Bad ideas, Culture

Love Outside the Gurdwaras: Pukhraj Singh

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Guest Post by PUKHRAJ SINGH

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Balmiki temple in Dhotian  village, Tarn Taran

The latent passions of this land are steeped in love and longing. If one sees Punjab solely from the perspective of its oral traditions, local continuities and folklore, then the picture which emerges is in complete contrast to the drubbed, kitschy monochrome making its way to the mainstream. It is the unquestionable faith and conviction of its peoples, which have often subverted the rigid precepts of religion and nationalism, to create identity markers that are more organically rooted in the mythos and geography.

By innately focusing on the unseen and the unsaid, there will be an emotional realization of a certain kind of inexplicable absence, and the purity of absence, overwhelming its verdant backdrop. The dirt-tracks crisscrossing the rural outliers are pockmarked with the signage of a time bygone, managing to exist somewhere between the interstices of memory and history. Continue reading Love Outside the Gurdwaras: Pukhraj Singh →

Culture, Debates, Everyday Life, Genders

Are you celebrating free speech, Mr. Lit Fest? Harsh Snehanshu

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Guest post by HARSH SNEHANSHU

This January, in a session at the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), the award-winning writer Jerry Pinto said something that sent most of us into a tizzy.

“We are sitting in the ‘Google’ Mughal Tent discussing how crucial the freedom of expression is for us writers,” Pinto said wringing his hands animatedly. “It’s the same Google that reads all our mails, encroaches on our privacy, and here, under its roof, we are discussing how we should feel free to say whatever we want without any fear.” The crowd was amused, and left with some food for thought. Would it have been possible to organize an event as grand as the JLF, free for all, without Google’s help? I asked myself. The answer was a no. Google’s deep pockets couldn’t be ignored. Should I refrain from attending the fest just because of Google’s invasion of my privacy? The answer, after some thought, was again a no. Google monitoring my mails doesn’t affect my freedom of expression that I prize most as a writer.

Two weeks later, another literature festival has arrived, this time in New Delhi. Run by arguably India’s most revered newspaper, The Hindu’s Lit for Life is being held at the Siri Fort Auditorium, New Delhi, on 8th February after its successful three day stint at Chennai in mid-January. The guest-list is embellished with names of noted luminaries like the writers Rana Dasgupta, Sam Miller, Rahul Bhattacharya among others, the Olympian Mary Kom, and politicians Shazia Ilmi and Manish Tewari. The entry, like every other literary festival nowadays, is free. The beautifully designed logo is aptly shaped as the fountain pen, representing the craft that it celebrates. However there is something below the logo that disturbs me. It says, ‘Powered by VIT University.’ Continue reading Are you celebrating free speech, Mr. Lit Fest? Harsh Snehanshu →

Everyday Life, Feminism, Sex, Violence/Conflict

Theatres Of Rape: Srimati Basu

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Guest Post by SRIMATI BASU

The Birbhum rape has thrown up images of the ‘kangaroo court,’ evoking the savagery of tribal subjects — but rather than feeling complacent at the exception and difference of this location, we might concentrate on the common modes of gendered control achieved by the rapes.

Jyoti Singh’s rape and murder in a Delhi bus in December 2012 seemed to evoke a sense of horror at the ultimate in human depravity. But in the time since, no week seems to go by without yet another gruesome gang rape, almost a one-upping of sadist violence across these uncoordinated episodes. Gang rapes have come to appear as the spectacular trendy crime of the moment. They underline the lethal consequences of women’s daily cultural transgressions: going to school, going to a night show movie, going to work, having a drink, being in politics. Even though we know they are miniscule in the corpus of sexual violence, which overwhelmingly happens in private and domestic spaces and among people who know each other, they have irritatingly given the impression that public spaces have become more unsafe, and further strengthened restrictions by families and communities on women’s mobility and choices.

