Image Courtesy: People’s Film Collective

On 31 May, the India International Centre organised a series of documentary screenings under the theme – “Negotiating Spaces: Films on Development and Gender”. Though distinct in subject, each documentary was connected by the many stories of personal, political and organisational resistances from individuals and communities who are forced to the margins.

One of the documentaries, Agar Wo Desh Banati (If She Built a Country) brought attention to an issue that has been ignored by the media and policy makers alike: How capitalist interventions changed gender relations and dispossessed women.

Mines and power plants appeared and grew to monstrous proportions around them. Adivasi women from the village of Raigarh, Chhattisgarh were cheated of their land and compensation. Their relationship with the forest and environment was severed, leaving them a polluted land. The documentary showed women grapple with all this, as they sought justice for themselves and their communities. The filmmakers, Maheen Mirza and Rinchin, both part of the Ektara Collective, are committed to cinema born of collective practice. Released in 2018, and made over the course of four years, the documentary records the journey of the women from struggle to resistance and from activism to leadership and has been screened at several film festivals across the country.

Agar Wo Desh Banati looks at women’s role in adivasi households, in the forest and in agriculture systems. It proves that women’s immense contribution to domestic and agricultural labour is invisible and unpaid. The women from Raigarh, who were the narrative force behind the documentary, through their testimonials challenged the assumption that modernisation or industrialisation has improved the position of women in agriculture. Most women feed and run their households based on forest produce. Corporate penetration of forest land, led to regulations over subsistence farming that women were in charge of. In cases when land was owned it was registered in the name of the man. Thus, dealings with the corporate became transactions between the patriarchal head of the industry and the patriarchal head of the family; leading to the further exclusion of women.This dispossession was so tiny compared to the scale of the industrialoutput that it was easy to overlook. Butit was a tremendous blow on the day to day health of the family. The woman lamented being unable to provide her children with food or nutrition since they could not grow vegetables for themselves ever since their land was taken away. From being cultivators, they became unpaid workers.

In February this year, the Supreme Court ordered the eviction of around 10 lakh families of forest-dwelling tribal communities in at least 16 states. The order came in response to a Public Interest itigation (PIL) filed to challenge the Forest Rights Act of 2006, which empowered traditional forest dwellers to “access, manage, and govern” forests within their villages. Leaders of opposition parties, environmental experts and adivasi rights activists strongly criticised the order by the SC as well as the central government’s failure in upholding the rights of the adivasis.

The National Alliance of People’s Movements expressed outrage over the order which was like a “death knell” for the FRA. “The FRA,” they argued, “had been a beacon of hope to millions of forest dependent people in the country for securing their tenure over land and access to forests. However, this order has turned the wheel backwards.”

“For centuries now, we the adivasis, fisher-folk, hill, forest dwellers and others who are the original inhabitants of theIndian subcontinent have been systematically pushed off our ancestral lands and forcibly confined to small, remote and increasingly vulnerable corners of the country. In this process we have been subjected to unspeakable atrocities bordering on genocide by successive regimes ruling what has been styled as the ‘world’s largest democracy’,”is the cry from the margins.

Their demand in the documentary and in reality is that, “We have never accepted these policies of loot and plunder and will resist them to our last breath. We have never begged or asked for anything. We only assert our rights to what is ours and has been taken from us.” The community that has been thought primitive for decades released their Election Manifesto in April 2019, to proclaim that they were fully capable of self-reliance even when those in power forgot all about them.

We live in nature! We die in Nature! It’s our life, if you occupy our land where should we go and how do we live? Whose land is this?– This was the call at the first National Dalit and Adivasi Women’s Congress held on February 2013 at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. In June 2016, we hear of a priestess from the Dongria Kondh tribe in Niyamgiri, become the guardian of ancient cermonial seeds.  In July 2016, writing for Adivasi Resurgence, Jaya Lakshmi Atharam, a civil engineering student, asks the capitalist, patriarchal powers, Why can’t she, being an Adivasi?  Set apart by geography, Agar Wo Desh Banati, with its image of a woman Sarpanch leading her community to sustainability showcases a beautiful world of inclusivity, where growth of one equals growth of all.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Image Courtesy: Cinestaan

The woman in the eye of the storm was journalist Priya Ramani, who has been fighting against a criminal defamation case filed by MJ Akbar, an ex-minister in the Narendra Modi government and a journalist himself for many years.

Sunday was the second day of MJ Akbar’s cross examination by Ramani’s lawyer Rebecca Mammen John, during which Akbar flatly denied all accusations against him.

In October 2018, journalist Priya Ramani and at least 17 other women had accused Akbar of sexual harassment, and in one case, even rape. Despite the various accounts on public platforms, Akbar’s selective decision to sue only Ramani was called out by several women as vindictive. All of these women, including Ramani, had described the same pattern of sexual harassment where Akbar insisted they meet him for job interviews at hotel rooms.

In the Delhi court however, Akbar not only denied the defence lawyer’s charges, he also dismissed the evidence and said that he was only hearing about the cases by some of these women for the first time. He added that he could “not recall” the names of these women.

While Ramani was “cheered on by family, friends, and colleagues”, Akbar was alone and friendless. This image of women standing with each other against a powerful predator who came to the court room that day, and also on the first day of the cross-examination earlier this month,  speak volumes about women solidarity in the media.

On 18 May, a day before this hearing, a group of women artists were in Delhi to talk about sexual harassment at the workplace. Separated by geographical boundaries and professional spheres, the narratives of these women revealed similarities in the designs of powerful men who exploited and abused scores of young women and yet remained protected by institutions of patriarchy.

These women, Rima Kallingal and Padmapriya, both well-known artists from the Malayalam film industry, have been fighting against discrimination and sexual harassment for two years as part of the Women in Cinema Collective. Formed in May 2017, the WCC is a pioneering organisation constituting women creative workers from the Malayalam film industry. The collective continues to challenge the patriarchal world view of Indian cinema. It “has dragged into limelight the ugly underbelly of commercial film-making controlled by cliques, cartels, and celebrity power¹”. Despite its path-breaking overtures, the collective has not received much attention in national news media organisations set in Delhi or Bombay.

