Government, Law, Left watch, Politics

नक्सलवाद के ख़िलाफ़ अभियान कि नाम पर

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नक्सलवादियों के खिलाफ केंद्र का अभियान शुरू हो गया है. जनमत को अपने इस हिंसक अभियान के पक्ष में करने के लिए केंद्र ने अखबारों में पूरे पृष्ठ के विज्ञापन दिए  जिनमें ‘माओवादियों’ या ‘नक्सलवादियों’ के हाथों मारे गए लोगों की तसवीरें थीं. इनसे शायद यह साबित करने की कोशिश की गयी थी कि माओवादी हत्यारे  हैं, इसलिए उनके विरुद्ध चलने वाले अभियान में अगर राज्य की तरफ से हत्याएं होती हैं तो उन पर ऐतराज नहीं किया जाना चाहिए. इस विज्ञापन के फौरन बाद छतीसगढ़ में राज्य की कारवाई में साथ माओवादियों के मारे जाने का दावा किया गया.  छत्तीसगढ़ के मानवाधिकार कार्यकर्ताओं ने इसके प्रमाण पेश कर दिए कि मारे गए लोग  साधारण आदिवासी थे ,न कि माओवादी,  जैसा पुलिस का दावा था. केन्द्रीय गृहमंत्री ने इसी के आस-पास छत्तीसगढ़  में यह कहा कि माओवादियों के विरुद्ध राजकीय अभियान में मानवाधिकार कार्यकर्ताओं को रास्ते में नहीं आने दिया जाएगा. वे यह कहने की कोशिश कर रहे थे कि माओवादियों के खिलाफ चल रही जंग में मानवाधिकार कार्यकर्ताओं ने अड़ंगा डाला है, अब यह बर्दाश्त नहीं किया जाएगा. इस नए संकल्प पर हंसा भी नहीं जाता. मानवाधिकार कार्यकर्ताओं की अगर इतनी ताकत होती तो बिनायक सेन को दो साल तक जेल में न रहना पड़ता.

छत्तीसगढ़ जैसी जगह में मानवाधिकार की बात करना अपनी जान को जोखिम में डालना है , यह हिमांशु से पूछिए जिनके बीस साल पुराने आश्रम को गैर-कानूनी तरीके से बुलडोजर लगा कर ढाह दिया गया.हिमांशु कोई  माओवादी नहीं हैं, बल्कि वे तो माओवादियों के गुस्से के निशाने पर भी रहे हैं. फिर भी हिमांशु का न्याय-बोध डगमगाया नहीं और उन्होंने छत्तीससगढ़ में पुलिस और सलवा-जुडूम की कार्रवाई के बारे में हमेशा सच बताने की अपनी जिद बनाए रखी. हिमांशु इस धारणा के खिलाफ हैं कि छत्तीसगढ़ में सिर्फ दो पक्ष हैं, एक राज्य का और दूसरा माओवादियों का . वे वहां के आदिवासियों के अपने गावों में रहने , अपने जमीन पर खेती करने के हक की हिफाजत की लडाई में उनके साथ हैं. क्या यह सच नहीं और क्या इस पर बात नहीं की जानी चाहिए कि सलवा जुडूम   के दौरान गाँव  के गाँव जला दिए गए और आदिवासियों को मजबूर किया गया कि वे सरकारी शिविरों में रहें !क्या यह सवाल राज्य से नहीं पूछा जाना चाहिए कि तकरीबन साधे छः सौ गाँवों से विस्थापित कर दिए  गए दो लाख से ऊपर आदिवासी कहाँ लापता हो गए क्योंकि वे शिविरों में तो नहीं हैं! अगर शिविरों में अमानवीय परिस्थियों में रहने को मजबूर पचास हजार आदिवासियों के अलावा बाकी की खोज करें तो क्या इस पर बात न की जाए कि क्या वे बगल के आंध्रप्रदेश में विस्थापितों का जीवन जी रहे हैं और जो वहां नहीं भाग पाए वे छत्तीसगढ़ के जंगलों में छिपे हुए हैं। जंगलों मे छिपे,या बेहतर हो हम कहें कि जंगलों में फंसे आदिवासी क्या माओवादियों की सेना के सदस्य मान लिए गए हैं!
Continue reading नक्सलवाद के ख़िलाफ़ अभियान कि नाम पर →

