Assam: NSI Solidarity Statement to Anti-Communalism Convention by Artists and Intellectuals

Below is the text of NSI solidarity statement (in Assamese and English) that was read out in the Assam state level convention of artists and intellectuals against communalism and increasing 'culture' of intolerance in India in general and Assam in particular, held on 22nd November at Laxmiram Barua Sadan, Guwahati, Assam. 

We would like to express our gratitude to Comrade Biswajit Bora for translating this short statement.

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Photo courtesy: Comrade Zamser Ali

প্ৰথমতেই আমি এই মানবীয় মূল্যবোধৰ হকে, সাম্প্ৰদায়িকতাৰ বিৰুদ্ধে ৰাজ্যিক অভিবৰ্তনখনৰ আয়োজক আৰু অংশগ্ৰহণকাৰীসকলৰ প্ৰতি আমাৰ সংহতি প্ৰকাশ কৰিছো।

ভাৰত অতি খৰতকীয়াকৈ অসহিষ্ণুতাৰ এখন উত্তপ্ত কেৰাহীলৈ পৰিণত হোৱাৰ পথত আগবাঢ়িছে য’ত ঘৃণা আৰু বহিষ্কৰণৰ জুয়ে দেখাত বিক্ষিপ্ত কিন্তু প্ৰকৃতাৰ্থত নিৰ্বাচিত কিছুসংখ্যকৰ বিৰুদ্ধে এক পৰিকল্পিত হিংসাৰ জন্ম দিছে। আমি যিকোনো গণতন্ত্ৰৰে নাগৰিকৰ মৌলিক অধিকাৰৰ ওপৰত হোৱা একাগ্ৰ আক্ৰমণৰ সন্মূখীন হৈছো – তেওঁলোকৰ নিজস্ব ধৰণেৰে থকাৰ বা যি বিচাৰে তাকে হোৱাৰ অধিকাৰৰ ওপৰত। এয়া হৈছে ধৰ্ম বা বৰ্ণ বা লিংগ বা শ্ৰেণী বা জাতিৰ ভিত্তিত দেশৰ সকলো প্ৰান্তীয়কৃত লোকৰ ওপৰত এক আক্ৰমণ। এই আক্ৰমণ হৈছে দেশৰ সংখ্যাগুৰুবাদী এক প্ৰকল্পৰ আওঁতাত নপৰা যিকোনো সামাজিক গোষ্ঠীৰ ওপৰত। এই আক্ৰমণ হৈছে দেশৰ জনগণৰ নাগৰিকৰ আলোচনা, সমালোচনা, তৰ্ক-বিতৰ্ক কৰা তথা বিৰোধিতা আৰু বিক্ষোভ প্ৰদৰ্শন কৰাৰ অধিকাৰৰ ওপৰত। ধৰ্মীয় উন্মাদনাৰ বিৰুদ্ধে মাত মতা তিনিজন বিশিষ্ট নাগৰিক, ডঃ দাভোলকাৰ, কমৰেড পানছাৰে আৰু প্ৰফেছাৰ কালবুৰ্গিক দিন দুপৰতে হত্যা কৰা হ’ল। অস্ত্ৰধাৰী ধৰ্মান্ধৰ দলে উদ্ধতালি মাৰি নিজকে সমাজৰ নৈতিক প্ৰতিৰক্ষী সজাই বলপূৰ্বকভাবে নিষেধাজ্ঞাৰ সংস্কৃতি প্ৰতিষ্ঠা কৰিছে; ভাৰতীয়ই কি খাব, কি পিন্ধিব, কি পঢ়িব বা কি চাব নিৰ্ধাৰণ কৰিছে। সবাতোকৈ বিপদজনক কথাতো হৈছে যে এই দলবোৰ কেৱল সমাজত সক্ৰিয় হৈ থকাই নহয়, কেন্দ্ৰ আৰু বহুতো ৰাজ্য চৰকাৰৰ ক্ষমতাৰ আঁৰত সুৰক্ষিত হৈ আছে। কেন্দ্ৰ আৰু বহুতো ৰাজ্যৰ হিন্দুত্ব চৰকাৰ আক্ৰমণাত্মকঅসহিষ্ণুতাৰ এই সংস্কৃতিৰ প্ৰসাৰত চকু মুদা কুলি হৈ থকাই নহয়, লগতে ইয়াত উদগণিহে জনাইছে। হিন্দুত্ব চৰকাৰে প্ৰণালীগতভাবে শিক্ষাব্যৱস্থা, আমোলাতন্ত্ৰ, পুলিচ, আৰু ন্যায়ব্যৱস্থাকে ধৰি ৰাষ্ট্ৰৰ প্ৰতিষ্ঠানসমূহত সাম্প্ৰদায়িকতাৰ বিষবাষ্প ঘনীভূত কৰি তুলিছে।

