“Anyone who sees my films is my audience,” said Anand Patwardhan after the screening of his documentary Vivek (Reason). The film premiered at the 43rd Toronto International Film Festival in September, and won the award for Best Feature-Length Documentary at the 31st International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, in November. The question about possible audiences for his film was not just because of the content of this documentary, but also because of its length. Divided into eight chapters, the film is four hours and twenty minutes long. With this, Patwardhan has not only made a daring film in terms of its content, but also because of what he’s expecting from his audiences. The audience in Delhi, for whom he had screened the film privately, comprising mostly of progressive activists, were certainly willing to take the journey with him.

The film begins with a motorbike gearing to move. The faceless rider on the bike is a recurrent leitmotif in the film, often shown to be prowling through the night. Two of Patwardhan’s subjects in Reason, Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar, were killed by men on motorcycles. In the course of making the film, Patwardhan asks the police officer investigating Pansare’s murder, if the two murders are linked. He is met with the usual reply: we are still investigating the case. (The police did confirm in September 2018 that the murders were linked). One of Patwardhan’s strengths is to draw links between various events which the constantly changing news cycle tends to forget. For instance, he draws the timeline for a discussion of the murders of Pansare, Kalburgi and Dabholkar back to the Mumbai terror attacks and the subsequent rise of Hindutva terror outfits. In particular, he examines the murder of Hemant Karkare.

He interviews S M Mushrif, the former IG police of Maharashtra, whose book Who Killed Hemant Karkare? challenges the theory that Karkare was killed by terrorists from Pakistan. He also interviews the public prosecutor in the Malegaon blasts case, who says that evidence was tampered within the premises of the courts, leading to the acquittal of Sadhvi Prachi and others for the Malegaon blasts, all of whom were arrested when Karkare was the head of Mumbai ATS. Before Karkare was appointed as the chief, ATS, then headed by K P Raghuvanshi, had concluded that the Malegaon blasts were the handiwork of Muslims. Immediately after Karkare’s tragic death, Raghuvanshi was reinstated as the chief of ATS. Pansare, we learn, had passed a resolution to hold 150 meetings across Maharashtra to discuss this book. Was he targeted because this could have possibly raked up discussion about Hindutva terror outfits which have allegedly executed bomb blasts, like the ones in Mecca Masjid and Malegaon, among others? “Don’t you fear you’ll be killed?” Patwardhan asks Mushrif. “I had feared I’ll be killed before the book came out. I know I won’t be targeted now. Killing me will attract more attention to the book”, he smiles. Patwardhan’s film also draws attention to the book, but in a way in which books should be discussed perhaps. 

While Patwardhan is compassionate in these interviews, in others, he is confrontational. As a filmmaker, he is not the passive receptor who simply observes what is unfolding before the camera. He intervenes with the subjects he films quite often. In Vivek, he intervenes with young members of Hindu right-wing organisations like ABVP and others. After the screening, an audience member asked him how he films on locations where organisations of the Hindu Right assemble. “That’s a secret,” he smiles. Whatever the secret may be, Patwardhan is driven by an ambition to prove his argument, come what may. We see it’s a common tactic among Hindutva organisations to strategically dissociate themselves or their party from proven acts of terrorism. The most cited example is Nathuram Godse’s assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Members of RSS, for instance, are often heard saying that he was a member of the Hindu Mahasabha, not RSS. Patwardhan quickly retorts that Godse’s own brother had confirmed they were both members of RSS. Nonetheless, on being asked about the various organisations at an RSS event later in the film, the young cadres say, “All the organisations are the same”. Patwardhan is a persistent argumentarian.  

While a lot of the attention is paid to the Hindu Right, the film pays equal, if not more attention, to the resistance movements. Vivek is not just a document of the atrocities against minorities, primarily Muslims and Dalits in India in the last three years, but also a film of hope. Patwardhan’s camera is relentless in documenting the struggles against Hindutva, be it his emphasis on students in Hyderabad Central University, where students protested after Rohith Vemula, a Dalit research scholar committed suicide after repeated discrimination from the administration; or Jawaharlal Nehru University, where students stood up for their fundamental rights to free speech after being charged with sedition; or on the Dalit assertion in Una, Gujarat, where members of the community organised themselves after four Dalits were publicly flogged. The synopsis of the film says “Reason is then both a warning and a promise”. Indeed, the film ends with the words of Pansare who says that his philosophy is a philosophy of hope. The change is not a dream, it will happen. It is inevitable. And if it is a dream, what’s the harm?

Pansare comes across as a firebrand speaker in the film. While many have read Pansare’s book Who is Shivaji — the force of his argument is evident when we see him delivering the speech. The book is a shadow, a transcription of his speech, after all. What is it to talk to the masses, one may ask. Pansare should be an answer to this question. Dabholkar, who’s led a struggle for scientific temper, is calmer when speaking of scientific temper. He is not so theatrical, and, in fact, he depends on rationality, not the majesty of spectacle, to make his point. An interview with his wife at the beginning of the film is perhaps one of the most moving moments in the film. She narrates how they got married and, at one point, laughs while narrating an incident from their marriage. There is a pause, as if she is suddenly reminded of the fact that her husband is no more; the grief comes back with a force and she says, “Should we start again?” She says that Dabholkar had told her before they got married that she would have to be the one who works as he was going to completely devote himself to the rationalist movement. “Nobody asked what I wanted”, she says. I was expecting to hear more from her during the course of the documentary, but Patwardhan leaves the private life of the deceased rationalist behind, focusing instead on their public selves. It would have made a different documentary if the private world was shown, but it is a side which needed to be seen nevertheless. In following the public lives of the deceased activist and rationalist, however, Patwardhan’s film is invaluable. 

Mention must also be made of an uncharacteristic element in a documentary such as this: humour. In such a film humour is almost impossible at first glance. Patwardhan’s chosen method is parody. For instance, when we listen to Pansare’s speech on Shivaji, we are shown popular representations of the Maratha king. All the stereotypes for the latter are there: the bad, wild Muslim ruler, with close ups of his eyes lined with kohl, and the valiant, “Hindu” Shivaji who outwits him in an encounter. The difference between the melodramatic and the documentary styles are too stark, and the audience in Delhi responds with a subdued laughter, wondering if they should laugh while watching a documentary such as this. Patwardhan uses this more while dealing with the Sanatan Sanstha, a conglomerate of Hindutva organisations based in Goa. Their promotional videos are played at length, and audiences are left wondering if they should laugh at what they’re seeing, or be dismayed at the fact that these videos are taken seriously.

Patwardhan said that he’d like to show the film privately as much as he can, before the censor comes. Whenever it comes, it will come armed, for this is not a film the current government in power would want its citizens to see.

