Autumn’s Anger: Sonia Anwar

This is a guest post by SONIA ANWAR

As everybody knows by now, not everybody was cheering when the Indian PM recently visited the U.K. Some photos and a short write-up sent by a protestor and eyewitness…

Modi bloody finger cartoon
Source: The Independent, U.K.

The pictures didn’t come out very good as I was trying to absorb everything that was happening around me yesterday in front of No: 10 Downing street and later in the Parliament Square and also shout against Modi as loud as I could at the same time. The air was filled with angry slogans coming from different groups. The centre point was behind the barricades right across the gates to No: 10. There were people of all genders, faiths and nationalities. We shouted out as loud as we could; they had to bring in Modi on foot to No: 10 through the Foreign Office building to avoid us and our angry shouts that he is a murderer and has blood on his hands. Later we marched down towards the Parliament square.

Continue reading Autumn’s Anger: Sonia Anwar

We agree passionately: one world, one struggle, education is not for sale!

Dangerous Vandals, Goths and Visigoths: Students Demanding the Impossible at #OccupyUGC
Dangerous Vandals, Goths and Visigoths: Students Demanding the Impossible at #OccupyUGC

The Occupy UGC movement looks irrelevant or ridiculous to the middle and upper classes in India because it can be made to appear so by the media. Not surprisingly, television channels and leading dailies either ignored the protests altogether, or worse, focused on the apparently far more *critical* issue of the “vandalism” and “disfigurement” of the ITO metro station by the protesting students. Times of India said they were “brazening it out” after their acts of vandalism, and on social media including Kafila, these student vandals have been additionally belittled by some as misguided pawns in the hands of an apparent conglomerate of ambitious lefty professors from JNU! Basically, anything but a legitimate set of demands, some of which this poster from the movement tries to explain…

Dekh Bhai UGC
Translation: Look here UGC, if you don’t give us the scholarship, I will face marriage pressure, but you will have to face the pressure of the entire student population!!

(Incidentally, it was this image that was painted on the walls of the ITO metro station. Personally I found it cheerful).

Anyway, as Camalita Naicker reminded us in her excellent article on South Africa here on Kafila, student protests against rising student fees and shrinking scholarships and fellowships are no flash in the pan but a burgeoning worldwide phenomenon cutting across political affiliations. This is because you don’t need to be a leftist to understand that in contemporary conditions, pursuing a higher education is both the only guarantee to economic security, and the one thing that may be denied to you if you are from the wrong side of the tracks. 

We post below statements from #OccupyUGC and #Occupy SOAS in support of each other. These have been sent to us by Akash Bhattacharya, research scholar in history at JNU.

Continue reading We agree passionately: one world, one struggle, education is not for sale!

गांधी से नफरत, गोडसे से प्यार

 देश विभाजन के काफी पहले ही गांधीजी को मारने की साजिश रची गई थी।

( Photo by Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images,  Courtesy – blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com

हिन्दू महासभा ने 15 नवंबर को बलिदान दिवस मनाने का फैसला किया है। इस दिन महात्मा गांधी के हत्यारे नाथूराम गोडसे को फांसी हुई थी। पिछले साल हिन्दू महासभा ने देश भर में नाथूराम गोडसे के मंदिरों का निर्माण करने का ऐलान किया था। काफी हो-हल्ला मचने के बाद यह अभियान रुक गया। इस बार केंद्र सरकार हिन्दू महासभा के प्रति क्या रुख अख्तियार करती है, यह देखना दिलचस्प रहेगा। महात्मा गांधी की हत्या को लेकर एक बात अक्सर कही जाती है कि नाथूराम गोडसे गांधीजी से नाराज था, क्योंकि गांधीजी ने देश का बंटवारा होने दिया और वह पाकिस्तान को पचपन करोड़ रुपये देने की बात किया करते थे।                                                                                                                                              