Bad ideas, Culture, Identities, Law, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

More on Murder from Kerala

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These are happy days in which everyone in Kerala wants too settle the land dispute at Chengara. A happy consensus between the Left and the Right seems to be growing there, after the Congress leader of the Opposition, Oommen Chandy, decided to take on Godfathership of the land struggle. The very language of the struggle had changed – interestingly, from ‘we are landless squatters’ to ‘we are settlers’! Now, it is well-known in Kerala that these terms have had different sorts of political associations – ‘squatter’ with the Left, and ‘settler’ with (largely) the Right. Indeed, this was inevitable perhaps, given the fact that the New Left didn’t look very keen on ‘squatters’. However, it is clear that neither dalit or tribal organisations are going to be part of the negotiations towards the final package –today’s newspapers report that prominent tribal and dalit leaders have protested against the state’s reluctance to negotiate with them. It would be very convenient for both the Left and the Right to delegitimize – indeed criminalize – tribal and dalit organizations. And what luck that precisely that boon has been granted to them by the sudden eruption of a ‘lower-caste terrorist group’ (according to the police), the ‘Dalit Human Rights Movement’!

Continue reading More on Murder from Kerala →

Bad ideas

Canal Vision

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A longer version of my story for the Hindustan Times.It takes off from a post that I did for Kafila two years ago. Predictably, nothing has changed, but people in the Government are now beginning to think about this.

Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh: The sight of the Narmada bursting through the gates of the Indira Sagar Dam makes for great photographs, but the river’s churning wake blurs a truth that the government is eager to hide. Despite spending Rs 142,269 crore on major and medium irrigation projects in a fifteen year period, from 1991-92 to 2006-07, canal-fed irrigation in India has not increased a single hectare.

Continue reading Canal Vision →

Debates, Government, Politics

Teacher-Veacher, Union-Shunion…Kya Bakwaas Hai Yaar?

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(To translate for non-Hindi speakers, “teachers…unions…what nonsense is this, my friend?)

Terrible translation, but you get the gist. Those who have spent any time in Delhi University will immediately recognise the picture I paint now…imagine a long-haired, loose-jeaned youth of about twenty, casually lounging against a wall, sipping a banta (lemon soda) and occasionally scanning the horizon for that pretty girl from his business studies class…his friends will agree, “teacher-veacher union-shunion, kya bakwas hai yaar?” These are serious students lets assume, with dreams of MBAs post-graduation and eight-figure salaries. One of them might then say, “Mittal sir, he is the best, yaar; he never goes on strike, and his notes got us first divisions.”

I mean lets face it; as stereotypes of the teaching profession immortalised on screen we have the hot teacher (Main Hoon Na, and millions of others – usually involves a seemingly prim woman suddenly taking her glasses off, and shaking her bun open in slow motion), the radical teacher who inspires his students to question the system (Dead Poet’s Society), the truly inspiring teacher who turns students’ lives around (To Sir With Love) and the cool teacher, who is the students’ best friend (too many to recount). But the teacher who is an employee, joins a union and goes on strike?? Continue reading Teacher-Veacher, Union-Shunion…Kya Bakwaas Hai Yaar? →

Bad ideas, Media politics

Ab aap police station se samachar suniye

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(And now, the news read from the police station)

I am absolutely appalled by the new levels of unethical reporting reached every day. I could bear it if it were a race to the bottom that we see in the English media, because at some point we could have heard the thud of crashing skulls. But it appears the bottom is bottomless…

Take this “news story” on the front page of the Indian Express yesterday:

Shadowy Kerala outfit preaches hate in Dalit ghettos

It begins – “Police in Kerala have stumbled upon a shadowy extremist Dalit outfit that they suspect is working clandestinely to radicalise Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities in the state.”