Souradeep Roy lives in Delhi. He tweets at @souradeeproy19.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

The post Seeing Reason in Anand Patwardhan’s Latest Documentary Vivek appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Singh had earlier participated in the shastra puja with BSF last year in Joshimath, Uttarakhand.

This year, however, he will not only attend the festival, but also perform the shastra puja or the worship of weapons himself. The report says this is the first time that a minister will perform the puja.

However, this is not the first time that Singh has performed such pujas in places where security tensions have been on the boil.  In 2017, Singh celebrated New Year with the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) troops, another paramilitary force, in the Nelong valley of Uttarakhand. The valley is also along the Indo-China border and this was just after India and China had managed to end the Doklam standoff on August 28. The standoff had begun on June 16 2016 when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China began constructing a road in an area claimed by Bhutan. The standoff ended after the Indian army withdrew its soldiers and China stopped the construction. Celebrating New Year with the ITBP troops only meant escalating tensions between the two nations instead of fostering peace in the region.

Similarly, relations between India and Pakistan have not been at their best lately. Last month in September, talks between the external ministries of India and Pakistan could not materialise after India decided to pull out. The newly elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, and former cricketer, Imran Khan tweeted,

 
In such a situation, should the occasion of festivities be used to increase tensions? And, of all the people, should a union minister perform a puja? The central government is known for using Hindu religious practices in matters of government policy.

The Indian and Pakistan armed forces, however, have shown greater wisdom in the past. In 2015, the Indian and Pakistani armies exchanged sweets on Diwali. More recently, in 2018, the two armies exchanged sweets on Id-ul-Azha along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

The central government’s attempts to use the army for political gains have not always gone down well with the latter. The Ministry of Defence has given permission to the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the youth wing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to hold its convention from October 23 to October 28 at the Bison Polo Ground in the Secunderabad Cantonment, Hyderabad.

Major D P Singh took to Twitter to condemn this and called it a “degradation of the Indian army”:

 
On another note, the clear choice of a Brahmanical ritual over others by a union minister shows the bias towards Brahmanical Hinduism in a state that is “secular” according to the Preamble of the Indian constitution.

Within the diverse practices of the Hindu religion, the eating customs of Bengali Hindus, Jains and other Hindus in Gujarat came to a collision when Bengalis were disallowed to cook non-vegetarian food in Ahmedabad. The central government has a history of covertly supporting violence against meat  eaters in India. Since 2014, this has given rise to cow protection units across Northern India, members of which have killed many people — the majority of them Muslims— they’ve suspected of killing and eating cows.

The opposition to certain ritualistic practices of the Hindu festival has also come from organisations which see themselves as being outside of Hinduism. The latest manifestation of this opposition has come from the Bhim Army. The Pune unit of the Bhim Army, according to a report published in The Indian Express, has submitted a letter to the Pune City Police, Special Branch, saying that burning Ravan’s effigy, or “Ravan Dahan” as it is more commonly known, hurts the sentiments of those from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes of India, who comprise 25.2 percent of the Indian population, according to the 2011 census. They have demanded that the police lodge complaints against those who perform this ritual under the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

In such a situation, Singh’s decision to perform a Brahmanical ritual in praise of weapons of war shows that the Home minister in particular, and the government of India in general, do not care for building peace in the subcontinent.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

The post Is Rajnath Singh celebrating Dussehra or war-mongering? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The village she is referring to is Kakaldi, near Dhaka. Bacchu was a publisher of Bikasha Prokashoni which specialised in poetry, and was also the editor of the weekly Amader Bikrampur. A list of the book published by his publishing house can be seen here. He was also the former general secretary of a district unit of the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB).
 

 
According to a report published in the CPB website, the Party protested against the killing on 12 June at Shahbagh. Sajjad Jahir Chandan, Assistant General Secretary of the CPB said, “In Munshiganj, Shahjahan played an active role in making the Party move ahead. He was involved in the movement for free thinking through his publishing house. He kept abreast of progressive literature. The terrorists could not perhaps tolerate the steady idealism of this free thinker.”

Hasan Tariq Chowdhry, Supreme Court advocate and a member of the Central Committee of the CPB told The Dawn News, “ Comrade Shahzahan was a free thinker who used to campaign for the cause of progressive ethos, secularism, and scientific temper. It is clear that as extremist forces are unable to confront progressive forces with their hollow ideological narrative, they are using guns and knives to silence these voices.”

Bacchu’s killing is one among a spate of murders in Bangladesh in which secular writers and bloggers have been targeted. Anu Muhammad, who teaches Economics at Jahangirnagar University, and who is also the member-secretary of the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports, remembered others who have been killed in Bangladesh in recent years. In an email interview he said, “More names are being added to the list of those who have been killed. We can remember few names — Ahmed Rajib Haider, Professor Shafiul Islam, Avijit Roy, Washiqur Rahman, Ananta Bijoy Das, Niloy Chakroborty, Faisal Arefin Dipan, Kunio Hoshi, the priest Jogeshwar Roy, Professor Rezaul Karim Siddique, Xulhaz Mannan, Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy, Nikhil Joarder, Mohammad Shahidullah, the monk Maung Shue U Chak, homeopath Dr Mir Sanaur Rahman, Debesh Chandra Pramanik, the priest Ananda Gopal Ganguly, Shyamananda Das, Mong Shwe Lung Marma, Nazimuddin Samad, and Shahjahan Bachchu. And the last one is Sumon Zahid.”

Zahid, son of slain journalist, Selina Parvin, was found dead on 14 June.

According to a report  published in The Daily Observer on August 2015, Bacchu was interested in setting up secular study centres, which he called Suddho Charcha Kendro, across the country. He had bought land in Tetulia to establish a centre but had not visited the place for fear of being killed.

The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, has condemned the murder. “The assassination of people who stimulate creative debate is a loss for society as a whole and I call on the authorities to spare no effort in bringing to trial those responsible for this crime,” he said on 15 June.

On 11 June, PEN International published a statement saying, “The murder of Shahzahan Bachchu, a publisher, writer, and activist known for his support of secularism, is proof that free expression remains under grave threat in Bangladesh.”

Andrew Copson, the President of The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), which is a “global representative body of the humanist movement, uniting a diversity of non-religious organisations and individuals”, said, “We are devastated that the spectre of violence has returned to the freethinking community in Bangladesh. Every humanist writer and secular activist and freethinking publisher who has been killed in recent years has been a defender of the rights of others, a lover of humanity and reason and justice. Their murders stand against all these universal values.”  The organisation had earlier published a Freedom of Thought Report on Bangladesh. It can be read here.

