The writer in conversation with Sreelakshmi

Image Courtesy: Janata Ka Report

Sahitya Akademi Award winning writer Paul Zacharia recently courted controversy when speaking at  an event organised in honour of the eminent Malayalam writer and cartoonist, O V Vijayan, in Palakkad, Kerala. Zacharia raised objection to the late writer (who is best remembered for his novel Khasakinte Itihasam) accepting the Sanjayan Puraskaram from Thapasya Art and Literary Forum – an organisation affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). O V Vijayan had received the award in 2004, a year before his death.

Zacharia’s statements charging Vijayan with having right-wing leanings angered many writers in Kerala, especially when he remarked, “If Hitler was alive today and he came and offered me an award, I would refuse it. In fact, if Narendra Modi, the murderer responsible for the killings in 2002 in Gujarat, offers me an award, of course I will refuse it rather than accept it!”

There was clear disagreement even among the writers present at the event, most of who contested Zacharia’s statement regarding O V Vijayan. Besides the writers in Kerala, certain right-wing groups have also taken offence with him for referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “murderer”. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secretary for Kerala B Gopalakrishnan threatened to have the writer beaten up unless he issued a public apology to the Prime Minister.

Sreelakshmi from the Indian Cultural Forum spoke to Paul Zacharia, about the issue.

Sreelakshmi (SL): There are reports claiming that you called O V Vijayan a communalist who practiced “soft Hindutva”. Would you like to comment on this?
Paul Zacharia (SL): I did not call O V Vijayan a communalist. I simply wanted to point out that he made a mistake in accepting the award from Thapasya Art and Literary Forum. Vijayan was a soft hearted man. He believed in what others said. It was this simple nature that led him to accept the award from Thapasya, an RSS funded organisation, without looking into the organisation’s work. The point I was trying to make was simple: no writer should accept awards from any religious fundamentalist organisation. Doing so is akin to endorsing such organisations.

SL: Some people have pointed out that, in 2017, you accepted an award from Gulf Madhyamam, which is funded by an Islamic fundamentalist group. Would you like to respond to this?
PZ: Yes. I have faced quite a lot of backlash for accepting that award. In fact, I am planning to write an article on this issue. According to me, Madhyamam’s publications are as credible as Mathrubhoomi’s or Manornama’s. It was Madhyamam that offered me the award. The Gulf Madhyamam, which is one of Madhyamam’s subsidiaries, was one of the sponsors of the award. Both Gulf Madhyamam and Madhyamam are funded by Jamaat-e-Islami. Initially, both these publications only claimed to be news organisations but were actually propaganda channels meant to spread fundamentalist ideology. However, over the past 25-30 years, their work has shown clear secular primciples. Today, almost every writer of note has had their works — poems, short stories, and novels — published in their newspapers and bi-weeklies. A distinguished writer like M Mukundan has had his novels published in these; K Satchidanandan has contributed poems; people like me have written short stories for it.  Moreover, works by people like M T Vasudevan Nair, Sugathakumari, and P Radhakrishnan have also appeared in the Madhyamam weekly. It was this Madhyamam weekly that offered me the award. For me, Madhayamam is a secular journal and many eminent secular thinkers have published their works in it. I find it extremely problematic when people compare Madhyamam with the RSS funded Thapasya. It is an RSS front organisation. Even after all these years, it continues to function as a front organisation. It has never had any secular leanings, and never will.  If we read Thapasya, all that we will learn is communalism. The magazine pits communities against one another; breeds enmity between them. No mainstream writers of merit have ever contributed to this magazine. As opposed to this, Madhyamam magazine has widely covered issues like the discrimination faced by the LGBTQ community, land protests, workers rights, and student protests, among other things.  Even though Madhyamam had communal undertones in the beginning, it has grown to become a secular space. It is no longer informed by Islamic fundamental ideologies.

Besides, we need to understand the difference between the majoritarian and minoritarian fundamentalism. Majoritarian fundamentalism eventually leads to the existence of organisations like Thapasya in Kerala. We need to unmask their principles. When Madhayamam had just started out, they offered me an award. I had refused it back then because I wasn’t sure of their secular credentials. It was during this initial period that they gave an award to the celebrated poet Satchidanandan, who accepted it. Later, it was given to T J S George, a secular democrat. It was after them that I accepted the award. By then, I had seen enough of their work to be sure of their political leanings. Secondly, in principle, I support minorities rather than the majority. But that does not mean I support fundamentalists from minority communities. I hope I have made my stand clear regarding this. Any form of fundamentalism will only lead to violence, be it Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Judaism,  or any other religion.

