MF Husian’s troubles seem to be increasing by the day. The latest one is over Bharat Mata. In protest against those protesting and acting against MF Husian, I have decided to put up an image of the ‘offending’ Bharat Mata painting. I urge all bloggers to do the same if you want freedom of speech preserved in India. (From here.)
Also see this statement.
The first impulse that one has after coming out of a court hearing is to create a satire that accurately captures the slightly bizarre and terrifying vision of judges that one has had a chance to experience. But can caricature really live up to its responsibility of laughing truth to power? John Beger has said that “Graphic caricature is dead because life has outstripped it. Or more accurately, because satire is only possible when a moral reserve still exists, and those reserves have been used up. We are too used to being appalled by ourselves to be able to react to the idea of caricature”. So instead of imposing an impossible goal for satire, let us allow the court speak for themselves. Continue reading The Impossibility of Satire
The Gujarat Fake Encounter Story is rapidly being scripted along the familiar lines of the ‘Corrupt Policeman-Corrupt Politician-Underworld Links’ nexus. While this may be true, (and I do not doubt that Narendra Modi, who holds the ‘Home’ portfolio in Gujarat, must not be entirely un-involved in this matter) it would be unfortunate if the Gujarat ‘fake encounter killings’ , like ‘fake encounter’ stories in Kashmir, Delhi or elsewhere are now spun into ‘systemic aberrations’. Rather, they should be seen as evidence of how the system actually works, and how efficient it is.
Continue reading Gujarat Fake Encounters: The Spin Doctoring has Begun
Devastating Looks: Smirks, Quirks and Judicial Authority
Raoul Vaneigem, the Belgian philosopher writes that “The economy of everyday life is based on a continuous exchange of humiliations and aggressive attitudes. It conceals a technique of wear and tear which is itself prey to the gift of destruction which it invites contradictorily”. In an incredible story in his chapter on humiliation, Vaneigem says that one day, when Rousseau was traveling through a crowded village, he was insulted by a lowly peasant whose insults delighted the crowd. The great philosopher Rousseau was completely taken aback and flushed with anger, but could not think of a single thing to say in reply and was forced to take to his heels amidst the jeers of the crowd. By the time he had finally regained his composure and thought of a thousand possible retorts, any one of which would have silenced the joker once and for all, he was at two hours distance from the village.
Vaneigem then says “Aren’t most of the trivial incidents of everyday life like this ridiculous adventure? but in an attenuated and diluted form, reduced to the duration of a step, a glance, a thought, experienced as a muffled impact, a fleeting discomfort barely registered by consciousness and leaving in the mind only the dull irritation at a loss to discover its own origin?”
Continue reading Devastating Looks: Smirks, Quirks and Judicial Authority
A call by concerned citizens
The valiant struggle of the peasantry in Nandigram against the acquisition of their land and homesteads for the proposed chemical hub SEZ has drawn nationwide attention. Despite the massacre of March 14 and the continuing reign of terror unleashed by the police and hired killers of the ruling party in the state, Nandigram has refused to surrender. On the contrary, it has sparked unprecedented mass protests across West Bengal and elsewhere. People’s movements in various parts of the country against the forcible acquisition of farmlands, forests and other natural resource base of the poor in the name of SEZ and for the so-called industrial projects have also drawn inspiration and sustenance from Nandigram. No wonder, Nandigram has become a major focus of people’s resistance against the neo-liberal agenda that seeks to establish the hegemony of global corporate capitalism.
Time is now ripe to bring all the people’s resistance movements across the country together under one coordinating network. Towards this end, we are proposing a People’s Convention, followed by a huge rally, in Kolkata on 2-3 June 2007 (before the onset of monsoon). We call upon all our friends in the people’s movements and people’s organisations, irrespective of political or ideological moorings, to come forward and actively participate in this programme. May the convention/rally become the launching pad for a united nationwide struggle against the government’s land acquisition policy for SEZ and industrial projects.
Continue reading In the wake of Nandigram via Dhruva Narayan
Truth is finally out.
People who had a faint glimmer of hope about Kausar Bi’s whereabouts finally know that she is no more. As the counsel for the Gujarat government himself admitted before the Supreme Court, she was killed, burnt and her ashes were thrown in some field. But it does not throw light on the fact that who killed her ?
