Tag Archives: Independence Day India

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Government, Images, Violence-Conflict

Happy Independence Day India, Blessings from Kashmir: Onaiza Drabu

22 Comments

Guest post by ONAIZA DRABU

??????????????????????????????????????Dear India,

As you celebrate yet another year of the glorious independence; the independence that was the beginning of an era of doom for most of us here, I must inform you that I was unable to get my morning bread. Sixty Eight is a big number and I’m sure the proceedings will be aplenty and that and you have plenty of ‘ache din’. Somehow, I have my doubts but then again, I’m sure our definitions of good differ greatly. However it may be, I have one tiny request.  Please let me eat my breakfast in peace.

It is still two days to go for the Independence Day Parade in Srinagar and I am one of the privileged few who live within a two-kilometer radius of the Bakshi Stadium, the place where the annual flag hoisting ceremony is held. Excess army is deployed all around and as in all such times, our local baker wasn’t allowed to open shop this morning.

As a child, I read your textbooks in school. I read about how Pinky and Shyam would go to their school for the flag hoisting on Independence Day and of course I’d wonder where this would happen. Independence day meant a crackdown or a curfew for all us kids here. Independence day meant that the morose army guy I hated to look at would stand at my gate, staring straight ahead with a blank, yet frightening constancy. Independence day meant my dedicated doctor of a mother had to walk to work for sometimes, they’d not even allow ambulances to ply.

The independence you celebrate to commemorate freedom has forever been associated with barbed wires on streets that restricted access to locations. It is ironical how roadblocks, surprise checks and general inconvenience is what I have forever associated with this independence. General inconvenience here also includes times where each one of the dozen, army-men on every street eyes you with contempt and suspicion. I snigger if you tell me we celebrate freedom on this day. To the many things that are already restricted here this day adds more. Continue reading Happy Independence Day India, Blessings from Kashmir: Onaiza Drabu →

Bad ideas, Empire, Identities

Periyar on the Constitution

Leave a comment

As a follow up to the earlier piece, here is a translation of excerpts from Periyar’s speech on the constitution soon after it was framed.

Here there is a need for a note on how we can read these historic documents. This is not a call to burn the constitution (Figuratively maybe a little bit but not literally. That would be a waste of paper. We’d rather recycle it en masse as a symbolic gesture! ). The purpose is to break down into details, this ‘nation’ that we often use as a default construct. We know it has a history and a not so long one. We also know that it has been contested by many from its very inception. Independence day should also be observed as ‘partition into india and pakistan day’ for starters. There have always been challenges ranging from debates over secession of regional kings when independence was declared, to demands for a separate nation that always existed and continue to do so. Continue reading Periyar on the Constitution →

Bad ideas

Periyar on ‘independence’

4 Comments

It is hard to introduce E.V.R.Periyar. A good sign of the fact that his thoughts are broad based and radical is the way in which they can be used in different contexts. With each context, the description of the person also changes. For the purposes of this piece one may say, ‘he was a radical thinker who sought to question many aspects of the ‘nation’ that are taken for granted such as democracy, freedom, unity, integrity and so on’. This critique took many shapes and forms throughout his career based on his position in tamilnadu and the particularities of that history. In 1972, he reflects on the nation as it is today. And disheartening for us and even to him as he wrote these words, he stands by what he said the moment india got ‘independence’ in 1947. Continue reading Periyar on ‘independence’ →