At a panel discussion organised at the India Habitat Centre as part of the ongoing Habitat Film Festival, both Kallingal and Padmapriya spoke about the formation of the collective, of the challenges it faced along the way, and those it continues to face. The panel was moderated by film journalist Anna M Vetticad who has been following the collective since its conception and director Judith Namradath. The screening of Namradath’s directorial debut film, Aabhaasam preceded the panel, and had come into controversy when the #MeToo movement emerged in Kerala. Actor Divya Gopinath who stars in Aabhaasam had accused senior actor Alencier Ley Lopez of sexual assault during the film’s shooting. In a moving video posted on her Facebook account, she wrote of the many occasions when Alencier had entered her room drunk. One time she was alarmed to wake up and find him in her bed.

Soon after Gopinath’s video, director Judith Namradath stepped in to support her. “I will reiterate Divya’s written and spoken words over a 100 times. Any sensible person who has worked in Aabhaasam will stand by her,” he wrote in a Facebook post. The women on the panel, including Vetticad, commended Namradath for his extending support to Gopinath and spoke about the importance of feminist male allies in the movement.
The account of the women on the formation of the WCC was as inspiring as it was enraging.

In 2017, a popular actress of the Malayalam film industry was abducted and sexually assaulted for hours inside a moving car. On the basis of the woman’s FIR, Malayalam “superstar” Dileep was found to be the prime conspirator in her abduction and assault because he had certain personal issues with her. “The WCC was started as a sort-of support group for the actress,” recounted Padmapriya. “But that one incident triggered discussions around sexual harassment that we had all faced at some point. All of us had these experiences to share that we had never spoken about to anyone for years.” As a result, the WCC was formalised as a collective in May 2017 and since then has been engaged in breaking down the structures of power and abuse. 

Moving forth, the members expressed the desire to not stop at fighting against issues of gender and sexual violence but also to shatter the glass ceiling, to enable women who are joining the film industry in larger numbers to “lay claim to legitimate spaces for self-actualisation and creative satisfaction.”

Courtesy: Indian Cultural forum

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Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Legends such as these about Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar have been a part of Bengal’s public memory since the nineteenth century. Vidyasagar represented an aspiration of an upward mobility even in the face of a colonial government; that even an Indian could command respect even from the British empire. 
 
From infancy, children in Bengali households heard countless times that Vidyasagar learnt the English numerals by following the mile-stones on his way from his native Birsingha village of Midnapore district to Calcutta when he was barely eight years old. Young adults have been told that Vidyasagar passed his law examination despite studying under a streetlight as his parents could not afford gas light at home.

Even as one steps outside of the house, Vidyasagar remains a figure that most Bengalis encounter in their everyday lives. From a street named after him, to a stadium, to a bridge over the Hooghly river, to even holding an annual fair dedicated to the great man’s efforts towards spreading education and increasing social awareness, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar occupies a seat of immense love and reverence amongst the people of the state.

Vidyasagar opened schools and colleges. At a time when scholars like Radhakanta Deb, founder of a conservative Hindu society called, Dharmo Sabha, were promoting English education among the Hindus, Vidyasagar redefined the way the Bengali language was written and taught. Ishwar Chandra Bandopadhyay was a polymath, who had joined the Sanskrit College at the age of nine and studied there for twelve long years, qualifying in Sanskrit Grammar, Literature, Dialectics, Vedanta, Smruti and Astronomy. At the age of 19, he was bestowed with the title of “Vidyasagar”, meaning ocean of learning for his brilliance. He opened schools and colleges and brought about a revolution in the Bengali education system. He advocated for female literacy. Vidyasagar associated himself with Drinkwater Bethune, the Anglo-Indian lawyer who founded an institution for women’s education in Kolkata in 1849. In 1851 the management of the college was entrusted to him.
 
The desecration of the statue by the BJP goons have compelled for a reminder of the values that the renowned philosopher and social reformer stood for.

The British ruled India in the nineteenth century. In addition to oppression under the imperialistic mission of the British from the outside, the Indian society was infested with social evils from within. To resist these forces of authority and orthodoxy, a cultural, social, intellectual and artistic movement began in Bengal in the nineteenth century and continued till the early twentieth century. Akin to the European Renaissance, this movement was called the Bengal Renaissance. Scholars, writers, religious and social reformers, journalists, patriotic orators and scientists converged together to engineer a transition towards a “modern” India.  This “modernity” demanded a reconfiguration of the boundaries between the public and private. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Ram Mohan Roy were pioneers of the Bengal Renaissance which so mightily changed the whole aspect of not only the Bengali life and thought, but also transformed the domestic landscape of the Hindu society forever.

Being a learned scholar of Sanskrit, Vidyasagar had discovered that the ancient Hindu scriptures did not enjoin perpetual widowhood, and in 1855 he startled the Hindu world by his work on the Remarriage of Hindu Widows.

To the Hindu orthodoxy, the body of the Hindu widow was the site for maintenance of caste purity through ritual austerity. Polygamy was practised and young girls were married to men thrice their age, either in the name of tradition or to avoid dowry. Girls became widows soon after marriage, often even before their marriage was consummated. They were subjected to a life of deprivation, humiliation, abuse and ostracisation inside their homes. They were denied the basic rights to bodily integrity: stripped of jewellery, forced to wear only white, and ration their food intake. Apart from these restrictions, the body of the widow also generated anxieties regarding her sexuality.

When an upper caste Hindu male like Vidyasagar called out these violent cultural practices which operated under the garb of “protection” or benevolent tradition, it caused an uproar. While an agitation against the orthodox Hindus, the priests and leaders of religious communities was something expected, Vidyasagar also had to face opposition from the concerns of the nationalists. To these nationalists, who were also learned scholars, the question of women empowerment “was not so much about the specific condition of women ..as it was about the political encounter between a colonial state and the suppressed “tradition” of a conquered people.”( Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Women”). The passing of a widow remarriage act, seemed to this group, a Western import which had no place in a traditional Indian society.

Yet Ishwar Chandra persevered amid a storm of indignation. Associating himself with the most influential men of the day like Prosonno Kumar Tagore and Ram Gopal Ghosh, he appealed to the British government to declare that the sons of remarried Hindu widows should be considered legitimate heirs. The British government responded; the act was passed in 1856, and some years later Ishwar Chandra’s own son was married to a widow. In the last years of his life, Ishwar Chandra wrote works against Hindu polygamy.