Sreelakshmi is a member of the editorial collective of the Indian Writers’ Forum.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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In the years following the independence, All India Radio and Doordarshan had complete control over communication in India. Following a landmark Supreme Court judgement that declared airwaves as public property, several committees were put in place, from the 1960s to the 1990s, to draft a framework for an autonomus broadcasting service. Since the 1990s, the control that Doordarshan had, diminished, and several private players entered the market. Although the legal and technical loopholes in the frameworks still remain, we must remember the vision behind these “autonomous” institutions.

Prasar Bharati, a “statutory autonomous body established under the Prasar Bharati Act,” is “the Public Service Broadcaster of the country,” its website reads. According to Shanti Kumar, who teaches at the University of Texas at Austin, “the growing competition between Doordarshan and private television channels…forced the government to rethink its national policies, and create an autonomous corporation called Prasar Bharati, to oversee public broadcasting in India.”

Perhaps Smriti Irani should go back in time to a speech broadcast in 2001. On 12 November 2001, those who were watching Doordarshan or listening to the All India Radio, were privy to a rare speech delivered by Mahatma Gandhi on the same date, 54 years ago.

Gandhi chose to speak about the partition, and the rcommunal riots that had followed. The speech was meant to reach the farthest corners of the nation. An excerpt of that recording – the only time Gandhi visted the Broadcasting House in Delhi – is now available on YouTube. He used the occasion to address refugees camping in Kurukshetra in Haryana because he could not personally visit them. Listen to excerpts here:
 

 
While it is true that Prasar Bharati has never been completely autonomous, it is important to remember what its job is, i.e., to stand up for the values that are enshrined in the Indian Constitution. On the one hand, we had Gandhi, who used the media to promote communal harmony; on the other, we have Narendra Modi and his regime, who see media as yet another means of fuelling communal sentiment.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

The post Amidst the Prasar Bharati-Smriti Irani imgroblio, listen to Mahatma Gandhi’s only speech delivered at Broadcasting House in 1947 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Safdar Hashmi | Image Courtesy: SAHMAT

On 1 January 1989, Jana Natya Manch (JANAM), while performing a street play in Jhandapur, was attacked by a crowd of armed Congress goons. In the ensuing violence, two people lost their lives — Ram Bahadur, a worker, and Safdar Hashmi, JANAM’s founder and an eminent theatre activist. As details of the attack emerged, it became clear that it was a well-orchestrated attack aimed at murdering Hashmi. JANAM went back to the same spot three days later, on 4 January, in defiance of the ruling government’s browbeating tactics, and completed their performance. The event marked a watershed moment in modern Indian political history. The incident led to widespread public outcry. Various individuals and organisations extended their support to JANAM.

JANAM performing in Jhandapur on 4 January 1989 | Image Courtesy: Scroll

SAHMAT, formed barely a month after the horrific event, was created with the vision of being a safe platform for academics, intellectuals, artists, and writers. It commemorates 1 January every year as Safdar Hashmi Memorial Day. In a parallel event, JANAM, along with Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), also marks the occasion by organising a memorial event for Ram Bahadur and Safdar Hashmi in Jhandapur, involving street plays, songs, dances, books, and speeches.

Keeping up with their tradition, SAHMAT organised a day-long Jashn-e-Daura this year too. They also used the occasion to mark 25 years of the Babri Masjid’s demolition and its effect on the secular fabric of the country, especially in the wake of the divisive politics of the current ruling government.

As visitors walked into the Constitution Club Annexe, they were greeted with three exquisitely mounted exhibitions. “Beyond Dispute: Landscape of Dissent”, which involved photographs, paintings, and other works across various mediums, was a reinterpretation of the demolition, as one of its curators, Aban Raza, explained later. This was accompanied by an earlier exhibition by SAHMAT, ”Hum Sab Ayodhya”, which carried photographs, paintings, and texts from various sources, all documenting the long history of pluralism in Ayodhya.

The wall at the far end of the hall was covered with photographs, primarily portraits; it was part of a photo series covering the massive gathering of farmers, the three day “Mahapadav”, that took place in the capital recently.

