The first week of the coming month of November will witness a huge public festival in Kerala organized by the ruling power through the government called ‘Keraleeyam‘. It begins on 1 November, celebrated every year as the ‘Kerala Piravi Dinam’ or the day of Kerala’s birth, marking the amalgamation of the three Malayalam-speaking regions into a single unit, a cherished dream of many in early twentieth century Kerala. The organizers of this celebration claim that this massive show seeks to highlight Kerala’s achievements which they hint, have an unbroken continuity from the twentieth century to the present. They claim to have furthered it, and not frittered it.
Continue reading Recalling Jimutavahana: Reflections on ‘Keraleeyam’Palestine lives! (But do you condemn Hamas?)
This post is based on a presentation at a panel discussion on “Israeli war against Palestinian people in Gaza” organised by Janhastakshep in Delhi on October 20, 2023.
Palestine solidarity protest in Bangalore
But do you condemn…
We are expected to begin every discussion on the latest phase of the ferocious 75 year old war Israel has been waging on the Palestinian people, by answering the question – “But do you condemn the Hamas action?”
Sometimes, because stronger words are needed, they say “dastardly” Hamas action, as a television anchor recently did, trying to push Palestinian writer Susan Abul Hawa to place on Hamas the responsibility for the ongoing “humanitarian crisis” She did not. Nor did she accept the banal term humanitarian crisis, terming it instead, an intentional genocidal war.
This belligerent question comes from beginning with “secondly”, as the Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti said –
“If you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story, starting with ‘secondly’ “.
“Jerusalem is my city” by the artist Heba Zagout, killed by Israeli bombardment in Gaza along with two of her children, in October 2023
Continue reading Palestine lives! (But do you condemn Hamas?)
Same Sex Marriage, Welfarism and the Indian Supreme Court: Thoughts from Kerala
When I read the Supreme Court Bench’s disappointing judgment on same-sex marriage, it was a line from Lalithambika Antharjanam’s autobiography that came to my mind. Remembering her youthful struggles against the barbaric oppression of women in the traditional Malayala brahmin caste, she wrote: “Never had my heart trembled so hard than when I placed my hand on that forbidding door”. She was referring to the terrifying, dehumanising, violent structure of restrictions under which Malayala brahmin women lived. Over centuries, she says, innumerable women had battered it with their heads. Until one day it collapsed at a small push, soaked with their blood and tears.
Continue reading Same Sex Marriage, Welfarism and the Indian Supreme Court: Thoughts from KeralaAn Unjust Transition – The 111th ILC and the Move to De-carbonized Economies
Guest post by N. SAI BALAJI
This article was earlier published by the AICCTU
The 111th session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) held in Geneva from 5th to 16th June deliberated on climate change along with other issues concerning the situation of decent work in the globe. The issue of climate change was dealt with from the perspective of changes in the nature of work in future. The deliberations were based on a report issued by the ILO named “Achieving a Just Transition towards Environmentally Sustainable Economies and Societies for All”. After deliberations in the concerned committee for Just Transition, conclusions on the same have been published by ILO. The present article looks into the perspective on climate change adopted by the ILO based on the above mentioned documents.
INDIA’S DEMOCRATIC LONGEVITY AND ITS HUGELY TROUBLED TRAJECTORY : PROFESSOR ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY
Democracy Dialogues Lecture Series (Online )
Organised by New Socialist Initiative
25th Lecture ( Sunday, 15 th October 2023)
Theme: India’s Democratic Longevity and its Hugely Troubled Trajectory
Speaker: Professor Ashutosh Varshney ( Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences at Brown University )
Theme :India’s Democratic Longevity and its Hugely Troubled Trajectory
Summary
India celebrated 75 years of its independence last year with a lot of enthusiasm.
Celebrations did not hide the fact it is also one of the leading countries which is passing through what is popularly known as ‘democratic backsliding’.
A country which, like many others, is using democratic processes to secure undemocratic outcomes, where freely contested elections are being deployed for the purpose of expressing, cultivating, or enhancing majoritarian prejudices—to target minorities and turn them into lesser citizens.
In this scenario, there is an urgent need to unpack this journey of democratic India further , there is a need to make a distinction between India as an electoral democracy and India as a liberal democracy.
Background Reading for the talk :
# India’s Democratic Longevity and its Hugely Troubled Trajectory ( Attached with this mail)
#. How India’s Ruling Party Erodes Democracy
Ashutosh Varshney
Journal of Democracy, Volume 33, Number 4, October 2022, pp. 104-118 (Article)
Click to access project_muse_866645.pdf
Speaker
Prof Ashutosh Varshney is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University, where he also directs the Center for Contemporary South Asia. Previously, he taught at Harvard (1989-98) and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2001-2008).