Vidyasagar stood for critical consciousness and the spirit that interrogated everything. Last year, when the BBC Bengali Service asked its listeners about “the greatest Bengalis”, Vidyasagar was part of the list. With a smashed statue of the man in a college named in his honour, in the city of his birth, what kind of legacy are we really left with?

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Image Courtesy: Twitter

In April 2019, they launched a campaign urging voters to vote against the “sanghi” BJP government. Announcing the campaign on their Twitter handle, Pinjra Tod said, “Over the next few weeks, we will be campaigning with songs and pamphlets in colleges and universities, buses and trains, streets and factories, urging people to vote against the BJP.”

The collective highlighted the failures of the Modi government, beginning with their attacks against the minorities. “This sanghi government has been responsible for intensifying violence against women, dalits, muslims and adivasis propagating an atmosphere of hatred and fear.” They added that “[the Modi government] has produced unprecedented rates of unemployment, has only colluded with Adanis and Ambanis to further exploit the working poor of this country.” The central government’s systematic dismantling of the “public education and state welfare provisions” was also called out by the collective.

The BJP-led government “has concertedly worked towards dismantling democratic institutions, has violated the fundamental ethos of our constitution and sought to silence every voice speaking out against this draconian regime,” says Pinjra Tod.

Urging their allies to join them, they chanted, “Sanghiyo ki yeh sarkar, nahi chalegi abki baar! Hindu rashtra ko todenge, itihas ki dhara modenge!”

Kanika Katyal of the Indian Cultural Forum spoke to a member of Pinjra Tod about this campaign.

Kanika Katyal: What is the relevance of this campaign? Why does the campaigning target the Modi government in particular and not the state machinery in general?
Pinjra Tod: Pinjra Tod has always questioned the state machinery. Since the beginning of our collective, we have been protesting against a patriarchal surveillance model that is offered as the solution to any and all concerns of women’s safety. All our campaigns have been advocated from that position. In the same spirit, this campaign too questions the logic of state violence and its orchestration against specific communities.

However, in Modi’s tenure, we have witnessed the government’s overt Hindutva project and a politics of hate. We strongly feel that it is important to single out this government which has given teeth to polarising sentiments in this country. There is no doubt, that hate mongering has been done before and polarising sentiments have existed amongst the masses too, but through this campaign we aim to warn the future governments that weaponising these sentiments for political mileage, instead of finding ways to put them down, is not going to win them electoral victory.

KK: The Pinjra Tod has been resisting regressive institutional rules and practices for a long time. Are there still norms that though misogynistic are still not considered “violence”? What is the way ahead for the movement? 
PT: Certain practices are so entrenched into the system and every day routine that they are not even recognised as violence. Keeping them under wraps works in favour of the administration since it ensures that the oppressive sections of the system remain immune from accountability, or any kind of questioning.

Students are increasingly becoming aware of these invisible forms of violence and seeing them as a gross violation of their basic rights. So, a democratic students’ movement which consolidates all registers of resistances overhauling these systems of violence is the only way ahead, since clearly, the mere existence of legal protection hasn’t done much. 

KK: What is the kind of government you want to see in 2019?
PT: We want a government that furthers the cause of substantive democracy in both social and economic spheres.

Since its inception, Pinjra Tod has exhibited an exemplary model of the strength of the collective that has brought down even the stalwarts of authority. Extending their activism to issues of electoral politics in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections speaks volumes about not just the commitment of the collective to informed citizenship but also the importance of student politics in a democracy.
 

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Image Courtesy: Manorama Online

Standing against Congress bigwig Digvijay Singh, Thakur is contesting from the same state in which she was arrested in 2008. The Bhopal seat has been held by the BJP since 1989. Her candidature comes in the wake of former Madhya Pradesh chief ministers, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Uma Bharti, both declining to contest from the constituency.

Soon after the BJP’s official declaration of her candidature, Thakur made her intentions of advancing the Hindutva agenda very clear. One of the first statements from Thakur during her press conference was: “They (Opposition) insulted the Hindu dharma, the Sanatan dharma and Hindutva. They insulted the bhagwa (saffron) flag. It will be one of our major issues in the coming elections.”

The BJP’s fielding of Sadhvi Pragya establishes the centrality of the Hindutva agenda to their election campaign. 

The Malegaon Blasts and Thakur’s role

On 29 September 2008, around 9:30 in the night, a blast took place near a hotel in Bhikku Chowk in which more than ten people were killed and over 100 people, including several policemen, were injured. The bomb was reportedly planted in a motorcycle which was found near the site.

The Mumbai police had called it a terrorist attack and deployed the Anti-Terrorist Squad to assist in the investigation. 

The investigation, led by ATS Mumbai chief Hemant Karkare (who was later killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack at the Taj Hotel), made pioneering revelations linking terror attacks in the country to right-wing organisations. The team travelled to Pune, Nashik, Bhopal, and Indore, and three arrests were made. These included Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Shiv Narayan Gopal Singh Kalsanghra and Shyam Bhawarlal Sahu. The bike that was used for the blast was traced to Pragya Thakur. Thakur, then 38, had been an ABVP activist before she turned to spiritualism. She took sanyas in 2007 and adopted the alias Purnachetananandagiri.  She went on to set up two organisations – the Jai Vande Mataram Janakalyan Samiti and the Rashtriya Janjagran Manch – in Indore.

At the time, the trio had been slapped with charges of murder, attempt to murder, criminal conspiracy and promoting enmity between different groups on religious grounds. They had also been booked under the Explosives Act. The remand application mentioned that among other evidence, the police had recorded telephone conversations of up to 400 minutes between Pragya and her co-accused after the blast.

Material seized during searches showed that the militants responsible for the attack were part of a Hindutva outfit called Abhinav Bharat, run by Sameer Kulkarni. Army officer Lt Col Prasad Purohit and retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay were also arrested. The role of a self-proclaimed seer named Sudhakar Dwivedi alias Dayanand Pandey also emerged.

Endorsement by the Hindutva Front

In October 2008, the Shiv Sena published an editorial proclaiming that the sadhvi was being falsely framed.