অৱশ্যে এইটোও উল্লেখনীয় যে স্বাধীনতা আৰু যুক্তিৰ ওপৰত হোৱা এই আক্ৰমণ হৈছে আমাৰ সমাজৰ এক গভীৰ অসুস্থতাৰ লক্ষণ। ৰাষ্ট্ৰীয় সুৰক্ষা বা ধৰ্মীয় আৰু বৰ্ণবাদী অনুভূতি তুষ্ট কৰাৰ নামত অন্যমত পোষণ কৰা বা মতপ্ৰকাশৰ স্বাধীনতা খৰ্ব কৰাতো দেশৰ প্ৰায়বোৰ ৰাজনৈতিক দল আৰু চৰকাৰৰ দীৰ্ঘদিনীয়া পৰম্পৰাত পৰিণত হৈছে। আমি লগতে সমাজত দ’লৈকে শিপাই থকা জনপ্ৰিয় ভাবাদৰ্শ যিবোৰে অন্ধবিশ্বাস, পুৰুষতন্ত্ৰ, বৰ্ণবাদী বিশেষাধিকাৰ আৰু হিংসাৰ প্ৰকাশ্য প্ৰয়োগক মহিমান্বিত কৰি তোলে সেইবোৰৰ ওপৰতো মনোনিৱেশ কৰাতো প্ৰয়োজনীয়। নিজৰ প্ৰতিষ্ঠানসমূহক প্ৰশ্ন কৰিবলৈ সাজু নোহোৱা এখন সমাজত গণতন্ত্ৰ কদাপি সফল হ’ব নোৱাৰে। অযুক্তিকৰ পৰম্পৰাত বন্দী এখন সমাজত স্বাধীনতাৰ নিজৰা ব’ব নোৱাৰে।

তথাকথিত মূলসূঁতিৰ ভাৰত ৰাষ্ট্ৰৰ প্ৰান্তত হৈছে অসম মুলুক। ভাৰতৰ আন কোনো ৰাজ্য বা অঞ্চলতে ইমান ধৰ্মীয়, সাংস্কৃতিক তথা জাতিগত বৈচিত্ৰ নাই। অসমতো দাংগা, নৈতিক ব্যাখ্যাকৃত হিংসা আৰু ধৰ্মীয় আৰু জাতিগত সংখ্যালঘুৰ উপৰত হোৱা আক্ৰমণৰ ইতিহাস আছে। হিন্দুত্ব ৰাজনীতিয়ে ইয়াৰ বিশেষ সাম্প্ৰদায়িক বিষবাষ্প ইতিমধ্যেই সমস্যাৰে জৰ্জৰিত অসমৰ সমাজ-ব্যৱস্থাত বিয়পাব খুজিছে। ইয়াৰ পৰিণাম হ’ব ভয়ংকৰ, যদিহে অসমৰ গণতান্ত্ৰিক আৰু প্ৰগতিশীল কণ্ঠ এই আক্ৰমণৰ বিৰুদ্ধে একত্ৰ আৰু প্ৰবল প্ৰতিৰোধ কৰিবলৈ আগবাঢ়ি নাহে।

এই অভিবৰ্তনখন হৈছে এক আৱশ্যকীয় হস্তক্ষেপ, আৰু এনে এক সন্ধিক্ষণত য’ত ভাৰতবৰ্ষৰ কেৱল ধৰ্মনিৰপেক্ষ অংগসমূহৰেই নহয়, এখন ধৰ্মনিৰপেক্ষ ভাৰতবৰ্ষৰ সামগ্ৰিক ধাৰণাটোৰেই অস্তিত্ব হেৰুওৱাৰ পথত। আমি পুনৰবাৰ এই অভিবৰ্তনখনৰ আয়োজক আৰু অংশগ্ৰহণকাৰীসকলৰ প্ৰতি আমাৰ গভীৰ সংহতি প্ৰকাশ কৰিছো।

এয়া এনে এক সময় যেতিয়া আমি একগোট হৈ থিয় দি ৰবীন্দ্ৰনাথৰ এই শক্তিশালী পংক্তি আঁওৰোৱা উচিত:

“চিত্ত য’ত ভয়হীন, উচ্চ য’ত শিৰ

জ্ঞান য’ত মুক্ত, য’ত ঘৰৰ দেৱালে

নিজৰ প্ৰাংগণত নকৰে ধৰিত্ৰী খণ্ড-বিখণ্ড . . .

দেশৰ সেই স্বৰ্গ, পিতা, কৰো জাগৰিত।”

সংহতিৰে,

ৰাষ্ট্ৰীয় কাৰ্যবাহী সমিতি, নিউ ছ’ছিয়েলিষ্ট ইনিচিয়েটিভ (এন. এছ. আই.)ৰ হৈ,

সুভাষ গাতাড়ে, আম্ৰপালী বসুমতাৰী, নবীন চন্দেৰ আৰু বনজিত হুছেইন

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At the very outset we would like to extend our solidarity to the organizers and participants of this convention “For Humane Values, and Against Communalism”. 

India is fast turning into a pit field of intolerance where an ethos of hatred, and exclusion is giving rise to seemingly sporadic, but actually very methodical violence against selected targets. We are facing a concentrated attack on the first right of citizens in any democracy; their right to be simply what they are, or what they want to be. This is an assault on all marginalised groups in the country, whether based on religion, caste, gender, class or ethnicity. Any social group whose very existence does not fit into a majoritarian schema for India is under attack. Also under attack is the right of citizens to discuss, debate, criticize, dissent and protest. Three prominent voices against religious obscurantism, Dr. Dabholkar, Comrade Pansare and Prof. Kalburgi have been murdered in broad day light. Hordes of armed zealots, arrogating to themselves the right to be the moral police of society, are forcing a culture of bans; deciding what Indians can eat, wear, read or see. What is extremely worrying is that these groups are no longer active only in society, but are also now safely ensconced in state power at center and in many states. Hindutva governments in Center and states are not only complicit in the culture of aggressive intolerance, but are also encouraging it. These governments are systematically communalising institutions of state; institutions of learning and education, bureaucracy, police, and judiciary. 

However, it also needs to be emphasised that the Hindutva assault on freedom and reason itself is a symptom of deeper malaise in our society. Attack on dissent or freedom of expression in the name of national security, or for appeasement of religious and casteist sentiments, has been a longstanding tradition of most political parties and governments in the country. We also need to address the deeply rooted popular ideologies which valorise superstitions, patriarchy, caste privileges and public use of violence. Democracy can not thrive in a society which is not ready to question its institutions. Streams of freedom can not flow in a society which is shackled to irrational traditions. 