Continue reading Ab aap police station se samachar suniye →

Capitalism, Law, Movements

MRF United Workers’ Union Case: Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan

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This guest post has been sent to us by RAMAPRIYA GOPALAKRISHNAN. She is a lawyer practising in the Madras High Court working on labour rights, environmental and human rights issues. She is one of the two lawyers who appeared for the MRF United Workers’ Union before the Madras High Court.

The MRF United Workers’ Union case – Ruling of the Madras High Court on the recognition of trade unions

The workers in the Arakonam factory of MRF Limited, a tyre major, ended their 125 day old strike on September 14, 2009 and resumed work following the pronouncement of the much awaited verdict in the case filed by the MRF United Workers’ Union before the Madras High Court concerning the recognition of the union by the management of the company.

The Arakonam factory of MRF Limited in Vellore District in Tamil Nadu is the largest of the six tyre manufacturing factories of the company.  The workers in the factory are paid piece rate wages with no transparency in the process. They do not have any information on what constitutes a ‘piece’ and the rate at which they will be paid for the ‘piece.’ Moreover, the number of ‘contract workers’ engaged in the factory for direct production work is more than twice the number of direct confirmed workers engaged for doing the same work. These facts by itself would indicate the status of labour law compliance in the factory. There was thus a long felt need among the workers for an independent and effective trade union to protect their interests.

Continue reading MRF United Workers’ Union Case: Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan →

Capitalism, Left watch, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

The End or Future of Capitalism and Ending Obama’s War

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Last night I heard a public conversation between the Marxist Geographer David Harvey and Alexander Cockburn the editor of CounterPunch and columnist with The Nation.  The conversation titled, ‘The End or Future of Capitalism’ was hosted by The Center for Place, Culture & Politics.  Cockburn opened the conversation by speaking about the lack of vision in the Left.  Harvey argued that the capitalist system was facing tremendous stress and that a different path of economic development had to be envisioned.  Harvey continued on the end of capitalism as one needing analysis in terms of how this crisis arose with the problem of accumulation and realization of surplus, and poses the question of what is to be done?  Central to Harvey’s argument is that the mounting stress seen at the centre of the capitalist system in the last three decades is the culmination of the inability to sustain the two and a half percent compounded accumulation that has been a characteristic of global capital over the last couple hundred years.  That the capitalist system is unable to find productive investments for the two and a half percent accumulation rate leading to repetitious and aggravating crises in the unproductive bubbles in financial assets.

I stood in line when the floor was open, but much to my disappointment the moderator had brought the conversation to an end before I could ask my question, and so I am going to ask it here.  Both Harvey and Cockburn talked about the urgency of the moment and the need for provocative questions from the Left.  But what is the more urgent question to ask at this moment?  Is it the end or future of capitalism? Or is it the end or future of the American Empire?  The two may well be related and even two sides of the same coin, but the question for me is influenced by the urgency of the situation in our region; the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The relatedness of the two questions also leads me to ask what would be the consequence of the tremendous stress at the centre of the capitalist system on the wars fought at the periphery of Empire?  And in turn, what is the impact of the tremendous stress of the wars on the periphery for the hegemonic centre of the capitalist system?

Continue reading The End or Future of Capitalism and Ending Obama’s War →

Bad ideas, Government, Law, Violence/Conflict

Do prisoners’ human rights stand suspended?

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“What a state of society is that which knows of no better instrument for its own defense than the hangman, and which proclaims . . . its own brutality as eternal law? . . . Is there not a necessity for deeply reflecting upon an alteration of the system that breeds these crimes, instead of glorifying the hangman who executes a lot of criminals to make room only for the supply of new ones?”– Karl Marx, 1853

The letter sent by an undertrial Mukesh Kumar, as present lodged in Karnal Jail (Haryana) through his counsel to the Chief Justice of India makes depressing reading. The letter talks about the manner in which he was brutalised by the Jail staff for disobeying their orders. It is learnt that the Jail wardens compelled him to clean the toilets calling him names and ‘reminding’ him of his ‘caste profession’. His refusal to continue the dehumanising work led to his public thrashing and tonsuring/shaving of his head and moustache.