The 600,000 member strong International Federation of Journalists, said pointing to the systematic manner of the killings, “Brutal attacks on secular bloggers and writers are not new in Bangladesh. The horrific murder of Ahmed Rajib Haider in February 2013 by machete-wielding assailants with links to a banned extremist outfit was one of the first loud messages that free-thinkers would be decimated. The ruthless killing of blogger Avijit Roy in Dhaka on February 26, 2015 shocked the world, as did the hacking to death of Roy’s publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan, who ran Jagriti Prokashoni, on October 31 of the same year. The dramatic killing of Nazimuddin Samad, 28, on April 6, 2016, in the crowded Sutrapur area by suspected Islamist militants chanting “Allahu Akbar” sent shock waves through the nation. Notably, none of the masterminds of these killings have been brought to book.

In India, veteran journalist Shujaat Bukhari, who was the editor of Rising Kashmir, was shot dead on 15 June. Earlier, journalists like Ravish Kumar, Barkha Dutt and Rana Ayyub have received death threats. This is a grim time to be a journalist in the subcontinent. In India, the situation has deteriorated as a Right-wing government is in power. Many of the people who are threatening the journalists, for instance, are followed on Twitter by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.

Anu Muhammad explained how the situation perpetrates the dangers in Bangladesh: “Indian Right-wing government has become a blessing for Right-wing extremism in Bangladesh. Intolerance, racism, sexism, communalism, and terror are their common features. In Bangladesh, the government, which claims to be secular, makes compromises with Right-wing forces in Bangladesh and in India. Their inaction to find the killers, their patronising nature towards communal forces, and above all, their aim to create an autocratic rule contribute to the rise of Right-wing extremism.”

Souradeep Roy is part of the editorial collective of Indian Writers’ Forum.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Mohammed Nasiruddin’s Voter I Card | Photograph by Sujay Sen
 
His son, Mohammed Nasiruddin, is one of the three who were killed in a mob lynching for alleged cow theft. Those who killed the three Muslim men, on 22 June, 2017 also filmed the entire incident. Ashin Mohammed came to know of his son’s demise through this video.
 

On our way to the police station, he told me, “A person from our local Islampur thana showed the video and asked, ‘Do you know who this is? People say that he is from this village.’ I saw the video and panicked. I said, “E to hhamar chele!” (This is my son!).

This reporter has a copy of the video but it is difficult to find out which of the three dead is being lynched in the video. He is also uncertain if Ashin Mohammed had seen the same video. Ashin, however, was quite convinced that he had seen the murder of his own son in a video that was shown to him a day after the lynching.

He remembered how the two days unfolded. “It was the month of Ramzan. He had come for iftar. After he finished eating, he received a call. He was told to come for work at the Islampur village, near Chopra. He left after iftar, and I haven’t seen him since.”
 

Asin Mohammed | Photograph by Sujay Sen
 
Mohammed Nasiruddin and his two friends, Nasirul Haque and Mohammed Samiruddin, worked as masons. They arranged for labourers and worked in the construction business together. Everyone in the village reported that they had been working together for some time. However, there were also unverified and contradictory accounts which said that they had been caught for stealing cycles a year ago.  This particular story was related to us by a local imam who changed his version of the events as the day unfolded. We could not verify the validity of this claim. 

An Indian Express report, published at the time of the incident, claims that in the villages of Durgapur, more than two dozen complaints had been lodged at the Chopra police station. The reporter spoke to Atul Chandra Basu, whose two sons were initially arrested for lynching the three Muslim men.  The reporter quotes Basu as saying:
More than two dozen complaints have been lodged from this village alone; the number crosses 50 if you count those lodged from adjoining villages. But the police told us not to bother them with such petty affairs and asked us to handle them ourselves…

So we handled it ourselves.
“Handling it ourselves” means the disturbing trend of taking the law in their own hands to settle matters.  West Bengal in particular has seen a rise in the number of casualties related to cattle. According to a report published in The Quint, West Bengal tops the charts for cattle related violence in 2017. Mohammed Nasiruddin, too, was urged by his villagers to avenge his son’s death. “But I said no. Let the law take its own course. If there is any justice, I will receive it from the courts of this land,” he said.

But justice has been slow for the families of the deceased. The three accused who were arrested for the crime, Asit Basu (aged 28), Ashim Basu (aged 27), and Krishna Poddar (aged 24), were released on bail two weeks after their arrest. The police are yet to file a charge sheet, even after almost six months since the lynching. In spite of the existence of the video, the FIR was filed under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), which is a bailable offence, and not under Section 302, which is non-bailable. The families have also written to the Sub Divisional Officer, requesting them to conduct a CBI inquiry. They also made a written appeal to the Karwaan-e-Mohabbat team.
 

The letter submitted to the SDO | Photograph by Sujay Sen
 
Harsh Mander, John Dayal, and a team of lawyers travelling with the Karwaan-e-Mohabbat team, had visited the Chopra police station, along with one family member from each of the three deceased’s families. But Goutam Roy, the OC of the police station, said that he had strict instructions from the SP to not say anything about the case. 
 

After coming out of the station, Mander commented, “I am extremely disappointed with the state administration. One would expect an administration that claims to be secular to be more considerate towards the minorities. I could have well been in Gujarat and Rajasthan. There is no difference in the apathy and disregard shown to the grieving families. I will write an open letter to the Chief Minister.”

On the other hand, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government has been quite considerate to Afrazul’s family. Afrazul was killed by a man in Rajasthan, who, too, made a video of the killing. The state government has declared that a compensation of five lakh rupees for the family. In this case too, the murder had been filmed by the perpetrators, but the deceased’s families are yet to be visited even by a gram panchayat leader. 
 

A journalist who was at the spot, but who did not wish to be named, said, “This case does not bode well for the Trinamool Congress government. In Afrazul’s case, the murder was in Rajasthan, which has a BJP government. In this case, the lynching has taken place in Bengal by a Hindu-majority mob. The BJP in Bengal, of course, is silent on this case because the perpetrators are Hindus.”

 
Not only has no government official reached out to the deceased families, they claimed to have been threatened by the police if they enquired too much about progress in the case. “The police said that they will lock me up as well,” said Ashin Mohammed. At Nasirul Haque’s house in Kutipara, the family members alleged that the police had been bribed to brush the case aside.  

Nasirul Haque’s mother works in the tea gardens. “After his death, I have not been able to pick one tea leaf.”
 

The tea garden outside Nasirul Haque’s house | Photograph by Sujay Sen
 
Haque’s wife had just delivered a baby, who is two months old. There were posters of children in front of the rooms. The cradle inside the house was empty.

Nasirul Haque’s house | Photograph by Sujay Sen

Souradeep Roy is part of the editorial collective of the Indian Writers’ Forum.
 