Soon after, one by one, leaders from Hindutva groups started coming out in support of the sadhvi and other co-accused. Some also felt, however, that this support was not as full-throated as was necessary. Fellow sadhvi Uma Bharti Party expressed shock that the BJP and the broader Sangh Parivar were “disowning” the sadhvi. “When they wanted, they used her,” she said.

As the political wrangling developed, the Hindu Mahasabha decided to provide legal aid to the suspects from Pune – Upadhyay and Kulkarni. The national president of the Mahasabha, Himani Savarkar, also based in Pune, confirmed this.

The broader network of Hindutva organisations soon flocked together. Endorsing the Shiv Sena’s announcement of extending legal aid to Malegaon blast suspects, BJP Spokesperson Prakash Javedkar said, “For that matter, even RSS has promised help. It is not wrong for private funds to be utilised for helping someone. It is everyone’s right.” He added that the party’s stand had been the same from day one – that no one should be discriminated on the basis of religion, caste or sex.

The same day, L. K. Advani, the then BJP Chief, alleged that the majority community had been linked to terrorism to woo the minorities. He also said, “It has become clear that the ATS is acting in a politically motivated and unprofessional manner. After going through her (Thakur’s) affidavit, I have to express my shock and outrage, which I am sure all Indians will share. In view of the shocking charges made against the sadhvi by the ATS, and the fact that the present investigating team has lost all moral authority, I demand a change in the present ATS team and that a judicial inquiry be ordered to probe the charges made by Sadhvi Pragya and the manner in which unsubstantiated allegations have been made against army personnel.” 

Pragya Thakur, along with Lt Col Prasad Purohit, were also linked with the Samjhauta Express attack after it was established that the suitcase bombs, which had blown up two bogies of the Indo-Pak Samjhauta Express train in February the previous year, had been assembled in Indore.
In December 2010, the CBI arrested Naba Kumar Sarkar alias Aseemanand, who confessed before a magistrate that the Malegaon blasts of 2006 and 2008 were carried out by radical Hindu groups as “revenge against jihadi terrorism”. He said that the plan to target Muslims was hatched by a group led by former RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi. He said the group was behind the Samjhauta Express, Ajmer Dargah and Mecca Masjid blasts of 2007. Aseemanand subsequently retracted his statement and has now been acquitted of all charges.

The Indian Express reported that in 2011, the Home Ministry handed the case over the case to the NIA and filed a chargesheet in 2016. The chargesheet exonerated Pragya Singh Thakur and prosecuted Col Purohit, but with the caveat that the evidence was weak. It dropped charges under MCOCA against all accused and described Karkare’s investigation as fudged.

The bike, the NIA said in its charge sheet, was in Thakur’s name, but was being used by someone else for two years prior to the blast, the NIA claimed, citing witnesses.

The agency also said not a single statement had been recorded in front of a magistrate (under Section 164 CrPC) saying she was part of the conspiracy meetings. All witness statements had been recorded under MCOCA before a police officer — and given the agency had dropped MCOCA, these statements had lost evidentiary value, it said.

In May 2017, however, two key witnesses, who had made incriminating statements against Thakur to the ATS, changed their statements after the NIA re-examined them. Three others had also implicated her, but of them, one had died, one was said to be “missing”, and the third had already retracted his statement earlier.

Jyoti Punwani in her report for the Scroll argued, “It is not clear why the National Investigative Agency, which took over the case in 2011, suddenly decided in late 2015 to re-examine witnesses. According to media reports, the central agency was all set to file a charge sheet in the case in 2014 when Narendra Modi’s government was voted in at the Centre. The investigation was then reportedly handed over to another officer.”

In 2017, “RIP Indian justice” was trending on social media when Pragya Thakur got bail. She was granted bail following the dropping of charges under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act by the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court citing medical reasons.

Addressing a press conference after her bail, she accused the Congress-led UPA government of hatching a “conspiracy” resulting in her nine-year “ordeal”. “It (the conspiracy) was (meant) to endorse the bogey of saffron terrorism, a term coined by P Chidambaram (former home minister). I am innocent,” Sadhvi told reporters.

This was the first time Thakur was granted bail since her arrest in October 2008. Immediately after her arrest, she had applied for bail under normal bail provisions only to have her application turned down. The bail plea was rejected both by the trial court and the High Court in 2012 and 2014 respectively and finally once again in November 2015. This repeated denial of bail indicated the grave implications of the charges against her.

Following the charge sheet, Thakur was granted bail by the NIA special court. However, it did not accept Thakur’s exoneration and ordered in December 2017 that both Purohit and Thakur would face trial under the UAPA.

Sadhvi Pragya Thakur is currently facing trial for terror charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act: Sections 16 (committing terrorist act) and 18 (conspiring to commit terrorist act) and under the IPC for murder, criminal conspiracy and promoting enmity between communities.
The fielding of such a person, with such a catalogue of grave charges against her apart from a long background of vicious communal activism, sends a clear signal yet again to the electorate that Hindutva is the main plank for the BJP in the current Lok Sabha elections.   

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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On March 31, a certain NaMo TV made its debut on DTH platforms amidst much social media fanfare by the BJP members, including PM Modi.

 
Opposition parties like the Aam Aadmi Party and the Indian National Congress had complained to the Election Commission about the channel committing gross violations of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The Election Commission (EC) wrote to the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry, seeking an explanation on the granting of licenses to the content provider. The Ministry had been given until today to respond. The EC is to take a decision on the response on April 9.

Since its launch, NaMo TV has remained a mystery. Journalists remain baffled about who runs the channel, who funds it, or even whose name the license is registered against. What is clear, however, is that the content of the channel exclusively features the Prime Ministers speeches and pro-BJP content. On April 3, the official handle of Tata Sky had called NaMo TV “a Hindi news service which provides the latest breaking news on national politics”. The tweet which now stands deleted had set Twitter abuzz with questions about its licensing.

The next day, it was reported by NDTV that Harit Nagpal, the chief executive officer of Tata Sky had clarified “NaMo TV is not a Hindi news service. If someone on the frontline at Tata Sky has tweeted or said that it is a news service, it is a mistake”. He added that NaMo TV “does not fall into any genre” and its feed comes from the BJP via the internet.

