Over 70 UK and Europe-based scholars concerned with South Asia have written a letter to the Vice Chancellor of the Central University of Haryana. They have condemned the September 21, 2016 attack on a group of staff and students of CUH who were involved in putting together a performance based on the award-winning writer Mahasweta Devi’s acclaimed short story “Draupadi”.

Kafila
Nivedita Menon
7 Oct 2016

The attack and threats of charges of sedition against those involved in the performance were instigated by the BJP-affiliated student group ABVP as well as by the local press, which has falsely and maliciously spread the view that the play is anti-national and represented an attack on Indian soldiers. The letter appeals to the Vice Chancellor of CUH to protect the freedom of expression of the university’s staff and students, and to encourage the democratic exchange of ideas through means of debate and discussion.

———-

Dear Vice-Chancellor Mahendra Pal Singh,

We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the attack on faculty members and students of the Department of English and Foreign Literatures at your university by members of the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) for the performance of a play on 21 September 2016. The play was based on a short story by the eminent Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi. We understand that the staff and students involved in the performance had sought and received all necessary permissions for the event, which was organized to commemorate the literary achievements of Mahasweta Devi, the recipient of some of the most prestigious Indian and international awards.

We write to express our serious concern over this attack on the freedom of academic expression of the staff and students at your university. Mahasweta Devi’s story “Draupadi” was written in 1971 and represents her creative expression of the exploitation of India’s tribals. It is regularly taught as part of course syllabi all over India and the world, including at the universities of some of the signatories to this letter. The claim by the ABVP and the local press that the play is an attack on Indian soldiers is manifestly fabricated. As one of the faculty members involved in the production, Dr Snehsata, has explained, students and teachers saw the programme as an academic and creative pursuit and their intention was certainly not to hurt the sentiments of soldiers as the ABVP has claimed: “In this event, I read the epilogue of the play recounting the data about atrocities on tribal people, especially sexual crimes against women by the Indian army. How ordinary soldiers are used by the state as a tool against its own people and how the body, especially the female body, becomes the site of revenge in the hands of Indian soldiers by the same state. All the teachers and students who were present there came up and congratulated us.”

We stand in solidarity with the courageous faculty members and students who performed the play and strongly oppose the sedition charges being brought on them. The university should be a place for the free expression of ideas, and thoughts; it should create space for dialogue and debate, and even disagreement. It is therefore further regrettable that the university caved in to political pressure and has instituted an inquiry into a matter that it had previously approved.

We appeal to you and other involved authorities to stand in support of your members of faculty and students who are courageously promoting the importance of literature and art in education.

You may contact us on the following email addresses:
Rashmi.Varma@warwick.ac.uk
rkalpana_w@yahoo.co.uk

Thank you for your attention,

Signed:
Dr. Rashmi Varma, University of Warwick
Dr. Kalpana Wilson, Birkbeck, University of London
Dr. Subir Sinha, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London
Professor Gilbert Achcar, SOAS, University of London
Professor Nadje Al-Ali, SOAS, University of London
Professor Dibyesh Anand, University of Westminster
Dr. Sundari Anitha, University of Lincoln
Professor Gautam Appa, London School of Economics and Political Science
Professor Jairus Banaji, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Murad Banaji, University of Middlesex
Dr. Shakuntala Banaji, London School of Economics and Political Science
Professor Gurminder Bhambra, University of Warwick
Dr. Brenna Bhandar, SOAS, University of London
Professor Chetan Bhatt, London School of Economics and Political Science
Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya, University of East London
Sourit Bhattacharya, PhD candidate, University of Warwick
Dr. Angela Chiu, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Rohit Dasgupta, University of Loughborough
Dr. Sukhwant Dhaliwal
Dr. Meena Dhanda, University of Wolverhampton
Professor Stephen Dodd, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Lee Edwards, University of Leeds
Professor Bashabi Fraser, Edinburgh Napier University
Ken Fero, Coventry University
Dr. Radhika Govinda, University of Edinburgh
Dr. Hugo Gorringe, University of Edinburgh
Professor Bishnupriya Gupta, University of Warwick
Chris Gutkind, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Vanja Hamzic, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Christopher Harding, University of Edinburgh
Dr. Adam Hanieh, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Sarah Hodges, University of Warwick
Dr. Feyzi Ismail, SOAS, University of London
Professor Patricia Jeffery, University of Edinburgh
Revd. Dr. Anderson H M Jeremiah, Lancaster University
Dr. Virinder S. Kalra, University of Manchester
Dr. Lars Laamann, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Florence Libert
Dr. Sumi Madhok, London School of Economics and Political Science
Dr. Caspar Melville, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Alessandra Mezzadri, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Satoshi Miyamura, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Nayanika Mookherjee, University of Durham
Maggie Morrison, PhD candidate, University of Edinburgh
Professor Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee, University of Warwick
Nithya Natarajan. PhD candidate, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Eleanor Newbigin, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Kerem Nisancioglu, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Paolo Novak, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Goldie Osuri, University of Warwick
Dr. Sharri Plonski, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Tim Pringle, SOAS, University of London
Dr Navtej Purewal, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Amit Rai, Queen Mary College, University of London
Professor Shirin Rai, University of Warwick
Dr. Anandi Ramamurthy, Sheffield Hallam University
Dr. Rahul Rao, SOAS, University of London
Professor Ben Rogaly, University of Susse
Professor Srirupa Roy, University of Goettingen, Germany
Dr. Kanchana N. Ruwanpura, University of Edinburgh
Dr. Aditya Sarkar, University of Warwick
Dr. Eurig Scandrett, Queen Margaret University
Dr. Alpa Shah, London School of Economics
Dr. Amrita Shodhan, SOAS, London
Professor Pritam Singh, Oxford Brookes University
Shreya Sinha, PhD candidate, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Shruti Sinha, Toulouse School of Economics, France
Dr. Harriet Tarlo, Sheffield Hallam University
Dr. Shabnam Tejani, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Isabelle van der Bom, Sheffield Hallam University
Dr. Leandro Vergara-Camus, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Amina Yaquin, SOAS, University of London
Dr. Richard Whitecross, Edinburgh Napier University

Contacts:
Dr. Rashmi Varma, University of Warwick
Rashmi.Varma@warwick.ac.uk
Dr. Kalpana Wilson, Birkbeck College, University of London
rkalpana_w@yahoo.co.uk
Dr. Subir Sinha, SOAS, University of London
Ss61@soas.ac.uk

Related posts:

1. Rebellion as contagion: What the High Court possibly meant when it spoke of an infection
2. Choice, Agency and the Naming of Names – The Trap of ‘Immediate Identities’ and the Vision of a Democratic Revolution
3. Spring Comes to JNU: Love, Laughter and Rage

Sharit Bhowmik, sociologist well known for his studies in labor and especially on the informal sector, passed away September 8 in Bangkok.

eSocialSciences
9 Sep 2016

He was in a coma for some time, having collapsed as complication of undiagnosed pneumonia in his hotel room. His wife and partner, Meenakshi, and his family were with him.

Bhowmik received his MA from Mumbai University and earned his doctorate from the Delhi University. His early work was on plantation labor in West Bengal. Subsequently he consolidated his work in the area of labor studies focusing on informal labor and labor rights.

Ever an activist, Sharit’s scholarly positions on labor issues never wavered. He interacted closely with workers’ leaders and was never an ‘outsider’ in its sociological sense, to workers organizations, their core issues and the movement. He wrote extensively on workers’ cooperatives and workers’ organizations. While a supporter of the working class causes, he was also sharply critical of the functioning of trade unions, especially in recent times.

His career spanned a number of universities and institutions: He retired from the School of Labour and Management Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Before that he was at the Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai; Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi; Indian Institute of Management Calcutta; University of North Bengal, Darjeeling District, West Bengal. Currently he was National Fellow with the Indian Council for Social Sciences.

His most important work, both in the scholarly world and as an activist, was his massive contribution to and leadership in the formalization of a policy on street vendors, which came about as a follow-through of his work on informal labor which began at a time when few labor scholars were focusing on this sector. Sharit wrote extensively, both in the academic press and in the media. For a time he co-edited with Professor Datta, the Labour Studies supplement of the Economic and Political Weekly. He had no hesitation in calling a spade a spade regardless of the fallout that it may prompt. Because of this, he was highly respected by his peers and labor leaders and activists, across the spectrum. Regardless of affiliations, he was always available to political, social and civil society activists.

Sharit was, more than anything else, a role model of a new generation sociologist who combined activism and scholarship seamlessly and effectively. He is mourned by his many students, whom he nurtured actively and sustainedly through their early careers; his colleagues and fellow workers who shared his space and vision, by the vast numbers of labor activists and workers whom he befriended and worked alongside. He will be sorely missed, especially in an environment that needs the broad-based, progressive vision, scholarship and activism of those like Sharit Bhowmik.

Sharit Bhowmik took part of ALICE Project as well. See below the ALICE Interview and the ALICE Advanced Seminar with him.