As if the New Year’s report that a Kolkata schoolgirl was burned alive after being gang raped twice (the burning and second rape allegedly being retaliations to her police complaint) was not ghastly enough, this week we are talking about another woman in West Bengal (Birbhum), gang raped by diktat of the village council, on a public platform erected for optimal viewing. Continue reading Theatres Of Rape: Srimati Basu →

Countryside, Culture

Efforts to save the endangered oral traditions of Rajasthan: Vishesh Kothari

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Guest Post by VISHESH KOTHARI

574802_10151322516287197_1967840932_nMedieval feudal social systems and attitudes in Rajasthan persisted until very recently. This, and perhaps a host of other reasons, allowed several aspects of culture to remain preserved here for much longer than in other parts of our country. While Rajasthan has become well known for its architectural heritage, it is the intangible heritage of this state that is in need of the most urgent intervention to protect it from being lost – from the oral lore to the epic ballads, everything is threatened by the onslaught of modernity.

Komalji Kothari and Vijaydanji Detha embarked on such a project many years ago and achieved great success – however an even greater amount remains to be done. For more than a decade now, the Jaipur Virasat Foundation has been continuing and enhancing this project to protect, preserve and promote the oral musical traditions of this state. Continue reading Efforts to save the endangered oral traditions of Rajasthan: Vishesh Kothari →

Bad ideas, Capitalism

Why sue a ‘skin’ colour? Chirayu Jain

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A law student from Bangalore has filed a complaint against Hindustan Pencils at a consumer court, accusing the company of racism for producing a skin tone crayon that is not the skin tone of most people in India.

That law student CHIRAYU JAIN explains here here why he took up this issue.

DSC_0938It was May 2012, I was at Bangalore Airport, where they had a promotion going on – giving out free crayons and colouring sheets, inviting travellers to ‘revisit their childhood’.  I  jumped at the invitation and so I did revisit my childhood that day. Continue reading Why sue a ‘skin’ colour? Chirayu Jain →

Centre watch, Countryside, Everyday Life

Gandhi’s Dystopia – More Mobile Phones Than Toilets: Apurv Mishra

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Guest Post by APURV MISHRA 

“Sanitation is more important than independence”, said Gandhi, the godfather of our freedom fighters, in 1925. Unlike Nehru, who believed that sovereignty and self-rule were a prerequisite for social change, Gandhi insisted that true Swaraj could only be achieved when political independence was accompanied by a parallel program of social reform. As we go through the perfunctory national routine of remembering Gandhi on his death anniversary every year, it is a good time to take stock and reflect on the irreconcilable gap between Gandhian values and our societal priorities. I am not talking about the ambitious Gandhian ideas of village republics, Nai Talim, strict vegetarianism, zealous celibacy or his suggestion of disbanding the Congress, but simple principles like cleanliness and sanitation.

Out of the 1.1 billion people around the world who openly defecate everyday, 626 million belong to India. Indonesia is second with 63 million. Our step-sibling China has just 14 million who defecate in the open, despite having a larger population. In fact, India has more than twice the number of the next 18 countries combined. Just think over these numbers for a minute.

This is not just a hygiene issue; open defecation is the single largest threat to the long term well-being of our country. Continue reading Gandhi’s Dystopia – More Mobile Phones Than Toilets: Apurv Mishra →

Culture, Debates, Genders, Identities, Law

Petition from IITs against Section 377

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This petition may be signed by alumnae, faculty and students of IITs at IITs Against 377

To
The Honourable Chief Justice of India,
The Honourable Prime Minister of India,
The Honourable Minister of Home Affairs, India,
The Honourable Minister of Law and Justice, India,
The Honourable Minister of Human Resource Development, India,
and The Directors of the Indian Institutes of Technology.

Dear Sirs,
We are a group of students, alumni, faculty and staff of the Indian Institutes of Technology, collectively expressing our shock and disappointment at the Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. Section 377 is a British-era statute that outlaws “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” and includes within its ambit intercourse among consenting adults of the same sex. We hold that this law violates the fundamental rights of privacy and autonomy accorded to all Indian citizens by its Constitution, and the rights to dignity, equality and due process of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) citizens. While we demand that the law be immediately modified to exclude all forms of sexual intercourse among consenting adults, we wish to reiterate that this is merely one step towards the goal of equal membership in Indian society for everyone, regardless of sexuality and gender identity. Continue reading Petition from IITs against Section 377 →

Law, Right watch

A Critique of The Draft Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014: Amba Salelkar

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Guest post by  Amba Salelkar, Inclusive Planet Centre for Disability Law and Policy 

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill was meant to be an enactment to codify India’s obligations under the UNCRPD, which it ratified without reservations. There was a Committee set up in 2009 by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, headed by Smt. Sudha Kaul, to draft a Bill to this effect. Like the UNCRPD says, the Committee included different people with disabilities – across disabilities – to draft this Bill. The Draft Bill of 2011 was submitted to the Ministry, and in response to that or otherwise, the Ministry released a Draft Bill in 2012, which are both on the Ministry’s website.