It appears that Gujarat government wants to buy time to divulge the information. But the CID report filed by Ms Geeta Johri is very clear on this aspect.The interim report of the IG (CID) Geeta Johri – who investigated the case as per instruction from the Supreme Courst – know that Kausarbi was personally strangulated to death by D.H.Vanjara in the very presence of his wife and son (Bhaskar, 28 th April 2007).
Imagine the head of the Anti Terrorism Squad, who till the other day functioned as DIG killing an innocent woman and using his position to cover up the crime.
As things stand today the story of the encounter killing of Soharabuddin Sheikh in cold blood, followed by similar killing of his friend Tulsiram Prajapati and later his own wife Kausar Bi is getting murkier everyday.
Continue reading Fake Killing(s) : People As Trophies
WHY INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST POSADA CARRILES WALKS FREE IN US. Does blowing of civilian airliners, bombing of hotels or other civilian facilities constitute an act of terrorism? Anyone with a feeble sense of justice would definitely answer in the affirmative. But for the US such a categorization is dependent upon the way state department looks at such acts. If it is meant to damage the US then definitely ‘yes’ but if it is meant to damage its adversaries then such actions can not only be condoned but duly supported as well. The much debated case of the Cuban-American terrorist Possada Carilles who was instrumental in blowing up a civilian airliner killing 73 people is a case in point.
It was only last week that Louis Posada Carriles walked out of a New Mexico jail, free on bail. Posada was being held and tried for immigration charges in US but not in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. The Bush administration has consistently refused to extradite Posada to Venezuela or Cuba to stand trial for the airline bombing. In a statement, Castro said the Bush administration is allowing: “the liberation of [a] monster.” On Sunday, the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused the US of protecting international terrorism and said that Posada Carriles, that his case should be taken to the United Nations. Cuba has also renewed calls for Posada’s extradition.
Here is an article by Aseem Shrivastava, who suggests that there is a grimmer lesson to be learnt from China than the corporate flunkies would have us believe. Turning Mumbai into Shanghai? More like turning Nandigram into Shenzen…
“Few cities anywhere have created wealth faster than Shenzhen, but the costs of its phenomenal success stare out from every corner: environmental destruction, soaring crime rates and the disillusionment and degradation of its vast force of migrant workers”
–“Chinese Success Story Chokes on Its Own Growth”
The New York Times, December 19, 2006.
Within the short span of a few decades China has become the envy of the world. Corporate managers across the globe lose sleep worrying about “the China price”. Real wages and working conditions rivaling those of industrializing, pauperizing Britain two centuries ago have enabled the country to leave far behind any global competitor who has to worry about such inconvenient matters as labor laws and environmental regulations. Thus has accelerated the inter-national race to the bottom that has generated fear since the early days of this phase of corporate globalization. The labor force in the global economy doubled overnight in the early 1990s (from 1400 to 2900 million) when China, India and the Eastern Bloc nations joined it after the fall of the Berlin Wall, under Bush I’s “New World Order.” If real wages and the share of wages in national income have fallen sharply in recent times, and if inequalities have risen dramatically at the same time, the answer to the riddle lies in this quiet accretion, cashed in on by China-based corporations who have set the pace. The logic of capital has inveigled the entire world into a race of totalitarianisms–which inevitably enrich the few and pauperize the many in
The staple that one grew up on, was the idea, that WE, the people of India, had through a consensus, decided to constitute ourselves into a nation – a secular, democratic, Socialist (as an after thought perhaps, once Gharibi had been hataoed) republic. One was told that the Executive, the legislature and the Judiciary were the pillars that kept a check on each other, thus ensuring that every one was kept in their place, and the pulls and pressures exerted by each on the other two were built into the state structure in order that every one stayed on the straight and narrow.
All this was however soon forgotten to be replaced by the lived experience of the machinations of an uncaring and callous executive and a by and large insensitive legislature. The only hope now was the Judiciary, the third pillar of parliamentary democracy, and one waited with baited breath for the honourable courts to deliver this nation of a billion and more from the collective mess in which the other two had placed the people of the largest democracy in the world.
Judicial activism became the proverbial straw that one clutched at and hoped for more such straws to keep a destitute nation afloat.
The fight for city space, today, has gone far beyond the Master Plan. On the traffic signals of South Delhi, the Master Plan 2021 now rivals Paulo Coehlo in sales. Planning and the fight for urban space has, it seems, becomes everyone’s debate. On the surface, this is a fight about planning and order, about drawing the lines between formal/informal, legal/illegal, and public/private to prevent the “anarchy” that may result without planning.