Related posts:

1. National Consultation – Mine Labour Protection Campaign (MLPC) in India
2. UPMS Workshop Harare Zimbabwe 2016 – Boaventura de Sousa Santos – Statement
3. UPMS Workshop Harare Zimbabwe 2016 – Walter Chambati – Statement

A hundred and twelve lives, most of them young, some very young, were lost in Kashmir when the army, paramilitaries and police forces opened fire on several occasions from June to September in 2010. That was only six years ago.

Kafila
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
July 11 2016

The latest reports indicate that around twenty three lives have already been lost in the last two days alone, in the aftermath of state troopers, soldiers and paramilitaries firing at funeral protests, after Burhan Wani, a twenty two year old insurgent, who had acquired the aura of a folk hero in Kashmir, was killed in an ‘encounter’, along with two of his associates, on Friday morning in a village in Kokernag

A hundred and twelve lives, most of them young, some very young, were lost in Kashmir when the army, paramilitaries and police forces opened fire on several occasions from June to September in 2010. That was only six years ago. The latest reports indicate that around twenty three lives have already been lost in the last two days alone, in the aftermath of state troopers, soldiers and paramilitaries firing at funeral protests, after Burhan Wani, a twenty two year old insurgent, who had acquired the aura of a folk hero in Kashmir, was killed in an ‘encounter’, along with two of his associates, on Friday morning in a village in Kokernag.

Several more people have sustained serious injuries. The body count is likely to rise. Curfews have returned, phone and internet links are suspended, but nothing seems to keep people from spilling out onto the streets, and unlike previous instances, the communications ban seems to be unworkable. No one can pretend that Kashmir is not in crisis, again, today.

The people in power, at the state and the centre, were different in 2010. Omar Abdullah, then chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, was offering mealy mouthed rationalizations for killing kids then, while Mehbooba Mufti, was weeping crocodile tears. It is the other way round right now. Omar is being ‘sensitive’, Mehbooba, who the roll of the dice has placed in the position of chief minister now, is ’sullenly’ presiding over a badly timed by-election victory. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was silent then, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is playing percussion instruments in Africa now. If Nero played the harp while Rome burnt, Modi beats drums while Kashmir goes up in flames.

In other words, the Indian occupation of Kashmir was business as usual then, it is business as usual now. Its only the body count that might distinguish one episode of the venality of the occupation from another. At the moment, we can only hope that the number of young people being killed will remain within two digits. But this is highly unlikely. The spiral of funerals, shootings, funerals and more shootings is unlikely to wind down too soon. This nightmare has only just begun.

As far as India’s assault on the people of Kashmir is concerned, the more things change, the more they seem to remain the same. ‘Confidence Building Measures’ rise and fall, The principal parts and their players change, governments come and go, parties change shape, size and color, coalitions are done up and undone, the one thing that remains the same is the fact that the occupation of Kashmir by the military forces of the Indian Republic stays founded on a basic and fundamental immorality – the lack of consent. The ‘largest democracy in the world’ is afraid to confront the ‘will of the people’ in what it considers to be its crown. India’s pretence at being the ‘largest democracy in the world’ will ring hollow as long as it keeps the people of Kashmir ‘integrated’ into coffins with bombs and bullets.

A friend, who happens to be Kashmiri, reflecting on the events of the past few days, posted on her Facebook wall – the cryptic, yet crystal clear comment – riffing off the psychopath’s anthem from the film Darr – “Tu Han Kar, Ya Na Kar, to Hai Meri – K, K, K, K” – meaning, regardless of “whether you say you yes, or no, you, K, K, K, K, are mine”.

Like any ordinary, garden variety, obsessive psychopath, the Indian nation state’s possessiveness about Kashmir has nothing to do with the ‘yes’, or ‘no’ of its people. The love that Indian nationalists have for Kashmir, like the love that the character played by Shahrukh Khan for his K-K-K-Kkiran, is a lethal embrace. It doesn’t care for how suffocating a stranglehold that passion can be. Had it been any different, then the decades of denying the right to a promised plebiscite would not have produced so many Burhan Wanis in so many coffins in so many villages, towns and cities of Kashmir.

The killings of 2010 did not stop time,just as the killings of the 1990s did not, although their intensity should have made even time hesitate. The hours and days should have stopped in their tracks. Clocks and calendars should have gone on strike, but they did not. Summer gave way to autumn, which gave way to winter. Several winters passed. Elections, a deluge, and the daily humiliations of cordon operations, searches, checkpoints and the casual violence born of the highest military-to-civilian ratio in the world produced its own casualties.

In October 2010, Burhan Wani, then sixteen years old, was on a motorcycle, with his brother Khalid Wani, and a friend. They were out on a bike ride, through Tral, the area that they had grown up in, as teenage boys do, anywhere. They were stopped at a Special Operations Group Picket of the Jammu and Kashmir Police and ordered to get cigarettes for the troopers. Khalid went and got the cigarettes, Burhan and the friend waited. After the transaction, for no apparent reason, the troopers pounced on the boys, beat them up severely, damaged the bike, which had been Khalid’s pride and joy. Khalid lost consciousness. But perhaps it was Burhan who suffered the greatest injury, and that injury, an invisible one, was what any self respecting young person with a sense of dignity might feel when beaten for no reason other than the fact that he is there to be beaten.

The foundation for this casual violence meted out by people in uniform on people who do not wear uniforms lies in the circumstances and history of a violent occupation. When power rests on nothing other than the fear and injury that it perpetuatess in the minds of a population then its violence becomes a banal habit. Burhan Wani had seen six cousins turn up at doorstep in coffins as a child. His brother Khalid, who had never been a militant, was killed recently, for no identifiable reason – other than that he had been to see Burhan in his forest hideout. In Kashmir, a young man does not have to die for a reason. One might as well ask the question the other way round. What circumstances have continued to let a young man live, without a pellet in his eye, without a bullet in his spine, without crutches and wheelchairs and bouts of intense psychological trauma? Death requires no reason in Kashmir, it is life that demands an explanation.

Four months of killings on the streets produced an ideal atmosphere for the maintenance of the Indian Republic’s peace in Kashmir in the autumn of 2010. Policemen stopped some teenagers, cocked their loaded guns at them, demanded cigarettes, beat them to pulp. Business as usual.

It is possible that Burhan the teenager died that day when his brother’s motorcycle was stopped so casually, so callously. It is possible that Burhan the ‘militant’, who grew to be ‘militant commander’ was born that very same day.

Within a few weeks Burhan disappeared into the mists of the forests of South Kashmir. He emanated, over the years, in the form of videos shared over social media, playing cricket, listening to songs through his headphones by a campfire, posing, like a slightly silly macho young man with guns that he should never have had to feel the need for, that were thrust on him by the fact that ‘men with guns’ is the most important face of itself that the Indian state shows to Kashmiris. The militancy that is generated is the mirror of the occupation’s protocols. Armed men beget armed men. Commander Burhan Wani was produced and destroyed by the Indian state, which made it impossible for a young, intelligent, charismatic man like Burhan to salvage his dignity by any means other than that of being an armed combatant.

In Burhan’s last video, he speaks of targeting soldiers and policemen, those who represent the armed might of the Indian state. As far as statements go, this video is by not very different in spirit from an Indian solider saying that he would target an armed insurgent, in Kashmir, or any other enemy. This is the kind of dull propagandist machismo that is a routine feature of the communiques of an armed conflict. In war, (and Kashmir is a battlefield, which is proven simply by the overwhelming presence of the Indian army and paramilitaries on Kashmiri territory) those who take on themselves the mantle of being soldiers, fight their adversaries, and often feel the need to say that they will. The Indian army does it as much as the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

But there are a few other things that Burhan Wani says. He says he and his fellow fighters will not touch Hindu pilgrims on the Amaranth Pilgrimage in Kashmir. He says that the pilgrimage is their right, and nothing should prevent them from undertaking their religious duties. He also says that they will not hurt Kashmiri policemen who do not hurt them. He appeals to Kashmiri Pundits to return and live again as neighbors with Kashmiri Muslims, but says that any efforts to make what he calls ‘Israeli’ style ‘settlements’ (referring here to the the armed and fortified Israeli settler enclaves within West-Bank-Palestine) will be resisted. The video is in fact a list of the people Burhan Wani says he will fight, together with a list of the people he says that he will not harm. The second category outweighs the first.

The conduct that the Indian state has demonstrated in response to the crowds that gathered at the protests to mark Burhan Wani’s death show us that the standard operating procedure, at least as of now, for the Indian state represents a spirit opposite to that of Burhan Wani’s declaration. At least as far as honour is concerned, Burhan won, the Indian state lost. Unlike Burhan and his band, the armed might of the Indian occupation is making no bones about the fact that it is out to get unarmed civilians. They are shooting at young people, boys, girls, old women, at anyone who comes in their way. They are attacking ambulances carrying injured people. They are entering hospitals, attacking doctors and nurses, and lobbing tear gas shells into intensive care units, suffocating patients with respiratory diseases. They are breaking every single code that governs the conduct of what might be thought of as an ‘honourable’ war.

