Bad ideas

The politics of the Bihar-Verdict

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No matter who wins, Bihar would be a loser. Social justice faces a roll-back .’Secular’ politics exposed. Governance a non-issue
This is what thinker-politician Yogendra Yadav had tweeted on September 9.

He, like many others, was not for the Bharatiya Janata Party but was unhappy with Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar for having forged an alliance with Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and the Congress. That the move robbed Nitish Kumar and, in turn, Bihar of the possibility of an alternative politics, was – and still is – the view of many like him. Continue reading The politics of the Bihar-Verdict →

Bad ideas

The Message From Bihar

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‘For Nitish Kumar the message is to be democratic. With the support of the BJP, he had suppressed criticism in Bihar. He would also need to change his highly authoritarian way of governance.’

‘The Grand Alliance, given the decisive mandate in its favour, cannot afford to fail the people. They have a duty to make it a model for the rest of India,’

‘The people of Bihar have shown that they are not communal and that they are literate,’ read a Facebook post of a school teacher who is also a Muslim woman after the trends of the election results of Bihar firmed up. Her Facebook history shows that she is a normal, apolitical, if not non-political, person who defines her life within the circle of her family and friends.

On Sunday, November 8, when some television news channels started predicting a comfortable victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party, a middle age housewife, again a Muslim, hovering round the television set, asked her husband, ‘Does this mean we’ll have to live in constant fear now?’

“Assalamualaikum,” was the early morning greeting I received when my phone rang the next morning. On the other side was a friend, currently in the US. He is not a Muslim, but he belongs to the much maligned community of those who are now officially called ‘sickulars’ by the BJP and its friends, against whom a leading Bollywood actor organised a march in Delhi a few days back.

A day before the results, a friend, again a non-Muslim, and a hardened professional journalist who does not like to be called ‘secular’ told me that it was necessary for the BJP to be defeated in the Bihar elections for the profession of journalism to get breathing space to revive itself in its integrity. Continue reading The Message From Bihar →

Capitalism, Centre watch, Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life, Excavation, Government, Language, Law, Metropolis, Scams, Violence/Conflict

Which COURT of Justice for Vinay Sirohi?

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Yesterday, in a corner of Delhi-NCR known as Keshopur, a 22-year old sewage worker breathed his last, a final tortured breath inhaled inside a part of the vast network of sewage pipelines that map the city in their own cartography of waste. The pipeline was owned by the Delhi Jal Board, so its function was not simply to transport sewage, but to transform it into potable water through a portion of the pipeline that resembles a septic tank – a portion known as the ‘digester’.

djb_body_759
The portion of the pipeline containing Vinay Sirohi’s body. Courtesy Indian Express online edition.

That Vinay Sirohi, 22-year old contract worker with the Delhi Jal Board, who got married last year and had taken up part-time employment to help him get through college, lost his life in a part of the sewage pipeline called the ‘digester’ imparts something so grotesquely apposite to this tragedy that one almost doesn’t want to think about it. One often doesn’t, of course. One has the option of of flipping the page of the newspaper, of resting one’s eyes on more life-affirming images – English Premier League, Bollywood, Modi-Cameron Cameron-araderie…even Kejriwal’s homely navy-blue sweater and baggy trousers are a pleasant distraction. Anything that tells us that life as it was meant to be – humans wearing a clean sweater and trousers with a sofa to sit on after their stomachs and minds are fed and sated – is better than the thought of a body inside a pipe under the city. When I tried to save the image that you see above, the caption read djb_body_759. I don’t want to think about what that caption means. Does it mean the 759th body found inside the DJB’s sewage network? Does it mean the 759th body to have been recovered by the police this year, 2015? Does it mean the 759th body to have died in sewage pipelines across the country, or ever?