This space was also where the opening performance of the day took place with the street play, “I Have a Problem”, by the volunteer based theatre group Bigul. The play, a satire, dealt with the rising communalism, intolerance, and the rise of right-wing Hindutva forces in the country. This was followed by JATAN Natya Kendra’s piece, a theatre group from Rohtak, Haryana, who performed four poems as plays. The poems covered a range of topics such as patriarchy and how it obstructs women’s advancement (“Pitaon Ka Chorus”), the rising violence and rousing of communal tensions for political purposes (“Tumhe Zeher Pilayein”), and the execution of those who dare to speak up against injustices (“Maare Jaayenge”).

The plays set the tone for the performances that were to follow.

JANAM (Kurukshetra) sang songs of communal harmony and solidarity. Virendra Saini’s film on Ayodhya was screened next. The filmmaker was also present, having flown to Delhi especially for the event. Ram Rahman, a photographer and one of the founding members of SAHMAT, while introducing the movie, also talked about SAHMAT’s sustained efforts at countering the communal propaganda of the right-wing groups since the demolition.

Almost immediately after the demolition, SAHMAT had called on artists from across the country to come together in solidarity, putting together a 17-hour long musical event, meant to celebrate the secular spirit of the country. They took this event, “Anhad Garje”, to different cities like Ahmedabad, Bombay, and Lucknow. It was during this time, in 1993, that they mounted the exhibition “Hum Sab Ayodhya”, which was exhibited in at least 17 cities. It was Madhukar Upadhyay, a senior journalist—incidentally, he was also one of the first to get the news about the demolition of the Babri Masjid out—who suggested that they take the show to Ayodhya. SAHMAT took the show to Ayodhya, deliberately choosing to have it on 15 August because of its significance in the Independence Movement because it is a movement that the RSS, for all their insistence on “nationalism”, cannot lay claim to. The event, “Mukt Naad”, took place on the banks of the Saryu River in Ayodhya, with over a thousand artists and intellectuals, among others, coming together in a sort of sit-in, to protest against the demolition. Among those who performed were Rajan and Sajan Mishra, Kartik Baul, Kalucharan Mahapatra, Sitara Devi, and Girija Devi. Virendra Saini, who is a noted cinematographer, filmed the entire event, later using it in his film on the history of Ayodhya and its syncretic culture.

The Pune group performing “Mei Safdar” | Image Courtesy: Newsclick

A group of former students from the Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce (BMCC) in Pune also did a reading of their play, “Mei Safdar.” The group made an interesting use of beatboxing to create sound effects to support the dialogues. Interesting, a little earlier in the day, the group had also performed “Mei Safdar” at the Jhandapur memorial event.
Two journalists also took the mic to recount their experience of reporting about the demolition from Ayodhya.

Ruchira Gupta | Image Courtesy: Newsclick

Ruchira Gupta, who was a journalist with Business Line at the time, spoke first. She reiterated that the demolition was pre-planned and intentional; it was not the result of mob violence, as is popularly believed. It became clear to her, from a conversation that she was privy to between L K Advani and Pramod Mahajan, that a team had been especially called to raze the domes of the mosque to the ground. She also spoke about the violence against journalists that the kar sevaks were indulging in at the time. For instance, Mark Tully, who worked with BBC at the time, was locked in a room by the kar sevaks. She asked Advani, who was aware of the developments, to make announcements saying that the kar sevaks restrain themselves from indulging in violence. But he did not do so.

Mahmood Mamdani speaking while releasing the calendar | Image Courtesy: Newsclick

Towards late afternoon, the SAHMAT calendar for 2018 was released by Mira Nair and Mahmood Mamdani. SAHMAT also launched three books at the event. The first was a new edition of The Republic of Reason: Words They Could Not Kill, Selected Writings of Dabholkar, Pansare, Kalburgi, and Lankesh. The previous edition did not have Gauri Lankesh’s writings. However, after Lankesh’s assassination, SAHMAT decided to include her writings as well. Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh released the book with the words, “This is what we need today. This is the need of the hour!” The other two books, introduced by Rajendra Sharma and released by the Hindi poet, Manmohan, were Doh Sarfarosh Shayar: Bismilla aur Ashfaqulla and 1947–2017: Azaadi ke Sattar Saal.

Arman Ali Reza Dehlvi at the event | Image Courtesy: Newsclick

As the day approached evening, Arman Ali Reza Dehlvi took the stage, captivating the audience with his classical singing. The event ended with a concert with Deepak Castelino (guitar), Pandit Pritam Ghosal (sarod), and Madan Gopal Singh (harmonium). The trio was later joined by Amjad Khan, playing the table, and Jasbir Jassi.