His books include Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy (2013), Collective Violence in Indonesia (2009), Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (Yale 2002), India in the Era of Economic Reforms (1999), and Democracy, Development and the Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in India (Cambridge 1995)
India’s Democratic Longevity and its Hugely Troubled Trajectory : Professor Ashutosh Varshney
[Democracy Dialogues Lecture by Professor Ashutosh Varshney scheduled for coming Sunday has to be rescheduled. New dates will be announced as soon as Professor Varshney is in a position to deliver the lecture. Apologies.]
Topic : India’s Democratic Longevity and its Hugely Troubled Trajectory
Speaker : Professor Ashutosh Varshney,
Theme : India’s Democratic Longevity and its Hugely Troubled Trajectory
Questions and Answers on Looking for an Idea of India for the Indian Left : Dr Ravi Sinha
The Body Politic of Family Loyalty :’Kerala ‘ at the IAWS Conference, Thiruvananthapuram
An unlikely phantom seemed to hover over me as I hung around the Government Women’s College at Thiruvananthapuram where this year’s Annual Conference of Indian Association of Women’s Studies was on last week. ‘Unlikely’, because the conference is usually a platform in which this spectre is thoroughly examined, counted, listened upon, critiqued, reimagined etc etc — and therefore one would imagine that it would not dare to tread in in such spaces.
Continue reading The Body Politic of Family Loyalty :’Kerala ‘ at the IAWS Conference, ThiruvananthapuramLooking for an Idea of India for the Indian Left : Dr. Ravi Sinha
An Open Letter from a Dissident Feminist to the Delegates at the IAWS Conference 2023 at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
Dear friends and colleagues
I write this letter to you as a dissident feminist who leads a beleagured life under what can only be described in George Orwell’s words from 1984: the majoritarian post-socialist oligarchy that presently rules Kerala.
Continue reading An Open Letter from a Dissident Feminist to the Delegates at the IAWS Conference 2023 at Thiruvananthapuram, Keralaयूनिवर्सिटी की दहलीज़ पर ‘विश्वगुरु’ के जासूस
क्या बुद्धिजीवी वर्ग को पालतू बनाए रखने की सरकार की कोशिश या विश्वविद्यालयों में इंटेलिजेंस ब्यूरो को भेजने की उनकी हिमाक़त उसकी बढ़ती बदहवासी का सबूत है, या उसे यह एहसास हो गया है कि भारत एक व्यापक जनांदोलन की दहलीज़ पर बैठा है.
So you are the little woman who wrote the book that made this great (American) civil war’
( ‘‘‘तुम हो वह महिला जिसने उस किताब को रचा जिसने इस महान /अमेरिकी/ गृह युद्ध को मुमकिन बनाया)
[गुलामी प्रथा की समाप्ति के लिए छेड़े गए गृह युद्ध के खात्मे के बाद तत्कालीन अमेरिकी राष्टपति अब्राहम लिंकन द्वारा गुलामी प्रथा के खिलाफ लिखे गए उपन्यास ‘अंकल टाॅम्स केबिन’ / 1852/ की लेखिका हैरियट बीचर स्टोव Harriet Beecher Stowe से मिलने पर प्रगट उदगार]
लेखक, कलाकार, विद्वान आदि से हुक्मरान हमेशा ही चिंतित रहे हैं।
मिसाल के तौर पर क्रांतिपूर्व फ्रांस के बारे में यह बात मशहूर है कि वहां की राजशाही ने अपने पुलिस महकमे को अपने दौर के अहम लेखकों, कलाकारों की जासूसी करते रहने के निर्देश दिए थे। हम अठारहवीं सदी के पुलिस महकमे की मुलाजिमों की मुश्किलों को समझ सकते हैं जिन्हें ‘खंूखार अपराधियों और राजनीतिक व्यक्तियों’ के अलावा लेखकों, कलाकारों पर अपनी फाइल रखनी पड़ती थी। (द स्टेटसमैन, हिन्दुस्तान टाईम्स, नई दिल्ली, 26 सितम्बर 2006)
एक क्षेपक के तौर पर बता दें कि इस जासूसी का विधिवत विवरण जनाब ब्रूनो फुल्गिनी की किताब में मिलता है जिसका शीर्षक है ‘राइटर्स पुलिस’ – दरअसल फ्रेंच संसद के इस कर्मचारी को यह जिम्मेदारी मिली कि वह पार्लियामेंट लाइब्रेरी के पुराने दस्तावेजों को खंगाले और इस बेहद उबाउ काम के दौरान उसे यह ‘खजाना’ मिल गया था।
अगर हम अपने यहां निगाह दौड़ाएं तो मौजूदा हुक्मरानों का रूख इस मामले में कोई अलग नहीं दिखता, बल्कि वह ढाई सौ सदी पहले के फ्रांसिसी सम्राटों से कभी कभी एक कदम आगे ही दिखते हैं। ( Read the full text here)
Vishwa Guru’s Sleuths
( Photo : Courtesy – countercurrents.org)
Writers, scholars, artists have always worried the powers that be.