Continue reading Which COURT of Justice for Vinay Sirohi? →

Capitalism, Everyday Life, Government

Debt, Counselling and the Production of Neoliberal Subjects

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financialfactsoflifeHousehold debt has plagued the North and East since the war ended in Sri Lanka. Activists and journalists have long highlighted the consequences of predatory credit and the devastating indebtedness faced by the war-torn people; from rural indebtedness, to debt accrued from the Indian Housing grants to the debt trap with lease hire purchasing.

More than such writings, the crisis on the ground, with increasing rates of suicide and attempted suicide, half built houses and protests by people have awoken donors and policy makers to the crisis of indebtedness. The Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA) was commissioned to study debt accrued with donor-funded housing schemes, and more recently by the Swiss Development Cooperation to evaluate their financial counselling initiative, which aimed to alleviate house-building related debt. Continue reading Debt, Counselling and the Production of Neoliberal Subjects →

Bad ideas

Is it end road for the BJP’s very own Stalin?

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This article was published on JULY 26, 2013. My mind went back to it when I heard that the Marg Darshak Mandal of the BJP has finally managed to find its spine and stand up to revolt against the leadership of the Party. They could do so because the BJP is fortunate be functioning in an open, democratic political system of India which it wants to destroy. It is this outside democracy from which they’ll expect to get support. One’ll have to watch the development in the party as the loyalists have been imediately pressed into action to defend the leader.

Remember,Lalu Prasad and Rahul Gandhi have been  been saying all along that the BJP is not a normal democratic political party.It is the mask of the RSS.

The new leader of the BJP, Narendra Modi is, however RSS+.

For the RSS to survive and keep BJP under its thumb, it’ll have to control Narendra Modi. Will it happen? They can only hope at this juncture.

While reading it, keep the dateline in your mind: July 26, 2013

Yashwant  Sinha is a worried man these days. He is apprehensive of his leader Narendra Modi being taken for a ride by the Congress party. He says that the Congress party is laying a trap for him, a trap of the binary of Communalism and Secularism and  fears that his upward looking Narendra Modi might fall in it. So, well  wisher that he is of Narendra Bhai, he wants to alert him: do not get  entangled in the conspiracy of the wily Congress. He appeals to Narendra Modi to stick to people’s issues and not let the political discourse  shift to the terrain of the Secularism  versus Communalism debate.

And then Yashwant Sinha rushes to clarify- ‘ No, no, he was speaking  to Congress and not to Narendra Modi’. After all, how can HE, the SAB-JANTA-WALA be  advised by an ordinary party member like him? Sinhaji only wants the nefarious design of the Congress to be foiled. Read what he writes, “The Modi-baiters have a clear game plan. The more he speaks, the more controversy they will create. The pre- election political discourse will, thus, be distorted and attention will shift from the mis-governance and corruption of this government to what happened more than 11 years ago in Gujarat. We must bring the discourse back from the past to the present.” Continue reading Is it end road for the BJP’s very own Stalin? →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Countryside, Government, Identities, Images, Language, Politics, Right watch

Yes, the Biharis chose Mud over the Lotus. Get Over It.

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It is not difficult to imagine some of the reactions to the sweeping victory for the Grand Alliance in Bihar. All those who have spent a lifetime thinking of Bihar as the worst kind of social, economic and political cesspool in the country, all those who shudder at the sight of Lalu Prasad Yadav and amuse themselves with jokes about his rustic origins and his apparently appalling antics, all those who are charmed by the hologram charm of our current PM – all those have found the best kind of alibi to explain the result of November 8th. As Prem Panicker has noted on Twitter, the sum total of their reactions is – “Illiterate Biharis deserve this”. A particularly pee-yellow variant of this jaundiced view of the lower castes and classes was given (and mysteriously withdrawn later) by one Sonam who goes by the handle #Asyounotwish on Twitter:

Thank you Bihar for choosing mud over lotus. You deserve to stay rickshaw walas.

It’s perfect – for the thousands of Sonams out there, Lalu and Bihar are made for each other in a kind of self-limiting loop, and we can return to our economically dynamic, socially vibrant and thankfully un-Bihari Indian lives. Another joke that is doing the rounds:

Wife: Ever been to Bihar?