From L to R: Deepak Castelino, Madan Gopal Singh, and Pandit Pritam Ghosal | Image Courtesy: Newsclick

What made this cultural event unlike the rest in the city were its political underpinnings. All the plays, songs, performances upheld the values of tolerance, love, secularism; while also denouncing the proliferation of hate and violence among communities on the basis of religion, caste, gender. In light of the ruling government’s legacy of using divisive politics and violent communalism to win elections, and because of the national elections slated for next year, the palpable sense of urgency, felt by almost all those who were present, was not misplaced.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

The post SAHMAT’s Jashn-e-Daura: Remembering Safdar and the Babri Masjid appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Delhi High Court’s Judgement Acquitting Mahmood Farooqui​

Image courtesy The Quint
 

Read the Delhi High Court’s Judgement Acquitting Mahmood Farooqui in Rape Case here. 

Feminists Say “No” To Recent Rape Judgements: And There is Nothing Feeble About It!

In the wake of the protests following the 2012 Delhi gangrape, India had witnessed a welcome sharpening of understanding around sexual violence and consent. Legal reform recognized the principle of affirmative consent – i.e the principle that consent must be nothing short of an unequivocal positive ‘Yes’ (whether through words or gestures) to engage in a sexual act. In public discourse and popular understanding too, the understanding that ‘No means No’ had been strengthened. Recent Court verdicts and orders have however dealt a deep blow to this hard-won progressive advance.
As women and women’s groups with a long history of working on issues of gender justice and with survivors of sexual violence, we are deeply disturbed by the 13th September 2017 bail order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court (HC) which cited the victim’s “experimentation in sexual encounters”, “promiscuous attitude and voyeuristic mind” as part of its legal reasoning for granting bail to three men convicted in the Jindal Law School gangrape case. In so doing, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has strengthened the dangerously patriarchal notion that rape is not rape when the woman is “promiscuous”, and that “promiscuous” women invite rape since their “promiscuity” can be read as consent.  It also stands in clear violation of the Indian Evidence Act that specifically prohibits referencing the victim’s sexual history or character in adjudication of cases of sexual assault…
Read the entire statement here.

Violence Against Women – Two Patriarchal Judgements​
Do a woman’s attire, appearance, sexual history or prior relationship with a perpetrator of sexual violence constitute a valid defence for a perpetrator of a sexual offence? Does the meaning of consent vary for educated women? The law, as it stands, doesn’t permit these factors to be taken into account while adjudicating crimes of violence against women nor does it prescribe varying standards. Unfortunately, however, deeply ingrained patriarchal mindsets rear their ugly heads ever so often flouting express statutory proscriptions, most recently demonstrated by two judgments delivered in the last fortnight dealing with rape.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court suspended the sentences of three students granted by the trial court for the rape of another student. The basis for this suspension, amongst others, was the victim’s “misadventures and experiments”, her “promiscuity” and the absence of brutal violence accompanying the sexual assault. Close on the heels of this, the Delhi High Court, on appeal, acquitted Mahmood Farooqui, a filmmaker, overturning the trial court’s verdict of finding him guilty of rape having performed forced oral sex on a visiting woman scholar.  While so doing, the Delhi High Court purposively misinterpreted the position of law on what constitutes consent and seems to have been largely influenced by the victim’s previous relationship with Farooqui, her being educated (a “woman of letters”), the supposed feebleness with which she said ‘no’ to the sexual act, and the fact of Farooqui’s bipolar disorder…

Read the entire story here. 

Hadiya Case Supreme Court Judgement​

Image courtesy The Hindu

Read the entire judgement here.
 

Why Has Hadiya Not Been Allowed to Join Her Husband?

There is this 25 year old girl, an age where parents happily marry off their daughters or even today start sharing their “worry” if a potential groom is not on the horizon, and we are being subjected to the sad spectacle of the courts intervening in the life of an adult woman. Why? Because her parents did not want her to marry outside her religion. And more because the BJP sensing an opportunity to further its “love jihad” agenda has decided to “investigate” the “terror links” of the young husband, as he is a Muslim and hence can be so pilloried. Hadiya, as she prefers to be called, has gone through sheer hell in the recent past, her trial having started when she married Shafin Jehan of her own free choice—-that has been established without doubt now—-with the Kerala High Court annuling the marriage and terming it as an incident of ‘love jihad’. And the Supreme Court that was expected to give relief taking the rather strange position of directing the girl to go back to college, with the Dean as her guardian.