According to the administration, Mukesh Kumar is one of those persons who were arrested from different parts of Haryana from April to June 2009 as part of the state campaign ‘to curb Maoist activity’. Continue reading Do prisoners’ human rights stand suspended? →

Debates, Politics

Divide in higher education in India: Vrijendra

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This guest post has been sent to us by VRIJENDRA, who teaches at a college affiliated to Bombay University

I

Of late, higher education in India has been in the news for many reasons. The new HRD Minister Kapil Sibal has been busy drafting new bills and formulating new policies to give a big push to higher education and to open up the higher education sector to foreign universities and their affiliates. In this scenario, two issues have been the major focus:

(a) The need to improve the enrolment ratio from the present, dismal ratio of about 10 percent – that is, only 10 percent of eligible young students enrol in colleges in India – to about 15/20 per cent in the next decade to catch up with the rest of the world in some ways. (Though the official enrolment ratio in India is about 11 per cent, if we go by how many of these students are really learning anything in reasonably well–equipped colleges, my guess is that the ratio will be down to alarmingly low level of about 5 per cent.)  For example, in the US and Europe, the enrolment ratio is more than 60 percent. Even in China, our favourite competitor these days, the ratio is about 19 percent.

(b) The need to urgently improve the quality of higher education in the country to make it more competitive globally and to emerge ‘global knowledge hub’ in the near future.

However, any meaningful discussion on these two issues has to recognize two alarming features of higher education system in the country.

Continue reading Divide in higher education in India: Vrijendra →

Bad ideas, Debates, Everyday Life, Government, Language, Politics

On Austerity

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In the 1990s, when I first understood economics, austerity was a word that scared me. It represented a paradigm that I associated with the story of Zambia in the late 1980s. Zambia had one of the more functional public health systems in Africa in the late 70s and early 80s. It then became IMF’s test case for user fees in health care and the rest of the story is familiar one of user fees, loss of access and a systemic worsening of care in an already incredibly poor country. “Austerity” was [and is] in economics of a certain tune, not about economy class travel and eliminating excess photocopying. It was about tightening state expenditure, usually to pay off large scale debts. It was part of Structural Adjustment and the attack on “big” African government, part of the shock transitions of Eastern Europe.

In one of its shades, then, austerity is the slow dismantling of the welfare state. It is not the stance — as the UPA would have you believe — that one takes in some notion of deference to the reality of poverty, it is the cause of some of that poverty in the first place. Every time one government or any other calls for “austerity drives” of any kind, the shadow of this austerity still haunts them. The austerity that causes poverty is also rooted within these calls, though more quietly.

Continue reading On Austerity →

Identities, Law, Right watch

Right to Read Campaign

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Right to Read Campaign – Problem Statement

Millions of Indians are unable to read printed material due to disabilities.
There are technologies available which can help them read print if the
material is converted into an alternate format such as large print, audio,
Braille or any electronic format. While the Indian constitution guarantees
the “right to read” as a fundamental right, the copyright regime does not
permit the conversion of books into accessible formats for the benefit of
persons with print impairment, as a result of which a “book famine” is
created. International conventions that India is a party to specifically
require India to amend its copyright laws for the benefit of persons with
disabilities and to make available information and material to persons with
disabilities on an equal basis as others. Publishers also do not make books
available in accessible formats as a result of which less than 0.5% of books
are available in accessible formats in India. As a result persons with print
impairments get excluded from the education system and it impacts their
career choices. In addition to this, there are no national Policies or
action plan to ensure that publications in accessible formats in all Indian
languages are available to persons with print disabilities all over the
country.