It is under these circumstances that the client politicians of the occupation make appeals to parents to keep children indoors, so that they do not come in the way of soldiers bullets. This indicates the extent to which the occupation understands, and has internalized, its own savagery. The officials and politicians of the occupation are not making an appeal to soldiers not to aim at the bodies of young people, because they know that such appeals will be meaningless. The chief spokesman of the Jammu and Kashmir Government walks out of a press conference when pressed for answers about why so many people are being killed. There is a rare candour in this breakdown of a ‘press conference’.

The newsrooms of Delhi and Mumbai are already full of people volubly gloating as the body count rises. Editors of respectable newspapers are calling the fallen Burhan Wani, a ‘pig’. News anchors are demanding to know why the insurgent and those being killed by troopers should be given the dignity of a burial, why, instead, their bodies should not be burnt and have their ashes scattered instead. This is how India is taking back Kashmir. This is how India is losing Kashmiris.

At least in this instance, the Indian state and its disgusting clients in the media and political class have not had the courage to demonstrate the promise of a soldierly compassion that Burhan Wani had held out, that no violence would be done unto unarmed civilians, whatever be the conditions of battle.

I would have liked to have met Burhan Wani. We would probably have, (in fact I am sure that we would have) had a lot of disagreements, serious disagreements. About nationalism, about what he might hold out as the goal of national-liberation, which I would only see as illusion. About means and ends in politics. About faith, certainty, and doubt, about how the calcification of identities imprison political imaginations, about the eternal difference between war and revolution. But for that to have happened he needed to have lived and played some more cricket, or even faced the consequences of an arrest, and a trial, if charges more substantial than the making of internet videos and wearing costumes could have been proven against him. Given his charisma, his intelligence, his youth, and his obvious following, he might have been able to play a part in the scenarios necessary for finding peace and freedom in Kashmir. He might have been able to be a part of the future, not the past, of Kashmir.

Every young person who is dying or injured in Kashmir today could have been a part of that conversation. Every fatality is a cancelled conversation. Perhaps even a difficult cancelled conversation. Whatever else may or many not happen over the next days, weeks, months, we can say one thing with certainty. Without that conversation there will be no peace, no freedom, in Kashmir, or in India.

For that conversation to occur, we need to arrive at a situation where the casual violence of an occupation does not kill a teenager’s spirit, repeatedly. That requires a much greater courage than even the fighting spirit that can be mustered by an occupying army.

For that to happen, India needs to become what it takes to be a peaceful and friendly neighbour, not a violent occupier, of Kashmir.

I know that in my life-time, despite what the idiots who are in power think, that day will come.

Related posts:

1. The Struggle for Human Dignity Continues in the Shadow of Death
2. Rebellion as contagion: What the High Court possibly meant when it spoke of an infection
3. Choice, Agency and the Naming of Names – The Trap of ‘Immediate Identities’ and the Vision of a Democratic Revolution

Every struggle goes through highs and lows. The students who are part of the movements that are spreading out of universities in India – Hyderabad Central University, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jadavpur University have had their share of internal debates and disagreements, even as they have found moments of significant victory and solidarity

Kafila
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
Paired Guest Posts by Chintu Kumari* & Umar Khalid**
18 May 2016

Students at JNU who have recently concluded their hunger strike to give time to the university authorities to respond reasonably to the High Court directives on the HLEC punishments are now being criticized for having ‘abandoned the struggle’ by some sections who claim to play a role within the broader students movement, when, in fact, nothing of that sort has actually happened.

The majority of the students who were on hunger strike (including several JNUSU office bearers, and others) have said that they have given up the hunger strike against the HLEC recommendations in keeping with the court order. In doing so, they have never said that they are suspending the agitation against the attempts by the JNU administration to weaken OBC reservation in admissions, hostel seats and deprivation points for women and oppressed sections of society.

In fact it is not as if the HLEC punishments issue has taken precedence over the other issues. It is actually the other way round. The students have decided to give priority to the struggle for ’social justice’ within the campus, while simultaneously giving time to the university authorities to respond adequately to the court directive on the HLEC punishment question.The call for a demonstration against the University Authorities by the JNUSU to continue the struggle on the social justice issues on the 16th of May is indicative of this fact.

The attacks and insinuations against the majority of the students at JNU who were on hunger strike have also featured a deliberate attempt to create divisions within the unified ‘Red-Blue’ / ‘Jai Bhim-Lal Salaam’ dynamics of the movement on the grounds of identity. Activists, such as Umar Khalid, on the left have been singled out for being ‘Savarna-Syed’, if they happen to bear a Muslim name, and for being ‘sold out to the Savarna left’ if they are Dalit, as happened with Chintu Kumari and Rama Naga. This attack has come primarily from individuals representing organizations like BAPSA that claim to speak from a ‘Dalit’ position, and it is given traction by several other individuals eager to flaunt their disdain for the ‘left’ students on Facebook and social media.

What the latter day custodians of Dalit identity seem to be most keen to forget is the robust generosity of a vision founded on intersectional solidarities that a previous generation of Dalit activists, such as those associated with the Dalit Panthers were keen to foreground.

The Dalit Panther Manifesto of 1973, for instance, proclaimed that a Dalit is a term that has no essential fixity in terms of caste. It says clearly – “…Truly speaking, the problem of dalits, or scheduled castes and tribes, has become a broad problem, the dalit is no longer merely an untouchable outside the village walls and the scriptures. He is untouchable, and he is a dalit, but he is also a worker, a landless labourer, a proletarian. And unless we strengthen this growing revolutionary unity of the many with all our efforts, our existence has no future. The dalit must accordingly accept the sections of masses, the other revolutionary forces as part of his own movement. Only then will he be able to fight his enemies effectively. If this does not take place, we shall be condemned to a condition worse than slavery. We must develop and help this consciousness ripen every year, every month, day, hour and every moment. Then alone shall we possess the right to be called human beings at all. It was for this that Dr. Ambedkar made us realize our humanity even in our state of beast-like exploitation. We should, to be successful, accept and understand a thing only after deep study, with a calm mind. We should not fall prey to slogans and outbursts. We must uproot the varna system, the caste system that enslaves us in its snares. The soil in which it survives and grows must be made infertile. We must understand that the caste nature of the term dalit is breaking down.“

The Dalit Panther Manifesto goes on to answer the question ‘Who is Dalit’ by saying – “Dalits are “members of scheduled castes and tribes, Neo-Buddhists, the working people, the landless and poor peasants, women and all those who are being exploited politically, economically and in the name of religion.”

The BAPSA members and their fellow travelers who have taken the initiative to attack activists like Chintu and Umar have fallen prey to what one can only hope is a passing meanness of spirit. I hope that the overwhelming dynamics of struggle and solidarity in the nascent student movement can help them find their way back to a real, critical conversation, and that their politics that can find the resources to correct itself by learning from the actual legacy of Dalit and other struggles. Several of the ‘left’ student activists readily accept the need for ‘self-criticism’ within the left, and indeed, there is an urgent need for much more self criticism. I hope that for the students who act as if they are the proprietors of Ambedkar’s legacy, this time is seen for being what it is, as an opportunity to shed the ‘self-righteousness’ that sits so heavily and awkwardly on their shoulders now.

The students on the left who have been at the receiving end of this vicious campaign of insinuations have not taken this attack lying down. If anything, they have taken this opportunity to speak their minds with clarity and maturity, and without a trace of sectarian arrogance.

Chintu Kumari
Umar Khalid

We present here two responses, by Chintu Kumari, All India Student Association (AISA) activist, former General Secretary of the JNUSU, and by Umar Khalid, student activist with the Bhagat Singh Ambedkar Student Organization (BASO), adapted from their Facebook Status Updates, to the personalized attacks against them. Both Chintu and Umar have been attacked on the basis of their identity – Chintu is attacked for being a Dalit who is part of an an organization that stands on the Left, (as if she had not made this a conscious choice) and Umar as the utterly fictitious category of a ‘savarna’ Muslim (as if his specific point of origin prevents him and others like him of being capable of solidarities). Both Chintu and Umar have refused to let themselves be reduced to their ‘immediate identities’

We present these responses not to index an internecine battle between different student fractions, but because they tackle the broader political questions of identity, solidarity and substantive politics that face young people today. Chintu’s text comes first, and then come’s Umar’s.

I. Naming Names and the Denial of Choices: Chintu Kumari

I feel it necessary to respond to the (Facebook) post of Chinmaya Mahanand who has shown tremendous public concern for me on facebook (even though he never bothered to inquire about my well being even once while I was on the hunger strike) and also because despite his concern for me as a Dalit woman, he doesn’t think it necessary to respect my agency as a Dalit woman.

