Bad ideas

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

2 Comments

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 !

5 Comments

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

8 Comments

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!

37 Comments

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

10 Comments

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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Continue reading Reclaim the Republic 2014 →

Centre watch, Government, Movements, Violence/Conflict

Protesting the Indian Republic at Kangla Fort, Manipur

2 Comments

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

22 Comments

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

43 Comments

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

11 Comments

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

5 Comments

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

9 Comments

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

13 Comments

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 →

Debates, Everyday Life, Technology

Documented Lives: Aadhar and the Identity Effect in Kashmir: Shrimoyee Nandini Ghosh

1 Comment

A version of this essay appeared in the Kashmir Reader, 10 December 2013

Guest Post by Shrimoyee Nandini Ghosh

On the road to the city from Srinagar Airport, I recently saw a billboard. Beneath the radiantly beaming faces of Manmohan Singh, and Sonia Gandhi, it bore the declaration ‘One Nation. One Card. AADHAR.’ Public Service advertisements in the same cheery vein have been airing on Radio Kashmir, and the state owned TV station Doordarshan- Kashir. Its critics assert that the AADHAR (‘its not a card, just a number!’) scheme exemplifies the financialisation of citizenship (each AADHAR number will require a corresponding bank account), a regime of biometric surveillance, the creation of a database nation and an expansion of the global corporate- military-intelligence empire. But AADHAR is only the latest chapter in the largely undocumented history of India’s intimate stranglehold over Kashmir through identity documents. It is a history told anecdotally, through stories about the sinking feeling of being stopped at a barricade and rifling through empty pockets, of cold hours spent pleading on a street or at a police station, of late night rescues of hapless friends from lonely check points, of miraculously narrow escapes despite having left home without it.

Though no Kashmiri adult I know leaves home without their ID, no one can seem to pin point exactly when the carrying of a photo-identity card became mandatory. Trying to understand the basis for the practice, I asked a friend under what law it was required that every person be able to prove their identity at all times. ‘Under the gun law!’ he replied succinctly. While its legal origins are uncertain, what is quite clear is that by the early 1990s no Kashmiri male could afford to be, quite literally, caught dead without one. As my plain speaking friend explained, “the most important reason for carrying one was if you were killed, somebody would hopefully find your card and inform your family.” The ID card was the tenuous piece of laminated paper that stood between him and an unmarked grave, an unmourned death.

Continue reading Documented Lives: Aadhar and the Identity Effect in Kashmir: Shrimoyee Nandini Ghosh →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Debates, Media politics, Metropolis

Why AAP’s Stance on Somnath Bharti Is Disturbing, Whether He is Eventually Sacked or Not: Kavita Krishnan

30 Comments

Guest Post by KAVITA KRISHNAN

AAP’s official position is: we’ll sack Bharti IF judicial probe finds him guilty. But what AAP leaders are saying about Bharti’s ‘version’ on TV is as disturbing as Bharti’s own actions and words.

Continue reading Why AAP’s Stance on Somnath Bharti Is Disturbing, Whether He is Eventually Sacked or Not: Kavita Krishnan →

Centre watch, Debates, Government, Politics

Of AAP, dreams and nightmares: Nityanand Jayaraman

20 Comments

Guest post by NITYANAND JAYARAMAN

I am avowedly anti-police. I am only half-convinced when I say that they are a necessary evil. The “necessary” part is what I get doubtful about. This last Saturday was different. I found myself uncomfortably on the same side as the police as I read the newspapers about Somnath Bharti’s self-righteous and racist escapades. To tell the truth, I did not immediately believe what I read. That was not because I had some personal knowledge of Bharti’s antecedents. But because, AAP was a phenomenon that I wanted to work.