There was a time when the Parisian police had been given the onerous task of keeping the greatest writers of late 18 th Century who were living in Paris at that time under their watch. Poor fellows, one can imagine their difficulty in maintaining files on writers and artists and scholars ‘beyond criminals and political figures.’
The present dispensation at the centre is no different.
It could be said that it may be a step ahead.
The French Monarchs – who within few decades witnessed a mass upheaval which finally overthrew them – were wise enough to ask their minions to be rather discreet in their activities, not to offend the writers, scholars directly ; the harbingers of today’s ‘New India’ have even abandoned that discreetness for good.
( Read the rest of the article here)
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Is the ‘Politics’ of Compassion Transcendental? Sasheej Hegde
Guest post by SASHEEJ HEGDE
Don’t ask for the meaning, ask what’s the point. (Ian Hacking).
Nizar Ahmed, Metaphysics and the Politics of Compassion: An Indian Perspective (Kozhikode, Kerala: InsightinPublica Printers and Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 2023, pp.93, Rs.300/-). [ISBN – 978-93-5517-340-9]
1. Introduction
It is no easy task to resist such a forceful and persuasive intervention in a genuinely problematic area of metaphysics and the emotions, as it were, complicated furthermore by the fact that it strives to articulate ‘an Indian perspective’ on the same. The work, emanating from a reclusive philosopher from Kerala and published by a ‘small’ publishing house in the region, requires some attention, yet – and, I attempt to do so without coming across, hopefully, as condescending, or even paternalistic. I must confess, though, that the author Nizar Ahmed (henceforth, NA) is a dear friend for many years now, indeed from the time of his Ph.D. in Philosophy from IIT-Kanpur and taking up a faculty position in the School of Social Sciences at Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam (from where he moved to the Sree Shankaracharya University of Sanskrit at Kalady, Kerala, and retiring eventually from that posting). Dare I say it, NA remains a ‘legend’ in critical circles in Kerala, although he actively resists the attention that his work (both in English, and even more in Malayalam) commands.
Continue reading Is the ‘Politics’ of Compassion Transcendental? Sasheej HegdeThe Nuh Communal Violence and the Conspiracy of the Hindutva Brigade: Ground Report by Janhastakshep
Introduction
A team of Janhastakshep toured areas of Palwal, Sohna and Gurugram, as also spoke with other people from Nuh district on 3rd August 2023 to do a fact finding regarding the incidents of communal violence that hit Nuh town and subsequently areas of adjoining Palwal and Gurugram districts. The impact of this violence however was not limited to just these three districts. Tension and alarm pervaded many more districts of Haryana as also districts of adjoining states of Rajasthan (Alwar and Bharatpur) and Mathura in Uttar Pradesh which have pockets of Muslim Meo population.
By the time of our visit many details of the incidents along with evidence by way of eyewitness accounts, photographs and videos was available on various media platforms and the same has been used to guide our fact finding effort. Janhastakshep team set three fold objectives for our visit:
Vishwa Guru of Hate?
How India is Slowly Emerging as a ‘World Teacher’ albeit of a different kind
( Illustration : coutesy CJP, Citizens for Justice and Peace)
France has moved towards normalcy some time back.
The anger and anguish of the still marginalised in the society, which spilled over into the streets, over the killing of a 17 year old Nahel – son of an Algerian single woman of Muslim origin – by the trigger happy traffic police, recorded on a camera, has long subsided.
No doubt the questions raised by it are not going to go away so easily.1
Experiences of two countries cannot be compared easily but perhaps one could easily see in the uproar shades of the ‘black lives matter moment’ for the French society. Not only in terms of the brutality of the police as witnessed in American society after the killing of George Floyd but the soul searching of sorts which seems to have begun afresh there, a churning has accelerated within the French people after this killing.
( Read the full article here)
The Erosion Of Liberal Democracy in India: An Analysis – Prof Pranab Bardhan
Prof Pranab Bardhan, Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley, delivred the 24th Democracy Dialogues Lecture on August 27, 2023, Sunday at 10 AM India Standard Time.