Objectives of the Right to Read Campaign

·    To accelerate change in copyright law
·    To raise public awareness on the issue
·    To gather Indian support for the Treaty for the Blind proposed by
the World Blind Union at the World Intellectual Property Organisation
(WIPO).

This campaign is part of the global Right to Read Campaign of the World
Blind Union.

As part of the campaign we are creating audio visual clips of eminent
persons, celebrities etc. supporting the Campaign. If you know any eminent
persons, celebrities etc. who are willing to support the campaign do mail me
(rahul.cherian@inclusiveplanet.com) so that we can arrange for their
testimony to be recorded. Your support is vital for the success of this
campaign. More details will follow.

Bad ideas, Capitalism

This Whole Business of Childhood

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“To all who come to this happy place – welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America … with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world. Thank you.”

Walt Disney’s father helped build the grounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. In the 1950s as the population of America for the first time shifted West into desert climes on a mass scale, Walt Disney started receiving letters from people about visiting the Disney Studio, located in Los Angeles. Walt realized that a functional movie studio had little to offer to visiting fans. He began to dream about a site near the studios for tourists to visit; ideas that evolved into the first Disneyland Park located in Anaheim, California. The first Disneyland opened to the public on Monday, July 18, 1955 and crowds started to gather in line to enter as early as 2 a.m. Walt’s brother Roy O’Disney had arranged to pre-purchase ticket number 1, so an adult named David MacPherson became the first official visitor to Disneyland, with ticket number 2. For a park that had to become iconic with children all over the world, MacPherson’s historic ticket was potentially disastrous from a marketing point of view, and recognised as such by the ever-alert Mr. Disney. In a masterstroke of foresight and damage control, he had an official photo taken with two children instead, Christine Vess Watkins (age 5 in 1955) and Michael Schwartner (age 7 in 1955). The photo was captioned, “Walt Disney with the first two guests of Disneyland.” Continue reading This Whole Business of Childhood →

Bad ideas, Excavation

The Khirki and the Begumpur Mosques

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This is to be read as a sequel to my earlier post, A Tale of Two Mosques.

First published in Landmark. Photographs by DEVNDRA CHAUHAN. Credit for the map drawings: NITIN SAINI.

The east gate of the Begumpur mosque
The east gate of the Begumpur mosque

With the exception of Humayun’s tomb, and it is an exceptional structure, I have up to now stuck to my brief of talking about lesser known monuments of Delhi and will hopefully continue doing so as long as some monuments continue to exist incognito or till I am told to layoff. Considering that some of the readers have reacted favourably to my output I hope to continue to tread on what used to be a lonely trail.

Of late I have discovered fellow travellers on my jaunts, this path is no longer as lonely as it was when I began to see them in my teens in the company of my father who had strayed into archaeology from furniture designing, interior decoration and draughtsmanship. Continue reading The Khirki and the Begumpur Mosques →

Frontiers, Government, Identities

Engaging Nepal: some difficult questions

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India can continue to let its suspicion of the Maoists be the over-riding objective of its Nepal policy or seek to play a pro-active role in engineering the kind of consensus it has done since 2005.

First published in The Hindu yesterday.

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao arrives in Kathmandu on her maiden visit today, at a time when Nepal is grappling with its most serious and prolonged political crisis since the peace process began. India has to make certain difficult policy choices, reconcile the contradictions between its stated aims and actions, determine whether it remains committed to the process it helped facilitate, and use its leverage accordingly.