The Draft Bill of 2012 is not as comprehensive and inclusive as the 2011 one, and there were certain serious issues raised before the Ministry on the notification of the 2012 Draft. Thereafter the Draft, apparently still in its 2012 format, went to the various Cabinet Minstries, and then circulated among States. Some version of this Bill was cleared by Cabinet in December 2013. Thereafter, organizations of persons with disabilities, confident that the 2012 Draft was intact, began protests for the speedy introduction and passage of the Bill. I do not know why they did not believe that there had been changes made, but I assume it was in good faith. These protests were largely led by groups in Delhi who had better access to information. Some pockets of regional groups were demanding for information on the contents of the Bill. They remained unanswered. Meenakshi B of the Disability Rights Alliance, Tamil Nadu, followed up with the Ministries and the general passage of the Bill, and she was told that the Bill was ‘top secret’. Vaishnavi J, one of the founders of The Banyan, also received similar cryptic feedback.

Continue reading A Critique of The Draft Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014: Amba Salelkar →

Ecology/Environment, Frontiers, Identities, Metropolis, Violence/Conflict

Ruins of the Living: the Rohingya Refugees: Akshita Nagpal

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This is a guest post by Akshita Nagpal

A tree with deep roots, if uprooted and planted in alien soil, might live but often sans its vigour. The same can be said for refugees. A couple of weeks ago, along with a bunch of my classmates, I visited the refugee camp of Burmese Rohingya Muslims at Kalindi Kunj in the vicinity of our university campus. The visit was part of an initiative to help them with old winter clothing after hearing about the unliveable conditions of the camp.

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The Rohingyas, an ethnic group hailing from Myanmar (Burma), chiefly from its Rakhine (Arakan) State, happen to be one of the most oppressed people in the Asian sub-continent.

Continue reading Ruins of the Living: the Rohingya Refugees: Akshita Nagpal →

Bad ideas

सामाजिक मुक्ति की ज्ञानमीमांसा : स्वामी दयानन्द, विवेकानन्द एवं महात्मा ज्योतिबा फुले के बहाने चन्द बातें

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कल्पना की उड़ान भरना हर व्यक्ति को अच्छा लगता है।

कभी कभी मैं सोचता हूं कि आज से 100 साल बाद जबकि हम सभी – यहां तक कि इस सभागार में मौजूद अधिकतर लोग – बिदा हो चुके होंगे तो आने वाले समय के इतिहासलेखक हमारे इस कालखण्ड के बारेमें, जिससे हम गुजर रहे हैं, जिसकी एक एक घटना-परिघटना को लेकर बेहद उद्वेलित दिखते हैं, ‘हम’ और ‘वे’ की बेहद संकीर्ण परिभाषा को लेकर अपने पारिवारिक, सामाजिक एवं राजनीतिक फैसले लेते हैं, क्या कहेंगे ? आज हमारे लिए जो जीवन मरण के मसले बने हैं और जिनकी पूर्ति के नाम पर हम किसी भी हद तक जाने को तैयार हैं, उनके बारे में उनकी क्या राय होगी ? क्या वे इस सदी में सामने आए जनसंहारों के अंजामकर्ताओं को लेकर उतनीही अस्पष्टता रखेंगे और कहेंगे कि मारे गए लोग दरअसल खुद ही अपनी मौत के जिम्मेदार थे, जिन्होंने खुद मृत्यु को न्यौता दिया था ? क्या वह किसी वैश्विक मानवता के तब लगभग सर्वस्वीकृत फलसफे के तहत इस दौर की घटनाओं को देखेंगे और अपने अपने ‘चिरवैरियों’ के साथ हमारे रक्तरंजित संग्रामों पर एक अफसोस भरी हंसी हंस देंगे ?