Theme : The Erosion Of Liberal Democracy in India: An Analysis
Speaker : Prof Pranab Bardhan
Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley
It was also live streamed at:
facebook.com/newsocialistinitiative.com
Topic : The Erosion Of Liberal Democracy in India: An Analysis
A Brief Outline of the theme shared by Prof Bardhan
I’ll start with the global context of the turn of politics to right-wing extremism in much of the world.
One of the major factors behind this is the weakening of trade unions and of labour movements in general, which in earlier days used to act as a major force of resistance.
I shall then look into the weakening of labour movements in India and the pathetic failure of the Left political organizations. I shall analyze the deficiencies in their economic policies, mobilization strategies and governance failures even in areas where they used to be influential. Just blaming the semi-fascist Right is not good enough.
I shall end with a general discussion of how in prevailing Indian ideologies (including that of the Left) liberal democracy has often been under-valued.
Speaker :
Pranab Bardhan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley.
He was educated at Presidency College, Kolkata and Cambridge University, England. He had been at the faculty of MIT, Indian Statistical Institute and Delhi School of Economics before joining Berkeley.
He has done theoretical and field studies research on rural institutions in poor countries, on political economy of development policies, and on international trade.
He was Chief Editor of the Journal of Development Economics for 1985-2003.
He is the author of 17 books and editor of 14 other books, and author of more than 150 journal articles including in leading Economics journals
His latest book titled A World of Insecurity: Democratic Disenchantment in Rich and Poor Countries was published by Harvard University Press in late 2022.
His memoir titled Charaiveti: An Academic’s Global Journey is being published by Harper Collins India in late 2023.
His memoir in Bengali (titled Smriti-kanduyan, ‘Memory-Sratching’) has been serialized in Kolkata’s leading literary magazine, Desh, and the book came out in January 2014.
He has also contributed essays to popular outlets and some of these popular pieces have now been collected in his latest books, Globalization, Democracy and Corruption and Indian Polity and Economy:A Mirror to Difficult Times (Frontpage Publications). A collection of his Bengali essays has been published by Ananda Publishers in Kolkata in 2020.
Debating Hindutva
Background :
A close friend of decades prodding you to read / listen to something and ask for your views is such a great moral incentive which nobody would refuse.
The following note is an end product of similar undertaking which this pen pusher rather reluctantly took initially when one received a YouTube link of a conversation / debate between Congress M. P Shashi Tharoor and Supreme Court lawyer and commentator J Sai Deepak, held sometime back, where the focus of the programme was on Congress M.P. Shashi Tharoor’s book ‘Why I am a Hindu ?’
The book deals with how Mr Tharoor understands Hinduism, looks at its Great Souls, unpacks political Hinduism and dwells also at the violence committed by its followers and differentiates his Hinduism from that Hinduism practised by who can be called as ‘Bhakts’.
J Sai Deepak, a very popular commentator who has written a few books and also shared his views, dealt with Tharoor’s arguments.
As an aside it needs to be added that J Sai Deepak is one among the new crop of commentators , writers whose interventions very much resonate with what can be termed as ‘rightwing’ . There are few other names like Vikram Sampath, Sanjeev Sanyal, Anand Ranganathan etc of the same stream, whose arrival on the scene has been a moment of celebration among a section of the media (https://www.firstpost.com/politics/why-is-left-academia-so-rattled-by-vikram-sampath-sai-deepak-or-sanjeev-sanyal-10433791.html) which is critical of the left and its towering intellectuals.
Public Libraries Must Be Free! Free Libraries Network (FLN) at the G20
Katha Kanan Library, Nagaon, Assam
The “Rome Declaration of the G20 Culture Ministers” (2021) inserted culture in the G20 process, recognising it for its social and economic value, and stating a commitment to the protection of cultural heritage and expressions at risk. This Declaration recognises the need for strengthening and developing effective, sustainable, inclusive and coordinated management models and tools for protecting cultural heritage at risk. The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) has recognised this as an opportunity for libraries and documentary cultural heritage experts to play a vital role in developing these models and tools, as well as benefiting from them. As a result the upcoming G20 meeting in India will showcase libraries. This statement is by the Free Library Network, a member of IFLA, drawing attention to the imperative need for India to have a free library policy.
The Free Libraries Network (FLN), is a coalition of free libraries and librarians advocating for free library access and the right to read in India and South Asia. FLN believes in universal access to reading materials and information. FLN offers a platform for sharing resources, best practices, and insights about free libraries in India. Although it does not own or operate libraries, FLN plays an integral role in coordinating and acting on policy issues related to access to knowledge resources.