To begin with, I am a proud dalit, communist and ambedkarite as well. I have chosen to be part of left activism (AISA) by my own choice. In fact nobody had come to give me AISA membership but I had myself gone to take the membership. Also, over the past few years, I have also emerged as a left leader in the campus. My decision to be a part of CPI-ML (Liberation) cannot and must not be taken as an instance of the ‘victimisation’ of a Dalit person. I can say this on the basis of my experience as a person from Bihar, because since my childhood, I know that it (CPI-ML- Liberation) is the only party which has stood for the most marginalized castes and classes of Bihar. The liberation of dalits and ‘backward’ sections of society in Bihar can not be possible without our (CPI-ML-Liberation’s) struggle.

I have no issues with my comrades who have different opinions about caste and class and I don’t want to preach here about the histories of caste and class. But yes, the understanding that identity politics is 100% right and that left is always wrong, or, that left parties are 24 karat pure gold and identity politics is wrong seems highly problematic to me.

We have seen how in some states, governments led by those who claim to be followers of Ambedkar and upholders of social justice have betrayed the Dalits, allowed massacres of Dalits to happen and let the guilty to go unpunished. Similarly, we have also seen how also in some states, those who claim to be adherents of left, when in government, have betrayed the cause of Dalits and the other oppressed sections in order to stay in power. In history both have done mistakes and both should introspect and make some necessary changes with time.

But really, when some one says that I am being ‘victimized’ by the Left for being a Dalit it raises certain questions in my mind.

– Can Dalit women exercise their own agency in determining their own politics. Can I, as a Dalit woman, exercise my agency in determining my own political orientation?

– Is it necessary for anyone to dictate to me what my political orientation should be?

– Who gives anyone right to publicly name me and saying that I am victim of left activism?

– Being a Dalit can’t I have my own opinion or political orientation?

I sat on hunger strike for 16 long days for social justice and social inclusion. I was fighting to save the deprivation points for marginalised caste and class.I was fighting to save the same OBC reservation which was fought by the AISA and students of JNU. I was fighting against HLEC in which along with other comrades mainly students from marginalised caste and class were targeted. Many people including teachers, alumni, students , parents who were concerned about our deteriorating health condition came and sat on relay and encouraged us for our struggle. But I am shocked that the people who say that they share same feeling and emotions despite their different opinions, they never ever even bothered to come to ask whether we are dying or alive. People may have difference of opinion on methods. But it doesn’t stop them to evolve other methods for the same purpose.

Yahan, mera hausla badhane ki jagah mere independent soch ko hi victimise kiya ja raha hai!!! (Here, instead of being a source of strength or courage, this kind of attitude only seeks to victimize my capacity for independent thought.) As far as I am concerned, mera political orientation kya hoga ye Tay karne layak main khud hun. (As far as I am concerned, I myself am capable of deciding what will be my political orientation.) I don’t want any patriarchal bullying by anyone. The same patriarchy jiska shikhar caste ke andar hai. (The same patriarchy whose heights exist within every caste.) Yahan pe yeh bhi dhyaan rehna chaahiye ki dalit mahilaon ke upar bhi dalit mardon ka apaar soshan hota hai. (We must remain mindful of the fact that Dalit women face extremes of oppression at the hands of Dalit men.)

Finally, With due respect I would like to say ki mere political orientation ki chinta koi dusra na kare mai apna political choice khud kar sakti hun. (No one else needs to concern themselves about my political orientation because I can make my own political choices.)

Yes, my association with JNU has made me identify with and be sensitive to many more issues than I could have imagined. I will fight for annihilation of caste and I will also fight against patriarchy, communalism, minority witch hunt, tribal displacement, corporate loot, discrimination against sexual minorities, oppression of workers, agricultural labourers and other poor and marginalised sections.

You talk of Rohith Vemula, but please don’t use his name to deny me my choices, and if anything, respecting Rohith Vemula’s struggles and words, kindly do not reduce me to my immediate identity!!

Chintu.

——————————

II. ‘Jai Bhim-Lal Salaam’ Represents a New Vision of the Democratic Revolution: Umar Khalid

An open letter to BAPSA activist Rahul Sonpimple

Rahul, On the day of the Academic Council Meeting, you made a speech. At the outset, let me state that I agree with some of your criticism as far as they relate to the way the parliamentary left in India has looked at the caste question. However, your speech goes much beyond just that and makes insinuations at me as someone who has become a “hero”, “a political prisoner” and a “students’ union election aspirant” all because of my “savarna surname – syed”. I have my differences with the same, and would like to respond.

First things first, far from a hero, if anything, over the last few months I was made into a villain. I hope you have not forgotten, how because of my Muslim identity, the kind of things I was called – “a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist”, “anti-national”, “Pakistani agent”- and that it certainly was not the most comfortable period for me or my family. My sister received rape threats, my father was singled out for attack because of his past association with SIMI and given death threats. My entire family in the initial period was confined to our house for many days for fear of their lives. While police was carrying out raids in different parts of the country, a lynch-mob as close as the north-gate of JNU was baying for my blood everyday with slogans of ‘Umar Khalid ko phaasi do/goli maro’. (Hang/Shoot Umar Khalid) I was forced to go into hiding for several days, and then arrested. Two cops still guard my home for fear of any possible attack on my family’s lives. I just hope, you won’t deny the entire branding, villainizing and baying for our blood had to do with the fact that I was born in a Muslim family. Interestingly, the state never places the emphasis that you place on my surname. For the state and the police, my name which reveals my most immediate identity – a Muslim – is enough. The point, here is simple. This is how muslims are always looked at- anti-national, potential terrorists and fundamentalists irrespective of their caste backgrounds. If it could be done to a privileged leftist ‘savarna Muslim’ studying in JNU, one only wonders what goes around in the name of “national security” and “counter-terrorism” in Kashmir, Gujarat, Azamgarh and Malegaon. I wonder what you are going to call Sohrabuddin Sheikh, killed in a fake encounter by Modi’s cops in Gujarat – a “savarna” Muslim who is unnecessarily remembered. Or what are the epithets you want to throw at Mohd. Amir Khan (a pathan, after all) who spent 14 years in jail (the term for life imprisonment) only to be acquitted by the courts in all of the false terror cases. Amir Khan’s case never got any media attention while he was in jail for 14 years, and why I got the same had less to do with my caste (which I share with Amir) and more to do with my JNU studentship.

And by the way, when Hindutva mobs murdered and raped Muslims in Gujarat and Muzazafarnagar, they did not care to first ask them about their caste identity. If you remember, they did not even spare a Muslim MP Ehsan Jafri. This is not to say that caste or caste oppression does not operate within the muslims in India. Nor is it to say, that only muslims are facing persecution while dalits and adivasis are not facing oppression. That is a binary your speech creates. The jails of this country are full of muslims, dalits and adivasis and by creating a false binary between them, you are exactly doing what the state and the government wants.

It won’t be correct to say that there were no protagonists (a gender neutral synonym of hero) in this movement. The real protagonists were those students and teachers who came out on the streets to fight this unprecedented fascist attack and to defend our democratic space and right to dissent. They did not term the 9th Feb event as ‘anti-constitutional’. Ironically, when the organisers of the events were branded as anti-nationals, you and your organization distanced themselves from the program, and worst still termed it as ‘anti-constitutional activities’. On the 11th February, on your facebook wall, you posted:

“We believe in our constitution and it is the only source for us to claim and reclaim our human dignity. Ambedkarism is entrenched into constitutional morality and as followers of Ambedkar and his ideology we do not support any anti constitutional move and condemn any such act which stands against constitutional ethos.”

If your status kept whom you were referring to slightly vague, your organisation’s position made it more specific with the following opening lines:

“We, BAPSA, as an Ambedkarite student organization condemn any kind of anti – constitutional activities. Ambedkarism is entrenched into constitutional morality and as followers of Ambedkar and his ideology we condemn any anti –constitutional move by any group or individual. BAPSA was not an organizer of the event organized on 9th February 2016. We as an Ambedkarite organization and strong believer in the Constitution, oppose any ideologies, groups and individuals who violate constitutional ethos…”

Yes, it was followed with a few perfunctory lines on ABVP being a casteist organisation that is targeting Ambedkarite activists. Interestingly not a mention of the vicious targeting of the organisers of the program, not a word on ABVP getting the program’s permission cancelled, and interestingly JNU administration’s role does not even find a mention in the entire poster. And most importantly, not a word on democratic right to dissent, which was shamelessly violated that evening by ABVP-administration nexus. How can an organization which claims to follow Dr Ambedkar’s ideology term an event anti-constitutional for speaking against the brahmanical collective conscience, against unjust execution of Afzal Guru and for the Kashmiri people’s right to national self-determination.

(Here I am not trying to single out you or your organization. I am also aware of the fact that some so-called left democratic organizations and individuals had similar positions. But frankly speaking I was not surprised by their positions. In fact, they truly lived up to the expectations. But I was really disappointed by BAPSA’s meek surrender in front of brahmnical fascist onslaught).

If you remember your organization had organised the screening of the documentary ‘Caste on the Menu Card’ at the Sabarmati Dhaba last year, for which the permission was cancelled at the last moment by the Administration on AVBV’s complaint (just like it happened on 9th Feb). The progressive democratic organizations and students made sure that film was screened. Will you or your organization also term that event anti-constitutional activity?

