Tag Archives: protest

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Education, Everyday Life, Language

Farewell to Vidrohi: Pallavi Paul

2 Comments

Guest Post by Pallavi Paul

[ Rama Shankar Yadav ‘Vidrohi’, was a familiar figure for students, especially in Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. He was a friend, a companion, a comrade, a mentor. Though rusticated many years ago from JNU, where he had been a student, for his participation in a  protest, he had never left the campus of JNU, and had become, over the years, a beloved feature of campus life. His visceral poetry, often heard at protest gatherings, was passed from person to person by word of mouth. A few days ago, he died while marching with his beloved student friends in a protest against cuts in education in Delhi.  Pallavi Paul, a filmmaker and artists, who made short films featuring Vidrohi, remembers him in this tribute..]

Unknown Citizen Vidrohi
Vidrohi as the ‘Unknown Citizen’ at a Protest to ‘Reclaim the Republic’ on 26 January 2013

Yesterday, as I was looking out a window of an old house in Ballygunge, Kolkata- my phone buzzed. I ignored it.  I was in the middle of telling a friend how happy I was to be away from Delhi for sometime. How the sights and smells of a different city were rejuvenating. The feeling of not having a ‘special connection’ with anyone or anything here felt liberating.

Much later, I opened the message from my friend Uday. ‘Vidrohiji passed away’, he wrote. Just three words.  In our conversations with him, Vidrohiji had often spoken about his death. We had revisited the scenario over and over again. Like a dream or a film – it had a grand setting. He had told us “Now that you are recording me, i know that i will say goodbye in the most glorious way possible. Very few people can say that about their death, while they are still alive.” On another day he had said to us, “As my fame has increased, so have the dangers. Now what i need is guarantee. Your records are guarantee against that largest threat of being killed. I say to my enemies, that if you want to kill me – then shoot me in the eyes. Because i will keep staring back at you till my last breath. Your records will help me stare back at them even after I am gone. “

Continue reading Farewell to Vidrohi: Pallavi Paul →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Politics, Right watch, Violence-Conflict

Protest Demonstration Against Burning of Dalit House and Children in Haryana

The endless violence that has always been part of Dalit life is now acquiring new dimensions as Dalits refuse to carry out upper caste diktat and confront aggressive upper castes emboldened by the Hindutva brigade.

Citizens call for demonstration
Citizens call for demonstration
Culture, Debates, Everyday Life, Government, Identities, Language, Metropolis, Movements, Politics

We The People, Reclaim the Republic: Various Citizens Groups

5 Comments

Call given by VARIOUS CITIZENS GROUPS

As we commemorate another Republic Day, We The People proclaim that the parade of the powerful at Rajpath does not represent us. We The People, Reclaim our Republic.

As members of the LGBT community, women, workers, sex workers, students, teachers, activists, persons with disabilities, health rights activists, Dalits, indigenous people, farmers, those affected by unconstitutional military rule, we are united not as “minorities” or “others,” but as the people. We invoke the promises of the Constitution of India in our name. Our struggle will continue until all arms of the state are unwavering in their constitutional promises towards the marginalized in our society, rather than only representing the powerful.

Continue reading We The People, Reclaim the Republic: Various Citizens Groups →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Law, Right watch

We Are All Queer – Assemble at Jantar Mantar against Reactionary Judgement

25 Comments

Shocking! Shameful!!  Disgusting!!!

The Supreme Court has struck down the  Delhi High Court decision decriminalizing gay sex in what might go down as the most retrograde judgement in India’s history. While the details of the Court’s reasoning are still not available, we can perhaps easily imagine what they might be. This is time of civil disobedience. Time for protest.

Assemble at Jantar Mantar at 4.30 pm, today 11 December to announce to the world that ‘We Are All Queer’. To announce that this is not a struggle of just the ‘gay-lesbian community’ but a struggle for our most fundamental rights and cherished values.

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Everyday Life, Government, Sex, Violence-Conflict

Another rape, still more incompetence: Time to teach Delhi Police a Lesson?

25 Comments

A five year old girl is now in a critical condition in a Delhi hospital after being brutalized and raped by a neighbour. The Delhi police, which has dealt with the situation with its characteristic incompetence, first refused to file an FIR when her parents went to the police station, and then, tried to bribe the girls parents with two thousand rupees so as to ‘hush them up’. Subsequently,a young woman who tried to protest against the behaviour of the police at the Dayanand Hospital were the girl was initially taken for treatment was slapped by a policeman, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, in full public view. His actions have been recorded on video. It is believed that the policemen who tried to bribe the victim’s parents and the policeman who slapped the young woman have been suspended.

But can the suspension of a few individuals address what is obviously a deep rooted culture of misogyny and class prejudice (what else is it but class prejudice – would a policeman in a thana, say in an affluent South Delhi colony be able to offer two thousand rupees as ‘hush money’ to parents of an assaulted child with the same ease with which they could in Gandhi Nagar in East Delhi) within the Delhi Police? Is more severe and strict action that goes right to the top and to the source, not necessary in order to send a signal that this kind of behaviour within the police force cannot be tolerated? Must Delhi’s police commissioner not be compelled to resign, for his abysmal failure in terms of dealing with sexism and for failing to address the contempt for citizens who are not affluent that is now clearly endemic to the Delhi Police’s work culture?