It is true that special services do not need a license. But was this a clarification to defend Tata Sky or the BJP or even Narendra Modi? Perhaps all of them.

Soon after the announcement by the Channel Chief, BJP leader Tom Vadakkan reiterated the same words. “This is basically an advertisement platform,” he said. “An advertisement platform does not need permission from the I&B.” And if there were any doubts about the rehearsed aspect of the narrative, Vadakkan himself confirmed it by adding that “I think this matches with the view taken by the CEO,” he told a reporter.

On checking for domain information about the ownership of the NaMo TV, it was found that the channel was registered under Endurance Domain Technology, a global conglomerate operating out of the United States, with an Indian office based in Bombay. Even as obscurity on all matters looms large, what we can determine for sure is that the BJP is the client of the DTH service and is providing the content for it.

This change in communication technology and media platforms is a historic moment for all the wrong reasons. What is alarming is that back in 2012, NaMo TV had commenced its operations in Gujarat ahead of the Assembly election. At the time too, the Congress State unit had reported the aired content to the then Information and Broadcasting Minister, Manish Tewari, but nothing penal came out of it. These incidents reveal not only ideological but commercial links which are tangible, contradictory and disturbing. As citizens of a post-RTI democracy, questions of ownership, funding, intent and affect must be asked. The Lok Sabha Elections are just a few days away and yet here we are, the Election Commission has been tiptoeing around this word for too long now, but let’s call it what it is: Propaganda.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Image courtesy: Twitter

On Wednesday, the Tourism Department announced the cancellation of the book reading event on their Facebook Page.

The post said that the book reading event was cancelled due to the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) imposed by the Election Commission ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. However, Dalrymple was welcome to be a guest of the Department of Tourism, Goverment of Odisha, from 5th April – 8th April and “stick to his personal itinerary.”

Image Courtesy: Odisha Tourism

Till the time of filing of this story, a promotional advertisement of the event was flashing on the Odisha website. Curiously enough, the website also displays a link to the Election Commission website. A sudden cancellation of the event on the grounds of an MCC violation seems questionable due to several reasons. Firstly, the event was planned months in advance and even the schedule of the election was known to all government offices. If an MCC violation seemed likely, why was the event scheduled during this period in the first place? Secondly, given this is a public official event and Dalrymple is invited as a guest of the Tourism Department, how would his presence count as commercial?

In an article in the OdishaRay, Vishal K.Dev, the Secretary of Odisha Tourism, had delivered encomiums to Dalrymple and urged more people to attend the programme. “I would like to thank William for accepting our invitation to come over and explore the temples of Odisha with locals and tourists. I would encourage more and more people to join him in the trail,” he wrote.

Dalrymple had also expressed gratitude for the invitation by the government: “I would like to thank Odisha Tourism for inviting me over. I can’t wait to return to one of my favourite states in India, and explore the magnificent temples and the exquisite cuisines of the state.”

Dalrymple is a co-founder and co-director of the annual Jaipur Literature Festival which brings a large number of national and international readers and culture enthusiasts from around the world. His work on art history and heritage has won numerous awards. Last year, he was awarded the President’s Medal of the British Academy. 

Investment on tourism has been a priority of the Odisha state. In 2014, it was reported that an investment of 2500 crores in tourism and hospitality sector would be made in the next five years to upgrade infrastructure in order to increase the tourist inflow to the state. The Orissa Tourism website brandishes the image of Odisha as “India’s Best Kept Secret”.

A report in the Indian Express revealed that the decision of the Tourism Department has been prompted after Anil Dhir, a scholar affiliated to the RSS, issued a police complaint on the allegedly illegal and offensive (“to Hindu sentiments”) nature of the event. Dhir is a member of The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and is said to have made his complaints in that capacity. His first charge against the event is that “Mukteswar is a living temple where ritualistic worship is conducted every day. It will hurt the sentiments of Hindus if the temple is misused.” His second charge is that the event would violate The Orissa Ancient Monument Preservation Act 1956 (Section 16) according to which the use of Mukteswar Temple, a protected monument of the Archaelogical Survey of India (ASI), for “a purely private affair with commercial interests”, would be illegitimate.

But, as pointed out, if Dalrymple has been invited as a guest by the state government, how can the event be termed a “purely private event with commercial interests?” On hisfirst accusation about “hurting the sentiments” of Hindus, there is little that can be said. What can, of course, be said with authority is that Anil Dhar has been a former media convenor of the BJP’s Odisha unit.

It is imperative to highlight the shifting political dynamics in Odisha at this very moment. The Odisha government is not a BJP government. Until yesterday, BJP leaders in Odisha sat on a dharna in front of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s house to protest against the inordinate delay by the state government in accepting the resignation of former civil servant Bhudan Murmu, who the BJP wanted to field as a candidate from the Saraskana Assembly seat. PM Modi in his speech a few days ago had slammed the Patnaik-led government for its non-cooperation with the Centre. Modi had said that despite the differences with the state government they had undertaken welfare and developmental projects in the best interests of the people of Odisha. It was reported by ANI today that the Patnaik-led government has accepted the resignation of Bhudan Murmu and the BJP is fielding him as a candidate for the elections.

This incident is yet another venture by the right-wing government at the Centre to dictate and control every administrative decision, down to the local level, in every nook and corner of the country.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Image Courtesy: Business Standard

The biographical drama based on the life of BJP’s Prime Minister Candidate Narendra Modi has been in controversy ever since it was announced. Opposition leaders urged the poll body to intervene and delay the film’s release, which has been preponed to release in theatres on April 5, mere days before the first phase of polling.

What is the MCC?

The Election Commission of India’s Model Code of Conduct is a set of guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India for the conduct of political parties and candidates during elections mainly with respect to speeches, polling day, polling booths, portfolios, election manifestos, processions and general conduct. The Model Code of Conduct comes into force immediately after the announcement of the election schedule by the commission. For the 2019 Indian general election, the code came into force on 10 March 2019 and will remain so till the end of the electoral process. This is done to ensure that the ruling parties at the Centre and the State do not misuse their position of power to gain an unfair advantage.

What are the violations that the Modi biopic is accused of?

There are a number of violations that the Modi biopic film can be held for, the foremost being the silence period rule whereby no kind of canvassing is allowed between 48 hours of the election.