Why not to her husband? She is an adult, the man is still innocent, both want to be together so should not an adult woman be allowed to join the man she married? More so, as she has declared—not once but repeatedly despite tremnedous pressure from family, society, and the state— that she was not coerced or forced, and just wants to be with him…

Read the entire story here. 

The Stories of Ishrat Jahan and Hadiya: Victims of Communal Politics
Hadiya’s story has four striking similarities with that of Ishrat Jehan, the young woman killed in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case:
1. In both cases the girls were in love, made a choice, and refused to budge from it;
2. The state confronted and fought both Ishrat Jehan and Hadiya for their choice, although given Sheikhs background Jehan met with a violent death at the hands of the state; while Hadiya is undergoing tough and constant pressure from the state’s National Investigation Agency;
3. Ishrat Jehan protested when she heard of the ‘encounter’ death of the man she had hitched her life to right or wrong and was killed so that she did not speak out; Hadiya has refused to retract from her marriage and her belief, despite being placed in the custody of her father, and subjected to immense pressure from the state;
4. Both women are victims of political connivance finding its basis in communalism. Ishrat Jehan paid the price for the games being played in Gujarat; Hadiya is suffering because of New Delhi’s power play to somehow link the Left government in Kerala to ‘terrorism’ with the ‘love jihad’ ideology being used as the reasoning board…

Read the entire story here. 
 

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill 2016 Criminalises Transgender Persons​
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill 2016 poses threat to some of the basic rights of transgender people in India. Far from guaranteeing their protection, the bill gets the definition of a transgender person wrong, and ends up excluding a majority of the community. Individuals and groups came together to protest the bill at Parliament Street, Delhi on 17 December, 2017.

Statement by the Lawyers Collective on the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016

It is important to remember that the transgender community in India has never demanded a law but demanded equal and undiluted rights under the Constitution and other existing laws. The NALSA judgment did exactly that – affording rights and recognition to transgender persons within the constitutional framework – the highest law of the land. As a result, many transgender persons are approaching Courts for claiming their fundamental rights, especially in relation to equal opportunities in education and employment. However, since the introduction of the MOSJE Bill in the Lok Sabha, many such cases have been kept pending at the instance of the Respondent authorities, even though the Bill has no status in a Court of law or application to the case. If passed in its current form, the MOSJE Bill will spell a death-knell on the hard-won rights to equality and freedom for transgender persons, which the State was expected to advance and not truncate, post NALSA…

Read the entire story here. 

Fading Identities: Parliament’s Transgender Bill is Downright Contemptuous and Demeaning
The Bill in fact requires a transgender individual to make an application to the District Magistrate for issuing a certificate of identity as a transgender person which would be referred to the District Screening Committee constituted for the purpose of recognition of transgender persons. The District Screening Committee would consist of the Chief Medical Officer, District Social Welfare Officer, a Psychologist or Psychiatrist, a representative of transgender community, and an officer of the appropriate Government to be nominated by that Government.
Such provision is patently in violation of the rights of the third gender guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution and, indeed, the entire human rights jurisprudence. No individual can be forced to undergo medical screening to identify and recognise his/her sexual orientation and gender identity, which is one of the most basic aspects of self determination, dignity and freedom…

Read the entire story here. 

Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017
Read excerpts from the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down instant triple talaq here. 

Bill on Triple Talaq: Unjust and Alarming, Needs Parliamentary Standing Committee Review 

The move to criminalise triple talaq, is not just against the men, but the women too…

Read the entire story here. 

Three Students Respond to the Triple Talaq Judgement
They ask: Why should patriarchy within Muslim men be seen as an exceptional form of patriarchy, one that is more severe than other religions?

 
Watch the entire conversation here. 

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

The post 2017 — The Year Gender Justice Took a Back Seat appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The urban middle-class, along with those in political and economic power, has been claiming that there is an absence of caste-based discrimination not only today, but since time immemorial. This argument is an attempt to sweep the present-day atrocities, and a violent history of the caste system under the carpet. Such arguments firstly state, that there is no such thing as caste discrimination, and that it is manufactured by the political parties representing certain castes; secondly, the caste system is being justified by them as a system of “division of labor”.  