स्पष्ट है कि स्थान एवं समय की दूरियां किसी विशाल कालखण्ड की वस्तुनिष्ठ आलोचना करने का मौका प्रदान करती हैं। दरअसल जब हम खुद किसी प्रवाह/धारा का हिस्सा होते हैं तब चाह कर भी बहुत वस्तुनिष्ठ नहीं हो पाते हैं, समुद्र की खतरनाक लगनेवाली लहरों पर सवार तैराक की तुलना में किनारे पर बैठा वह शख्स कई बार अधिक समझदार दिख सकता है, जिसे भले तैरना न आता हों, मगर जिसके पास लहरों का लम्बा अध्ययन हो।

Continue reading सामाजिक मुक्ति की ज्ञानमीमांसा : स्वामी दयानन्द, विवेकानन्द एवं महात्मा ज्योतिबा फुले के बहाने चन्द बातें →

Bad ideas

‘Orthodox of All Religions Unite’ – Who is Celebrating the Judgment on Section 377 !

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Our India is a religious country whose overwhelming majority believes in religion and upholds traditions of the east. All religions emphasize on construction of a family through marital relation between men and women, on which depend not only the existence of human race and lasting peace and tranquillity in the society but it also establishes the respected and central position of woman in the society.

The Constitution of the country has rightly described homosexuality as a punishable offence. It is because homosexuality not only prevents evolution and progress of human race but also destroys family system and social relations. Moreover, it is a great danger to public health. Medical research has also found it as a basic reason for the spread of AIDS…

( Signatories : Maulana Syed Jalaluddin Umari – (Ameer (National President), Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Maulana Mufti Mukarram Ahmed  – Shahi Imam, Fatehpuri Masjid, Jagat Guru Swami Omkar Anand- Sanatan Dharm, Gyani Ranjit Singh-Chief Priest, Bangla Saheb, Fr. Dominic Emmanuel, Lokesh Muni- Jain Dharm,  http://jamaateislamihind.org/eng/joint-statement-of-religious-leaders-on-supreme-court-order-on-article-377/

The recent judgment by the Supreme Court which has recriminalised homosexuality might have baffled a broad section of peace and justice loving people but it has definitely emboldened many a self proclaimed leaders of religion and purveyors of morality who today feel vindicated. For them it is a moment of celebration. Continue reading ‘Orthodox of All Religions Unite’ – Who is Celebrating the Judgment on Section 377 ! →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Language, Law, Right watch, Sex

Homophobia and Islamobphobia – The Jamaat e Islami Hind and the Supreme Court’s Decision on Section 377: Fahad Hashmi

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Guest Post by Fahad Hashmi

[ Yesterday, the Supreme Court of India, dismissed the ‘review petition’ that had been filed with a plea to reverse the Supreme Court’s recent (December 2013) decision to uphold the constitutionality of Section 377 of the IPC. This decision effectively ‘re-criminalized’ Homosexuality in India and is a severe blow to human rights. Various religious groups, Hindu, Muslim and Christian had appealed to the Supreme Court to act against the rights and interests of homosexuals. In a sad instance of the erosion of  secular and democratic values, the Supreme Court has endorsed their view. The Jamaat -e-Islami Hind, a right wing, muslim fundamentalist organization that claims to speak for Indian Muslims has welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision. This post by Fahad Hashmi attacks the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind’s position on homosexuality and challenges its claim to speak in the name of muslims and their faith. We see it as an important contribution to the ongoing discussion on section 377 on Kafila ]

“There was once…a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name.
In the north of the sad city stood mighty factories in which (so I’m told) sadness was actually manufactured, packaged and sent all over the world, which never seemed to get enough of it. Black smoke poured out of the chimneys of the sadness factories and hung over the city like bad news”.
(Haroun and Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie)

It is one of the ironies of democracies across the world that minorities of all shades are always in the crosshairs of majoritarianism. This minority-majority is a function of numbers and power though this is not a thorough definition since we have had seen altered power equation of this binary. The apartheid South Africa is a case in point. For stating the obvious the strength of a democracy is a function of safety and rights that minorities enjoy in it. However, minorities on the whole are always drawing majority’s fire. On the subcontinent one could see this happening in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and of course India is not an exception.

