Any discussion of Sri Lanka at the moment can not avoid discussion of the war. And at the heart of discussions on the war in Sri Lanka, is the question of what will come after the war, at least after an end to the war in its conventional mode with defeats faced by the LTTE on the battlefield. It is indeed important to grasp that the current state of anxiety is not only about the war but also what will come after the war. From the London based Economist to Tamil activists in and outside Sri Lanka, this has become the central question. I write this article as a dissenting Tamil activist and as a member of that diverse set of Tamil activists both inside and outside Sri Lanka, who chose to stand independent of the LTTE, but whose politics nevertheless at the moment is dispersed from the Left to the Right, across a whole range of issues from class, nationalism, caste to gender. In thinking about the outcomes after the war, just as we could not predict the direction of the war prior to its resumption, we can not predict the outcomes after the war, which are part of the dynamic of war; it drastically changes the political landscape. But we nevertheless take positions on the war; on either side or against the war. And those positions are explicitly political, they are underpinned by a politics, whether they are pro-war or, as has been less commonly acknowledged that of anti-war. Indeed, an anti-war position itself can be arrived at from different political positions, from a pacifist stand to that of political expediency depending on the military fortunes of one actor or another. It is such politics of war that I intend to explore here in relation to the dynamics of nationalisms and militarization in Sri Lanka.
A Little Less Melodrama and a Lot More Forensics
- On Looking at a Photograph taken on the Margins of an ‘Encounter’
- From page 3, Sunday Hindustan Times, 21 September, 2008
Continue reading A Little Less Melodrama and a Lot More Forensics
The Chanakyans
The other sometimes amuses, sometimes provokes:
Sam, the primary principle, implies the use of rationalization but if this technique does not work then the second implement is Kam i.e. bribery. If this does not produce the desired result, then the tertiary principle is Dand or the vehement use of violence. If all three fail then the last machination is Bheet or sowing seeds of dissension and discord. Continue reading The Chanakyans
Some Questions About the Delhi Encounter
By Shabnam Hashmi, Satya Sivaraman, Manisha Sethi, Tanweer Fazal, Arshad Alam, Pallavi Deka
First published on Countercurrents.
A team comprising activists, academicians and journalists visited the site of the police operation against alleged terrorists staying in an apartment in Jamia Nagar in the afternoon of 20.09.2008 (Saturday). Two alleged terrorists Atif and Sajid, along with Mohan Chand Sharma, an inspector of the Delhi Police’s Special Cell died in the operation while a third alleged terrorist was arrested. Continue reading Some Questions About the Delhi Encounter
Saluting a Lone Survivor: Manash Bhattacharjee
[This guest post by MANASH BHATTACHARJEE is a tribute to writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn. – AN]
Solzhenitsyn writes,
the paper is burning, his writing goes on,
a cruel dawn on a plain of bones.
– Octavio Paz
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) will write no more. He died of heart failure on Monday, the 4th of August, in his home near Moscow. On this occasion, one remembers his 1970 Nobel Prize speech, where Solzhenitsyn had described his terrifying and lonely escape from death and oblivion with poignant candour: Continue reading Saluting a Lone Survivor: Manash Bhattacharjee
The red mongoose in solemn procession: Samkutty Pattomkary
[This guest post by SAMKUTTY PATTOMKARY responds to the ongoing debate in Kafila on the Chengara issue. -AN]
Reading through the discussions on Chengara in kafila, some thoughts I felt I need to articulate as follows.
It comes out vividly through the Chengara struggle that a large section of people remain alienated from social and political powers in the so-called democratic society of Kerala. Why is it not possible for the ‘class proponents’ to see and engage themselves in working towards solving the issue politically? Continue reading The red mongoose in solemn procession: Samkutty Pattomkary
Is Hindu right wing behind Indian Mujahideen, ask Muslim groups: IANS
September 17th, 2008 – 9:56 pm ICT by IANS –
Mumbai, Sep 17 (IANS) Terming the Indian Mujahideen, which has claimed
responsibility for the serial blasts in Ahmedabad and New Delhi, as
fictitious, several Muslim organisations and clerics have demanded
investigations into the possible role of the Hindu right wing in the
terror attacks.In a statement issued here Wednesday evening, 21 Muslim
organisations challenged Indian Mujahideen leaders to come out in the
open and prove their actions.
Continue reading Is Hindu right wing behind Indian Mujahideen, ask Muslim groups: IANS
Phoney Jihadis, Real Culprits!
Ramvilas Vedanti, a senior leader of the VHP, refuses to remain out of controversies for very long.