Co-published with Newsclick.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

The post The story of three Bengali Muslim households which lost their men to lynching in 2017 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

“Calling for a boycott of Shalom Bollywood is not a political reaction to an innocuous cultural event. The fact is that the Shalom Bollywood event is also a political event. Calling for its boycott is a political reaction to a political event.”

Let me cut short all detours and answer your burning question: no, calling Bollywood to not shoot their films in Israel is not an attack on freedom of speech and expression. I understand this sounds confusing, but what is at stake here? Calling for a boycott of Israeli institutions (and there’s a reason I’ve highlighted that word) is, in fact, standing up for the freedom of millions of Palestinians who either live in Israel occupied Palestine, live as second-class citizens of Israel, or who were forced to leave their homeland and are not allowed to return to it.

Sounds even more confusing? Let me unpack things a bit more. Israel is an apartheid state, and Arab Palestinians do not have the right to move freely in their own homeland, or have the security of living in their own homes — freedoms that we take for granted in other democracies. Which brings me to the question: is Israel even a democracy like India? The right to vote is only one of the fundamental rights assured to Indian citizens. Besides, all Indian citizens have the right to equality, the right to freedom, the right against exploitation, right to freedom of conscience and free profession, and the right of minorities to conserve their culture. Israel has given the native Palestinians, who are the indigenous inhabitants of the land that Israelis have occupied, only the right to vote. Israeli law (Israel does not have a constitution) mandates that the native Arabs must be treated as second class citizens. Palestinians who are Israeli citizens only have the choice to vote governments in power who can further their subjugation.
 

Image courtesy Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions India
 
Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian who holds a visa of permanent residency in Israel, and is a co-founder of the Palestinian  Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement, says, in an interview:
 

Palestinian citizens of Israel (the indigenous population that survived the massive ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948 and remained put) have the right to vote, and that is a huge difference from South Africa; however, in every vital domain, they are discriminated against by law. In addition, they are only allowed to vote for a system that enshrines apartheid! Any party that calls for the dismantling Israel’s racist laws, instituting unmitigated equality, and transforming the state into a real democracy as a state of all its citizens, cannot run for the Knesset.

 
Writer Githa Hariharan, who is a member of the Indian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, says,

To talk of freedom of speech and expression in the case of Israel is like their talk of democracy in Israel. Consider the situation of Palestinians living in their own lands, the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank. Not only do they live without freedom of speech, they don’t have freedom of movement to go to work, or school, or hospital; their lives are often at risk, especially if they protest; their own cultural and artistic practice is erased or made as difficult as possible. Then, consider the Palestinians in historic Palestine — those referred to as Israeli Arabs in Israel. They are second class citizens, subject to official policies of discrimination.

I want to share just one small memory with you. In 2013, two of us, a Palestinian poet and I, were to read from our work in Ramallah. The poet, Rafeef Ziadah, was not allowed into Palestine. A Palestinian from the diaspora, a Palestinian refugee may not be allowed to return, even for a visit; but a Jew from anywhere in the world can think of Israel as home. Is this the kind of “freedom” and “democracy” and “culture” we want to associate with?

 
Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t have an Israeli friend, or that it’s wrong to even talk to them. No, that’s not what we mean. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement only calls for a boycott of institutions. That is why we must have a problem when two Prime Ministers — Benjamin Netanyahu and Narendra Modi, meet each other as official public heads of their respective states.  The Shalom Bollywood event, which is expected to have stars like Amitabh Bachchan and Karan Johar in attendance, too, is organised with the help of the Israeli embassy (which, of course, is an official organ of the Israeli government).

Calling for a boycott of Shalom Bollywood is not a political reaction to an innocuous cultural event. The fact is that the Shalom Bollywood event is also a political event. Calling for its boycott is a political reaction to a political event.

 
In an article written by Yuval Ben-Ami in 2005, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, a former Deputy Director General of the Israeli embassy, on being asked about the “status of culture in the new order”, said, “We are seeing culture as a hasbara (propaganda) tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between hasbara and culture.”

Israel clearly sees culture as propaganda. They want to show the world that theirs is a modern democracy. Arye Mekel, Deputy Director General for cultural affairs in the Israeli foreign ministry, told the New York Times in March 18, 2009, “We will send well-known novelists and writers overseas, theatre companies, exhibits. This way, you show Israel’s prettier face, so we are not thought of purely in the context of war.”

Images of Netanyahu and Modi spinning Gandhi’s charkha work to demolish Gandhi’s fervent support for Palestine, and his firm opposition to the formation of the Israeli state. It is hasbara (propaganda) of the highest order.

So,  Karan Johar might as well invite Netanyahu for coffee on his show and have a “good time”. What Bollywood needs to acknowledge is that even things like the seemingly harmless Shalom Bollywood event, and the simple act of shooting a film in Israel, with the support of Israeli state, helps — to use Mekel’s own phrase— to “…show Israel’s prettier face”. It helps build the “Brand Israel campaign” launched by the government of Israel as early as 2005. Hariharan says,

Shooting Indian films in Israel amounts to “business as usual” with Israel. Business as usual with Israel means breaking ranks with the international community that is working hard to isolate Israel for its apartheid policies. How does this work? We only have to recall how effective a similar boycott of South Africa was in the days when the international community boycotted the country at multiple levels — economic, cultural and sports.

Echoing Hariharan’s sentiment, the documentary filmmaker, Anand Patwardan, said:
As I was growing up, there were two countries my Indian passport did not allow me to visit. One was the racist, apartheid South Africa, and the other was the racist, apartheid Israel. South Africa overthrew its apartheid regime,  so India, rightly, relaxed its travel ban. Israel sticks to apartheid by denying Palestinians their basic rights as citizens, and yet, today, the leadership of our country shamelessly embraces Israel. Israel has always used the Holocaust to garner world sympathy.

Today, Modi and Netanyahu shamelessly parade little Moshe in a horrific act of child exploitation. The subtext is clear. This is what Muslim terror has done and we are partners against this terror. But the reality is starkly different. Israel, USA, Saudi Arabia, and their private arms manufacturers and dealers, are the creators and sustainers of Islamic terror, from Al Qaeda to ISIS. Modi plays the same game in India. It is no surprise to see them all in a hugathon.

But we, the thinking citizens of India, declare that we are not their partners in crime. We declare that we stand by Mahatma Gandhi’s position that Israel cannot undo the wrongs of the Holocaust by dispossessing Palestinians. Peace and justice are inseparable.

Bollywood has to make its stand clear. As Indian citizens, who gained independence though a non-violent anti-colonial struggle, will they stand for fellow Palestinians, or will they stand with the colonisers?

 Souradeep Roy is part of the editorial collective of the Indian Writers’ Forum.