Husband: No

Wife: Moving there?

Husband: No

Wife: Relatives fighting elections?

Husband: No

Wife: Then give me the damn remote…

Continue reading Yes, the Biharis chose Mud over the Lotus. Get Over It. →

Politics, Right watch

Modi Not Welcome!

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Modi-House-of-Commons

At 9 p.m. on Sunday, Nov 8, 2015, a massive projection of Narendra Modi holding a sword in one hand and a shield with the Oum symbol with a swastika superimposed appeared on the Houses of Parliament next to the iconic Big Ben. Above it were the words Modi Not Welcome. It was the most high profile message from the campaigners of the Modi Not Welcome organisations which have come together as the Awaaz Network.

Read full report in Caravan Daily News.

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Government, Politics, Right watch

How the Hindutva Propaganda Machine Manufactures Lies

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Did you know that the return of awards by writers, film-makers and scientists was a plot hatched jointly by the United States of America, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan? Well, if you did not, you will probably not ever understand why the ‘tolerant’ multitude that turned out at Anupam Kher’s March for India rally today, could so vilely abuse and attack NDTV’s Bhairavi Singh and Aaj Tak’s Mousmi Singh. After all, it is one thing for the netas to simulate their anger and laughter on TV channels and elsewhere, but how do you actually get ordinary people to go crazy? How and why does the ordinary Hindutva footsoldier act the way he or she does? Basically, he (and occasionally, she) is made to believe things that most people would know to be false. So why does as innocuous an act as the returning of awards by writers become such a big threat to India’s position in the world and to the very existence of the government of the day? Well, because, it is not a simple matter of some writers acting out of their conscience but already a part of an international conspiracy plotted by the US-Saudi Arabia-Pakistan nexus!

Defenders of the great tradition of tolerance, image courtesy Saikat Datta
Defenders of the great tradition of tolerance, image courtesy Saikat Datta

Published below is the text of a note that has been circulating over different social media platforms. We have left the typographical and printing errors as they are in the original. Paranoid in its content, it is also illustrative of the way the RSS ‘rumour-machine’ works to produce lies. In earlier days, it used to start circulating from the morning shakhas via the shakha participants. Nowadays it moves from one social media platform to another, with lightning speed. Continue reading How the Hindutva Propaganda Machine Manufactures Lies →

Countryside, Culture, Debates, Ecology/Environment, Images

A Memory from the 1970s

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This is from a long time back.

I was eight or nine, a child obsessed with day-dreaming and playing alone with the tiny grass-flowers that grew abundantly in our yard. Memories of those times are coloured a brilliant green because that was the colour that overwhelmed all the seasons of the year. Our home at Muthukulam in Kerala comes back to the mind’s eye in greens of all shades, browns, rich reds, bright blues, silver of the ponds,canals, and the lake, the  bright yellow of the mangoes and jackfruit, and innumerable flower- and fruit-hues. Continue reading A Memory from the 1970s →

Everyday Life

Tribute to Priya Thangarajah

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This tribute to Priya Thangarajah, well known in queer feminist, democratic rights and academic circles in India and Sri Lanka, comes from her friends in Law and Social Sciences Research Network. Priya has written on Kafila too, and was a good friend to many of us. We will remember her incredible energy and inspiring presence.

Priya in JNU

We are heartbroken to share with you that Priyadarshini Thangarajah, to her friends Priya or Thanga, passed away on 4 November 2015 in Colombo. It is hard to think of Priya in the past tense—she was always brimming with life, laughter and love. Each LASS conversation was all the more special, brilliant and spirited solely because of Priya. 