Speaking to the Indian Cultural Forum, lawyer Apar Gupta explains, “The most direct and evident harm is that a biopic on the prime ministerial candidate of the incumbent government has received indirect support in terms of a tacit approval sought by filmmakers amounting to a possible disguised attempt to canvass for votes. Hence, the candidate and political party will be circumventing all the prohibitions of the Model Code of Conduct and even the 48hour total silence zone. This may result in an unethical advantage towards them.”

Considering how the film has been accused of being an advertisement of the BJP’s PM candidate by the opposition, if the film, set to release on April 5, is likely to run in theatres till April 12 when the first phase of polling starts, it counts as a violation. In such a scenario then, do we factor in the probability that the proximity of a cinema hall and a polling booth, could be within 100 meters in some cases, which calls for another violation?

Model Code or “Moral” Code?

Since its establishment in 1968, the Model Code exists as a set of ethical guidelines bound by consensus amongst all political parties and candidates to ensure a level playing field. This means that it is not, however, legally binding. What are the implications/consequences for parties/candidates violating the codes?

Speaking to the Indian Cultural Forum, Former Civil Servant Kamal Jaswal said, “[While] the MCC does not by itself contain any penal provisions, if the violation is tantamount to a corrupt practice, then there are legal consequences.” Corrupt practices can be prosecuted under the representation of the People’s Act 1951. He also cited the example of Bal Thackeray’s disqualification. Thackeray’s speeches were found likely to incite communal hatred, which was held to be a corrupt practice and led to his disqualification.

By that logic, anyone who has seen the film’s trailer can testify to the film’s “appealing to caste/ communal feelings, criticising other political parties, aggravating tensions between communities – religious, linguistic etc.” Though Jaswal confessed that not having seen the film, he could not comment on the subliminal messages in the film with authority, he added that any move to incite violence was a criminal act, as per the law of the land. “Polls or not, such a behaviour was punishable under the representation of the Peoples Act (1951)”, he said.  

Saffronisation of history

The trailer of Modi’s biopic has already glossed over the painful events of violence. Scenes where Modi is mourning over a burning Gujarat or even rescuing children during the 2002 massacres, is clearly inventive and adds to myth-making.

In his article for the Caravan journalist, Salil Tripathi argued that “the strategy to remake Modi begins with the claim that the Modi of 2014 is not the Modi of 2002; that he appears to have moderated his views”. Curiously, the biopic seems to be doing exactly that. Speaking to the Indian Cultural Forum, Tamil poet Salma said, “Usually these kinds of movies are made after the death of great leaders. But that is not so. This is purely for propaganda. People will understand this. Election commission should ban such kind of propaganda movies.”

But is it just the timing of the film that qualifies it as propaganda, or is there more to it?

Lawyer Apar Gupta affirmed that “the content, poster and timing, all external factors are to be judged if the determination is with respect to a plea that it is a proxy or an indirect attempt to canvass for a political party. There is a principle of law, what cannot be done directly, also cannot be done indirectly.”

Saffronisation of history aside, the key issue here is the timing of the film’s release. Release date only a few weeks ahead of the elections bears wide-ranging implications – to sway votes, promote Modi’s candidature and solidify a Hindu-nationalistic ideology.
It is understood that interventions in the media, no matter how late, have the power to influence election outcomes. But to what degree? In a tweet, writer Salil Tripathi said that banning the film would make a martyr out of it.

Speaking to the Indian Cultural Forum regarding his comment, Tripathi brought up a very crucial point about the extent to which such an opportunity can be exploited for political gains.

“If the courts or the CBFC were to delay the film’s release, in theory nothing prevents someone from streaming it from a server outside India, and make it accessible to viewers in India. And if that were to happen, people would see the film-makers as free speech martyrs, casting an unnecessary halo around the film.”

This is a crucial point when the policymakers of the EC framed their guidelines, they took into consideration the proliferation of texts, images, slogans, campaigns and posters, but propaganda through a full-length feature film was perhaps unanticipated.

Image Courtesy: Money Control
 
However, these provisions are applicable only if a link can be established between the ruling party and the film. So far the producers have denied any such link. They have clarified that the film is a private commercial enterprise. On inviting Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and BJP president Amit Shah to promote the film, the producers said they invited them because Shah has a character based on him in the film and they wanted the film to be a “resounding commercial success”. But The Wire has reported of an (in)direct link between the BJP and the producers of the show.

Hitesh Jain, the lawyer for producers Anand K Pandit, Sandeep Singh, Manish Acharya and Suresh Oberoi, is a partner at Parinam Law Associates and a shareholder and director of BlueKraft Digital Foundation.

As per the report, BlueKraft has been closely working with BJP and its leaders for some time now. In 2017, it released the first book on “Mann ki Baat” at Rashtrapati Bhavan. In 2018, it partnered Modi as “technology and knowledge partner” for a book titled Exam Warriors, authored by Modi himself. This year on March 2, BlueKraft released the second book on Modi’s “Mann Ki Baat” titled A Social Revolution on Radio, 50 Episodes Special Edition.

What is art? What is propaganda?

“Art is based on truth. Propaganda through art is falsehood. We all know Modi’s hand in the Gujarat riots. And this movie says he is innocent. Do they think people will believe it? This is purely for propaganda.” Salma said.

The Indian Cultural Forum asked legal experts if there was a legal equivalent to the term “propaganda” without faltering into aesthetic judgments.

“Propaganda is a definition of social science which has broader girth and may not automatically denote a clear legal injury. This becomes important because while propaganda may usually have a negative connotation, it will have a high degree of subjectivity and hence fall foul of the constitutional tests which require specificity when a class of speech is restricted. For instance, defamation or hate speech,” explained lawyer Apar Gupta.

This also seems to be the vantage point the filmmakers are operating from. Speaking to IANS, producer Sandip Singh said “We are living in a democratic country where everybody has the freedom of speech. It’s very simple.”

How do we deal with this twisted nature of freedom of speech? Lawyer Gautam Bhatia told the Indian Cultural Forum that “there’s no legal distinction as such, and all forms of speech are protected under Article 19(1)(a); however, in one judgment called Motion Picture Association, the Supreme Court has hinted that pure propaganda might receive a lower level of constitutional protection (without defining it).”