This article was first published on Indian Cultural Forum

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Make no mistake: the next big sci fi book coming out from India will come from members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This statement, of course, will not bode well with the emerging market for new speculative fiction writers from India, but what can our lovely writers do when they are faced with such stiff opposition from the BJP?

Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of our country, had already made excellent pitches that the publishing industry (already rattled because of injunctions coming their way , courtesy Baba Ramdev), has ignored. He had suggested that we already had pushpak vimans in India. How dare we read about the Wright brothers in school textbooks? This was, of course, followed by his next book of haikus, tentatively titled “Climate change/ my dear/ is in your head” (Please ignore the syllable count).

Taking cue from his life source, aka our Prime Minister, Vasudev Devani, the Rajasthan Education Minister has said  that Newton did not discover gravitation, Brahmagupta did, 1000 years ago. I have two problems with this. Why do the BJP and the RSS only focus on round numbers? Brahmagupta II might well have discovered gravitation 1001 years ago. For my second reservation, consider this statement of his:

Abhi mai teen chaar din pehle padh raha tha, ki Newton ka… gurtwakarshan ka niyam kisne kiya? To bataya ki Newton ne kiya, maine bhi padha, aapne bhi padha. Gehrai me jayenge, to Brahmagupta Dwitiya ne usse ek hazar saal pehle is gurutwakarshan ka niyam diya tha (A few days ago, I was reading about Newton…who came up with the law of gravitation? Newton did, this is what I read, you read. If you delve deeper, Bramhagupta the second had given us this rule a thousand years before Newton).

Now, if you are the education minister who is 70 years of age, I would expect you to have read about Newton a little earlier in life, not two to three days before a programme celebrating 72 years of the foundation of Rajasthan University. This is not the first time, though, that the Rajasthan Minister has been inspired by the Prime Minister. Earlier, he had declared cow exhale oxygen. Quick question for you sir: when we fart, what gas is it that makes the smell pungent?

Needless to say, what is worrying is the fact that such statements are not made in private, and his wisdom is not confined to the members of his family. Students of a state university have to keep up with such nonsense. No wonder you are led to a sign that says “Page not Found ” when you want visit the university’s website and wish to take an “Overview” of the university.

What would the view look like if, in a room full of students and teachers, such comments are made? Bleak, my friend, very bleak.

On a more serious note (please note that all the above points were also made very, very seriously), this makes a mockery of the struggle our unversities went through to give quality, affordable education to its citizens. If we dig up the history of colonial education, and the subsequent transition into post colonial educational institues, we will realise the immense investment in education in Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision of a modern India.

Our constitution says that developing a “scientific temper” is one of our fundamental duties. Not only that, this Brainpickings  article gives an introductory look into the relationship between Rabindranath Tagore and Albert Einstein. The relationship between India’s tryst with modernity in general, and Einstein in particular, went far deeper. Two young professors at the University of Calcutta, Satyendra Nath Bose and Meghnad Saha, translated Einstein’s book on relativity from the original German, into English for the first time, anywhere in the world. Published by Calcutta University in 1920, it was titled The Principle of Relativity. Original Papers by A. Einstein and H. Minkowski, translated into English by M.N. Saha and S.N. Bose with a historical introduction by P.C. Mahalanobis.

Image courtesy snbose.org

As Bose’s grandson writes  in his blog:
It is generally accepted, although not commonly known, that this publication was the first English translation from the original German of these famous papers — anywhere in the world. When I first learned this fact it struck me as remarkable that two young Lecturers of Physics and Applied Mathematics — Saha was 26 years old and Bose 25 — both entirely self-taught in physics, located in the far outskirts of the British Empire, a colonised people living under colonial rule, with very little access to the latest scientific publications coming out of Europe, were cognisant enough of the happenings in the world of science to embark on such a task in 1919-20.

Meanwhile, it is 2018 – almost a hundred years since Bose and Saha’s stupendous achievement, and more than 70 years since we gained independence from our colonial rulers.

If some good soul in heaven tells Newton of this history, he will probably throw an apple, either at Brahmagupta II, or at Vasudev Devani.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in
 

The post Dear Rajasthan Education Minister, Did Newton Drink Gaumutra as Well? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image courtesy The Wire

Today, on the 25th anniversary of the planned demolition of Babri Masjid, if we see the way the Padmavati controversy has raged over the last month, we will realise how little we have progressed from the events which took place on this day, 25 years ago. Even today, historians are the last people to be consulted on matters of history. Even though historians such as Irfan Habib write articles confirming the lack of historical evidence that confirms the existence of Padmavati, television debates have hardly paid any heed to historians. Compare this to the number of times the Karni Sena was allowed to air their hurt sentiments on the issue.

It is the same sentiment of historical hurt that drives popular support for the Hindu right. Yogi Adityanath, the current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, has again given the clarion call for the “Ram mandir” which must be built on the same site. The now redundant L K Advani (probably due to affinity with the supposed poet and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee) had said with poetic flourish: “We will remake from the same stones which now lie crumbled at the site”. The Ayodhya dispute, however, is still an incomplete project for the Hindu rightwing. If there is one temple for which the aspiration of rebuilding has been satisfied, is the Somanatha temple in Gujarat. Looking back at Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s speech at the Somnath temple on 31 October, 2001, let us try to understand what the vision of the Hindu right, on the matter of rebuilding temples, is:

Today is a day of great joy. Today, it is exactly fifty years since the idol of Lord Somanatha was sanctified here at the temple… Somnath is the symbol if our sanatan sanskriti (timeless culture), our shaswat dharma (eternal religion, way of life), the symbol of the successive shifts and changes in our history. History had also witnessed that moment when conquering invaders razed Somnath to the ground.

Somnath Temple

Two opinions on time emerge here: one, that Somnath, and by extension the envisioned Ram temple, is a part of sanatan sanskriti, a timeless culture that cannot be measured by history. (By implication, if the Ram temple is indeed rebuilt – though that seems unlikely, as the matter is sub judice — the Hindu right will find other spots for political mobilisation, as the matter of reclaiming our timeless culture cannot be bound by one moment in the present time). The other opinion, however, is that “history” has been a witness to “conquering invaders”. Suddenly, the timeless historical time is fixed to a specific moment in time. We know exactly when our timeless culture had to bear the brunt of time that could be measured. This begins in medieval India with the favourite adversary of the Hindu Right: the Muslim invaders. Vajpayee, interestingly, takes the refuge of “history” as facts or objective truth the moment he introduces the origin of hurt: it is a fact that we are hurt now, just as it is a fact that our temples were destroyed by outsiders. The former may be true, but the latter is clearly Vajpayee’s clever subterfuge to pass belief as history, as fact.