Yet how do we understand “informality” and “illegality” in a city like Delhi? According to the Tejender Khanna Committee, appointed by the government and led by Delhi’s ex- Lt Governor, nearly 70% of the city lives in a state of semi-legality, mostly due to the DDA’s consistent failure to meet its own land acquisition and housing development targets over the last twenty years. Sainik Farms and the slums of Yamuna Pushta are, therefore, just as “informal” as each other, albeit in different ways. Yet the consequences of their informality are vastly different. Within the courts, the Master Plans and in public opinion, it is only the slum dwellers and the urban poor that have become “encroachers,” and the homes that they have lived in for decades “temporary” and “illegal.” In the context of poverty, it seems, informality very easily slides into illegality. Continue reading From Informal to Illegal
Choles Ritchil, an activist and a leader of the Garo people living in the Modhupur Upozila under Tangail District in Bangladesh was found dead last month. Over the last three years, he had been leading a protest against the establishment of an Eco park in the forests around his village by the department of Forest. He was allegedly tortured brutally by the officers of the local army camp before dying.
Garos are a part of a large tribal minority, along with other hill people, known as pahadis, who are part of present-day Bangladesh, along side the large minority of Hindus. Bangladesh, as we know, was formerly East Pakistan and seceded from it after India fought a war against Pakistan in 1971. Its founder leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had said in his founding speech, “From today, you are all Bengalis.” Not all Bengalis are equal. Continue reading Celebrating difference in Southasia
The Modi administration in Gujarat wants some more censorship, this time the programme is not even about the Gujarat riots:
Modi spent some precious time explaining to Ahluwalia that the TV project on development issues — including women’s empowerment, health, youth and human rights — was done without consulting the state even though these are state subjects.
And, so deep-rooted is Modi’s dislike for Sarabhai — because she has been at odds on various issues including the communal riots — that he is not leaving matters at that.
The BJP on Tuesday announced that it will stage a protest at the Doordarshan office here over Mallika’s project which gets two hours of airtime every day. Local producers are already up in arms against the project. [Times of India]
Here is a previous example of the price that Sarabhai has to pay fro speaking up against Modi.
Here. (.pdf)
1. The direct victims of that violence and their relatives continue to face serious challenges and obstacles in securing justice;
2. An overwhelming number of the criminal cases relating to the Gujarat violence remain un-investigated and unresolved, or closed with the result that the majority of he perpetrators of the violence have gone unpunished and remain at large in the state – this is despite the reopening of 1,594 cases for reinvestigation after the Supreme Court of India (Supreme Court) order in August 2004;
3. The plight of those internally displaced from their homes as a result of the violence is continuing one. As many as 5,000 families are living in “relief colonies” without basic amenities or official recognition from the Government of Gujarat. The Government of Gujarat however continues to assert that all those displaced as a result of the violence have been rehabilitated;
4. Human rights defenders, tenaciously engaged in pursuing justice for the victims of the violence, face frequent harassment;
5. There is an ongoing practice of social and economic boycotting of Muslim communities in the state.
“That day is not far away when we will be afraid to even call ourselves Hindu, and you will never be able to find a Sohanlal, Mohanlal, Atmaram or Radhekrishan anywhere. Wherever we look, we will only see Abbas, Naqvi, Rizvi, and Maulvi”.
Siddharth Varadarajan shares the contents of the Bhartiya Janta Party’s now-withdrawn campaign CD in the Uttar Pradesh polls.
I was reading Lisa Peattie’s work on Planning this morning. She says:
… every telling represents a way of seeing. We see from where we stand; and why would we look unless we care about how the story comes out?
Telling represents a way of seeing;
We see from where we stand …
The demolition of a mosque which housed a madarsa also, is still fresh in the minds of Samshad Begum Anarbi.She had built the structure singlehandedly with some help from community members as well. In fact, the idea was to build a mosque and a madrasa where people could pray and young children could study Arabic. The whole structure was built on a government land, which came under the Twenty Point Programme.
On February 24, last year the Savordem panchayat issued a notice in which they stated that the structure is illegal and would be demolished within seven days. Samshad Anarbi immediately approached the directorate of Panchayats and could manage to get a stay order from it. When the locals learnt about it, they attacked the building at night and demolished the structure.
Continue reading Goa: Communal Tinderbox Waiting To Explode?