If last year he was caught in a sting operation by CNN-IBN alongwith many leading stalwarts of the spiritual world ‘explaining how he changes black money into white albeit with little bit of commission’, this year he reached headlines when he issued ‘death sentence to Mr Karunanidhi supposedly for ‘insulting Lord Ram’. One still remembers how he asked Muslims to ‘vacate’ the Parikrama area of Ayodhya after the ‘terrorist attack in Ayodhya’ with a specious argument that their presence in the area creates a feeling of insecurity. It is true that if one were to create a rating for making provocative statements then there would not be much controversy over the fact that Vedanti like his more famous colleagues in VHP will not remain far behind. Continue reading Phoney Jihadis, Real Culprits!
Random Thoughts on September 14; After 5 Bombings in Delhi
Driving through the city of New Delhi after midnight, in the early hours of the 14th of September, one could have easily mistaken the eerie calm in the broad avenues that skirt the hollow centre of Lutyens Delhi as the lull of a city tranquil and asleep to itself and the world. Continue reading Random Thoughts on September 14; After 5 Bombings in Delhi
AFSPA – 50 Years of a Law
Come September 2008, and the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA) is now fifty years old in our country. It is a law in force in large parts of the northeast that gives armed forces special powers in a locality declared as ‘disturbed area’. However, while AFSPA is considered necessary by the state and army officials to protect the state against internal disturbances, to uphold the integrity of nation, to fight against terrorism and insurgency, and to protect sensitive border areas, it is being vehemently opposed and discarded by human rights groups, women’s organizations and political groups, as it is seen as facilitating grave human rights abuses, impunity, rape and torture, and silencing of democratic dissent. The Act has long been challenged internally through country-wide campaigns, coalitions, self-immolation, fast until death, and naked protests. It is also regularly referred to internationally, for example in the recently concluded UN Human Rights Councils’ Universal Periodic Country Review or in the previous Human Rights Committee, as an issue of serious concern.
Maveli won’t be let into Chengara
This is Onam week in Kerala — a festival that recalls the days of Maveli, the wise asura king dethroned and exiled by Vamana, the avtar of Vishnu, at the behest of jealous gods. It is also an intensely-family time for most people, given that upper caste ‘family’ values are pervasive. Amidst high voltage commercialised Onam, the people at Chengara starve. The trade union blockade has been renewed, and the CITU has brought in women and has extended the blockade 24 hours. And CPM cadre have now started ‘occupying’ the houses of the Sadhujana Vimochana Munnani activists — ostensibly to reveal the ‘truth’ — that some of them indeed possess some land and a house! Strange, indeed. By this logic, the women who the trade unions have deployed in the blockade shouldn’t be ‘workers’ at all, in the light of their middle class dress codes, body language, gold ornaments and apparent reluctance to squat on the road (they sit primly on rows of chairs)!
Breakthrough in Singur?
Dear all,
(Adapted from a recent post made on the Reader List)
Kafila has in the past discussed the debacle of Nandigram in West Bengal and more recently, Singur.
For the past several days, a peaceful agitation on the Durgapur expressway near the Tata Motors Factory site in Singur in West Bengal has protested against the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation and the West Bengal Government’s decision not to engage with the demands of the farmers and others who did not voluntarily accept the paltry compensation offered to them by the WBIDC for the loss of their land or their livelihoods.
At the close of last night, the Governor of West Bengal, Gopal Krishna Gandhi announced that a solution acceptable to all (the protesting farmers at Singur and the Government of West Bengal) has been found, and that Ms. Mamata Bannerjee of the Trinamool Congress (one of the key protagonists of the Singur protest) would announce that the agitation at Singur would be suspended.
This is good news, as it demonstrates that hitherto unwilling and insensitive governments that try to ride roughshod over people in the interests of capital can be made on occasion to listen to organized and peaceful expressions of peoples’ dissent. The CPI(M) led Left Front Government of West Bengal seems to have learnt at least some lessons from the fallout of its earlier shameful and anti-democratic conduct in Nandigram. This is welcome. It can only be hoped that the CPI(M) leadership takes stock, learns to listen more to people, and indeed to many from amongst their own cadre who have been unhappy about the way in which their party brokered unfair land deals for Capital.
The people of Nandigram had based their struggle on what they had learnt from the earlier phase of the Singur situation. It appears today that the people of Singur have benefited from the restraint shown by a government and ruling party chastened by its mismanagement of the situation in Nandigram. The people of Singur owe their current sense of respite to a great extent to the people of Nandigram and their struggle.
Though it may be premature to call this ‘breakthrough’ a victory for peasants and working people, it is certainly reason to believe that not every struggle conducted by ordinary people over land, resources and livelihood is doomed to failure. This news should raise the hopes of all those committed to protest against unjust land aquisition and transfer moves – be they in Orissa, Haryana, Kerala, Goa, Kashmir or elsewhere.