Scratch the surface and it will soon be revealed that the “history” Vajpayee talks about is the history written by the British. These include books such as the influential History of India as Told by Its Own Historians, first published in 1849 and edited by Henry Miers Elliot with John Dowson. The book contains translations of medieval Persian chronicles. In his reading, Elliot is hardly objective. Notice the similarity in tone between Elliot and Vajpayee:

The few glimpses that we have, even among the short extracts in this single volume, of Hindus slain for disputing with Muhammedans, of general prohibitions against processions, worship, and ablutions, of other intolerant measures, of idols mutilated, of temples razed, of forcible conversions and marriages, of proscriptions and confiscations, of murders and massacres, and of the sensuality and drunkenness of the tyrants who enjoined them, show us that this picture is not overcharged.

Image courtesy Archive.org

It will hardly be surprising to know that Elliot should be such a darling for the Hindu Right. As Romila Thapar says in her speech, delivered at the launch of the website Indian Cultural Forum, it is ironic if one sees how much our self declared nationalist parties owe their views on history to the Britsh.
The British imperialists were clear that the Indian subcontinent would see them as outsiders. But, they wanted to say to their Hindu subjects, the Muslims too were outsiders who ruled your land. Listen to us. Better to have us as outsiders who rule over you than Muslims. Elliot and Dowson go on to write that, with the advent of British rule, “a more stirring and eventful era of India’s History commences…when the full light of European truth and discernment begins to shed its beams upon the obscurity of the past”.

This is not to say that there were no temple desecrations in medieval India, or that there was some kind of eternal Ganga jamuna tehzeeb in Northern India. Instead, one must ask, if temples were indeed desecrated or destroyed, why, and by whom; for what purpose. This is exactly what Richard M Eaton’s essay, “Temple Desecration and Indp-Muslim States” does. Romila Thapar’s book on the Somnath temple is another project written with the same intent.

Eaton says that it was S K Banerji, who suggested the presence of a Ram temple at the site where Babri Masjid stood. There is, however, no historical evidence that proves the presence of a temple, let alone the claim that Mir Baqi, Babur’s officer, destroyed a non-existent temple and built a mosque in its place. Eaton says, “The erstwhile mosque’s inscription records only that Babur had ordered the construction of the mosque, which was built by Mir Baqi and was described as ‘the place of descent of celestial beings’ (mahbit-i-qudsiyan)”. This “commonplace rhetorical flourish in Persian” can hardly be a reference to Lord Ram, as Banerji, in his 1936 essay, “Babur and the Hindus”, (and published in Journal of the United Provinces Historical Society) concluded.

It is strange that the walls on which this inscription was written – the only supposed evidence for the Hindu Right’s claim – have been razed down. It will be nice if Mr Advani, now out of bounds of his own party’s power centre, realises his mistakes and rebuilds the mosque from the rubble they have created.

Featured image courtesy The Wire

Souradeep Roy is part of the editorial collective of the Indian Writers’ Forum

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

The post What Our Self-Declared Nationalists (Read the Hindu Right) Owe to British Historians for their Claims on Babri Masjid or Ram Temple appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Bandyopadhyay was a much loved and much revered figure as an actor. He had admirers across political lines: both Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal as well as Surya Mishra of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), grieved his death. Bandyopadhyay, however, was a Left-leaning intellectual.
 

Saddened at the passing away of veteran actor DwijenBandyopadhyay. Condolences to his colleagues and family
— MamataBanerjee (@MamataOfficial) September 27, 2017

Thespian DwijenBandyopadhyay will be remembered by generations. My sincerest condolence.pic.twitter.com/dNroXtY6Z1
— SurjyaKantaMishra (@mishra_surjya) September 27, 2017

Bengali buddhijibis (intellectuals) have always had a close relationship with power. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the former Chief Minister had also written a play when he was the Minister for Culture, and Bratya Basu, a playwright and director, is currently a Minister for Tourism for the Trinamool Congress government led by Mamata Banerjee. When a large number of intellectuals came together to speak against the violence committed by the then-Left Front government in Nandigram in 2009, Bandyopadhyay chose not to go public against the ruling Left Front. With his demise, the cultural Left in Bengal sees another loyal member passing away. I write this because his affinity with the socialist imagination had a symbiotic relationship with his vision for theatre.

Sketch by Debashish Deb/ Image sourced from Facebook

Bandyopadhyay rose to prominence in the 1980s, for his acting in the play Amitakkhor, which was performed by the theatre group Sudhrak. He worked alongside the finest actors that Bengali theatre has seen, from Shambhu Mitra in the initial days, to Soumitra Chattopadhyay in the years leading to his demise. When he left Sudhrak, however, he did not do any theatre for some time. Then, he formed Samstab. He directed plays for this group until his last day. There is a wide consensus that he is the best actor in the generation that rose to prominence after Ajitesh Bandopadhyay, Bibhash Chakraborty, and Arun Mukherjee. In 2014, I met him after he performed at the Bharat Rang Mahotsav. For a brief while, we spoke about his contemporary, Ramaprasad Banik, who passed away in 2010. Banik, also an actor and director, was widely considered the best director of this generation of thespians in Bengali theatre. With Bandyopadhyay’s passing, it can be said that the same generation has also lost their most accomplished actor.

The two, however, differed in their approach to theatre. “Our vision of the theatre was different”, he said to me during an interview in 2015. “While I tried to break every convention that the theatre had, Rama stood by them, and showed all of us how relevant convention is.” In Bengali theatre, there has been a lack of imagination beyond plays that take place in drawing rooms. Bandyopadhyay, however, often showed that drawing rooms have the possibility of being something else. It is not a coincidence that Bandyopadhyay worked closely with Mohit Chattopadhyay, who experimented with plays right from his first play, Kanthanalite Surjo (A Sun Stuck in My Larynx). Rooms often transformed into other symbolic forms in the plays Bandyopadhyay directed. This picture from Bhutnath below shows an office, but the design of the set is not realistic at all. Images of the files are much larger than they usually are.

Image from a scene in Bhutnath/ Image courtesy Youtube

Bhutnath is a character who types in the air, and cannot stop. He is one who has reconciled his human life to mechanical life. The set, therefore, could also stand for the Bhutnath’s mind. On the other hand, Banik, also a playwright, hardly moved away from naturalism. That Banik and Bandyopadhyay, who have two different approaches to theatre, worked alongside each other, shows the range Bengali theatre had since the 1980s.