The most ludicrous part of your speech is where you, making insinuations at me, say that I left the organisation I was a part of because it does not contest elections, and now I want to contest students’ union elections. It is absurd on many counts. The reason as to why I and others resigned from DSU is known to the world, because it was a public resignation. Secondly, as far as elections are concerned, all these years I have never contested any election for any post because of my opposition to Lyngdoh guidelines. Since 2008, we have consistently fought against the draconian Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations and have mobilized students to hold JNUSU elections according the JNUSU constitution. Your organization, on the other hand participates in Lyngdoh bound elections, which is based on the idea of brahmanical merit and discriminates students coming from deprived sections. However, at a more fundamental level, this ridiculous assertion reflects your election centric political imagination.

It will not be an exaggeration to say that the present attack on the JNU students’ movement is unprecedented in the history of our university. Students, alongside police cases and the HLEC , continue being served more show-cause notices and proctorial enquiries for organising political programs. At the same time, the administration has come with various machinations to scuttle several progressive provisions of the admission policy. This emphasis on elections in your speech at THIS moment shows, just like the revisionist left, all you can think of is elections. More than anyone else’s it reflects sheer poverty of your political imagination.

Finally, it is true that the class divisions, caste hierarchies and patriarchy exists amongst muslims in the Indian sub-continent, just as they also exist among the Dalits and other oppressed castes. It is equally true that muslims and Dalits, notwithstanding their internal divisions and hierarchies, also face discrimination and violence for simply being muslims or Dalits. Any genuine force that is committed to social justice, annihilation of caste and radical social transformation has to deal with these contradictions. Not only the BJP and the Congress but also CPM, BSP, JDU, SP etc use these contradictions to cultivate vote banks to gain political power. The annihilation of caste is not on the agenda of the so called left parties as well as for those parties who swear by the principles of social justice. In fact, some of the worst kinds of massacres of the Dalits and Muslims have taken place in states ruled by the left or by the so called messiahs of the social justice. We also know how some of these big champions of social justice have aligned with the brahmnical fascist forces to gain power. The history of the last 60 years has clearly demonstrated that Annihilation of Castes and Social Justice can’t be achieved through vote bank politics. Brahmanical Hindutva fascism can’t be simply defeated through electoral permutations and combinations. A real fight for the annihilation of castes has to go hand in hand with the struggle against the forces of privatization and imperialist globalization. And I firmly believe that the struggles against the internal divisions and hierarchy among the muslims and Dalits will only strengthen our fight against Hindutva fascism, feudal brahmnical caste system and imperialism and will forge the real unity of the oppressed people.

For us the slogan of ‘Jai Bhim Laal Salam’ is not simply a call for electoral unity of the left and Ambedkarite groups. For us it’s a new vision of a democratic revolution in which the struggle against caste system and patriarchy is internal to class struggle. When we speak of Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar, we speak of a new politics which talks about the fight for the annihilation of caste and revolutionary social transformation – a fight also against being reduced to a number, a thing and the most immediate identity of people. This fight will be waged every day in the streets, factories, fields and universities and the unity will be accomplished over the course of this fight.

Hoping for that Unity in Struggle

Jai Bhim Lal Salaam!

Umar Khalid

*Chintu Kumari is a JNU Student, AISA activist and former General Secretary of the JNUSU.

Both Chintu and Umar took part in the recently concluded 16 Day Long Hunger Strike at JNU.

Related posts:

1. Rebellion as contagion: What the High Court possibly meant when it spoke of an infection
2. The Unending Struggle of Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims for Equality: S. Japhet and Y. Moses
3. South Africa: The inhumanity of dividing identities

An insight into what happens when a harmonious society of ‘obedient students’ and ‘patriotic citizens’ witnesses a disruption.

Scroll.in
Aman Sethi
05 Mar 2016

Justice Pratibha Rani grants bail to Kanhaiya Kumar:

Whenever some infection is spread in a limb, effort is made to cure the same by giving antibiotics orally and if that does not work, by following second line of treatment. Sometimes it may require surgical intervention also. However, if the infection results in infecting the limb to the extent that it becomes gangrene, amputation is the only treatment.

Reading the Delhi High Court’s bail order for Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the Jawaharlal Nehru Students’ Union, I was reminded of a slogan, or more accurately a tension, I encountered whilst reporting the worker action at the Maruti factory in Manesar.

The unrest of 2011, I wrote at the time, pivoted on the discord between a management wedded to a particular idea of efficiency and productivity, and workers bored by the regimentation of factory life.

“Indiscipline is not tolerated,” said Suzuki Chief Osamu Suzuki at a meeting with Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union representatives. “Authoritarianism will not be endured,” said an anonymous worker in the Faridabad Mazdoor Samachar, a workers broadsheet.

Reporting on the student protests at JNU last month, and the government’s response, I found similar parallels in the confrontation between an authoritarian – and patronising – establishment, and unruly students in the midst of forging the politics of their generation.

Power of slogans
This discord makes visible an idea of a harmonious society of “obedient students”, “disciplined workers,” and “patriotic citizens”, all harnessed to a productive economy. This harmony is disrupted when Honda workers from Manesar march in solidarity with JNU students, or the children of factory workers, anganwadi workers, farmers, and artisans, study at university rather than enrolling in a vocational training institute. Suddenly, thoughts picked up on the shop floor, at the village clinic, on a train from Begusarai, on a bus from Zakir Nagar, are transmitted to the classroom.

Perhaps this is the infection, the gangrene, that Justice Pratibha Rani fears: a slogan, chanted in the streets of Srinagar as a matter of routine, finds an opening at a university campus in New Delhi. Freed from the usual suspects, unmoored from the routine skirmishes, deaths, and encounters, along the Line of Control, the slogan floats through a university corridor – distracting rows of disciplined students from their academic pursuits.

A slogan’s explosive power, it seems, is not just about what is shouted – but rather where it appears, and who takes up the call. This realisation offers us an opportunity, long sought, to think through this troubling question of “Freedom of Expression.”

Free speech
What is the frustration that writers feel at moments when “Freedom of Expression” is under threat? Perhaps, it is a frustration borne of the sudden inability to repeat oneself.

Let me explain: occasionally, a reconfiguration of the state form produces a strange, quickened time when the foundations of a world seem to be under assault. The change is brisk and unsettling, and writers, long accustomed to set modes of confrontation with power, are unable to immediately produce the intense and rigorous thought these times demand.

So we adopt a defensive, conservative stance of trying to protect what we have: of fighting for the right to continue to say what we have always said. Power sees this and moves quickly to declare such speech seditious, anti-national, unpatriotic. We then fall further into this trap, like this current moment, where the day is not far when some well-meaning writer will argue, in all earnestness, that it is patriotic to be seditious.

But restrictions on speech only apply to speech that has been uttered. If the Man stops you from saying something today, just say something else tomorrow.

Judges, government officials, policemen and soldiers, often speak of rebellion as contagion. This is not a coincidence – this is one of Michel Foucault’s signal insights. In Discipline and Punish, he writes:

Behind the disciplinary mechanisms can be read the haunting memory of “contagions”, of the plague, of rebellions, crimes, vagabondage, desertions, people who appear and disappear, live and die in disorder.


New meaning
Who can predict the carrier of this contagion?

Perhaps the infection metastasizes when words, objects, signs and symbols suddenly take on meanings that the establishment never imagined they would: in Bengal in 1857, the British believed, the message was a chapati, delivered by hand from village to village; in the Bhumkal of 1910 in Bastar, Nandini Sundar writes in Sovereigns and Subalterns, “messages consisted of mango boughs, a lump of earth, chilies and arrows”; in Iran in 1979, Ryszard Kapuscinski writes, children ran through the streets waving sheets of white paper dipped in blood; in Oklahoma in 2015, pastors preached in hoodies to mark the death of Trayvon Martin.

“Everybody knows about Mississippi, God damn,” sings Nina Simone, without ever telling us exactly what it is. But why should she, when everybody knows?

A modest suggestion: some evenings, don a hoodie and walk through the dusty lanes of your neighbourhood. Gaze at the mango trees, each bough rustling with rebellion; peer at the green chilies conspiring on the sabziwalla’s handcart, eat a mutinous chapatti at the local dhaba, and hear the lumps of earth crunching beneath your chappals sing “freedom, freedom”.

We welcome your comments at letters@scroll.in

Related posts:

1. Spring Comes to JNU: Love, Laughter and Rage
2. South African student protests and re-emergence of people’s power
3. Boaventura: ‘O governo está dando tiros no pé, corroendo a base social de apoio’

Intolerance Tracker is an online platform to collect, aggregate, and map stories of intolerance across South Asia. These stories cover instances of discrimination that individuals or communities face based on their affiliation with a group or identity. Perpetrators include other individuals, groups or states.

Justice Adda
18 Feb 2016

The map is a response to the rising incidence of prejudice and discrimination, often against communities that have also been historically marginalised, and also against those who protest these forms of discrimination. Through consolidating these events on a single platform, we hope to chart their spread over time and space, as well as draw similarities and contrasts between different regions of South Asia.