The fragile Madhav Nepal-led ruling coalition faces a severe crisis of legitimacy and a belligerent Maoist opposition. The Maoists have boycotted the legislature-parliament, paralysing government business to the extent that the budget has not yet been passed. They have demanded a house discussion on President Ram Baran Yadav’s “unconstitutional action” over-riding the Maoist government’s decision to sack the then Army Chief General Rukmangad Katawal in early May — a demand rejected by the other parties in government who see no wrong in what the President did. The Maoists have also launched a street movement, with the slogan of instituting “civilian supremacy” and a “Maoist-led national government.” Continue reading Engaging Nepal: some difficult questions →

Capitalism, Law, Politics

Company Secretary to Replace Inspector

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New Delhi: While the Manmohan Singh government’s Left-free second innings is expected to usher in changes to India’s archaic labour laws, the labour ministry is working on a quick-fix solution to help drop the country’s notorious ‘inspector raj’ tag.
If all goes to plan, India Inc would no longer have to deal with labour inspectors turning up at their premises to check compliance with 43 central and myriad state labour legislations. Instead, firms can submit a certificate from a company secretary that validates their compliance with the numerous employment laws.
( The Indian Express, Vikas Dhoot, Posted: Wednesday, Aug 05, 2009 at 0137 hrs IST)

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh led government’s ‘left free second innings’ seems to be taking the battle against ‘archaic labour laws’ full steam ahead. The outgoing Union Labour Secretary, Ms Sudha Pillai, some time back shared with the media about the draft which is being prepared in the labour ministry to this effect.
The proposal, which would be shortly submitted in the form of a cabinet note, seeks to ‘permit company secretaries to file compliance reports for labour laws, just like they give compliance reports for other laws.’ As of now the role of the company secretary is limited to certifying the said firm’s compliance with various statues, which includes the companies act, 1956 and also the listing agreement with stock exchanges and the issue of compliance with labour laws is handled by the labour inspectors.
Continue reading Company Secretary to Replace Inspector →

Left watch, Politics, Theory

And this song is dedicated to Buddhababu

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“CM Buddhadeb back, denies quit rumours”

sar par paaon rakh kar bhaago
sar par paaon rakh kar bhaago
katne waala patta hai
suno ji ye kalkatta hai
hurr..

Government, Law, Politics, Right watch

Magistrate Tamang, a hero: Vasudha Nagaraj

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By VASUDHA NAGARAJ via FeministsIndia List

You can download here the report by Magistrate Tamang.

I cannot resist but recount this account of exemplary courage and commitment of a Magistrate working in the Metropolitan Courts of Ahmedabad. He is none other than Magistrate Tamang who has been in the news for the past few days.

Brief facts: We all know about the encounter of Ishrat Jehan and three others in the outskirts of the city of Ahmedabad which took place in June, 2004. Soon after the encounter there were enquiries by human rights groups which declared that it was a cold blooded killing and not an encounter. To counter the demands the Crime Branch ordered a Magistrate to enquire into the matter. It has been reported that no Magistrate was willing to stick his neck into this issue. Finally on 12 August, 2009 the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) ordered Magistrate Tamang to conduct the inquiry. The latter was supposed to conduct this inquiry under S 176 CrPC. This is the section of law in which a Magistrate is empowered to hold an inquiry into the cause of death whenever a person dies while in police custody or when it is a death in doubtful circumstances. Generally, under this section of law,  Magistrates record dying declarations of women who are dying and lying in the hospitals.

Continue reading Magistrate Tamang, a hero: Vasudha Nagaraj →

Bad ideas, Debates, Everyday Life

Breaking Rules: Reflections on Knowledge

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This story of the birth of a new language raises some significant questions for our understanding of how bodies of knowledge are transformed. After the Sandinista revolution in 1979, for the first time in the history of Nicaragua, a huge nation-wide effort was made to educate deaf children. Hundreds of deaf students were enrolled in two schools. They had never been introduced to any of the world’s existing sign language systems, and came to the schools with only the simplest kind of gestural signs they had developed within their families.   Their teachers were new and inexperienced, and found it difficult to communicate with their students, but the students themselves had no problem at all in “talking” to one another. With great rapidity they began to build on the common pool of signs, and a complex new language began to emerge, which has come now to be called Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL).  Some years down the line, an even more interesting development is noticed. As younger children enter the school system, they not only pick up the language their seniors had developed, but they confidently break the existing language rules. They invent new signs and deform old ones, and these new signs that do not obey the old rules filter back into the language, making it more complex, richer and more varied.