दरअसल इन दो तथ्यों की आड़ में उस लंबी साजिश पर पर्दा डाला जाता है जो हिन्दूवादी संगठनों ने रची थी। सचाई यह है कि गांधीजी को मारने की कोशिशें विभाजन के काफी पहले से शुरू हो गई थीं। आखिरी ‘सफल’ कोशिश के पहले उन पर चार बार हमले के प्रयास किए गए। चुन्नी भाई वैद्य जैसे सर्वोदयी के मुताबिक हिन्दूवादी संगठनों ने कुल छह बार उन्हें मारने की कोशिश की, जब न पाकिस्तान अस्तित्व में था और न ही पचपन करोड़ का मसला आया था। पिछले दिनों गांधीजी की हत्या पर ‘बियॉन्ड डाउट: ए डॉशियर ऑन गांधीज असेसिनेशन’ नाम से लेखों का संकलन (संपादन: तीस्ता सीतलवाड) प्रकाशित हुआ है, जो इस मामले की कई पर्ते खोलता है। Continue reading गांधी से नफरत, गोडसे से प्यार

Nehru: Inconsistent without discrepancy

“You are able to discard your halo occasionally. You are capable of saying, ‘when I saw the sea for the first time’ when others would say ‘when the sea saw me for the first time…’. I should like to have known you better. I am always attracted to people who are integral enough to be inconsistent without discrepancy and don’t trail vicious threads of regret behind them. You are not hard. You have got a mellow face. I like your face, it is sensitive, sensual and detached at the same time.”  Amrita Shergill

It is heart-warming to see that “mellow, sensual and detached” face on posters on the streets of Delhi after a long time. There is something soothing about it replacing that boastful, nationalist gaze that had been looking down on us for the last two years. Bihar could not stand that image. India would do well to follow Bihar’s lead.

2015 could well be the year of Nehru’s return. Just when the final death of Nehru was being announced in India’s political and intellectual circles, the nation seems to have turned back to him, reposing faith in the secular politics of anti-majoritarianism. Just when secularism was thought to be replaced by development, it became the fulcrum of the electoral discourse in Bihar. Continue reading Nehru: Inconsistent without discrepancy

So that the Beating of Your Heart Kills No One: Statement of the First ICGE, Thiruvananthapuram

Below is the joint statement issued by the International Conference on Gender Equality that concluded today at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, organised by the Gender Park,  supported by the Department of Social Justice, Government of Kerala. The Gender Park represents a unique attempt to address gender inequality — understood in non-binary, inclusive terms — through skill-building and entrepreneurial innovation. It is refreshingly free from the burden of cultural ageing that is ubiquitous in Kerala now, and has a very young, dynamic team. The theme of the conference was ‘Gender, Governance, and Inclusion’, and that was not lip-service, as the statement clearly shows. The Statement embodies a vision that seeks to bring back questions of gender freedom and equality back into the heart of development interventions, but speaks of all marginalized genders, and not just women.

The Kerala Government’s Transgender Policy, pioneered by the Department of Social Justice was released the conference and transgender people were a major presence at all sessions. Speaking at the occasion, Kerala’s Minister for Social Justice, M K Muneer, declared that he would monitor the implementation of the policy personally and also fight to end Section 377 on all platforms of the government and outside, at state and national levels. 

Their remarkable interventions worked magic: if the pressure of neoliberal discourse is to continuously tie all development to the imperatives of market-led growth and gesture to its Promised Never-Never Land, transgender people’s questions cut through such instrumentalism to join it again with freedom and equality … and the  aesthetic in the fullest sense of the world. For the aesthetic does involve a heightened attention to the sensuous and to rhythm, to difference and to fit, to the entire range of kaleidoscopic formations! 

And it brought back into the heart of development, Love. Love as understood and celebrated by Alice Walker: 

love is not concerned/with who you pray to/or where you slept/the night you ran away/from home/love is concerned/that the beating of your heart/should kill no one.

Continue reading So that the Beating of Your Heart Kills No One: Statement of the First ICGE, Thiruvananthapuram

The politics of the Bihar-Verdict

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

The Message From Bihar

‘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

Which COURT of Justice for Vinay Sirohi?

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?

Debt, Counselling and the Production of Neoliberal Subjects

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

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

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?

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

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.

Modi Not Welcome!

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.

How the Hindutva Propaganda Machine Manufactures Lies

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

A Memory from the 1970s

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

Tribute to Priya Thangarajah

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

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

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

Multiples of Four: Anitha Santhi

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

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

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

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

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

Statement by Academics Against Intolerance

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

जो पहले नहीं हुआ: किशोर कुमार

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

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