Assam lies at the margins of the so called mainstream India. No other state and region in India has as much religious, cultural and ethnic diversity. Assam has its own history of riots, moralizing violence and attacks on religious and ethnic minorities. Hinduvta politics is trying to spread its specifically communal poison in the already strained social fabric of Assam. Its consequences will be devastating; unless democratic and progressive voices of Assam offer a united and powerful resistance to this onslaught. 

This Convention comes as a necessary intervention, and at a time when not only the secular elements of the Indian state, but the very existence of the idea of secular India is under serious threat. Once again we extend our deep solidarity with the organizers and the participants of this Convention. 

This is a time when we should together in solidarity remind ourselves the powerful words of Tagore: 

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high 

Where knowledge is free 

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments … 

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake”. 

In solidarity, 

Subhash Gatade , Amrapali Basumatary, Naveen Chander and Bonojit Hussain 

On behalf of the NSI Executive Committee, 

New Socialist Initiative (NSI)

Photo courtesy: Comrade Zamser Ali

Davids Versus Goliath – How Yogi Adityanath had to ‘Go Back’ to …..(err not Pakistan but) Gorakhpur

- Subhash Gatade

The Pandal was ready.

The Sainiks with their saffron bandanas – who were scattered here and there – were eagerly waiting to listen to another fiery call from their Senapati.

Time was already running out but the ‘Star Speaker’ was nowhere to be seen.

Little did they knew that their Senapati had already made an about turn and was headed back home as the district administration had ‘advised’ him against entering the district and was told that he would face ‘legal action if he dares to do so.’

For Yogi Adityanath, the firebrand MP of BJP, who is widely known for his controversial statements as well as acts and who every other day asks dissenters to ‘go to Pakistan’ , it was his comeuppance moment when he was rather forced to ‘go back’ to Gorakhpur. And all his plans to be the star speaker at the inaugural function of Students Union of Allahabad University – once called ‘Oxford of the East’ – lay shattered.

The Saffron Parivar had made elaborate preparations for Yogi’s welcome to the city taking advantage of the fact that its student wing – namely Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad – had bagged four seats in the elections held for the Student Union. Excepting the President, rest of the posts had gone to their candidates and they felt that for them it was a golden opportunity to generate conversation around their politics which would further polarise the people in this part of Eastern Uttar Pradesh. Perhaps then they could raise their off repeated slogan at a higher pitch ‘Purvanchal Me Rehna Hoga, To Yogi-Yogi Kehna Hoga’ ( If you want to live in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, You will have to say Yogi-Yogi)

The only ‘hindrance’ to their well thought out plan was the President of the Union – a student leader named Richa Singh, the first female President in the 128 year old history of the University – who had won on an independent platform duly supported by various left and democratic forces. The university rules mandated that without the consent of the President no such inauguration of the students union can take place and she resisted their proposal to invite Yogi.

In an interview to Indian Express she made her stand clear :

“Yogi Adiyanath is a controversial leader who speaks on communal lines against Muslims. Here we have Muslim students too in the university. If any riot-like situation occurred after his speech on the campus, who will be responsible? ABVP members invited Adityanath without consulting me and that is against the AUSU (Allahabad University Students Union) constitution,” She said any educationist or Union minister was supposed to be invited to the event as “Adityanath has no contribution in the field of education”.

Why its Difficult to See Eye to Eye

- Vikramaditya Sahai

[Editors' Note: This article was published in CRITIQUE Magazine (Vol: 3, No: 2, March-August 2015) brought out by the Delhi University chapter of New Socialist Initiative.]

Photo: Author's facebook page

“Does the university, today, have a raison d'etre?,” asked Derrida in 1983 at Cornell University. Derrida asks of the view of the university and from the university from Cornell, at once located in the romantic sublime on a hill, fenced from a gorge that may provoke suicides. The fence gives the university, he argues, a diaphragm so central to human sight, rather to lower or close our eyes when trying to learn. In the lecture, Derrida asks to be beware of both the gorge and the abyss. If the university was to be a supplementary body to society, to both emancipate and control; the university should, or perhaps could, turn the time of reflection back on the very conditions of reflection to view viewing itself or give time for thought.

The precarity of the university is not only 'topolitical,' as Derrida shows us, it is also with regard to its student body. The student in the university is imagined as in a liminal state between the child and the legal rational adult. This liminality provokes a desire to control not only the student body but also the effects of the university and the affects of its public-ity. The student is to be trained into adulthood, proper – proper today to neoliberalism. The Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) or its now three year avatar seeks to produce subjects for globalising capital and data. The developmentality of the university continues the work of the anti-politics machine by seeking to check and limit the invasion of counter-politics and the proliferation of counter-publics that may challenge its reproductivity and inevitability, all in responsibility to this liminality. The neoliberal university justifies itself by producing forces that will reproduce - capital and child. The child is the innocent hope of the future. This, however, is not limited to the university alone. 

Counter-politics, too, seems to be haunted by the spectre of the child. The child shapes, as Lee Edelman puts it, the logic within which the political must be thought. The child as the utopian future of heterosexual sex collapses the gap between the real and the symbolic. Queerness, but, aims outside the logic of reproductive futurism. The queer in this framework with its association with the death drive, is future-negating and can only enter the political by shifting the burden of queerness to someone else. 