With a rapid increase in the cases of atrocities committed against dalits in our times, and the dalit movement simultaneously gaining a greater momentum in the country, such arguments prove to be baseless and ill-founded. Kiran Gajanur, an activist of Dakshinayan, Karnataka, and a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Political Science, Kuvempu University, shares two incidents that the state of Karnataka has witnessed in recent times, and reflects upon the dalit uprising that the state is witnessing. 

 
Stories of a Dalit Cook and a Panchayat Member

Image courtesy:The Indian Express
 
Parvatamma,¹ a Dalit woman belonging to Madiga community, was appointed as a cook in the mid-day meal scheme at the Government Higher Primary school in Kagganahalli, in Mulabagal taluk of Kolar district. The members of other communities in the village protested this appointment. The district administrators visited the school and the villagers to discuss the matter. As a result of it, the total strength of the school came down to 48 from 148 – hundred students dropped out of the school and joined another school. Parvatamma continued to work in the school, and the remaining 48 students also protested by not eating the food cooked by her. Parvatamma wrote, “no one ate the food today” every day in a dairy.  
 

Image courtesy: Dalit Camera
 
Shakunthala is a woman from the Koraga community, and a member of the gram panchayat of a village in Karavali region of Mangalore. She hosted her brother’s engagement dinner at her house in the village. The non-vegetarian feast prepared for the occasion became a reason for a brutal attack on Shakuntala’s family. The Bajarang Dal activists attacked the family claiming that they had cooked beef for the occasion. Udaya vani, a regional news paper noted that, three young men were physically assaulted, and Shakuntala was verbally abused by the men who kept referring to her caste. 

Mr. Gajanur shares these two events in recent times in Karnataka to talk about the presence of caste-based discrimination in the state. He calls these two events a consequence of the dominance of “religious culturality” (Brahmanical upper caste hegemony) over the lower strata of the society (lower castes). 
 
Responsibility of Scholars’ and Literary Community
Mr. Gajanur is optimistic about changes in the system. The literary history of Karnataka, as he states, was and is multi-religious and multi-cultural as it gave a platform to members from diverse backgrounds. As early as 11th century, the Basava movement through its Vachana sahitya was determined to protest every form of discrimination. Mr. Gajanur, anyhow, observes a wide gap between the intellectual community and the common people in the state of Karnataka today. This gap has proven itself to be a lacuna in the progressive resistance, as there seems to be no connection between the path of tolerance that the literary history of Karnataka had laid out and what is happening in present-day Karnataka. It is the responsibility of the intellectual community to speak to every person, communicating the progressive ideas and tolerance that Karnataka once stood for. 

This is one of the ways in which the fascist forces in operation in the country today can be fought. Dakshinayan, a platform for progressive writers and thinkers, has created a space that is trying to connect progressive writers and thinkers to common people. Dakshinayan’s agenda is to unite all the anti-fascist and pro-democratic groups to fight religious, fundamental and capitalist forces.
 
Dakshinayan in Karnataka
The recent Dakshinayan gathering that was organised in Shimogga, comprised both young and leading writers of Karnataka, who are working in many ways to counter the fascist forces in the country. The gathering aimed at discussing contemporary issues in the state. It was a great success – with 600 members attending. Mr. Gajanur notes that this number is an indication of the unrest among individuals  who want to fight the fascist groups. May festival, a literature festival in Dharwad, Jana Nudi organised by K.P. Suresh, the Chalos uniting all the anti-fascist forces, and pro-democracy individuals show that there are voices of resistance. 

Dakshinayan is a platform for the coming together of various progressive movements, functioning within the frameworks of their respective ideologies. Leftist groups, women’s movements, peasant movements are brought together. Through the creation of platforms like Dakshinayan, Mr. Gajanur states that it is possible to fight the rapidly growing fascism in the country; and also strive for a just society that the Basava Movement and Vachana Sahitya worked for in  the 11th century in Karnataka. 

1. Parvatamma is the name that Mr. Kiran Gajanan uses. The other sources carrying the news say Radhamma. 

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

The post Karnataka’s Opposition to Right-Wing Hindu Fundamentalism appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image courtesy Orijit Sen

His report claims that “Vemula was a troubled individual and was unhappy for several reasons”. It essentially says no one and nothing is responsible for Rohith’s death. In one stroke, it whitewashes the discriminatory action taken by the Hyderabad Central University against Rohith and his fellow students. It absolves the BJP leaders at whose behest the action was apparently taken. 