These last few weeks, ever since AAP’s dramatic rise to power, I have been wafting in and out of mental states, between dreams and wakefulness. Dreams are fragile things. For me, AAP’s upsurge was a dream coming true. I come from a generation of Tamils that takes joy no matter whether AIADMK or DMK wins as long as the ruling party loses horribly. Ditto with Congress and BJP.
Now, this AAP thing was an early morning dream. I could see it, feel the joy of seeing disbelief and confusion writ large in the faces of BJP and Congress wallahs. I loved it. I did not know whether I liked AAP or not. But I liked what they did, how they did it. In terms of what they proposed to do, I had questions, suggestions and critical comments. To me, the stated lack of ideology – to begin with – was both an opportunity and a challenge. Continue reading Of AAP, dreams and nightmares: Nityanand Jayaraman →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Everyday Life, Feminism, Genders, Metropolis

Open Letter to Delhi CM Demanding Action Against Racist Minister: Concerned Citizens

23 Comments

Guest Post by a group of Concerned Citizens

Open Letter by Citizens to Delhi CM Demanding Action Against Racist Minister

To 
Shri Arvind Kejriwal, 
Founder, Aam Aadmi Party and 
Chief Minister, Delhi



CC: Shri Yogendra Yadav, Shri Prashant Bhushan 



Our Demands



1. Remove Somnath Bharti from his position as Law Minister immediately


2. Punish all those, including Somnath Bharti, guilty of instigating and perpetrating racist and sexual violence on African women


3. Delhi Police must come under Delhi Government, but Delhi Police must be accountable to Constitution and not to the bidding of Ministers and mobs 


4. Meet and apologise to the Ugandan women who have complained of racist, sexual violence Continue reading Open Letter to Delhi CM Demanding Action Against Racist Minister: Concerned Citizens →

Bad ideas, Government, Politics

Notes of Dissent on the AAP Dharna

21 Comments

I have no issues with anyone using dharnas as a political strategy, whether or not they are the Chief Minister. The “inconvenience” and “dignity of office” arguments being made by some also hold little truck with me. I write here then to mark my dissent on three specific fronts against the recently concluded AAP dharna from a different vantage point. As with all thoughts on things emergent, they are offered in the making with all their attendant uncertainties.

Continue reading Notes of Dissent on the AAP Dharna →

Bad ideas, Culture, Education, Everyday Life, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

सतत क्रान्ति की पैरोडी

1 Comment

पिछले कुछ समय से नागार्जुन और हरिशंकर परसाई की याद बेइंतहा सता रही है: भारतीय राजनीति के इस दौर का वर्णन करने के लिए हमें उनकी कलम की ज़रूरत थी !

क्रान्ति सतत चलने वाली प्रक्रिया है और असली विद्रोही वह है जो छह महीने बाद अपनी कुर्सी खुद उलट दे. आम आदमी पार्टी और दिल्ली सरकार के मुखिया ने केंद्र सरकार के खिलाफ़ बगावत की शुरुआत की,तो ऐसा ही लगा. दिल्ली के केंद्र में रेल भवन के पास दिल्ली की पूरी सरकार  अपने समर्थकों के साथ दस दिनों के धरने पर बैठ गए. उन्होंने धमकी दी कि वे राजपथ को लाखों लोगों से पाट देंगे और केंद्र सरकार की नींद हराम कर देंगे.किसान और सैनिक जब मिल जाएं तो क्रांति शुरू हो जाती है. इसकी पैरोडी करते हुए अरविंद ने दिल्ली के पुलिसवालों को वर्दी उतार कर धरने पर शामिल होने का आह्वान किया. कुछ लोगों को जयप्रकाश नारायण की याद आ गई. एक साथ लेनिन, लोहिया,क्रोपाटकिन और जयप्रकाश का तेज अरविंद केजरीवाल के रूप में पुंजीभूत हुआ. गांधी का आभा वलय अन्ना हजारे से हट कर अरविंद के माथे के पीछे पीछे तो तब ही लग गया था जब उनका भरपूर इस्तेमाल कर ठिकाने लगा दिया गया. क्या यह 2014 का भारतीय तहरीर चौक होने जा रहा है?

दिल्ली के मुख्य मंत्री ने एक बार फिर  आज़ादी की  नई लड़ाई की घोषणा की.यह दृश्य क्रांतिकारियों,समाजवादियों,अराजकतावादियों, सबके के लिए एक पुराने सपने के  पूरा होने जैसा ही था. एक पुरानी, दबी हुई इच्छा के पूरा होने का क्षण!यह आज़ादी झूठी है वाले नारे , वंदे मातरम और भारत माता का जयकार से रोमांचित होने का सुख!! Continue reading सतत क्रान्ति की पैरोडी →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Education, Everyday Life

Skin Deep – Narratives of Racism in Delhi University: Aashima Saberwal Bonojit Hussain Devika Narayan

8 Comments

Aashima Saberwal, Bonojit Hussain and Devika Narayan are activists associated with New Socialist Initiative (NSI). This article was published in the November 2010 issue of CRiTIQUE, an irregular magazine brought out by the New Socialist Initiative (NSI) – Delhi University Chapter. 