Continue reading Another rape, still more incompetence: Time to teach Delhi Police a Lesson? →

Debates, Metropolis, Movements

The things you learn at a protest: Aakshi Magazine

3 Comments

Guest post by AAKSHI MAGAZINE

She was sitting among a group of young men and women at Jantar Mantar, shouting “Hang those bastards.” When the slogan lost its effectiveness, it turned to “We want Justice,” “Inquilab Zindabad,” and then “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. Borrowed and heard slogans, but they came from a very real place. “I work in Saket but live in Dwarka.” That is a long distance to travel especially at night. She nodded. “I don’t like it when my parents tell me to come home early just because other people are at fault,” she said anger rising in her voice. She didn’t know any of the people in the group she was sitting with. “We just met here. I had come with a friend who I can’t locate at the moment.” Continue reading The things you learn at a protest: Aakshi Magazine →

Debates, Everyday Life, Genders, Good Ideas, Language, Metropolis, Movements, Politics

Notes from a Night Walk in Delhi University

38 Comments

[ B&W pictures, courtesy Chandan Gomes. Colour pictures and cell phone video footage, courtesy, Bonojit Husain, New Socialist Initiative ]

Dear young women and men of Delhi,

I am writing to you again because I have been listening to you. This is a strange time, when everybody is talking, and everybody is listening, and the unknown citizen, who could have been any one of you, has transformed us all.

I was with you last night, from five thirty in the evening to around nine at night, while we walked together from the Vishwavidyalaya (University) Metro Station to Vijay Nagar, Kamla Nagar and the North Campus of Delhi University. There were around twelve hundred of you. Several of you held candles. You made yourselves into a moving blur of light. As the shopkeepers of Vijay Nagar, as the rent collecting aunties of paying guest accommodations, as the men and boys and girls and women on the streets and in the verandahs looked at you in wonder, you looked back at them, many of you smiled and waved. I could see some people in the crowd lip-synch with your Hallabols.

[ video of the night march near Delhi University ]

Continue reading Notes from a Night Walk in Delhi University →

Bad ideas

A Case for Fractured Solidarities and Skepticism: Ghazala Jamil in response to Nivedita Menon on Anna Hazare

38 Comments

Guest post by GHAZALA JAMIL

On August 17 at 5:30 in the morning I sat up to follow the latest developments on Hazare front (for sleepless nocturnal souls like me it helps that Ramzan are on). Logged into my facebook account and found that I have been labelled ‘a cynic’ for my status updates and posts on Hazare mobilisation. Got into a facebook ‘discussion’ argument with a friend abroad (All my homesick friends abroad have been smelling wafts of the ‘Arab Spring’ in all this).

Continue reading A Case for Fractured Solidarities and Skepticism: Ghazala Jamil in response to Nivedita Menon on Anna Hazare →

Empire, Frontiers, Movements, Politics

Egypt today: A first hand account.

16 Comments

Transcript of a land line phone conversation between my friend NAHED MANCYP (based in Toronto) and her mother a (a blogger herself) and grandmother (both currently in Alexandria). Her mother will write a piece soon which can get to Nahed only after the ban on the internet is lifted in Egypt. Thank you Nahed.

My mom:

We arrived in Alexandria from Cairo right after Friday prayers. The streets where completely empty. I actually made a bet with dad. Dad said, I don’t think anything is going to happen. I said, no something will. Half an hour later I began feeling really embarrassed because it looked like nothing would happen. The streets where deserted, there were no officers or cars. Continue reading Egypt today: A first hand account. →

Countryside, Excavation, Government, Identities, Law, Movements, Politics, Violence-Conflict

Kavita Srivastava’s report on last year’s Gujjar confrontation in Rajasthan

18 Comments

[This detailed report was prepared by Kavita Srivastava, the Jaipur-based general secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties. Posting this here to make it publicly available as it is not on the PUCL website. Please note that this was a rough draft. ]


State Violence and Caste Confrontation in Rajasthan

I. Outline of the week long movement for ST Reservation by the Gurjars

Soon after independence the Bhil Meenas got reservations in the Districts of Dungarpur, Banswara, Chittorgarh and Udaipur. At the time of 1931 census the Bhil Meenas were over 20, 000, however today they have reduced to half they are only 10,000 in number.

This was an issue of contention for the Meenas as they felt that they also deserved to be STs so they decided to raise their voice against this injustice as they called it. Under the leadership of Lakshmi Narayan Jhirwal they organized themselves.

11th June 1952: Meenas organized a sammelan near Dudu (Jaipur) district for the inclusion of the Meena community in the Schedule list for reservation. The Gurjars supported this wholly. Continue reading Kavita Srivastava’s report on last year’s Gujjar confrontation in Rajasthan →