The report does more: it rids India of caste like magic. Wear a blindfold, it seems to say, plug your ears, and caste discrimination will go away. To tell people who have been treated as unequal citizens that the inequality does not exist is cruelty. To tell those who are fighting caste inequality that it does not exist is cynical mockery.     

The report is not exactly a surprise, however. Indeed, it is quite predictable. Last year, the enquiry commission report submitted to the HRD ministry began the blindfolding and whitewashing exercise by claiming Rohith was not a dalit; and, of course, by absolving, of all responsibility, then HRD minister Smriti Irani and BJP leader Bandaru Dattatreya.

Not all of us need to be blindfolded or suffer from a wilful loss of memory. The Indian Cultural Forum reiterates its solidarity with all those who will continue to ask for justice for all the Rohiths of India.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

The post Panel to Probe Rohith Vemula’s Death: A Cynical Denial of Caste Discrimination appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
If we choose to forget Akbar, we also forget these paintings which accompanied translations of Valmiki’s Sankrit Ramayana into Persian:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

The post A Life Without Biryani, History Texts Without Mughuls : India 2017 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
                                                                                                                                                                                     
Image Source: The Royal Conservatory 

In 2015, writers, scientists, artists and academics came together to speak up against the unmaking of India. Part of this unmaking, which continues to this day, is the steady erosion of a scientific outlook in the country.

Superstition and fraudulent claims are parading as science. The spirit of enquiry, speculation, debate, and questioning based on an actual examination of the world, are attacked. Both education and research, essential in the quest for knowledge, are under threat by the self appointed experts in the thought police, or by the withdrawal of state funding and support.

The rational quest for knowledge, and the questioning, debate and dissent involved: this is what brings the cultural fraternity and the scientific community together, as indeed it does all our citizens.

This is why we writers endorse the call for a March for Science on August 9, 2017 in several Indian cities. We call on all writers and members of the cultural fraternity to join in this march that will insist on a rational, scientific outlook in our classrooms, in our public discourse, and in our daily lives.

The call from a broad group of scientists and academics says:
“… Science in India is facing the danger of being eclipsed by a rising wave of unscientific beliefs and religious bigotry, and scientific research is suffering serious setback due to dwindling governmental support.
We note with deep concern that financial support to even premier institutions like IITs, NITs, and IISERs has been slashed. Universities are facing shortage of funds to adequately support scientific research. Research funding agencies like DST, DBT and CSIR are reportedly impacted by reduced governmental support. Scientists in government laboratories are being asked to generate a part of their salary by selling their inventions and from other sources.

While we can justly be inspired by the great achievements in science and technology in ancient India, we see that non-scientific ideas lacking in evidence are being propagated as science by persons in high positions, fuelling a confrontational chauvinism in lieu of true patriotism that we cherish. Promoting scientific bent of mind can certainly help improve the social health of our country where incidents of witch hunting, honour killing and mob lynching are reported regularly.

We feel that the situation demands the members of scientific community to stand in defence of science and scientific attitude in an open and visible manner as done by scientists and science enthusiasts worldwide. We appeal to scientists, researchers, teachers, students, as well as all concerned citizens to organize ‘India March for Science’ events throughout the country, particularly in the state capitals, on 9th August 2017, with the following demands:

1.    Allocate at least 3% of GDP to scientific and technological research and 10% towards education
2.    Stop propagation of unscientific, obscurantist ideas and religious intolerance, and develop scientific temper, human values and spirit of inquiry in conformance with Article 51A of the Constitution.
3.    Ensure that the education system imparts only ideas that are supported by scientific evidence.
4.    Enact policies based on evidence-based science.

We support the scientists in their call for a March for Science on August 9th. We call on all writers and members of the cultural fraternity to join in this march that will insist on a rational, scientific outlook in our classrooms, in our public discourse, and in our daily lives.

Nayantara Sahgal
K. Satchidanandan
Ganesh Devy
Keki Daruwalla
Githa Hariharan
Samik Bandyopadhyay
Shanta Gokhale
Adil Jussawalla
Shashi Deshpande
Bama
Sarah Joseph
Paul Zacharia
N.S. Madhavan
Jerry Pinto
Ranjit Hoskote
Atamjit Singh
Chaman Lal
Geetanjali Shree

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

The post End of Reason: March for Science Protests Cuts to IITs,NITs, IISERs, August 9 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

"Fascism believes in an autocratic leader and we do have our leader, Modi"
 
At the Dharwad Literature Festival held on 6-7 May, 2017, Dr. Anand Teltumbde explained how the BJP Government under Narendra Modi is slowly turning India into a proto-fascist state buttressed by the twin evils of communalism and casteism. Despite being self-declared nationalists, the BJP Government aligns with the colonial rulers in its persistent attck on minorities, and in its rampant Hindu-isation of Indian culture, so much so that the term secularism now seems like a misnomer. 