Continue reading Homophobia and Islamobphobia – The Jamaat e Islami Hind and the Supreme Court’s Decision on Section 377: Fahad Hashmi →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Government, Politics

In Defense of the ‘Post-Ideological’ Aam Aadmi – Yet Again!

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On the morning of 17 January, the very day after Somnath Bharti carried out his vigilante act – and I maintain, despite Arvind Kejriwal and Yogendra Yadav, that it was a vigilante act – I wrote a post relating to the dangers of xenophobia, racism and vigilantism that this act portended. I felt called upon to write that post because one of the valuable political lessons I have learnt over the years is that there can be no unconditional support for any political formation. Every support must be is contextual and conjunctural,  never for all eternity. My criticism was therefore of someone who is invested in the process that AAP and Kejriwal have unleashed and I want it to succeed. In invoking xenophobia and racism, my point, however, was that the leadership of the party has a role to play in relation to political education and cannot simply flow with the local sentiment.

I have always maintained, right from the days of the anti-corruption movement led by the IAC, that the movement and its later avatar, the AAP, had opened out a space of new possibilities. The mass support that the movement and now AAP is drawing is primarily, in my view, a function of the fact that it can mean many things to many people. ‘Clarity’ on every issue concerning the world is not its agenda. This is why some of us have been arguing that the movement/ party is still taking shape. It does not yet have a ready-made, given ideological form. This is why it can be shaped. Its future is radically open. I see no reason to change that position yet. Yes, it is in the design of things that there are Kumar Vishwases and Somnath Bhartis in that formation, and it disturbs our sensibilities no end. But that is precisely the challenge – if we cannot deal with them, we cannot deal with ordinary folk either. Moreover, everybody can change and it is simply arrogant upper class presumptuousness to mock at the ‘uncouthness’ of someone or hold their past against them (in the case of Vishwas). In any case, for anyone seriously interested in changing the existing state of affairs, it should be quite clear that the entire business is about changing ‘common sense’, to put it in Gramscian language. We don’t live in an already transformed universe. Continue reading In Defense of the ‘Post-Ideological’ Aam Aadmi – Yet Again! →

Bad ideas

Reclaim the Republic 2014

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Away from the obscenity of a parade of tanks, nuclear missiles, and military might, the citizens of Delhi, once again (yesterday, the 26th of January, Republic Day) demonstrated that their re-definition of citizenship and the idea of a republic does not necessarily need an army, the AFSPA, restrictive laws like section 377, moral policing, censorship and assaults on workers, gay, lesbian and transgender people, women, the young, pensioners, minorities, Africans and other non-Indian inhabitants of Delhi, disabled people, or discrimination against people from the North East and Kashmir.  Since last year, in the wake of the anti-rape protests, the 26th of January, which is nominally observed as the day when the Indian state performs its show of strength on New Delhi’s Rajpath has now been liberated by many of Delhi’s citizens groups as an occasion for us to turn away from the spectacle of the state and walk towards a liberated future. This is how the Republic gets Reclaimed on 26th January in Delhi.

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Continue reading Reclaim the Republic 2014 →

Centre watch, Government, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Protesting the Indian Republic at Kangla Fort, Manipur

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A-police-personnel-tries-toREPEAL ARMED FORCES SPECIAL POWERS ACT

The Sangai Express (Imphal) reported that women from different corners of Manipur staged a demonstration on January 25, 2014 in front of the Western Kangla Gate to denounce Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s failure to keep his promise to replace Armed Forces Special Powers Act with a humane legislation.

Displaying placards and festoons inscribed ‘Remove AFSPA,’ ‘Save Sharmila,’ the demonstrators also raised slogans demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Pandemonium erupted at the site when police personnel tried to seize the festoons from the agitating women.

Later, RK Radhyasana Devi, one of the protestors speaking to media persons, highlighted that the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, while handing over the historic Kangla Fort to the people on November 20, 2004, had assured the people of the State that AFSPA would be replaced with a more humane Act .