Click on image to access Intolerance Tracker

It can be explored at: www.intolerancetracker.com

Intolerance Tracker is a project developed in collaboration with the Cambridge South Asia Watch, Justice Adda and Timescape.

Related posts:

1. Africans unite against xenophobia in South Africa
2. Book Discussion on ‘What Fanon Said’, by Lewis Gordon
3. South Africa: Voices of widows of the Marikana Massacre

February is a beautiful time of the year in Delhi. It inaugurates Basant, spring, the season for love. And it is made more beautiful by an incandescent, insurgent spirit, that spreads in the air like a loving contagion, especially around what the Hindu Right rehearses for months on end to spoil – the new found festival of Valentine’s Day.

Kafila
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
15 Feb 2016

Public Meeting, JNU, 13th February

Traditionally (or at least since as long ago as the late twentieth century CE), on Valentine’s Day, the loony Hindu right goes looking for lovers in the parks of Delhi and tries to ply its own line in the extortion trade. This time, they have been joined by some big guns. The Delhi police descended on some young people belonging to a theatre group who had stepped out to have tea during a poetry reading at the IGNCA on the grounds that they ‘looked like they were JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) students’. Meanwhile, their boss, the Honorable Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh (who deserves a Bharat Ratna all by himself for skills as a performance artist) regaled a press conference with a poker faced comic act – his revelation of the Lashkar e Taiba’s links to the JNU protests on the basis of the discovery of a fake twitter handle. The fact that Rajnath Singh still has his job is because his boss Narendra Modi, our ‘dear leader’, is the chief architect of the ‘Fake in India’ campaign.

One needs love, and laughter, plenty of laughter, to survive these times, and the antics of these men. Over the last two days, it is love, laughter, sorrow and rage, in equal proportion that have been most evident in the JNU campus in Delhi. Their signs were evident again, appropriately, yesterday, on Valentine’s Day. A student population of thousands has been able to transform its rage at the capitulation of the recently appointed vice-chancellor and his cronies to the diktats of an incompetent home minister and his minions in the Delhi Police apparatus into a deep and abiding sense of good humoured solidarity. This is demonstrated by the support that they have readily offered Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of their students union, who is currently detained, facing ridiculous charges of sedition, and several other students, including some JNUSU office bearers, who the police are still reportedly hunting for. The hashtag #StandwithJNU has gone viral, spreading, connecting, bringing people together like the sudden awakening of spring after a cruel winter. What better way can there be of celebrating Valentine’s Day than to declare, en masse, a love for liberty, and for learning?

Within a day of the police raid in JNU that resulted in the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar on the 12th of February, the campus was able to shake off the sense of shock at the invasive presence of the police and gather in very large numbers, setting an example of peaceful, dignified and disciplined protest, despite the many provocations that they have had thrown at them from a venal regime and its corrupt clients in the mainstream media.

On the evening of the 13th of February, there was a massive public meeting in front of the administration block in JNU. This was addressed by several political personalities, D. Raja of the CPI, Sitaram Yechuri of the CPI(M), Kavita Krishnan (former JNUSU president and from the CPI-ML-Liberation), Anand Sharma, Ajay Maken and Rahul Gandhi of the Congress. While the irony of the fat cats of the erstwhile Congress regime that actually hung Afzal Guru offering solidarity to students in JNU who are under attack from the BJP for being accused of mourning his execution was not lost on me, it was still an impressive show of force, at least for a few teflon television moments.

Meanwhile, at one margin of the immense crowd, a token number of ABVP goons shouted themselves hoarse – offering ‘peaceful’ slogans such as – ’Naxaliyon ka Kabar Khudega JNU ke Dharti Pe’, (The Graves of Naxalites will be dug on JNU’s soil), ‘Jo Afzal ki Baat Karega, Woh Afzal ki Maut Marega’ (He who talks about Afzal Guru will die his death) and ‘Desh Hai Pukarta, Pukarti Maa Bharati, Khoon se Tilak Karo, Goliyon Se Aarti’ (The Country is Calling, Mother India is Calling, Anoint Yourselves with Blood, And Worship with Bullets).

Naturally, calls for violence by self-certified Indian nationalists in the present circumstances can never be thought of by television anchors and the powers that be as disruptive of peace. This is the way the national fabric is maintained by its current custodians. ‘Make in India’ happens by breaking Indians, especially those who are young and vulnerable. But the young are resilient. They have stamina. They have love and laughter on their side. And it is better to rely on love and laughter than it is to depend even on the fickle attentions of princes and patriots, however charming they may be.

The prince was charming, (as princes tend to be, when in opposition). He said some basic, useful and necessary things about Adolf Hitler, the 1930s in Germany, intolerance and other such matters. He asked the students not to let themselves be bullied, and then left as suddenly as he had arrived, to the relief and bewilderment of the ABVP, who now could give their tired voices some rest.

It was left to Kavita Krishnan, former JNUSU General Secretary, to rescue the meeting from the thicket of rhetorical platitudes that the meeting had seemingly found itself waylaid into.

Kavita Krishnan reminded the students of the tradition that JNU has of dealing with difficult questions through dialogue, and the importance that this democratic, questioning spirit had in the formation of the character JNU students. While unequivocally condemning the irresponsible sloganeering by a minuscule fraction of those assembled for the ‘Country Without a Post Office’ event on the 9th of February organized by some JNU students, she insisted that these situations could have, and have been in the past, been dealt with dialogue and debate, not through detentions, charges of sedition and police action.

What impressed me most about the 13th evening were not so much the speeches as the evident resolve of the students. Their patient, orderly, serene presence, their respectful attention to when they were being addressed, their utter disregard for the lumpen presence of the ABVP, and their palpable love for each other and for their teachers, and their pride in their university.

In a remarkable demonstration of inter-generational solidarity, the students of JNU have found their strongest allies amongst their teachers. On the evening of 13th February, a chain of professors formed a protective cordon between their patient, impeccably disciplined JNU students and the unruly circus of ABVP thugs. The JNU administration played its comic part, appearing briefly, at the beginning of the programme, to disconnect the microphone. This is what Vice Chancellors have become reduced to these days – to becoming the obedient orderlies who switch off the power supply to their universities.

Undeterred, a student produced a battery operated microphone connected to a portable amplifier. Both devices had seen better days. And the voice they rendered was tinny, barely audible. And yet, the thousands of students gathered to listen gave everyone a patient hearing, alternating between what teaches in Indian class rooms like to call ‘pin drop silence’ (a much valued commodity in our noisy land) and regular bouts of wild, exultant, celebratory cheering, or cries of ‘shame’ when a speaker pointed out a particular foible of the government or the university administration, or when the ABVP got a little too noisy for their own good.

As is usual in these cases, the Television Crews had more time and energy at their disposal for Prince Charming and his retinue than they had for the remarkable sight of thousands of peaceful students assembled to express their anger. Nothing will change the ways of paid for TV. But that is another sad story.

The next day, I was at JNU at four in the afternoon, to witness a press conference addressed by JNUTA (JNU Teachers Association) office bearers, and representatives of the Federation of Cullege and University Teachers Associations (FEDCUTA), Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) and the Ambedkar University of Delhi Teachers Association (AUDTA). Each speaker talked about the increasing incidence of assaults on university autonomy in the BJP regime, attacks on students and teachers. Once again, a majority of TV correspondents interrogated the teachers speaking to them as if they were intelligence bureau operatives or special branch officials

Public Meeting, JNU, 13th February

At around five pm, the assembly dispersed, to gather again and take the form of what was described as massive human chain, (perhaps one should stop calling such gatherings ‘chains’ and call them human garlands instead), so lets say, a human garland, that stretched several kilometers long from ‘Ganga Dhaba’ (not far from the JNU main gate) to Chandrabhaga Hostel (deep within the interiors of the campus). This alive, ebullient thread of people, mainly young, some older (alumni, teachers, friends), was like a river in spate. I could not help thinking as I passed the hostels with their beautiful riverine names – Ganga, Sutlej, Kaveri, Mahi-Mandavi, Lohit and Chandrabhaga – that we, all of us assembled were like a tidal bore, surging upstream from the ocean to deep inland territories, irrigating wastelands, laying the foundations of a new civilization, a new civility that the RSS-ABVP hordes will never be able to come to terms with. The ebb and flow of this mighty river carried the evening.

Finally, we reached a confluence, again the administration block. Students sat once again, quickly, with a profound sense of internalized order. Once again there was no microphone. Once again there were calls for silence, and a hush descended on the students like a gentle protective blanket.