Teltumbde says that the BJP Government may soon prove to be more dangerous for India than the Nazi Party under Hitler was for Germany. 

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

The post Fascism believes in an autocratic leader & Ours is Modi: Anand Teltumbde appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Delhi

A large number of academics, writers, artists, students and political activists came out in protest on a humid evening at Jantar Mantar, Delhi.

 

Organisers of the protest at Delhi preferred cultural performances over slogans and speeches.

Bengaluru

It was a vibrant protest in Bengaluru with creative "Not in My Name" banners in front of the Town Hall.

 

Benny Kuruvilla says "All kinds of folks were there (in Bengaluru), which was good. Some wanted to shout slogans but organisers wanted a silent protest."

Mumbai

Image Courtesy: india.com
Protestors braved the heavy showers and gathered on Carter Road in Bandra, Mumbai.

 

Image Courtesy: Hindustan Times
Bollywood actors Shabana Azmi, Konkana Sen Sharma, Kalki Koechlin and Nandita Das came out to protest in Mumbai.

Chandigarh

Image Courtesy: Sameer Singh
Though the protest at Chandigarh was called at short notice, it saw a good number of protestors.

 

Image Credit: Sameer Singh
Amy Singh says "It was raining. We had traffic jams," but "people made it loud and clear that citizens would not allow any kind of hate crimes, violence against minorities or Muslim mob lynching anymore."

Trivandrum

Image Courtesy: Anu Arunima
At the protest in Trivandrum, people registered their anger and anguish through songs and poetry. The protestors pledged to fight fascism in every possible way.

 

Image Courtesy: Korah Abraham
Professor G Arunima says, "There were people who travelled from Trissur and Kottayam to come to Trivandrum for the protest – it was so heartening!"

Gaya

Image Courtesy: Shaqir Akhtar
In Gaya, the protest was called by the youth and most of the participants were also youngsters.

 

Image Courtesy: Shaqir Akhtar
At Ambedkar Chowk, Gaya, protestors formed a line and held placards for everybody to read.

Kolkata

Image Courtesy: Aatreyee Das
In Kolkata, the protestors made brief speeches expressing their anger at the culture of mob lynching.

 

Image Courtesy: Anuradha Kapoor

Abu Sohel, student of Jadavpur University, comments on something that the mainstream media overlooked: "As an atheist person born in a Muslim household, I have felt for long that the larger population in India doesn’t know how to respect cultural practices of the minority communities residing in India. Anyone with a basic understanding of Islam would know that ‘namaz’ (the ritual prayer observed by practicing Muslims) is an extremely personal thing with nothing but the idea of the invisible Allah standing in front of them, yet when a dozen of Muslims chose to offer namaz at the protest site to make a political statement, photographers and media personnel stood in front of them, all huddled up trying to get a ‘million dollar shot’ thus disrupting their prayer, while turning the whole act into an exotic spectacle, reducing the presence of the few members of the Muslim community to sheer ‘tokenism’. And yet the mainstream media, which seemed to be more preoccupied with celebrities present at the event, were lauded by the organizers for their media coverage! "

Titi Roy, who joined the protest in Kolkata, said "it was a day when you wanted to do something against the terrible atrocities happening around you".

Jaipur

Image Courtesy: Not In My Name Facebook Page
Not in My Name protest was held at Gandhi Nagar in Jaipur

 

Image Courtesy: Not In My Name Facebook Page

 
London

Poet and Academic Nitisha Paul at the protest in SOAS, London

The protest in London was held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

 

Writer Meena Kandasamy at the protest in SOAS, London

Toronto

Image Courtesy: Atreyee Majumder

At Toronto, the protestors delivered a press release asking the Consulate to issue a statement against the killings in India. The protest was a call to the diaspora to engage in sustained action, because as Ree puts it "we need more than one protest".

 

Image Courtesy: Maithili Venkataraman

Sara Abraham says that over 50 people attended the protest in Toronto for a full 2 hours, and close to 30 sent their regrets. Flowers were left in memory of Junaid in front of the Indian High Commission at Toronto, Canada.
 

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