Priya graduated from the National Law School University of India, Bangalore, India, in the summer of 2010. As an aspiring young lawyer, who took the bar examination, Priya wanted to challenge the estranged relationship between law and justice by becoming a magistrate. In 2014-15, Priya was a fulbright scholar and completed her LLM at Georgetown University. Priya worked with different organisations based in Sri Lanka and India on issues of gender, sexuality, violence and human rights. However, her passion for law and legal research was shaped through years of association with the Law and Society Trust in Colombo; and later her work at the Alternative Law Forum at Bangalore.  Continue reading Tribute to Priya Thangarajah →

Everyday Life, Law

Aadhar Card- is it an intrusion into privacy? Mrinal Sharma

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Guest Post by MRINAL SHARMA

The Supreme Court passed an order dated 11th August 2015 declaring that it is not mandatory for the citizens to obtain Unique Identity Number popularly known as Aadhar Card. This order was passed in the light of the petitions which arose against the interim orderpassed by the Supreme Court in September 2013, which stated that ‘no person should suffer for not getting the Aadhaar card in spite of the fact that some authority had issued a circular making it mandatory.’ The petitioners contended that the Aadhar Card scheme involved collection of personal information of the citizens including fingerprints and iris scan, which is capable of being misused. Though the Apex Court’s order declared that the production of Aadhar card is not necessary to draw benefits vested to the citizens (except for getting PDS, kerosene and LPG distribution) butthe court didn’t answer two crucial questions involved in the matter at hand, which it referred to a larger bench of at least 5 judges to decide. One, whether the information collected under this scheme invades person’s right to privacy and two, whether right to privacy is a fundamental right? However judgment of the larger bench is still awaited, I would like to address the two issues that are posted to the larger bench. Continue reading Aadhar Card- is it an intrusion into privacy? Mrinal Sharma →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Countryside, Government

Multiples of Four: Anitha Santhi

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This is a guest post by ANITHA SANTHI

We certainly are living through confusing and tumultuous times in Kerala. Amidst the Local Self-Government elections and beef festivals, deplorable attempts to segregate young minds on the basis of gender in campuses ( how one wishes that the same zeal was shown to segregate waste that is spreading like an epidemic), a mini drama was enacted by a few on the outskirts of the capital city. A quote from Bertolt Brecht’s To Those Born Later rings in my mind as I write this :

What kind of times are they
When a talk about trees is almost a crime
Because it implies silence about so many horrors?

The Silence about Trees and other Horrors: Continue reading Multiples of Four: Anitha Santhi →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Education, Identities, Images, Mirror Worlds

An ‘Anti National’ Response from JNU to the ‘Nationalist’ RSS: Pratim, Gargi and Lenin

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Guest Post by Pratim, Gargi and Lenin.

As writers, historians, scientists, film makers, poets, actors and others return their awards in protest against the rising intolerance and anti-rational climate in this country, we in JNU keep stocking up accolades of a different kind. These accolades are ones which are very generously gifted to us from the RSS and its affiliates. These accolades come in more than fifty shades, only highlighting the deep seated trouble that these folks have in seeing this University up to them, despite their attempts to tarnish it. A few days back the ever-so-absurd/islamophobic/irrational Subramaniam Swamy endowed JNU students with the honours of being ‘Jehadis’, ‘Naxal’ and ‘Anti-National’.

Continue reading An ‘Anti National’ Response from JNU to the ‘Nationalist’ RSS: Pratim, Gargi and Lenin →

Countryside

Matters of the Mind and the Agrarian Political Economy in Eastern Maharashtra: Pronoy Rai

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Guest post by PRONOY RAI

I interviewed Santosh Daune (name changed), a landless agricultural laborer in the interior drylands of Yavatmal district in Maharashtra last week for my dissertation research. Santosh’s village is about 15 kilometers away from the main road in Yavatmal, 25 kilometers from the nearest Public Health Center, and the nearest railway station is about 90 kilometers away (or two and a half hours by bus). I met with Santosh, who is around 50 years old, at his home – a one room and one kitchen set – built right next to his father’s two-room house in the dalit basti in his village. I wanted to understand Santosh’s views on changes in the village resulting from increased labor migration over the last couple of decades. A lean man with a head full of grey hair, Santosh spoke some Hindi and fluent Vidarbha Marathi. Santosh was unsure about his response to my questions. He wasn’t shaking but he seemed nervous, in a basti where dalit villagers didn’t mind pulling me in to their homes in a hope that I would let the state government know about poverty in the village. I would perhaps be more convincing than the villagers to implore the state government to address extreme poverty in the village.