In the anti-FYUP protests, the image for whom the battle was being faught was often the student of the future who would naively come to the university and be manipulated by its programme. But if this seems too far fetched, let me give you another example. We have witnessed another horror on December 16, 2014 – the killings in Peshawar. Counterpublics condemned the killings of 'innocent children,' much like they had done of the 'innocent women and children of Gaza' earlier that year. Fair enough, but not to this future negating subject. I am not saying that one must not condone these acts in queer solidarity but only pointing to the difficulty of building solidarities. After the Supreme Court judgment striking down the decriminalisation of 'non-normative' sexualities, and because of one's association with the Gender Studies Group of Delhi University, one became some sort of icon within a certain university space. This space would like to believe itself to be liberal-progressive. Due to my gender queer visibility, a lot of folks eager to win brownie points for their liberal-progressive attitudes and often out of well meaning intentions come to me “to talk.” In such conversations either they would complement me - “Oh Vikram! What a beautiful sari!” “Oh Vikram! No one looks better in a sari than you!" - or completely ignore what I was wearing and talk to me as they would to any “normal” man or woman. It is this which manifests in the easy solidarity of identifying LGBT people, which more often than not are gay men, and extending support to them by joining in their protests, inviting them to speak in yours, asking them to write for you, and other such representation, but seldom does the queer figure as central to the thinking through of politics itself, or as critique.

Com. Kislay and Shubham Arrested by Goa Police - Glory to the Struggle of FTII Students!

Courtesy: goanews.com

Ultimately the roaring voice of the FTII students reached the IFFI (International Film Festival of India) inaugural held at Panaji, Goa.

Just when the inaugural had formally ended, chief guest had spoken and the administration was on the cusp of heaving a sigh of relief for a ‘trouble free beginning’ and was contemplating to ‘pat its own back’ for managing to save its ‘image’ the precincts of the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Stadium reverberated with slogans in favour of the historic FTII struggle.

This struggle, which had continued for around five months since 12th June, a struggle against political appointments at one of the most prestigious institutions of India which was also a wake up call at the systematic attempts underway since the ascendance of the Modi regime at centre to undermine the academic autonomy of universities and educational institutions, as everybody knows has received tremendous national-international support.

Slogans were loud enough that all the celebrities and dignitaries who had gathered there heard them:

"It was heard by Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley, his state minister Rajyawardhan Rathore, defence minister Manohar Parrikar and all the I & B ministry officials. The two students found an empty block on top, where they were seated silently till the whole inaugural ceremony ended." - Goa News

Security people who were present there in large numbers pounced on the two of them – Comrade Kislay, a young film director, an alumni of FTII, who has received critical acclaim for his very first film and Shubham, another alumni of FTII – and according to a post on FTII Wisdom Tree facebook page -

both of them have been badly beaten by the Goan police for showing the placards and shouting slogans… They are still under the police custody and being interrogated. 

As of now they have been detained in Agassaim Police Station (Phone no. 0832-2218000) and would be presented before the magistrate. It is also learnt that they are being ‘charged with serious offences’ 

It is important to note that the authorities at various levels went out of way just to ensure that the voice of FTII students does not reach the IFFI. It ‘ensured’ that this year the festival would not screen a single film by students of the prestigious FTII whereas in recent years, at least five FTII entries could make it to the screening of this annual fest. 

As opposed to its regular practice of paying for the conveyance and accommodation of its students who had enrolled for the same, the FTII administration took an ad-hoc decision and told the students to bear their own expenses. 

But despite all their attempts to intimidate the students into silence the voice did reach IFFI. It is definitely a victory of sorts – albeit of a symbolic kind. 

There is no doubt that this struggle of the FTII students would continue to receive the support which it has received from artists, intellectuals, film personalities and all those people who believe are opposed to the dumbing down of society under all pretexts. 

If possible contact the Goa police – especially its higher officials – and ensure that the two are not further harmed and released immediately without any charges. 

Glory to the struggle of FTII students!

Subhash Gatade

New Socialist Initiative

21st November, 2015

गांधी को गोली, गोडसे की गूंज रही बोली: आज़ाद भारत का पहला आतंकवादी

[A detailed article by Subhash Gatade in English on glorification of Nathuram Godse by the Hindutva Supremacist forces is available here] 

- सुभाष गाताडे

पिछले दिनों हिन्दु महासभा ने महात्मा गांधी के हत्यारे नाथुराम गोडसे को जिस दिन फांसी दी गयी थी, उस दिन को /15 नवम्बर 2015/ ‘बलिदान दिवस’ के रूप में मनाया और इस आतंकी के जीवन पर एक वेबसाइट भी शुरू की। महासभा के एक नेता ने बताया कि उन्होंने देश में सौ से अधिक स्थानों पर इसे मनाया और दिल्ली में गोडसे के जीवन पर एक किताब भी जारी की।

रेखांकित करनेवाली बात यही है कि डेढ साल पहले जबसे मोदी सरकार बनी है तबसे इस शख्स का - जिसे समूची दुनिया आज़ाद भारत का पहला आतंकवादी के तौर पर जानती है - महिमामण्डन बढ़ता ही गया है। अभी पिछले ही साल संसद के पटल पर भाजपा के सांसद साक्षी महाराज ने गोडसे को ‘देशभक्त’ के तौर पर संबोधित किया था। इतनाही नहीं संघ के मल्याली भाषा के मुखपत्रा ‘केसरी’ में लोकसभा चुनाव में चालाकुडी मतदाता संघ से चुनाव लड़े भाजपा के बी गोपालक्रष्णन ने यह लेख लिख कर खलबली मचा दी थी कि ‘गोडसे ने गलत निशाना साधा था उसे गांधी को नहीं बल्कि नेहरू को मारना चाहिए था। (http://www.firstpost.com/politics/nathuram-godse-should-have-killed-nehru-instead-of-gandhi-rss-mouthpiece-1771037.html) जैसी कि उम्मीद की जा सकती है, भाजपा - जो कुछ समय से गांधी का भी गुणगान करती रहती है - ने अपने इन दो ‘होनहारों’ के खिलाफ कोई कार्रवाई नहीं की।