She pointed out that the promise Dr Manmohan Singh made a decade back has not been translated into action till now.

Strongly demanding that the AFSPA, 1958 should be repealed, Radhyasana further asserted that the movement of Meira Paibi organisations would go on until the Act is scrapped from the State.

In 2004, at the same historic Kangal Fort, Manipuri women had staged a militant nude protest to denounce AFSPA in the aftermath of the extra-judicial killing of Thangjam Manorama Devi by Assam Rifles troopers.

And meanwhile, Irom Sharmila, in the 14th year of her fast against AFSPA, continues to be held in isolation by the Indian state, a prisoner of conscience.

 

Centre watch, Debates, Media politics, Politics

The English Media and AAP – Should One Rush to Endorse the Party: Shankar Gopalakrishnan

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Guest post by SHANKAR GOPALAKRISHNAN

Over the last few weeks, the blizzard of news about the Aam Aadmi Party – and the move of many independent intellectuals and some activists into the party – has seemed like a roller coaster ride. One week we were told the world had changed, the following week that it had collapsed, and now we have no idea what next week is going to bring. But the roller coaster should not blind us to the deeper dynamics at work. In particular, there’s one that is uncannily familiar – the role being played by the English media. Those rushing to endorse and celebrate AAP should pause to consider recent events before they do so.

A good place to start is the India Against Corruption protests, which were clearly a media mobilisation. It was the media – particularly the English and Hindi electronic media – that called people on to the streets, that announced the locations and demands of the protests, and that consistently described the movement as being “universal” and about “ordinary people” (for examples, see the paragraph in this article on Times Now’s role in April 2011; or The Hoot’s analysis of TV coverage). Social media, the Sangh Parivar and the IAC’s local committees did so too, but they all jumped in after the mainstream media did, and they continued to rely on it. No other mass mobilisation of recent times, except the anti-rape protests, has received this kind of treatment at the hands of the media. Continue reading The English Media and AAP – Should One Rush to Endorse the Party: Shankar Gopalakrishnan →

Bad ideas, Frontiers, Identities, Left watch, Media politics

Racist villagers versus hapless Africans and other simplistic binaries

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The residents of Khirki are angry. They say they have been misrepresented, their grievances are not being given a patient hearing because the rest of us are doing politics over them. Nobody even wants to hear that they could have a case, that the story could be about more than just skin colour. Kafila and Times Now alike will tell you they are a bad, racist, evil lynch mob who deserve to be disenfranchised.

Even if that is what they are, will the summary dismissal of what they are saying be of help in resolving the situation? Forget the debates about the Aam Aadmi Party. As their elected representative, Somnath Bharti with all his vigilante zeal was doing what representative democracy makes representatives do. The people were making their voice heard through their elected representative. But we don’t want to hear their voice. If we did, we’d realise what the area needs is dialogue and understanding. All the problems with Africans and others in a 14th century ‘urban village’ next to 21st century shopping malls need a conversation that won’t come if we don’t want to appreciate the complexity of a social situation. By refusing to do so, we are being as unhelpful as the vigilantism of Somnath Bharti.

But at least we are thinking about Khirki. As for Sagarpur, where on earth is that?

These last few days, you have been fed one-sided angst by a media eager to help Narendra Modi overcome the pro-AAP mood, by pre-ideological leftists eager to bring down the AAP house so that Narendra Modi can come to power and they can do proper full-time chest-beating over fascism, by big industry already unhappy to see the AAP government move against Walmart. Is there a bigger picture?

Culture, Debates, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Identities, Images

AAP, Racism and Delhi – Perspective from a ‘North Eastern’ Citizen of Delhi: Anuraag Baruah

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Guest Post by ANURAAG BARUAH

The recent ‘AAP’ state of affairs in the National Capital brought about by a dharna led by the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has indeed shaken up the nation. Instead of judging and delivering a verdict on this so called ‘anarchism’, I stress upon something else here. The inherent racism prevalent in the mindset of our people actually found a shameless outlet through the antics of the new law minister of Delhi. The minister’s actions and words only reflect the mindset of the people of the concerned neighbourhood. His own words confirm that he was acting upon their complaints. This particular neighbourhood again reflects the mindset of any middle class neighbourhood in Delhi.