In an article titled “Obinoyer Ami” (In Acting, I Dwell), Bandyopadhyay says, “An actor does not merely tell the story of a character; he/ she reminds the audience of his/ her context. I have never forgotten this mantra. I have tried to avoid gimmicks, and yet, at the same time, build a character, make him/ her a person whom the audience can easily love”. Indeed, in a theatre that is largely known for a boisterous form of acting, Bandyopadhyay always seemed to act less, often not act at all. Subhankar Ray, in his tribute to the actor, records his impression of Bandyopadhyay’s acting in the play Spordhabarno:

After the curtain raises, and the play Spordhabarno begins, a man enters the stage. In his hands, equipments for gardening. His walk shows that he has tired feet, but, from his look, we understand that he is irritated with something. It’s because he is waiting for someone. He keeps all the material for gardening in their right place on the stage, very carefully. In between, he keeps glancing at the front door impatiently. After some time, he is walking towards the writing table as if he has lost all hope; his eyes can’t take any more pressure. He pulls out a pen and a paper; begins writing. Even then, he doesn’t seem to be at peace. Some moments pass by in this way. We gradually see him becoming too engrossed in his writing; his entire weight is on the pen. After he has progressed with his writing, a person comes and stands in front of the door. Upon hearing this person’s voice, he looks up. He walks towards the stranger with rapid steps, welcomes him. We realise this was the man he was waiting for all along. This entire sequence takes four to six minutes of stage time. There was not one dialogue. 

Image courtesy Zeenews

The play was written by Chandan Sen and was inspired by Václav Havel’s plays. Subrata Ghosh, in his review of the play published in Desh, said that the play was important for its formal experimentation in form even though it is a political, anti-Fascist play. A commitment to politics is one of Bandyopadhyay’s core concerns, but, as I have said before, he often experimented formally at the same time.  He explains how his politics affected his plays in his interview with Kahoon:
 

There are a few vices in our society that is segregated by class. Inspite of our aspirations, our dreams to build a socialist structure in independent India, capitalists control our lives. In such a scenario, we will have to become a kind of man who lets go of those vices. We will not let them enter our consciousness. We will try and live in a different way. When a group of such people gathers together to form a kind of collective, with one common aim of doing theatre, we start our journey. You can call this group a collective, a sangha, whatever, but they must believe in a common philosophy… The situation now is such that it is difficult to find people who share a common worldview. Even I can be held guilty for this. People don’t even seem to think so much nowadays. We thought we would control our lives, our environment, but, instead, we are the ones who are being controlled. I’m given a set of rules, and I am told I have to follow them; and I’m starting to do my theatre within this structure. There is only one way to change this: control, instead of being controlled… We are living at a time when the middle class has prospered a lot. They’re becoming consumers in a culture that encourages consumerism. As a result, theatre too is becoming a place for consumption. I’m not saying that theatre is a place for sadhus and saints. But theatre has an aim; we are moving away from it.

Indeed, many of Mohit Chattopadhyay’s plays that he had directed had middle-class protagonists who try to fight their surroundings. In Mustijog, Samstab’s most successful play, for instance, Bandyopadhyay played a character that suddenly begins to punch others.  When a psychiatrist comes he says that there is another person who is repressed within the character, and that person is a fighter who has begun to show his presence. Bandyopadhyay’s character is then shown to punch goons, drunks, in the course of the play. At the end, he tells his boss in the office, “Every person comes to this world to create a miracle. Even an ordinary person like me can create a miracle.”

Both Bandyopadhyay’s vision for the theatre and the socialist imagination imagines man to be in control of his self; man who can control his own life; man who is extraordinary, beautiful; man who is a creator. To rephrase Rousseau’s famous saying, Bandyopadhyay’s theatre believed that man is born in chains, but he looks for freedom everywhere. In his death, we hope that he finds the freedom he longed for in life.

Souradeep Roy is part of the editorial collective of the Indian Writers’ Forum.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

The post The Cultural Left in Bengal Loses One of its Most Treasured Thespians appeared first on SabrangIndia.

I saw Professor G.N. Saibaba for the first time at the Delhi University South Campus Cafeteria. I was told that he taught one of our optional papers on Indian Literature, then offered in the third Semester for postgraduate students of the English Department. Although he taught at Ram Lal Anand College, he took classes for postgraduate students as a ‘cooperative’ faculty member. Cooperative faculty members are not paid for their lectures; they are only paid travel allowance. He was teaching us for free, voluntarily taking on more than his load of teaching undergraduate students. I mention these details for a reason. When the word “Maoist” or “Naxalite” gets attached to an individual, our perception of that person undergoes a subtle shift. (Think of the den of anti-national intellectuals housed in Jawaharlal Nehru University.) That Professor Saibaba, in spite of being differently-abled, chose to take more classes without pay, should tell us something about this ‘dangerous’ man, supposedly ready to spew his venom on the nation. 

The police, of course, did its best to keep classrooms sanitised. Shortly after the commencement of my third semester, G.N. Saibaba’s house was illegally raided ¹ on 12 September, 2013. The police took away his hard disks, pen drives, and personal laptop – electronic devices he had bought and ‘stolen’ at the same time. (The search warrant was for stolen property.) Why did the Maharashtra police stage such a dramatic arrest in Delhi? A report of the arrest, published in the national daily, The Times of India, can provide a clue. It concluded with the claim made by the police that has, so far, not been proved: “Police claimed that besides (Hem) Mishra, three other arrested Maoist leaders, including Kobad Gandhy, Bacha Prasad Singh and Prashant Rahi have also named Saibaba as their contact in the national capital.” While the prosecution referred to Hem Mishra, who is a student, there were no references to the others. Naming more prominent leaders like Ghandy made the public image of Saibaba more sinister. The police wore plain clothes for the same purpose: to give the impression that this was a sensational arrest of an absconding mastermind based in Delhi. The truth is that Saibaba had been cooperating with the police and was regularly in touch with them. ² 

Let’s leave the rigmarole of the case behind and go back to the classroom. Why is it important to have teachers like Saibaba? One of his students, Martand Kaushik, writes, “Saibaba viewed literature through a highly political lens. He had completed his PhD thesis on Indian writing in English. The thesis was picked up by a major publisher at the time. Still unpublished, his paper is a damning indictment of most Indian English writers. Highlighting the elite social background of the authors, Saibaba scrutinises the bias in their writings from the perspective of the Indian poor, especially adivasis and lower castes.” I may not agree with Saibaba’s conclusions, but preventing him from teaching in the classroom denies the possibility of these discussions and debate. What is important is that he brought a perspective inside the classroom that challenged what English departments had held dear for many years. In an interview with Hindustan Times, Saibaba compared his situation to the fictional world of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Many others have called it Kafkaesque. The similarities are not too hard to find. Joseph K., in Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial, discovered that he is arrested for a crime that was never revealed to him. Even though he was under arrest, he was not kept in confinement. As a result, he found himself jailed psychologically even as he moved around freely. In Saibaba’s situation too, the trail was as much a test on his psychological health, as it was a test of his physical endurance.