ध्यान रहे कि हिन्दुत्ववादी संगठनों की तरफ से गोडसे को ‘शहीद’ साबित करने, उसके मानवद्रोही कारनामे को वैधता प्रदान करने के प्रयास लम्बे समय से चलते रहे हैं। 

याद करें पिछले साल जबकि अभी मोदी सत्तासीन नहीं हुए थे, जब 30 जनवरी को महात्मा गांधी की हत्या के 66 साल पूरे होने के अवसर पर देश भर में कार्यक्रमों का आयोजन हो रहा था, उस दिन गांधी के हत्यारे नाथुराम गोडसे की ‘आवाज़’ मंे एक आडियो वाटस अप पर मोबाइल के जरिए लोगों तक पहुंचाया गया था। इस मेसेज में उस खतरनाक आतंकी का महिमामण्डन करने की और निरपराधों को मारने की अपनी कार्रवाई को औचित्य प्रदान करने की कोशिश दिखाई दे रही थी। एक अग्रणी अख़बार के मुताबिक ऐसा मैसेज उन लोगों के मोबाइल तक पहुंच चुका था, जो एक ‘बड़ी पार्टी से ताल्लुक रखते हैं और वही लोग इसे आगे भेज रहे हैं।’ मेसेज की अन्तर्वस्तु गोडसे के स्पष्टतः महिमामण्डन की दिख रही थी, जिसमें आज़ादी के आन्दोलन के कर्णधार महात्मा गांधी की हत्या जैसे इन्सानदुश्मन कार्रवाई को औचित्य प्रदान करने की कोशिश की गयी थी। इतनाही नहीं एक तो इस हत्या के पीछे जो लम्बी चौड़ी सााजिश चली थी, उसे भी दफनाने का तथा इस हत्या को देश को बचाने के लिए उठाए गए कदम के तौर पर प्रस्तुत करने की कोशिश की गयी थी। निश्चित ही यह कोई पहला मौका नहीं है कि पुणे का रहनेवाला आतंकी नाथुराम विनायक गोडसे, जो महात्मा गांधी की हत्या के वक्त हिन्दु महासभा से सम्बद्ध था, जिसने अपने राजनीतिक जीवन की शुरूआत राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ से की थी और जो संघ के प्रथम सुप्रीमो हेडगेवार की यात्राओं के वक्त उनके साथ जाया करता था, उसके महिमामण्डन की कोशिशें सामने आयी हैं। महाराष्ट्र एवं पश्चिमी भारत के कई हिस्सों से 15 नवम्बर के दिन - जिस दिन नाथुराम को फांसी दी गयी थी- हर साल उसका ‘शहादत दिवस’ मनाने के समाचार मिलते रहते हैं। मुंबई एवं पुणे जैसे शहरों में तो नाथुराम गोडसे के ‘सम्मान’ में सार्वजनिक कार्यक्रम भी होते हैं। लोगों को यह भी याद होगा कि वर्ष 2006 के अप्रैल में महाराष्ट्र के नांदेड में बम बनाते मारे गए हिमांशु पानसे और राजीव राजकोंडवार के मामले की तफ्तीश के दौरान ही पुलिस को यह समाचार मिला था कि किस तरह हिन्दुत्ववादी संगठनों के वरिष्ठ नेता उनके सम्पर्क में थे और आतंकियों का यह समूह हर साल ‘नाथुराम हौतात्म्य दिन’ मनाता था। गोडसे का महिमामण्डन करते हुए ‘मी नाथुराम बोलतोय’ शीर्षक से एक नाटक का मंचन भी कई साल से हो रहा है।

Mexico’s 43 Missing Students: We won't Be Silenced!

- Meztli Yoalli Rodríguez Aguilera

[Editors' Note: This article was published in CRITIQUE Magazine (Vol: 3, No: 2, March-August 2015) brought out by the Delhi University chapter of New Socialist Initiative. a shorter version of the article was also published at www.latinorebels.org]

“They took them alive, we want them back alive!” 

This is the chant resonating across Mexico and even around the world these days. More than 40 days have passed since 43 students disappeared from the town of Iguala in the southern state of Guerrero, Mexico. On September 26, these students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Normal School went from Ayotzinapa (where they live and study) to the city of Iguala. They were fundraising to attend the commemoration ceremony of October 2, 1968, a day when Mexican students were killed, tortured and incarcerated by the Mexican government during the massive student mobilisations, a phenomenon seen across the world.

The Rural Normal Schools or Normales Rurales emerged as a political project of the post-revolutionary Mexican state in the 1920s as part of education reforms to modernise education and make it accessible to the countryside. They were established to train students from within rural communities to become teachers and subsequently serve their communities. One of the conditions for being admitted to the Normales Rurales was to be part of rural poor communities. These schools have since played an important role in Mexico in the struggles for social and political transformation and several important voices of dissent and rebellion have emerged from these schools. Two important figures who graduated from Ayotzinapa’s Normal School were Lucio Cabañas Barrientos and Genaro Vázquez Rojas, both important guerrilleros or revolutionaries in Mexican history. In the case of Lucio, after graduating from Ayotzinapa as a teacher, he returned to his village of Atoyac to teach in the local school. Besides the work in the school, he also organised farmworkers, causing tension with the government. In the 1970s, following persecution by the government, he went underground in the mountain region of Guerrero and founded and led an armed group called the Party of the Poor. In 1974 he died in an ambush by the army. Similarly, Genaro Vázquez was fired from his teaching position due to his political activity and later arrested by the state police. After escaping from prison he fled to mountains to form what later came to be known as the National Revolutionary Civic Association, an organisation that worked with and to unite several guerilla groups not just across the state but across the country.