Elaborating on the distinction further, Apar Gupta said, “there is speech and then there is media. While the paternal power of the State and legal regulation especially on cinema should be liberalised, it should not be allowed to become a vehicle for political propaganda. This, in fact, reinforces censorship. Such a situation is especially visible in Indian cinema where pre-certification is necessary through a board comprised entirely of political appointees. Hence, the entire process ensures that only the most flattering and uncritical portrayals of powerful persons, groups and institutions are permitted.”

But it seems that something has been missed here. Yesterday, the Bombay HC refused to interfere with Modi biopic release since the EC has already issued a notice to the director of the film.

Image Courtesy: Times of India

“This will come on the Internet. I don’t think that code of conduct is applied there”

As if the controversy over the biopic wasn’t enough, there is also a web series on Modi set to release soon.

Umesh Shukla, the director of Modi: Journey of a Common Man was quoted saying “This will come on the Internet. I don’t think that code of conduct is applied there”.

It makes one wonder if the fractions in the EC policies have enabled the getting away with a technicality in changing landscapes? 

On March 17, Indian Express reported that the EC had called for a meeting with the India heads of social media platforms like Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, ShareChat and Tiktok on Tuesday, to discuss questions related to social media content during the Lok Sabha elections. This also included the pre-certification process for political advertisements, monitoring of content and the time limit for them to act on complaints.

The meeting came after the EC’s first takedown notice to Facebook regarding a Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violation on March 13. The EC issued a show cause notice to the legislator and asked Facebook’s Director Shivnath Thukral to have two political posters with Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman’s photograph shared by BJP leader and Delhi MLA Om Prakash Sharma, removed from Facebook.

However, nothing much seems to have come out of the meeting, as companies have found ways to get away with vague information.

These kinds of malpractices threaten the very nature of democracy and become even more dangerous when elections are at stake.

Apar Gupta asserted, “All one-sided information, disinformation, misinformation and non-information equally create an uninformed citizenry which makes democracy a farce when the medium of information is monopolised either by a partisan central authority or by private individuals or oligarchic organisations. When the electronic media is controlled by one central agency or few private agencies of the rich, there is a need to have a central agency, as stated earlier, representing all sections of the society.”

Last week, PM Modi addressed the nation on the Mission Shakti project through social media, using private channels. The speech was later picked up and broadcasted by Doordarshan and the All India Radio. Public announcements of this scale also constitute an MCC violation ahead of the elections.

Speaking to ICF, former IAS Kamal Jaswal said, “Prudence demands and is acted upon in times like these when the MCC is in operation, that government functionary, formally and informally consult the EC when they intend to make this announcement. If the Commission refuses then they refrain from doing so.” He recalled an instance when former PM Manmohan Singh wanted to address public officers but did not go ahead with it following EC’s advice.

One would expect that the EC would be looking sternly into these matters but a shocking revelation came on Friday when the Election Commission announced that Modi’s “Mission Shakti” address did not violate the MCC.

The EC committee, headed by Deputy Election Commissioner in charge of the MCC division, Sandeep Saxena came to the conclusion that Modi’s speech did not violate the guidelines because “he did not mention the BJP, nor did he appeal for votes” in the duration of his address. 
What is undeniable in all this is that the BJP has recourse to a devious way of doing things. It does not matter if the official media has picked up the feed from the private agencies because the outcome will still be the same. The laws are fixed in time, while the landscapes have changed, and the BJP has taken advantage of all the factions by resorting to subterfuge.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural forum

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So says Jerry Pinto. One would expect nothing less from a writer who produces fiction, biography, translations and poetry. He has worked as an editor, teacher and journalist, but sees himself as a poet first. His writing flows from a place of keen awareness even combative at times: an awareness of the multilayered landscape he inhabits. He probes these many worlds, layer by layer with poignancy and with a humane touch.  
Kanika Katyal of the Indian Writers Forum spoke to the writer on the courage to say what you want to say.

Courtesy : Indian Cultural forum
 

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Known as one of the pioneers of the street theatre initiative in India, Janam, continues to address issues of social concern like price rise, elections, communalism, economic policy, unemployment, trade union rights, globalisation, women’s rights, education system, etc.

On February 21, 2019, a seminar was organised at the May Day café, to commemorate the 40 years of Janam. People who had been a part of Janam since its early years came together to share their memories of the plays, the rehearsals and the times. The speakers included Janam’s members, both old and new, who had witnessed its journey and also contributed to the movement at different points in time.

Janam had emerged as a form of resistance to give voice to the rage within the public, especially the working classes, against oppressive regimes. It had played a vital role in organising the workers, revolutionaries and social activists, especially their early plays like Machine, and Ab Chakka Jaam.

But political messaging aside, how was it that in an era of commercialisation, of political tyranny, of crackdown on artists, that a small group of amateur-theatre artists were able to signify a revolution? At a time when it was a crime to be political, how did Janam become the flagbearer of progressive thought?

That evening, the small-cosy hall at May Day had transformed into a retrospective of the early political moments that illuminated the intertwined relationship between Janam and the workers.

The discussion began by outlining the literary, and cultural context out of which Janam grew. “In the late 70s, Emergency was over, and a radical political transformation was in the air. This consolidation of the workers’ movements or peasant struggles was not restricted to only Bengal, but was beginning to spread to North India too,” narrated Manmohan, who was one of the early allies of Janam.

In 1973, a revival of sorts of the Progressive Writers Movement has begun in Hindi literature. Mahadevi Verma was one of the pioneers of this literature of change, which soon gained the support of other writers, both leftists as well as liberals. Small publications had amplified the revolution by publishing politically charged literature. During the Emergency, they would be banned, and shut down, but did not stop them. They continued to resist. This left a deep impact on the minds of the literary public. A deep desire to unite and forge collective alliances was indicated by writers from a diverse field of arts. So, theatre practitioners from the National School of Drama, cultural activists, publishers and so on, came forward in solidarity. It was clear that literature could not be art for art’s sake anymore, it was driven by a political conscience.

“But instead of cynicism, there was an agitation towards seeking alternatives, and change. We wanted to rekindle the same activist sentiments that were in full swing during the Progressive Writers Movement but had become passive over time,” he added.  