Then the gentle, exhausted but firm voice of Shehla Rashid Shora, the Vice President of JNUSU found a way of reaching way into the back of the crowd. She spoke of what it means to be in an inclusive, open, public university and why that is so terrifying to the regime in power. She spoke of the university as a space of dissent, of the celebration of doubt and thought. She spoke of the way in which the BJP government seems paranoid about the young and their spaces. She spoke of the defamation, the lies, that are being peddled by the government and sections of the media about students everywhere. She spoke of the desperate circumstances that drove Rohith Vemula to suicide because of an ABVP led witch hunt. She spoke at length about the ‘Occupy UGC’, formed as a response to the BJP regime’s planned assault on democratic and equitable access to higher education. She spoke about how there is an increasing intensity of discrimination based on caste, religion, gender and sexual preferences. She spoke of the intense desire that young people all over feel for freedom – azaadi – of freedom from patriarchy, from capital, from draconian laws like the AFSPA, from Khaps and Casteism and from all forms of humiliation and indignity, She spoke, not once, but several times about ‘desh-prem‘, about what it means to love a land and the many kinds of people who inhabit it, and how that was different from the hatred that the regime purveyed through what it defined as nationalism. She declared that the students have resolved not to co-operate with the inquiry committee set up by the University Administration on the incidents of February 9th because it has shown its biases by having already declared a number of students ‘guilty’ and has suspended their academic rights and privileges even before an investigation has had a chance to begin. She declared that (today) Monday, the 15th of February will be observed as a strike throughout the university.

Something has changed in our city. Ever since the terrible rape of Jyoti Singh on the 16th of December, 2012 brought thousands of young people out into the streets of Delhi, something fundamental has shifted in our sense of who we are as citizens, and as political actors. This was palpable in the mobilizations by the young workers of the Maruti-Suzuki factory. It was evident in the ‘Occupy UGC’ movement, and in the continuing protests in solidarity with Rohith Vemula, and the spontaneous marches on the RSS headquarters, (as part of the ‘Kiss of Love’ protests, and more recently, to express anger at the RSS-ABVP’s abetment of Rohith Vemula’s suicide). This stupid government thinks that it can arrest this momentum by scaring students in JNU with a dose of shock treatment, or workers at the Maruti factory with a spell in prison. It has no idea how much it has damaged itself by presuming that it could frighten students, and more generally, the young. If this government thinks that it can solve the mounting social crises that it is itself generating by putting workers and students in prisons, then, it really has no idea of the kind of bonds that it is helping to form in what it thinks are spaces of confinement between a new generation of, and new kinds of political prisoners and their friends, comrades, families and allies. The state and its thugs have fresh blood on its hands, the blood of Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad, and a young man called Danish, and a young woman called Shaista Hamid, (both unarmed civilians) in Pulwama, Kashmir. It has the growing weight of prisoners chains around its neck.

Now it is Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani’s turn to be terrified.

They have awakened a tsunami of anger in the young. In the coming days, this wave of connections, between what is happening, and is likely to happen next, in Hyderabad, Delhi, Kashmir and elsewhere, like the dance and collision of the wounded cores of of distant stars meeting in deep space, (of the kind that Rohith Vemula loved to think about) may well transform itself into a massive gravitational force that can alter the structure of our social universe. And because we know this, February has once again become a beautiful time of the year. It’s time for love, laughter and rage.

Related posts:

1. Why I Love Being Black: The Laughter of Protest
2. Rebellion as contagion: What the High Court possibly meant when it spoke of an infection
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The Portuguese reached Mozambique in the Indian Ocean, on the African Coast, and India at the same time. In fact, Vasco da Gama set there months before he arrived in India, in 1498. Along the years, the Portuguese established a number of forts along the coast, from Asia to Africa and Japan to Mozambique. This area would later be called Estado da India Portuguesa, of which Goa was the capital. This made Goa an important location since it was responsible for managing the affairs of the other Portuguese entreports, which later on became colonies. Goa had business links with Mozambique right from the sixteenth century and, in the process, Goa, Daman and Diu left their influence on Mozambique.

Navhind Times
Maria de Lourdes Bravo da Costa Rodrigues
25 Oct 2015

In Goa to deliver a lecture on the Goa-Mozambique connection – Mozambique in the Indian Ocean: Old Connections and Other Narratives of Contacts – is Maria Paula Menezes, senior researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal. Menezes, who traces her roots to Goa, was born and brought up in Mozambique and as such is witness to Goa’s impact on that region

(The talk by Maria Paula Meneses on ‘Mozambique in the Indian Ocean: Old Connections and Other Narratives of Contacts’ will be October 27, at 5:30 p.m. at the Fundação Oriente, Fontainhas, Panaji. Open to all)

Lourdes (L): Let us begin at the very beginning, with the migration of the people of Goa Daman and Diu to Mozambique.
Maria Paula Menezes (MPM): Lots of Goans settled along the Zambezi River up to the Island of Mozambique. This was the early migration in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. In the Mozambique Island, which lies to the North of Mozambique, there is a lighthouse called ‘Farol de Goa’ (Light house of Goa). These migrants created a nucleus which helped in the administration of the regions, especially the ‘prazos’.

L: What are ‘prazos’?
MPM: These are properties that have been leased to different individuals for three generations, and many Goans took this advantage. A well know Goan is Manuel Antonio Sousa, who was holder of a big ‘prazo’. He supported the Portuguese to fight other invaders and native rulers with the help of his army of sipayos. It is interesting to know, that some of the benefactors were women and daughters could be beneficiaries on the demise of the mother.

L: I was told that tailors and fishermen were welcomed by the administration of the colony. And of course many of the doctors who passed out from the erstwhile Escola Medica de Goa were the ones who looked after the health of the people.
MPM: Yes, it was later in nineteen century, when tailors and doctors started going to Mozambique. Fishermen came from Goa as well as Daman. The people from Diu were mostly merchants. The latter were descendants of the ‘Company of Banians’, who had the monopoly of the business in the Mozambique territory, till the mid eighteenth centur.
In the beginning, there were merchants and many in the administrative system. In fact, the Goans formed the backbone of the administration. There are records to show that they had migrated from Goa and they were called ‘Portugueses de boné’ (Portuguese with caps) to differentiate them from other Portuguese citizens.

L: What social status did these Goan immigrants enjoy? Was there racism in Mozambique?
MPM: At different times, the perception about Goan presence changed. But Goans had a strong presence in the eighteen century. Some Goans acted as members of the local Portuguese administration. Others, as ‘prazos landlords’ were perceived as a sort of local, hybrid group of what later would be Mozambicans/Africans. They knew and used local languages, married local women, etc. And when Portugal sought to take full control of the Zambezi valley, Goans like Manuel António de Sousa supported them with his private army. In the late nineteen century the dominant families of the Zambezi prazos had strong connections with Goa.
This situation changed with the emergence of effective Portuguese colonization of Mozambique. If, as historical records attest, for a long time Indians were considered culturally and socially superior to most of the indigenous population, with the imposition of modern colonization in Mozambique, from the twentieth century onwards, this picture changed and racial segregation against Asians emerged strongly. In December 1961, after the occupation and liberation of Goa, the backlash against Indians in Mozambique was frightening.

L: Moving from history to culture, what cultural impact did the immigrants have on the region?
MPM: The immigrants broadened our perspectives and presence in the Indian Ocean and allowed us to acquire more businesses and reinforce the same. We gained knowledge from their cultural, religious activities. There was a lot of influence on the food and dress also. You will be surprised to know that along the coast of Mozambique ladies still wear the ‘Kimao’, a dress worn by Goans in the past.

L: You mention food. Describe the influence on the Mozambican diet. Was it is Goans that influenced the food or was it the Portuguese?
MPM: Lot of rice and coconut is consumed by us. We also use a lot of tender coconut, and call it ‘lanho’ as done in Goa. We have sannas, which we eat for breakfast. We prepare sorpatel, xacuti, balchao and don’t be surprised if I tell you that we eat bread leavened with ‘sura’ (coconut toddy). We also prepare bebinca, batica (called mocate by us) and love to eat the mangada. We make lots of achar not ‘pickles’ with lime and mangoes. I believe that there are many varieties of mangoes that have been taken from Goa.
We also drink coconut toddy and distil caju alcohol and call it nipa. It is consumed by the locals and, unfortunately, has many addicted to it. And do you know that cafreal that you call a Portuguese dish is from Mozambique, originally prepared by the ‘cafre’? The ‘cafre’ is a word used to refer to a native.

L: Tell us a little about what bring you to Goa, besides of course the lecture you will be delivering at Fundação Oriente.
MPM: Historical legacies create relations (many times quite conflictive) between potential heirs, simultaneously dividing and connecting the parts together.
I am currently undertaking a small research in Goa. It is part of a broader project called ALICE that aims to understand the complexities of the connections between our worlds. From my research here I have come to understand that Goa is in our lives as much as Mozambique is in yours. I think that it is time to ‘reconnect’ these spaces which for a long time were connected

Related posts:

1. The ‘Promised Land’ in Mozambique
2. Europeans of An Other Colour – Why the Goans are Portuguese
3. Mozambique: a dictatorship of no alternatives, or an alternative to the dictators?

A ‘escuta profunda’ a que se refere tem a ver com conceitos existenciais da ‘presença do self’ e de pensadores não-dualistas como J. Krishnamurti?