[I wrote the following report in July 2002 when a group of us -including some present-day Kafila writers – worked in a riot relief camp in Vatwa, Ahmedabad. Before Gujarat, and this report, I was an unhappy student of Chemistry in Delhi University, un-sure of what i wanted to do post-graduation. I’m not saying that I chose to become a journalist specifically after the Gujarat riots; but this was the first long report I had ever written, and revealed to me the possibilities of journalism – not as a tool of communication and dissemination, but as a means to make the world intelligible to one’s self. Gujarat in 2002 did something to you that could not pin-point, but having left you knew that something profound had changed. Re-reading it (before posting), I found myself ( as a journalist) a little embarrassed by some of the conclusions I drew, some of the sentences I constructed, and some of the grammar I bridged. But I have resisted the urge to correct it beyond a spell-check.]
6th July 2002
When I arrive in Ahmendabad, 3 months have passed since the grisly horror of Febuary, but the scars are still there for all to see. All except for the State Government i.e., which continues to turn a blind eye to the plight of the victims. The people of Gujarat are a study in numbness, a numbness which hangs heavy in the air, and affects all who touch it, including myself. After a point, the sight of burnt buildings and broken localities no longer produce a feeling of outrage and horror, and instead I lapse into a mood of hollow despair. Continue reading Apko Goli Kisne Mari?
Life in Modi’s Gujarat
Gujarat is calm. And is on the march. Every village of the state is a Jyotigram. Narmada water is flowing in abundance in the canals quenching the thirst of Gujaratis. “Was not Surat flooded a few months back and did not the people of Gujarat suffer?” I ask my driver. “No, was not Narendrabhai there to take care of everything,” he replies. How can anything go wrong when Narendrabhai is keeping watch!
Narendra Modi, you see, does not have a family and he works round the clock, we are informed. I find Modi smiling down at us benevolently from the digital billboards that dot Ahmedabad. There is no escaping his firm developmental smile. “The man has impressive qualities. Gujarat is bound to forge ahead under this workaholic chief minister. A citizen may have doubts of his secularism, but even his enemies don’t doubt his competence,” writes Gunawant Shah, a popular Gujarati columnist.
Protest is a form of speech that a society employs to communicate with itself.
You do not protest in public, shout and scream, chant slogans and hold placards on an ordinary day. You do it but rarely. You do it when you are outraged.
And when you do protest, you want to be heard.
I have been interested lately in protest, though I must say there’s a lot more to say about Jantar Mantar.
I wonder why those who protest are no longer being heard, leading them, sometimes, to wonder if they are being pushed to the wall, a wall they’ll have to break down with a gun.
But I wonder, equally, if the protestors are listening only to themslves. Communication, after all, is not about one-way speaking. Communication is also about listening. Continue reading Sangharsh Hamara Nara Hai
While West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya adopted a misleadingly deceptive tone, apparently taking all the blame for the unfortunate events that took place in Nandigram (at the 29 March SFI-DYFI rally in Kolkata), the party’s lie-machine continues to overtime on its disinformation campaign. Bhattacharya’s plea for an end to violence and killings, virtually beseeching the ‘Opposition’ to stop killing Leftist (read CPM supporters), is meant to have a specific effect – that of making it appear as though it is really they who are the aggrieved party. It is a belated strategic move, aimed at the more gullible and the wider world outside, to convey the impression that they are at the receiving end. Suddenly all the belligerence seems to have disappeared and this reasonable man appears with folded hands to beg for the return of ‘normalcy’. But this is misleading because, at another level of discourse, this new pose is accompanied by continuous, ever new production of lies and insinuations, by other members and wings/ arms of his party.
The full article was first posted in sacredmediacow.
The ‘logic’ of the CPIM and the (West Bengal) State police under its control for launching an all-out attack on the villagers of Nandigram who had totally cut themselves off from the State to counter its anticipated move to dispossess and displace them is extremely clear. The State cannot tolerate the refusal of the people to be ruled by it. That is precisely why it makes use of its sovereign power to demonstrate and establish its supremacy or hegemony. In this particular regard, the State presumably governed by Leftist ideology has acted no different – not at all. The main reason for worry here is that the CPIM has completely forgotten that it is not a wing of the State the way the police or any other administrative department is. One may, however, retort that hardly anywhere in the world wherever the Communist party has come to power has bothered to keep a distance between itself and the State. Rather it looks upon the State as an instrument for its own expansion.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 