Saibaba’s failing health condition had been a concern already as the trial went underway. The concern was shared not just by the Defence Committee or his family members and well-wishers, but also by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which sent notices to the Secretary of the Prison Administration of the Government of Maharashtra, and to the Superintendent of the Central Jail in Nagpur. The judgement, however, does not share the concerns of the NHRC:

Hence, merely because the accused no.6 Saibaba is 90% disabled is no ground to show him leniency and though he is physically handicapped but he is mentally fit and he is a think tank and high profile leader of banned organization CPI (Maoist) and its frontal organization RDF and by the violent activities of accused nos.1 to 6 and members of banned organization CPI (Maoist) and its frontal organization RDF, the situation of Gadchiroli district from 1982 till today is in paralyzed condition and no industrial and other developments are taking place because of fear of naxal and their violent activities. Hence, in my opinion, the imprisonment for life is also not a sufficient punishment to the accused but the hands of the Court are closed with the mandate of Section 18 and 20 of UAPA and in my opinion it is a fit case to award sentence of imprisonment of life to accused no.1 Mahesh Tirki, no.2 Pandu Narote, no.3 Hem Mishra, no.4 Prashant Rahi and no.6 Saibaba for offence… (emphasis mine)
The judgement came as a huge blow, and the distress was evident in the faces of those who came for the Press Conference organised by the Defence Committee on 20 April, 2017. The critique of the judgement brought out by the Defence Committee — When the Prosecution’s Case Becomes the Judge’s Onus — has cited loopholes in the evidence that links Saibaba to the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), and the organisation’s link with the Communist Party of India (Maoist), but even if we accept the association, he is still charged for vague, and not specific, crimes committed by “naxals”. Markanday Katju, former judge of the Supreme Court, has said: “The case against Saibaba is that he had links with Maoist extremists. However, in Sri Indra Das vs. State of Assam, 2011. the Supreme Court observed that mere membership of a banned organisation (i.e. banned under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act or TADA or any other statute) will not incriminate a person.” If we keep this in mind, the biases operating in the judgement are clear. 

Saibaba and the others are held guilty for preventing the industrial development of Gadchiroli district from 1982. In the press conference held by the Defence Committee, Vasantha Kumari, Saibaba’s wife, had said, “This is a democratic, secular country. We will have different opinions on different matters. If you impose one idea over other ideas, we will not accept it… This jal, jangal, jameen is ours. It is our right.” According to the judgement, Saibaba is held guilty for holding opinions on development that the state of Maharashtra does not agree with. He is, to quote the more management term of the judgement, a “think tank”. These tanks are full, and there are too many of them, sprouting out of dense jangals, preventing the spread of the industrialised, developmental tanks of the state. The resoluteness of every person present in the press conference is proof that these tanks will brim with taste of jal, the canopy of the jangal, and smell of jameen.

Souradeep Roy is part of the editorial collective of the Indian Writers' Forum.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

1. According to a press report released by the People’s Committee of Civil Liberties (PUCL), none of the mandatory regulations for the arrest of G.N. Saibaba was followed. Read the press release here.  
2. Following the raid on his house 12 September, 2013, Saibaba was asked for the passwords to his hard disks by Subhash Bawache, the Investigating Officer. Saibaba was taking a class when the call was made and sent an email to the IO with the passwords when he returned home. This happens on 1 October 2013, five months prior to his arrest on 9 May 2014.  
 

The post G.N. Saibaba – The Teacher I Could Not Have appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Fact 1. The Seminar “Cultures of Dissent” at Ramjas College was organised by the Literary Society of Ramjas College and the Department of English.

Fiction: This was an Umar Khalid event.

The seminar included several speakers on several issues. Umar Khalid was one of them. It is the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) that can’t see beyond the name Umar Khalid. When the media calls it an “Umar Khalid event”, it sees the event in the same way as the ABVP does. Neither does it interrogate the need for holding such an event, nor does it raise questions about freedom of speech in the university.

What can be an alternate headline? An example from The Wire:

“ABVP Disrupts, Vandalises Literary Event at Ramjas College”

Fact 2. The protest against the cancellation of the talk at Ramjas College was called under the banner of “Save DU”. It was a joint, non-partisan march by students and teachers who wanted to march from Ramjas College to Maurice Nagar Police Station.

Fiction: The protest against the cancellation of the talk at Ramjas College was called by All India Students' Association (AISA).

Neither was the march called by the CPI (ML) affiliated students’ organisation All India Students’ Association (AISA), nor was it led by them. It is true that members from AISA were present, and articles can and must speculate the role the group may play in the upcoming DUSU elections. But several protestors came from colleges which are not affiliates of DUSU. Besides this, students and members of other political groups in the campus, such as Pinjra Tod, too, were present. In fact, ABVP beat up the Students' Federation of India (SFI) Delhi state President so badly that he has fractured his right hand and broken a tooth. To make the protest an AISA versus ABVP one, delegitimizes the moot cause: the question of freedom of speech in a university campus. It is not that the speakers who were invited at the Ramjas seminar agree with each other. They were there to debate, discuss, disagree with their panelists, or with the audience.

Fact 3. The Delhi police was biased in its approach. ABVP was more violent.

Fiction: Both sides suffered casualties.

Please, let us put a stop to this nonsense. Stones, bricks, glass bottles and eggs were thrown from the ABVP side. The Delhi police did form a human barricade. But what happens to stone pelters in India? Surely, all stone pelters are equally punishable under the eyes of the law, but some stone pelters are more equal than others. I am not suggesting that the Delhi police should have used pellet guns, but one set of people receive pellet injuries, another is let scot free. Equality, everyone?

Fact 4. In a video, we (Indian Writers’ Forum) claimed that the reporter was beaten by the ABVP. Several asked, prove they are from the ABVP. I provide three visual evidences.

A photograph in The Hindu where I am shown filming a scuffle:
 

A news report in NDTV. The incident is filmed from 00:25 – 00:30. Click here to watch.

A news report from India Today where the same incident is filmed: Click here to watch. 

Footage that has been recovered from our broken camera. Click here to watch.

I filmed the entire time from the side of the students and teachers. No one touched me. In fact, when I tried to go to the other side and film some bits from the other angle, individual police officers requested me to stay put, saying that it was likely I might get thrashed again.

As I had explained before, facts can be examined. And I lay bare the facts of the case. The following narrative emerges from these facts:

It is time to call a spade a spade. The ABVP side was violent. The protestors showed as much restraint as possible. Journalists, professors, students have been beaten up. We can all come to a consensus that this is not how a university functions.

This article was first published on Indian Cultural Forum

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