Continue reading AAP, Racism and Delhi – Perspective from a ‘North Eastern’ Citizen of Delhi: Anuraag Baruah →

Culture, Debates, Everyday Life, Government, Identities, Language, Metropolis, Movements, Politics

We The People, Reclaim the Republic: Various Citizens Groups

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Call given by VARIOUS CITIZENS GROUPS

As we commemorate another Republic Day, We The People proclaim that the parade of the powerful at Rajpath does not represent us. We The People, Reclaim our Republic.

As members of the LGBT community, women, workers, sex workers, students, teachers, activists, persons with disabilities, health rights activists, Dalits, indigenous people, farmers, those affected by unconstitutional military rule, we are united not as “minorities” or “others,” but as the people. We invoke the promises of the Constitution of India in our name. Our struggle will continue until all arms of the state are unwavering in their constitutional promises towards the marginalized in our society, rather than only representing the powerful.

Continue reading We The People, Reclaim the Republic: Various Citizens Groups →

Bad ideas, Culture, Everyday Life, Feminism, Genders, Government, Language, Law, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Sex, Violence/Conflict

For the sake of Form

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The Aam Admi Party it seems has now decided to hit back at critics by uploading videos on Youtube to defend the controversial actions of Somnath Bharti, its Law Minister in Delhi done purportedly ‘in public interest’. Bharti has been chastised even by AAP supporters for his vigilantism and for trying to force the Delhi police to raid the house of suspected sex and drug racketeers and who in fact ‘helped’, along with his followers to catch two of the fleeing women.

Eight videos have been uploaded. They, according to the party contain incriminating evidence to prove that sex and drug racketeers were very much active in that area. Reporting the videos The Times of India says “… some of the scenes are not so easy to judge. Two clips show an African national walking around naked in the area. In another, three women in a car are rubbing some substance in their hands. Yet another shows several condoms lying about a car.” .

We do indeed see an African national moving around naked in the video. This is supposed to prove the allegation by the party that drugs are being used as according to one AAP worker “Walking around naked like this is an after-effect of drugs and this is a regular occurrence in the area”. You can also see for yourself condoms lying in the car. Do you need any more evidence to prove that the occupants of the car were indeed prostitutes carrying condoms with them and luring men to indulge in sex? Why are these three women rubbing some substance in their hands or trying to hide something by putting on gloves? Continue reading For the sake of Form →

Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Feminism, Sex, Violence/Conflict

The Politics of Raid Governance – Aam Aurat v. Khas Aurat: Pratiksha Baxi

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Guest Post by PRATIKSHA BAXI

Following the terrible gang-rape of a Danish woman in Delhi, Chief Minister Mr Kejriwal castigating the police for dereliction of duty pronounced his theory about how rape tendencies form. We are told that rape tendencies flow from drug and sex rackets; and when police corruption sustains these rackets, rates of gangrape are bound to escalate. Rape in this formulation is not an expression of sexualized power or preferred and targetted male violence against women. Rather it is linked to a series of vices located in certain geographies, circuits, substances and bodies, which produce a specific form of sexual venality. And, the technique of “raid” is a privileged form of sexual governance.

To sustain the technique of raid (or sting operations) as the privileged form of governance to stem sexual violence, a certificatory genealogy is instituted. A leader of AAP recites his gender credentials by tracing raid governance to the “damini” protests and experiences of state violence during these anti–rape protests. Mallika Sarabhai’s gender credentials are now interrogated by citing her purported absence from the “damini” protests. Some of us who did not experience police violence during the protests are now vulnerable to the charge of faking our commitment to the anti–rape movement, since certification comes from one kind of participation in the “damini” protests. However, can the badge of being invested in the kind of transformative politics required to challenge rape culture be so easily earned? When men participate in anti–rape protests, we are expected to applaud them and not feel offended when they deride women like Mallika Sarabhai who risked their being to speak against rightist manifestations of sexual impunity and immunity in Gujarat. Continue reading The Politics of Raid Governance – Aam Aurat v. Khas Aurat: Pratiksha Baxi →

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