Photo: Erika Lozano. Courtesy: masde131.com

This tradition of dissident voices has continued to this day, despite several attempts by the Mexican government to try and squash them. During the Lázaro Cárdenas government (1934-1940), one of the last terms where the Normales Rurales still had great support from the government, community teachers and schools contextualised learning to local conditions, for example, to the predominantly agrarian context of the countryside. In 1945, however, funding for the schools was minimized and there was a standardisation of the teaching programs ordered by the Federal Secretary of Education (SEP), so their particularities were erased. Today, of the 29 original Normales Rurales, only 17 exist. On September 26, while the students of Ayotzinapa were in Iguala, police cars opened fire on them with no provocation, killing six people. Another 43 students were put in police cars, and that was the last time they were seen. Their present whereabouts are unknown.

White-washing the Paints on the Wall : A reflection on Racism in India

- Amrapali Basumatary

[Editors' Note: This article was published in CRITIQUE Magazine (Vol: 3, No: 2, March-August 2015) brought out by the Delhi University chapter of New Socialist Initiative.]

One day a very young child who had just learnt to speak, probably only a year or little more ago saw me, as she was walking in the campus with her mother and others, and pointed her tiny finger at me and said aloud Nepali. The innocence and the intelligence of the child was amazing, but I will end this story here itself. Similarly, a friend who is dark skinned and from the Southern parts of India, once told how kids in the lanes pelted stones at her calling her names because she was dark. The place was Delhi. 

I begin by telling these personal stories from amongst the countless stories of racism, racism as lived experience, in the same lines of narrative that marginalized, exploited, and dominated sections of humanity have spoken about itself, about themselves, like the women, the slaves, the Jews, the workers and the Negroes, the natives and the tribals, although underlining the refusal of victimization even while standing subjected within the “matrix of domination”[1]. In that sense, this piece will be of repetition, of influence, and thereby of building and identifying connections between different categories of narratives that one is already so familiar with. Like women, workers and slave narratives, mine also will be mooring through lived clichés. But, I believe telling stories is a way to begin, a way to ‘start an idea’, a conversation and eventually a debate and subsequently indicate a possible construction of radical politics around it. The narratives though personal, like in instances I have charted above, to make a tall claim, will resonate with representationality of the people who ‘suffer’ similar experiences.

Taller than tales: Life in Delhi

It begins more than a decade back, new to this city and in the privileged environment of a university hostel, one day me and my Naga friend from Manipur, wanted to go somewhere in the university neighbourhood, so we were about to take a rickshaw in front of the hostel gate. Even before we could ask any one of the rickshawallahs, one of them asked if we wanted to go to Majnu ka Tila[2]. Suddenly I found my friend in an indescribable rage, shouting at the rickshawallah, only an inch short of slapping him. I asked her to cool down, but frankly speaking as I realized later, only because I was new and had not yet understood what had triggered my friend’s rage. It took me only a couple of weeks to understand that rage, and believe me it did not demand any serious philosophical, intellectual meditations. It just required the everyday stepping out of the hostel premises, sometimes even less, within the hostel. 

It was in Delhi that I first came across a black person, I mean physically close. I was ten years old then. I remember staring at him, so different he looked, his skin was shining in blackness. But I felt embarrassed to look at him, till then I had not been told about any black person anytime by any adult and I had not asked anyone, ‘negro’ was not understood as a slur. I wonder what he felt like to be stared at by a 10 year old girl, he did smile back. Ten years later when I came to stay in Delhi, I did not notice any blacks, I mean they did not invite my open-mouthed ignorant gaze. I guess I had seen enough Hollywood “guilty of slavery/racism trying to redeem itself” films by then. The literatures about slavery and racism somehow reduced the possible propensity to otherise blacks. But what I began to notice was that we in university hardly had any black friends, there were whites though. The blacks somehow were socially invisible. 

In 2010 some our friends conducted a survey on racism, talking to some African students in the university. While generally and theoretically knowing that they are discriminated on the basis of their skin, when we actually heard their stories, it brutalized me further. Their situation was worse than that of the mongoloid Indians. But this shared brutalization, apart from general political and humanitarian concerns, sprung from similar predicaments of living in ‘India’. Kevin and Boniface (names changed) told bone chilling experiences of how they face India, in Delhi. They are denied milk by shopkeepers, typists refuse to type their thesis, rickshaw-pullers and auto-drivers refuse to take them and also jeer at them, people in the streets not only stare at them but also call them names like kala bandar (black monkey); the equivalent abuse for northeasterners is safeed bandar (White monkey).

One day as one African student was walking, a Delhite woman who was taking a stroll with her pet dog saw him, the habshi, and commanded her pet to bite him. The pet obeyed. The closest hospital was a charitable hospital. He went there for the anti-rabbies shot, but was charged some monstrous amount, making it impossible for him to get the shot which is supposed to come for free, especially in a charitable hospital. After the infamous Khirkhi-village incident, followed by Nido Taniam’s death, some of us had organized a public talk on racism in India, wherein the panel was shared by Africans and northeasterners. The testimonies of the Africans about their experiences in Delhi felt like drop of icy chill and hot metal running down one’s spine, bit by bit, one after another. Bruce (name changed) was beaten up by a gang of autowallahs (over a small matter of overcharged autofare) which put him into a state of unconsciousness for 3 months, and one day when he finally opened his eyes in the hospital, he could not recognize himself, his skull was bruised and stitched up, face distorted, eyes battered, he lost everything – money, education, and currently he can’t go back home. And of course, the hospital charged a sum which drove him and his family into near bankruptcy. 