The FLN Statement
The Free Libraries Network (FLN) will participate in the Festival of Libraries by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi on August 5 and 6, 2023. This conference, focused on the library landscape in India, is an opportunity for library advocates across the country to discuss the need for a public library system that offers free access to books and information to all people.
During the conference, FLN members will be contributing to three panels, aimed at sharing insights on free libraries’ potential in promoting reading, thinking and community discussions, as well as in such libraries’ potential to undo the historic exclusion of the vast majority of people from reading and to promote the Constitution’s vision of equality. Additionally, FLN members will engage in various advocacy activities both inside and outside the conference venue, appealing for a policy that guarantees free library access to all. Continue reading Public Libraries Must Be Free! Free Libraries Network (FLN) at the G20
Response to Law Commission of India on UCC: Feminist Working Group on Law Commission Submission on the UCC
In response to the LCI ‘s invitation to “stakeholders, including public and recognised religious organisations” to share their views on the Uniform Civil Code, some feminist groups and individuals came together in Delhi on July 4-5 2023 to draft a considered response. The UCC has been debated in feminist circles for decades, and a broad consensus has gradually emerged since the 1990s that gender justice and not uniformity should be the focus of reforms of laws pertaining to family, whether governed by Personal Laws (religious communities) or customary laws (Scheduled Tribes). The following response emerged on the basis of these discussions, which in turn drew on the long history of serious engagement with the issue in feminist circles for decades.
To,
The Hon’ble Chairperson and members,
Law Commission of India
14 July 2023
Sub: Response of feminist, queer and women’s rights groups and individual feminists to Public Notice of the Law Commission of India dated 14/06/2023, soliciting views on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC).
Respected Chairperson and members of the Law Commission of India,
We, the undersigned, write to you as representatives of feminist, queer and women’s rights groups, as well as concerned citizens, who have been working on issues related to gender justice and equality for women from diverse communities across the country. We draw upon our collective experience over many decades, as we respond to the current discussion on the proposed Uniform Civil Code.
Our submission is in three parts:
- Concerns related to the procedure adopted to initiate these discussions by the Law Commission of India (LCI).
- Comments on substantive issues of uniformity, equality and non-discrimination vis à vis gender justice.
- Governing principles for any efforts towards gender justice for all
Statement against the arbitrary termination of KNMA employee Dr Sandip K. Luis
UPDATE
This statement has been issued by concerned individuals in support of Sandip K Luis. We are publishing it here on Kafila in solidarity and to amplify the call, as we routinely do with many such statements. Those who issued the statement have nothing to do with Kafila, although some individuals associated with Kafila have also endorsed the statement. We feel this clarification is necessary as some reports say that the group that issued this statement runs Kafila. This is incorrect.
Link to endorse this statement at the end.
We the undersigned, artists, academics and other concerned individuals, have come to know that Dr Sandip K. Luis, Manager, Curatorial Research & Publications at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), has arbitrarily been terminated from work. The action was taken for a Facebook post he made on 15th May 2023 which was critical of the chairperson of the museum Ms. Kiran Nadar in her individual capacity, for supporting and publicly endorsing a series of propaganda events of the current government of India being showcased at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in Delhi.
The Facebook post was also published here:
Decoding Jan Shakti at National Gallery of Modern Art -there is no Schindler’s List!
We strongly condemn Sandip’s termination from employment and demand his immediate reinstatement by KNMA.
Subsequent to the inauguration of an exhibition in May 2023, titled Jana Shakti (a celebration of the Prime Minister’s monthly radio propaganda Mann ki baat) curated by Alka Pande, supported by Ms. Nadar as the Advisor, a number of articles appeared in the press and on social media that called out art world luminaries, for participating in what was obviously a self-aggrandizing exercise of the government of India. Continue reading Statement against the arbitrary termination of KNMA employee Dr Sandip K. Luis
NCERT Textbooks, VCs and Others and ‘Updation’
Recently, 33 political scientists wrote to the Director, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) asking for their names to be withdrawn from the Political Science textbooks. This letter followed an earlier one by Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar where they had similarly asked that their names be removed from the textbooks as chief advisors. Ours was actually a very simple and straightforward demand: since the changes have been made unilaterally without consultation with the authors whose names appear on the textbooks, we would like our names to be removed because both this arbitrary way and the substantive changes make the text books into something other than what a large community of political scientists had produced, through a prolonged collective process.
Continue reading NCERT Textbooks, VCs and Others and ‘Updation’
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 