It only makes sense then, that their first play Machine was shown at a Lekhak Sangh (Writers Convention) in Timarpur.
 

Machine was written as a reaction to the Herring India strike and was first performed at a worker’s union strike. “But what makes Machine historical is simply the fact that it was staged during a workers protest but because in a matter of mere 12-13 minutes we were able to explain the whole capitalist machinery at the time in a creative and efficient way,” stated theatre activist, and editor, Sudhanva Deshpande.

“There was a three-tier system in the capitalist machinery at the time. At the top was the boss, then the machine and the worker at the bottom. But even a worker’s relationship with the machine is complex. One the one hand it oppresses him and alienates him, on the other, it is also its very companion. Therefore, a major reason why it was successful was because people could relate to the play, as part of the big wheel, as well as an individual entity,” recalled Rathin Das, another former member of Janam, who had been associated with the theatre as an actor, and later took to journalism as a career.

The evening had begun with a reading of the Machine, in its characteristic way, just as it was performed for the first time. All the actors aligned themselves in a machine-like formation and heralded the play with a clenching-machine-like sound.

One of the members told the audience how the idea of creating a tragic-pop like visual spectacle was actually an experiment, to pull the audience attention. Janam’s early plays, though had been performed on makeshift stages and chaupals in the big and small towns and villages of North India, they had not experimented with street theatre before.

The experiment bore fruit. Moloyashree Hashmi credited the actors for their improvisation. Most of them, she told us, were experienced professionals, some with even five years of theatre experience. Their training helped the form immensely.

She also spoke about the felicitous nature of the language of the play, “Though the text is prose, the language is that of poetry. Despite rooted in a ‘realistic’ tradition which describes the toil of the labourer, the language does not lose its imaginative flavour. This was because both Rakesh Saxena and Safdar Hashmi (who co-wrote the play) were acutely aware of the power of language.”

The popularity that the plays gained among the public, especially the working classes, could not be wholly accounted to its political messaging. If the plays were excessively pedagogical in nature, they could have easily been rejected.

“Our attempt always is to ensure that the theatrical or performative aspect is always top-notch. We pay a lot of attention to it. The measure of success for all our plays is how entertaining they are to the audiences if they have been able to effectuate a new worldview,” commented Sudhanva Deshpande.

“The second parameter to gauge success depends on how intently associated the play is to the movement that it is rooted in. If, and how much our play has been able to aid them or their cause in any way,” he added.

Indeed, Janam had been a key link in bringing together activism and art, and Brinda Karat, a member of Communist Party of India (Marxist), who was also a speaker at the panel, testified to this.

Brinda Karat had come to Delhi, post Emergency in 1975. As a member of the CPI(M), she worked mainly with the textile workers. Back then, the main workers union in Delhi was textile based because 1800-2000 workers remained concentrated in all of these five factories – two owned by Delhi Cotton Mill (DCM), one by National Textile Corporation Limited (NTCL) and one by Birla. A kind of residential settlement had also been constructed around the factories for the workers, such that their lives had become restricted to the space. During Emergency, she recalled, the atmosphere threat and fear loomed, such that even if 15 workers were seen at the same time at a teashop the guard would ward them off, saying that wasn’t allowed. As a result, all trade unions had been bifurcated. Karat’s job involved organising them into one collective.

She recalled how Janam served as the bridge between the intellectuals and the workers union. 1000s of workers would assemble and watch the plays because they wanted to know what had become of the negotiations.

She commended the proficiency of Janam’s plays which identified the most intricate details about the workers’ lives, that would seem unimportant to others. For instance, a cycle stand and a canteen were prominent features of plays. “This was as real as it could get because there was a zabardast struggle taking place at the DCM Canteen about, “Mera Canteen Kaisa Ho?” There used to a cycle stand once which was dismantled long back, even before the Emergency. But it had become a part of the workers’ memory.”

 

 
Thus, the impact was so profound, that long after the plays were over, workers would keep asking, and requesting her to have the theatrewallahs return and so they could speak to them in their quarters.

Sudhanva Deshpande affirmed how a crucial part of Janam’s training came from their intensive and continual interactions with the workers. “Many of us did not come from the same background, therefore, doing street theatre and taking it to factories and other real locations was a big educating and learning experience for us.”

From 1978-1988, JaNaM did 24 street plays, and nearly 4000 shows in total, bringing to an average of 400 shows per year. The team comprised of 12 people who declared they did nothing but street plays.

Deshpande recalled how he was a student at Delhi University when he first learnt of the workers strike in 1986 through a student organisation, Students’ Federation of India (SFI). Two years later, he became completely associated with the Jan Natya Manch. “1988 was a landmark year for Janam, because many of their senior team members had become older, and married with children and had domestic responsibilities to look after. So Safdar wanted to involve young people in to the group.”

Comrade Prem Tiwari, who had worked with unions in the Ghaziabad and Sahibabad industrial areas narrated how another play Ab Chakka Jaam had come to be.

“Ab Chakka Jaam was a reaction against, the minimum wage rate for the workers. When the play was staged, the minimum wage rate was a meagre 120 rupees, the workers were paid 150 rupees. In 1986, when the strike was called, there was not a single workers basti where the play was not shown.”

He continued, “the question that the play incited in the minds of the worker was: ‘Jiyengey kaise hum?’ We are four-five people muddled together in one room, like animals. All of us work in shifts, half our lives are spent in completing one shift at a factory where we also eat. When we go back home, the rest of our family members are completing their second shifts. When do we live? Why are we asking for more pay? Why should we demand fixed hours? And why were we even holding a Chakka Jaam? – these issues were addressed through the play.”

These nukkad-naataks made the workers introspect, “that which I do not get in a theatre, and often I don’t even have the money to go to a theatre, but when I do, it offers me song and dance and all kinds of other entertainment, but never the story of my life”.

As a result, 1986, witnessed one-day strike, 1987, held a three-day strike and 1988, a seven-day-strike was organised in the whole of Delhi NCR region, such that despite the pressures of the authorities, the strike was successful.

Thus, by introducing the workers to their own selves, Janam laid the foundations for a class conscience. It had shown the workers that change was possible, that one resistance or protest could shake the systems if only one persisted.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

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