See a PTI report in the Hindu that gives more details of the agreement.
regards,
Shuddha
Bombs defused in Newsrooms: Shahina KK
The national news papers are now awash with stories of the past and present of Jihad, depicting the picture of the ‘venomous, truculent Indian Muslim youth’ each carrying an improvised explosive device (IED) within himself, lethal enough to burn the country. It is a fact that a section of the community is attracted by fundamentalist outfits, most of them motivated only by blind faith and a few of them by material ‘offers’. Each and every time a blast occur, the entire Muslim community is put in the dock and they themselves carry a strong sense of guilt as if they too are accomplices in a cold-blooded crime. The media of course plays a vital role in charging a community for crimes executed by some sick minded monomaniacs, by the colored stories, semi-fiction and fiction on SIMI, LeT, HuJI, and of course ISI and the involvement of the youth in the same. It is turned out to be tough to distinguish between a believer and a terrorist. Anybody who grows a beard, does namaz, and follows his religion, is prone to be arrested and detained at any time!
Some times the stories untold serve a purpose more, than the stories told. Covertly, for a couple of weeks the national news papers effectively serve this purpose, deliberately or not. Look at the way media handled the blasts in which Sangh activists have been involved. Let me cite an example. The Indian Express and Mail Today have carried the story of Kanpur blast in which two Bajrang Dal activists were killed. Both of them were killed while they were engaged in bomb making. (The Bajrang Bomb?-IE; Bajrang Dal plotted revenge blasts in Kanpur-MT, 26th /27th Aug.2008) It is also reported that, the police was astonished to see the quantity of bombs found.
Mediotics, Industrialization and the Angel of History
[Being a sequel to ‘Singur, Mediotics and an NGO Called Indian Express‘]
“There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment…to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm.” Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History.”
These prophetic words were written in 1920 1940, when modernity’s arrogant faith in Progress was still pretty much intact. The rubble-heap of Progress has since piled up like never before. The world is now engaged in battling the effects of modernity that threaten humanity’s very existence. We know, for instance, that global warming or climate change threatens to destroy human civilization itself. Who knows, perhaps, millions of years later, some future civilization might discover its remains submerged under the sea and wonder at the heights of the ‘Progress’ it had achieved. Little might it occur to them that it was Progress itself that took this civilization to the sea.
Continue reading Mediotics, Industrialization and the Angel of History
Singur, Mediotics and an NGO Called Indian Express
[Note: Television was often referred to as the the idiot-box. For very sound reasons. It produced idiocy on a regular basis. It still does. But in these days, this is no longer the monopoly of the televisual media. Newspapers too are doing pretty much the same. Let us call this specific form of media-generated idiocy, rampant among media persons, mediocy and the phenomenon, mediotics. Those affected by it will then be mediots.]
I know that someone will immediately step in to correct me to say that Indian Express is not an NGO. But if one looks at the completely illiterate use of the term made by the Indian media, then anything that is not ‘governmental’ is ‘non-governmental’ and can, hence, be called an NGO. Except that for the large mass of ignoramuses peopling the media i.e. mediots, this is a safe term to describe an animal that you cannot identify. Continue reading Singur, Mediotics and an NGO Called Indian Express
Images from Chengara
[Via Anivar Aravaind]
ये बिहार का मंज़र है, क्या किया जाए!
ये बिहार का मंज़र है, क्या किया जाए!