(Angelo G. Mongiovi, Brasil)

Envie sua pergunta via:
- E-mail: alicenews@ces.uc.pt
- Facebook: fb.com/AliceProjectCES
- Twitter: @Alice_CES / #AskBoaventura

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The Real Battle is between Farmers and Land Grabbing Corporates and BJP, not between Bharat and Pakistan!

Kafila
By Nivedita Menon
1 March 2015

Protest Against Land Ordinance, February 2015 Delhi Image courtesy Joe Athialy

Statement from National Alliance of People’s Movements

Forcible land acquisition has always been an issue of life and death for millions of people in India, not only farmers but also agricultural laborers and fish workers. With the Land Ordinance it has become a political hot potato. More than 350 people’s organizations gathered at Parliament Street on February 24th, with 25,000 people from Gujarat to Orissa to Assam, and from Himachal Pradesh to Tamil Nadu and Kerala. This show of strength has forced the political parties to take a stand on the issue, leading to heated debates and discussion on the floor of the Parliament. The Ordinance, now Bill, reflects the anti-farmer and anti-poor move of un-democratically amending the 2013 Act on Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation, killing its very spirit and purpose.

The Ordinance brought in by the NDA government just after the Winter session of the Parliament came to an end was an obvious imposition on the country’s common people, of the colonial legacy of a perverted vision of development through an unjust and undemocratic modus operandi. The Ordinance is an attempt to open up the land that is the life support, source of livelihood and shelter for India’s toiling masses, to wealthy investors, including big corporations and builders. Its intention is to forcibly divert India’s agricultural land at the cost of food security, giving a free hand with no ceiling to the private companies as well as private entities i.e. private trusts and expensive profit-making educational and health institutions. The intention is to benefit private interests in the name of public interest.

The 2013 Act which replaced the British Act on Land Acquisition, for the first time brought in the process of assessing Social Impact (SIA) along with environmental assessment (EIA) in consultation with the affected people and the Gram Sabhas as well as appropriate urban units. This precondition is essential for the proper planning of rehabilitation including identifying and listing of the affected population, the impact on their livelihood and culture, and for making an appropriate plan to compensate those who are made to sacrifice in the name of development, and to do them justice. Assessing options and seeking suggestions for alternatives to minimize impact and displacement would go a long way. The consent of land losers was also an important clause at least for private and PPP projects (the 2013 Act too had left out government projects, unjustifiably) to respect and give our farmers due role, space and primacy in development planning as against ‘no level playing field’ situation between the monetary capitalists (the corporates) and the natural resource investors (farmers and others).

BJP’s Half Truths and Propaganda
The BJP leaders are now making false interpretations and unjustifiable arguments implying that the people’s movements and pro-people politicians and parties are anti-national, as indicated by the press conference held by Nitin Gadkari and the statement by Arun Jaitley, the Finance Minister in parliament, both of them the architects of the Ordinance and now the Bill. Without entering into dialogue with the agitating farmers’ organizations except members of their own ‘Parivar’, they are deliberately confusing issues and presenting the struggle as a war between Bharat and Pakistan, drawing a false picture of threat to India’s security. Jaitley said:

Signatures of 70% of the villagers (whose land is being acquired) would be needed as their consent, as also the social impact assessment of installing the project. So, the information will be revealed and it will also reach Pakistan. It (UPA’s land law) was a defective piece of legislation and threat to India’s security. We corrected it. It had a disastrous impact on security… Our strategic installations had been held up.

This statement an indicator of the frustration and fury among the ruling party led by the Prime Minister that wishes to save the Bill by misleading the people. How can seeking consent of the people concerned, whose lands will be taken for a project, be a threat to the national security but no threat to national security is posed by private corporations’ involvement in building strategic projects? The government is after all, allowing PPP and FDI in Defence as well. Does the FM’s statement make any sense?

The people’s movements, instrumental in getting the former UPA government to abolish the British Act of 1894 and to bring in the 2013 Act, strongly condemn this fake, communal appeal to disrespect the farmers and deny them the right to be partners in development. SIA and consent will not stop the projects but rather resolve the conflicts due to imposition of projects without rehabilitation.

The private and PPP projects have been grabbing land through forcible acquisition standing on the shoulders of the State. The SEZ of Ambani was to get 35000 hectares in Maharashtra, and DMIC is targeting 3,90,000 hectares. While the thousands of hectares of Sardar Sarovar command area land in Gujarat are already diverted to companies, along with waters; and for Industrial Corridors for mining, tourism, water and power projects; now companies are to be granted land that can be forcibly acquired from farmers. Even the colonial 1894 British Act did not permit acquired land to be used for this, and no other country in the world has any such legal and legitimate way to forcibly transfer the farmers’, fishworkers’, and common peoples’ resources to profit making corporations.

Mr. Gadkari is claiming the credit for including 13 Acts under the purview of the 2013 Act but this is being done after killing the spirit and main provisions in the Act.

Mr. Gadkari and BJP spokespersons have also resorted to a farcical justification for the Ordinance, referring to 31.12.2014 as the deadline, for including the Acts.

The fact is that Section 105 allowed 1 year to bring in these 13 Acts so as to allow amendments in those, and make land acquisition procedures and provisions therein, consistent with the new Act. Section 105 also elaborates the procedure of placing any amendment, notification before the parliament for 30 days, seeking approval. Instead of doing this, the BJP government waited till the last day to include the Acts, only after excluding the main pro-people provisions.

The farmers in dam areas like Tata’s, Gosikhurd, Waang Marathwadi, Narmada or in industrial areas in Nandigram, POSCO or hill city project like Lavasa have experienced that the wasteland and previously acquired but unused land is ignored by the government and more land, even irrigated, multiple crop land is forcibly acquired for non-agricultural purposes. There is not less than 100,000 hectares of MIDC land, acquired for industries but left un-utilized. Of the land acquired for Varasgaon Dam, 141 hectares were leased out for bungalows once Lavasa City came up, engulfing the dam itself!

The 2013 Act for the first time, brought in a restraint by suggesting a certain percentage to be decided by the state as a limit for acquiring multiple crop land in a district and a state. The movements believed no agricultural land should be acquired as today’s single crop land becomes multiple crop land tomorrow. But BJP doesn’t wish to put any limit to grabbing and destroying even prime agricultural land by changing the 2013 provisions.

The Penalty Clause (Section 87) in the 2013 Act is also changed The original stringent provision about punishment for violation of this Act by any government official has been reversed. Earlier the Head of the Department was held responsible if the violation took place with their knowledge and connivance. The
Amendment removes this provision and actually provides special immunity to the government officials under Section 197 of CCP. The common persons cannot file a case (FIR) against the violators without a sanction, according to the new the Bill, 2015.

All this proves that the strong opposition to the Ordinance and the Bill of 2015 by many opposition parties and some of the NDA partners like Shiv Sena and LJD, is fully justifiable. We appreciate their taking a position in favor of the farming community in the country at this crucial juncture. Considerations of food security and the demand for rehabilitation including guaranteeing alternative livelihood (missing in the 2013 Act itself), has now led all those who support our food growers and toiling masses including small traders and artisans, to challenge the anti-people legislation, the land Acquisition Bill of 2015 which will lead to more suicides and make millions of farmers into landless laborers.

We instead demand further pro-people amendments as recommended by the two Parliamentary Standing Committees in the 2013 Act to save farmers’ lives and livelihoods of millions.

Medha Patkar – Narmada Bachao Andolan and the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM); Prafulla Samantara – Lok Shakti Abhiyan &Lingraj Azad – Samajwadi Jan Parishad – Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti, NAPM, Odisha; Dr. Sunilam, Aradhna Bhargava – Kisan Sangharsh Samiti &Meera – Narmada Bachao Andolan, NAPM, MP; Suniti SR, Suhas Kolhekar, Prasad Bagwe – NAPM, Maharashtra; Gabriele Dietrich, Geetha Ramakrishnan – Unorganised Sector Workers Federation, NAPM, TN; C R Neelkandan – NAPM Kerala; P Chennaiah & Ramakrishnan Raju – NAPM Andhra Pradesh, Arundhati Dhuru, Richa Singh – NAPM, UP; Sister Celia – Domestic Workers Union & Rukmini V P, Garment Labour Union, NAPM, Karnataka; Vimal Bhai – Matu Jan sangathan & Jabar Singh, NAPM, Uttarakhand; Anand Mazgaonkar, Krishnakant – Paryavaran Suraksh Samiti, NAPM Gujarat; Kamayani Swami, Ashish Ranjan – Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan & Mahendra Yadav – Kosi Navnirman Manch, NAPM Bihar; Faisal Khan, Khudai Khidmatgar, NAPM Haryana; Kailash Meena, NAPM Rajasthan; Amitava Mitra & Sujato Bhadra, NAPM West Bengal; B S Rawat – Jan Sangharsh Vahini & Rajendra Ravi, Madhuresh Kumar and Kanika Sharma – NAPM, Delhi

For details contact : Madhuresh Kumar 9818905316 | email : napmindia@gmail.com

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