Continue reading Matters of the Mind and the Agrarian Political Economy in Eastern Maharashtra: Pronoy Rai →

Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Identities, Law

Statement by Academics Against Intolerance

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In light of the recent spate of killings of noted writers and intellectuals M M Kalburgi, Govind Pansare, and Narendra Dabholkar, and the Dadri lynching incident followed by forced nation-wide attempts at cultural policing, we feel that the current political dispensation headed by the Prime Minister is mandating an atmosphere of violence and fear. Continue reading Statement by Academics Against Intolerance →

Culture, Debates, Right watch

जो पहले नहीं हुआ: किशोर कुमार

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Guest Post by KISHORE KUMAR

लगभग चालीस लेखकों के पुरुस्कार लौटाने के बाद अब फिल्म निर्देशकों ने भी पुरुस्कार लौटने शुरू कर दिए. यह पुरुस्कार बढती असहनशीलता और अभिव्यक्ति की स्वंत्रता के दमन के विरोध में लौटाए जा रहे हैं.

बी.जे.पी की राय में यह राजनीति से प्रेरित कदम है और यह सब बी.जे.पी के खिलाफ हो रही साजिश का हिस्सा है. बी.जे.पी के अनुसार आज कुछ ऐसा नया नहीं हुआ जो पहले ना हुआ हो और इन लोगों ने उस समय यह पुरूस्कार वापस क्यों नहीं लौटाए? बी.जे.पी. के अनुसार पुरुस्कार लौटना छदम धर्मनिरपेक्ष लोगों का नाटक है और  असहनशीलता इतनी नहीं बढ़ी और माहौल इतना ख़राब नहीं हुआ कि इतना शोर मचाया जाए. Continue reading जो पहले नहीं हुआ: किशोर कुमार →

Culture, Everyday Life, Identities, Scams

A Dalit Employee’s Death and Its Aftermath – in a Central University: Solidarity for Amar Singh

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The following is a guest post by SOLIDARITY FOR AMAR SINGH

We are writing this quite late. On 27 July 2015, a Monday, a young person named Amar Singh passed away in Lucknow. We came to know it very late, only on the other day, since we no longer reside in the city and, to confess, do not remain in regular touch with the happenings there. A leading Hindi daily’s Lucknow edition had reported this death two days later in a small column which we have just recovered. The report provided information about his father as well as about his native place, Faizabad. Though the daily did not state his caste in its description of what could be discerned like an accident, it made a note of his name, his age, his father’s name, and the job he was doing. But we knew Amar’s background. Amar was a dalit. He was Hela by caste and hailed from a poor family. His death could well be an accident, though what exactly happened remains mysterious. People who know a little about the incident are however emphatic that it was not suicide. But what appeared very intricate is how his death was reported and how the whole incident was handled since then, in the well-known public spheres—not only of Lucknow but also of other places.

The daily, Dainik Jagran, indeed reported it on 29 July 2015, stating that on Monday night at Nishatganj, a young man passed away under mysterious circumstances, and that he was a sanitation worker at the Moti Mahal lawns. It also informs that his relatives had asked for an investigation by the police. The report reads further like this: “Originally from Faizabad, the son of Ram Ratan, Amar Singh (23) had gone to his employer’s house at Nishatganj on Monday. Soon after leaving the premise there, he was found on the road in a state of unconsciousness. The passersby took him to a private hospital where he passed away.” The report ends there. It had appeared as an insignificant column at the left bottom of page 9 of the daily, with one of the most common headings one can come across, “a young man dies under suspicious circumstances”. But who was this employer here? Who were the passersby? Continue reading A Dalit Employee’s Death and Its Aftermath – in a Central University: Solidarity for Amar Singh →

