose ignorance of history and the methods through which economic development was actually achieved in almost every successful industrial economy from Great Britain in the 16th and 17th centuries to South Korea in the 20th (cue: protectionism and lots of effective government intervention) is stupendous even by the low standards of the discipline – all bets are off. Continue reading Looking back – and forward – from Modi’s election: Shashank Kela →

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