For most northeasterners, including Nepalese, Burmese and Tibetans[3], most often their first venture into Hindi speaking heartland of India, which we call mainstream, will be of being marked out as different, different in terms of bodily and facial features, and immediately being slotted as an outsider, an ‘alien’, of being reminded that they are different, unequal. In my own case , like many of my friends coming from the NE region, I began to feel this ‘outstanding’ difference in the university streets, rickshaw pullers asking if I wanted to be taken to Majnu ka Tila, cars slowing down to ‘give me lift’ suggestively, being interrogated in hotels during visits to friends who were staying there despite my university I-card, meaningful smiles in the Pahar Ganj[4] lanes, being charged higher rates by auto drivers, harassed by police because of hindi-language issues, being asked ‘innocent’ and ‘ignorant’ questions of exotica – between the jungles and gun totting terror of NE, how life is in those ‘inaccessible to civilisation’ jungles and villages in NE, why we have such beautiful hair and hairless bodies, do Indians need passports to go into NE, do we eat dogs, snakes, rotten smelly food, and if we still do head-hunting and so on. The list of racial profilisation was just beginning in these questions. And here I am not even mentioning the regularity of racial slurs – Chinki, Nepali, Chinese Maal, Made in China, Chou-Mao China wapas jao .Very soon, as you begin to interact with the city more and live it out there, questions turn into opinions, into typifications and eventually into statements crystalised in clear terms of us and them. Such stories when lived surely can’t be contained merely in narratives, or normalized as given reality.

क्या जाति का उन्मूलन संभव है ?

- सतीश देशपाण्डे

[Editors' Note: This is the text of a speech which Prof. Satish Despande delivered in a public meeting - "Can Caste be Swept Away" - organised by New socialist Initiative. Later, it was published in CRITIQUE Magazine (Vol: 3, No: 2, March-August 2015) brought out by the Delhi University chapter of New Socialist Initiative.] 

I feel that as social scientists we should be trying to do more with Indian languages in the social sciences, and while it is very difficult and long process to do it in our formal curriculum, we should try to take advantage of informal occasions like this whenever we can. तो इसलिए मैं अपनी बात हिन्दी में ही कहूंगा। हालांकि मुझसे किसी ने नहीं कहा कि मैं हिन्दी में बोलूं। मैं अपनी मर्जी से बोल रहा हूं। मेरे लिए यह थोड़ा असुविधाजनक जरूर है लेकिन मेरा मानना है कि जब तक हम भारतीय भाषाओं में समाज विज्ञान को विकसित नहीं करते हमारा समाज विज्ञान जहां है वहीं रहेगा और इस तरह के प्रयास में यह एक बहुत छोटा सा कदम है, असुविधा कोई बड़ी कीमत नहीं है। इसलिए मैं हिन्दी में बोलने का प्रयास कर रहा हूं और आशा करता हूं कि आप मेरा साथ देंगे। यहां मेरा एक मकसद यह भी है कि भारतीय भाषाओं को कई बार समाज विज्ञान के लायक नहीं समझा जाता। यानि भारतीय भाषाओं को किसी आम भाषा में कम पढे़-लिखे लोगों को भाषण देने लायक समझा जाता है, या फिर इन्हें साहित्य और कला की भाषा समझा जाता है, लेकिन समाज विज्ञान के लायक नहीं समझा जाता है। इसलिए मैं आजकल हिन्दी में लिखने-बोलने की कोशिश करता हूं ताकि हमारे सामूहिक प्रयासों से किसी दिन भारतीय भाषाएं भी हमारे सोच विचार की और खासकर समाज विज्ञान की भाषाएं बनें। भाषा पर इतना ही, इस पर मैं और कुछ नहीं बोलूंगा।

मैं आज के फौरी मुद्दे से-यानी इस झाड़ू प्रकरण या प्रधानमंत्री के स्वच्छता अभियान से कुछ हटकर बोलना चाहता हूं। हमारे विषय या अनुशासन का सौभाग्य या दुर्भाग्य, आप जो भी मानें- है कि जाति नामक विषय हमारे पाले में डाल दिया गया है, या इसका अधिकांश भाग हमारे पाले में है। इस खास जिम्मेदारी से हम दबे हुए रहते हैं। इसलिए मेरा फर्ज बनता है कि मैं जाति पर एक समाजशास्त्री की हैसियत से कुछ बोलूं और मैं जिस विषय पर बोलना चाहता हूं, वह लगभग शब्दशः आज के शीर्षक में दिया गया है। मेरा प्रश्न भी वही है जो शीर्षक में दिया गया है। ‘क्या जाति का उन्मूलन संभव है़’, वैसे तो हर भारतीय नागरिक का कर्तव्य है- खासकर अब जब हम एक “महाशक्ति” बनने जा रहे हैं- कि हम इस सवाल का जवाब हां में दें, कि हां, इसका उन्मूलन हो सकता है। लेकिन साथ ही साथ हम यह भी जानते हैं कि जाति जैसी चीज का उन्मूलन कोई आसान काम नहीं है यह बहुत ही पेचीदा और जटिल है। यह पेचीदा और जटिल क्यों है - मैं आपके संग इसका जवाब ढूंढ़ना चाहूंगा।