Bad ideas, Debates, Government, Identities, Left watch

What Communal Attacks And Our Own Blindness have Cost Us: Thoughts for Malayalees on the Eve of Panchayat Elections

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On the eve of the panchayat elections in Kerala, I can’t help noticing how different it has been this time. Every time, the build-up to voting day includes heated debates about the state of the local bodies and discussions on the promises made by political parties. Not that it was completely absent this time, but somehow it appeared that such questions were hardly on people’s minds. The coming of decentralized governance in the mid-1990s divided the political field in Kerala into two:  ‘local governance’ and ‘high politics’ involved very different conceptions of power, authority, and agency. Welfarism, now also reimagined in terms of self-help, was moved into the former, while the latter remained the more decisive arena of political activity and authority. However, given that the space on local governance was crucial to the poor in that welfare entitlements flowed through it, it remained a key area of public concern. Over the years, from Plachimada to Vilappilsala, the local bodies even seemed to form sites around which resistance to top-down destructive ‘development’ could take shape. Each election was an opportunity to take stock of this large network of institutions which despite all the flaws remained quite decisively important to the lives of the poor in Kerala. In fact, it is worth noting that the elections were the occasions in which the better-off sections paid relatively more attention to local bodies and even set aside their cynicism and reluctance to engage. Not so, this time, I can’t help feeling. Continue reading What Communal Attacks And Our Own Blindness have Cost Us: Thoughts for Malayalees on the Eve of Panchayat Elections →

Bad ideas, Right watch

My name is Ajmal: Ajmal Khan A.T.

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Guest Post by AJMAL KHAN A.T.

What is your name?

Ajmal,

Ohh…Ajmal Kasab?

No, I smile.

This is a familiar exchange for me, not to mention my friends often  calling out to me,  hey, Kasab!

I noticed this started  in Mumbai post 26/11, of course.

But there are other instances.  Once, while I was traveling by train from Mumbai to Kerala, a man who was in his mid 50s with whom I was sharing a seat, asked while I was about to get down at the Calicut railway station, ‘boy what is your name?’ I replied – my name is Ajmal. A cute little boy, around 9 years old, who was traveling with him, responded with  Ajmal Kasab?

I somehow managed to smile and say, no my dear. I got down at my station. Continue reading My name is Ajmal: Ajmal Khan A.T. →

Debates, Everyday Life, Mirror Worlds, Politics

Can accessibility alone create an inclusive society for persons with disability? Tony Kurian

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Guest Post by TONY KURIAN

Amidst the noisy campaigns of “Make In India and Digital India”, a campaign called “Accessible India” was launched by the Central Government recently and unsurprisingly this did not catch much media attention. Department of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment has launched the Accessible India Campaign (Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan), as a nation-wide flagship campaign for achieving universal accessibility for Persons with Disabilities.

The campaign is an extremely welcome initiative in a country like India which is home to more than 2.1 million officiallyrecognized disabled and a lot more who are not counted by the decadal exercise of census. While the campaign disserves much appreciation, it offers an appropriate opportunity for us to rethink some of our common sense, or at least that of majority about disability and disabled. Continue reading Can accessibility alone create an inclusive society for persons with disability? Tony Kurian →

Culture, Politics

Sursuri: Swaang

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SWAANG is a Mumbai based cultural group, whose members include actors, writers, directors, singers and composers primarily working with the Hindi Film Industry in Mumbai. The members come from different parts of India and have been associated with progressive arts in the past.

Sursuri, their melodious new song, its melody in stark contrast to the bitterness of the lyrics, reflects on the indifference to growing injustice and intolerance in our country. It asks – What do you do when freedom, pluralism and rationalism are under relentless attack? Relax, don’t speak up, slurp up that hot tingling tea…and fall asleep.

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