ये रिपोर्ट रेयाज़-उल-हक़ ने लिखी है। वे प्रभात खबर के पटना संस्करण से जुड़े हैं। परसों रविवार डॉट कॉम के संपादक और संवेदनशील पत्रकार आलोक प्रकाश पुतुल से जब बात हो रही थी, तो उन्होंने इस रिपोर्ट का ज़िक्र किया। रेयाज़ की इस रिपोर्ट में जो दृश्य हैं, वे आंकड़ों पर इसलिए भी भारी हैं, क्योंकि आंकड़े आपको हैरान तो करते हैं, आपकी आंखों के समंदर में तूफान नहीं लाते। ये कुछ वैसा ही है, जैसा एक जमाने में फणीश्वरनाथ रेणु ने दिनमान पत्रिका के लिए पटना बाढ़ की रिपोर्टिंग की थी। ये सत्तर के दशक की बात है। आधी सदी बीतने को आ रही है – हालात हद से बदतर हो गये हैं। रेयाज़ के शब्दचित्र में बाढ़ का दहशतनाक मंज़र
मौजूद है – आप देखें, ज़िंदगी की भीख मांगते लोगों का दर्द महसूस करें और जितना संभव हो सके – मदद पहुंचाएं। (अविनाश)
मधेपुरा से सिंहेश्वर की ओर जानेवाली सड़क पर पथराहा गांव में मिलते हैं जोगेंदर यादव। सड़क किनारे एक पान की दुकान के सामने मचान पर बैठे वे पानी को अपनी ‘खर छपरी’ में घुसते हुए देखते हैं। पानी ने सुबह ही पथराहा में प्रवेश किया है। कोसी का लाल पानी। एक दिन पहले की दोपहर में गांववालों ने उसकी रेख देखी थी, गांव के पूरब। आज वह उनके घरों से, आंगन से, बांस-फूस की दीवारों से होता हुआ बह रहा है। कौवे उसकी फेन में जाने क्या ढूंढ रहे हैं। कुत्ते उसे सूंघते हैं और भड़क कर भागते हैं। गोरू उसमें खुर रोपने से डरते हैं। एक-एक सीढी डुबोते हुए, एक-एक घर पार करते हुए, एक-एक गली से राह बनाते हुए सड़क पर आकर वह अपनी थूथन पटकता है। कहीं-कहीं कमर भर पानी है गांव में।
Qatl ki Raat – Watchout Tomorrow
Tonight is the Night of the Long Knives – or Qatl ki Raat as they say in Hindustani. Indeed, it is not the night of the long knives of Nazi vintage – for that was carried out by Hitler against his own SA (the Nazi paramilitary organization), in one desperate power struggle. This is our very own CPI-M’s equally desperate power struggle – but directed outwards towards the struggling Dalit families in Chengara. Continue reading Qatl ki Raat – Watchout Tomorrow
सुपरहीरो की उदासी का सबब – अभय कुमार दुबे
[अभय कुमार दुबे का यह लेख नवभारत टाइम्स मे छपा था। यहाँ इसे दीवान लिस्ट के सौजन्य से पेश किया जा रहा है। उनका यह आलेख अमरीकी पॉपुलर कलचर के कई किरदारो की यकायक गायब होती ‘प्रासंगिकता’ पर नज़र डालता है। इस दिलचस्प लेख का एक पहलू वह है जो शीतयुद्धोत्तर अमरीका की बदली हुई राजनीतिक हैसियत के साथ पॉपुलर मानसिकता का एक गहरा रिश्ता देखता है। पढ़ते हुए अनायास स्लावोज ज़िज़ेक का एक लेख याद आ गया जिसमें वे उस अमरीकी फ़ंतासी (या दुस्वप्न?) की बात करते हैं जिसमें एक आम अमरीकी हमेशा किन्हीं एलियन्स या डायनोसॉरों द्वारा आक्रांत होने के रोमांचक ख़ौफ़ में जीता है, और जो 11 सितम्बर 2001 को अचानक चरितार्थ होती है। शायद किस्सा बैटमैन आदि पर ख़त्म नहीं होता।]
फैंटम, जादूगर मैंड्रेक और फ्लैश गॉर्डन के कारनामों की खुराक पर बचपन गुजारने वाले भारतवासियों की पीढ़ी को मालूम होना चाहिए कि कॉमिक्स के पन्नों से हमारी-आपकी जिंदगी में झांकने वाले सुपर हीरो किरदारों की दुनिया अचानक बदल गई है। अमानवीय ताकतों से लैस जो चरित्र दुनिया को भीषण किस्म के खलनायकों से बचाने का दम भरते थे, आज अपनी ही उपयोगिता के प्रति संदिग्ध हो गए हैं।
जो लोग फैंटेसी की दुनिया से बाहर नहीं निकलना चाहते उन्हें यह देख कर अफसोस हो सकता है कि उनका ‘फ्रेंडली नेबर’ स्पाइडरमैन पिछले दिनों रिटायर होते-होते रह गया। अब गौथम सिटी का रक्षक बैटमैन भी बुराई से लड़ने का अपना फर्ज निभाने में खुद को नाकाफी महसूस करने लगा है। इस बात का एहसास पिछले दिनों हमारे देश में सुपरहिट हुई हॉलिवुड की कुछ फिल्मों को देख कर हुआ है।
Amy Goodman Arrested:Democracy Now
ST. PAUL, MN—Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ Continue reading Amy Goodman Arrested:Democracy Now
A New ‘Kerala Model’
The latest news from Chengara is alarming. As if in retaliation to the rally taken out by dalit and human rights activists on 30 August, the very next day, a group of people who were travelling to the struggle site were attacked by the goons who continue the blockade. The whole group — eight men and thirteen women, including Omana, six months pregnant,were beaten heavily, and Omana’s two-year-child was snatched and thrown down. The injured are in hospital and activists are trying to get a case registered with the police.Intimidating posters have appeared all over Pathanamthitta town, declaring that the estate will be ‘cleared’on 3 September by the unions. All this, while the police watches, and a spineless admininstration looks the other way. Apparently, the administration now takes its orders from the CPM district committee.Meanwhile, the leadership continues to talk of the package, which will apparently come only after the protestors have been thoroughly intimidated, physically and emotionally,and reduced to cowering, nervous wrecks.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 