Continue reading Breaking Rules: Reflections on Knowledge →

Media politics, Violence/Conflict

Beaten, tortured, forced to do drugs, wrists slashed with razors

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There have been so many ragging incidents coming out in the news, but the media is done with ragging and there’s no hype beyond the singular news report. It would be a mistake to presume that there’s been a spurt in ragging incidents; the spurt has instead been in the reporting of incidents, in punishment and implementation of the law.

A student in Howrah was subjected to the things mentioned in the headline of this post, but it became a news story when the fresher tried to commit sucide by consuming poison. So the headline in the Times of India goes, “Howrah student attempts suicide after ragging“. A reader flipping through news reports could well think, another loser, another victim, another case. The attention is not on the victimiser, the perpetrator.

On Friday, Nayan was waiting at Uluberia station to catch a train home when four seniors grabbed him and took him to a house in the locality, says his uncle. Once inside, the door was barred and the torture began. Nayan was beaten and forced to smoke a cigarette. Then an unknown drug was forced down his throat. When he lay delirious, his wrists were slashed with a razor. Then, one of the seniors asked another to fetch an empty syringe, the FIR says. As Nayan desperately struggled, he was held down and air injected into his left hand.

Surely, the FIR named the four seniors? Why could they not be named in this news report?

The Times report also misses the point, mentioned in the Telegraph report, that the wrist slashing happened because Nayan Adak refused to obey orders to undress and dance. Ragging always does boil down to the fresher’s body, doesn’t it? The Telegraph and Express reports don’t mention names of the four accused either.

Law, Media politics

Watching Films Blindfolded

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(Published in Himal, September 2009)

Sometime in 1996, the High Court of Andhra Pradesh received an anonymous letter informing the court that pornographic films were being shown in a cinema hall called Ramakrishna 70MM. The court proceeded to send two ‘lady advocates’ to ascertain the facts. In their subsequent affidavit, the advocates informed the court that they had gone to watch a film in the theatre and, after repeated obstacles – the ticket seller refusing to sell them tickets, the doorman asking them to go home, etc – they finally managed to find a seat inside the theatre. There, they were promptly informed by the manager that the film that was to be screened could not be seen by ladies, and they were ordered to leave. Following the report by the advocates, the court proceeded to have all the prints seized, and arranged for a screening for various officers of the court. The officers found the films to be a hodgepodge of short films, films-division features, advertisement films, political-party propaganda films, Hindi and Telugu feature-film bits and, of course, lots of porn clips thrown in for good measure. The court then ordered the closure of the theatre.

This would seem like just another day at the office for someone interested in the relationship between law, cinema and sleaze. But let us pause and consider one moment in this narrative a bit longer, as it contains a key to understanding the secret relationship between law and cinema. Let us look more closely at the moment when the officers of the law are huddled together in a small dark room, with notepads and pens, watching a montage of images – what must that have been like? Was there a conspiratorial silence when the nude descended the stairs, or a nervous giggle when the camera lingered for a second too long on the French kiss?

Continue reading Watching Films Blindfolded →

Genders, Identities, Politics

Ultra Violet:A feminist blog

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I came across this blog a couple of months ago, and have been wanting to bring it to the attention of kafila-readers who may not have visited it yet. Always something interesting and provocative going on there.

Its self-definition:

Ultra Violet is a place for Indian feminists.
It’s a place for sharing stories and views and questions. It’s a place for exploration, opinion and information (not necessarily in the order). It’s a place where we can come together to understand what other feminists around the country–or around the world–are saying…
Ultra Violet does not represent any school, wave, organization, institution or categorization. We do not belong in a box. We do not huddle together in a tank. We do not fly in formation like a flock of geese. We are all free people, approaching feminism from different locations, backgrounds and personalities…

DISSENT, DEBATE, CREATE