Kevin is from Kenya. He studies at the faculty of Law. We ask him whether he likes India (he doesn’t) and about the kinds of challenges he faces. He shrugs and shakes his head “I have don’t face any discrimination” He often repeats this sentence at various points of the discussion. After he tells us about shopkeepers who refuse to sell him milk or before narrating how not a single shop at Patel Chest area was willing to type his assignment. “When you go to buy things from a shop they refuse to sell. If you ask for milk they say ‘no milk’ but you can see the Indians buying milk.” Later he tells us a similar story “My mobile phone was stolen. For one week I was thinking how to get a new one. The shops here don’t sell to Africans.” Kevin doesn’t think much of these experiences and dismisses them as insignificant, the ordinary trials of living in a foreign country. A woman on the road provokes a dog, provoking it to bite him, which it does. At Hans Charitable Trust Hospital they ask him for 10,000 rupees for the anti-rabbis injection. This is a service which is provided free of cost, however the small print reads ‘unless you are black’. Our interviews starkly shows that this particular subtext is present everywhere. We don’t realize that for the most mundane of daily activities (like buying milk) there are conditions that apply. The condition that you are not black.

These interviews give us a glimpse of how these students experience classrooms, hostels, streets, the metro and other public spaces. “What does kala bandar mean?” Boniface asks. They point. They laugh. They don’t like sitting next to you in the metro. What must it feel like to enter a strange foreign country where people across the board categorise you as sub-human? Strangers call you black monkey. “When I go back from college to hostel people on the streets keep laughing and staring. It is humiliating” Boniface says.

Read the rest of this article here.

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Law, Mirror Worlds

Somnath Bharti and the Terrible, Everyday Racism of a South Delhi Mohalla: Aastha Chauhan

18 Comments

This article by AASTHA CHAUHAN was originally published on the Yahoo! News India web site. It is being republished  here so that it reaches a different audience because there is an urgent necessity to widen the discussion on racism in India. 

In the decade that I’ve been working in Khirki Extension in south Delhi, I’ve known it as a neighborhood in a constant state of flux.

When I first began working at KHOJ, an international artists’ association located in Khirki Extension in 2004, the neighborhood was home to architects’ studios, a theatre studio and various offices, followed by a wave of musicians and artists. It was a locality comprised mainly of houses, some built by well-known architects such as Ramu Katakam and Ashok B Lall. Even Jaya Jaitly had a house there. Soon enough, these large plots were sold to builders, who put in apartments that could accommodate more people. But given the terrible infrastructure in the area, with its poor roads and drainage and its tendency to get flooded, many of its earlier residents moved out. Continue reading Somnath Bharti and the Terrible, Everyday Racism of a South Delhi Mohalla: Aastha Chauhan →

Centre watch, Feminism, Government, Identities

Letter to Arvind Kejriwal: Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression

11 Comments

Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression condemns the racial profiling, sexual violence and vigilantism by AAP against Ugandan women.

Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) is a network of women’s rights, Dalit rights, human rights and civil liberties organizations and individuals across India. It is a non-funded grassroots effort by women to stem the violence being perpetrated upon our bodies and on our societies by the State’s forces, by non-state actors and by the inability of our government to resolve conflict in a meaningful, sustainable and effective manner.

Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression strongly condemns the illegal raid conducted by the AAP cabinet law minister, Somnath Bharti and his mob of supporters, on the premises of the Ugandan women on 17th January 2014 residing in Khidki village, New Delhi.

One media report states that four women who were kept in a taxi for 3 hours were accused of conducting ‘drug rackets’ and ‘sex rackets’; and were terrorized by your cabinet minister and his mob. The women, who were eventually helped by the police, have registered their statements. Two of them have stated that they were physically assaulted by the mob and were also subjected to intense racist abuse – “black people break laws.” Continue reading Letter to Arvind Kejriwal: Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression →

DISSENT, DEBATE, CREATE