संक्षेप में कहें तो समाजशास्त्रीय परिप्रेक्ष्य से जाति उन्मूलन की जटिलता का जो मुख्य कारण नजर आता है, वो यह है कि जाति एक ऐसा संस्थान है जो बुनियादी तौर पर पारस्परिक है। Caste is fundamentally a relationship, it a relational institution. यह कोई तत्व या गुण नहीं है। Caste is not a thing or a quality, it is a relationship. चूंकि यह परस्पर है तो जाहिर है कि इसके दो छोर होंगे ही और जाति के उन्मूलन में इन दोनों छोरों का शरीक होना अनिवार्य है। इसके बिना जाति का उन्मूलन संभव नहीं है। यह तो पहला कारण हुआ और यह कारण भी अपने आप में पेचीदा क्यों है, इसलिए कि जाति एक ऐसा संस्थान है जो अप्रतिसम है। जैसे आईने में जो छवि आपको दिखती है वो पल्टा हुआ उल्टा होता है। लेकिन उल्टा होने के बावजूद वह प्रतिसम (symmetrical) होता है- दाहिने तरफ जो है वो बाएं नजर आता है और बाएं तरफ जो है वो दाहिनी तरफ नजर आता है, लेकिन दाएं व बाएं का अनुपात नहीं बदलता और इस तरह आईने की छवि प्रतिसम ही रहती है। जाति ऐसा संस्थान है जिसके दो छोर अप्रतिसम हैं और इसके वजह से दोनों छोरों को उन्मूलन प्रक्रिया में एक साथ शरीक करना बहुत मुश्किल हो जाता है। यह क्यों होता है दोनों छोर समान रूप से उन्मूलन प्रक्रिया में क्यों शरीक नहीं हो पाते, क्यों हम दोनेां को एक साझा न्यौता नहीं दे पाते या उस न्यौते को दोनों छोर स्वीकार नहीं पाते, यह अप्रतिसमता के नतीजों से जुड़ा सवाल है। 

सबसे पहला मुद्दा यह है कि उच्च जातीय कोण या परिप्रेक्ष्य और निम्न जातीय कोण या परिप्रेक्ष्य अप्रतिसम तो है ही, लेकिन ये एक दूसरे से भिन्न भी हैं। क्योंकि आजादी के बाद हमारे सामने एक तरह की दुविधा थी, जाति को लेकर, किसी भी आधुनिक कहलाने वाले समाज के आगे यही दुविधा रहती है। जाति एक ऐसी व्यवस्था है जिसके बारे में एक प्रकार की सतही सर्वसम्मति आजादी से पहले ही बन गई कि इसमें काम की कोई चीज नहीं है, यह पूरी तरह से नकारे जाने के लायक है और इसके प्रति हमारा सार्वजनिक फैसला यही है कि हम इसका उन्मूलन चाहते हैं। यह उन्मूलन कैसे संपन्न होगा, यह तो बराबरी के साथ ही हो सकता है और बराबरी का मतलब एक ऐसी आदर्श स्थिति है जहां जातिभेद की कोई प्रासंगिकता न रह जाए, उसके कोई मायने न रह जाएं और जातिभेद निरर्थक हो जाए। यानि, अगर दर्शनशास्त्र की भाषा में कहें तो हम सार्वभौम की तरफ बढ़ना चाहते हैं। The annihilation of caste is a move towards the universal. तो हम जाति को जड़ से उखाड़ फेंकना चाहते हैं क्योंकि हम एक आदर्श सार्वभौम की तरफ बढ़ना चाहते हैं। यह हमारा रास्ट्रीय आदर्श है, लक्ष्य है। और तात्कालिक तौर पर जहां हम खडे़ थे, वहां से हमें ऐसा लगने लगा कि सार्वभौम की ओर बढ़ने के लिए जरूरी है कि हम जातिभेदों की ओर ध्यान न दें। यानि हम जाति के प्रति अंधे हो जाएं। स्वतंत्रता के बाद हमारे राज्य ने यही फैसला लिया कि वह जाति के प्रति अंधी हो जाएगी। जैसे कहते हैं कि कानून अंधा होता है, उसी प्रकार जाति के प्र्रति राज्य अंधा हो गया। तो यह जाति उन्मूलन का एक पहलू है।

Editorial: Critique Magazine [3:2, March-August, 2015] Confronting Discrimination

- Critique Collective

Baltimore Uprising, 2015. Photo: Devin Allen

Modernity exhorts humans to be free; free to choose, think, express, associate, earn a living, or simply to be. Liberal democracy proclaims that under its rule all humans enjoy these freedoms equally. Market capitalism tempts humans with its promise of consumptive freedom. Old bondages of direct community control are facing new challenges. A khap panchayat of Jat caste confederacy in Haryana cannot control young women and men in shopping malls and MNC workplaces. Deep and far reaching social changes is in the air, mediated by technological revolutions in mobility and communication, new forms of employment, entertainment and mores. An unprecedented social mix is the immediate product. A place like the Delhi University now has Dalit students, first from their families to have post-school education; young women students from the North-East of the country, hijab wearing students from Kashmir, bright students who do not cover up their alternate sexuality, and many more, some as much, and others not so noticeable. Exhortations, proclamations, and temptations, do fashion all of us, in our hopes, aspirations and dreams, yet they also mask, or simply do not register a big part of social life. The freedom actually experienced by a significant number of human is also brutally stamped by discrimination. The two are closely associated. It is only because of the possibility of freedom that discrimination is recognized and challenged.

This issue of Critique is centered on discrimination in the current world, from the cities of the US where African American young men face regular racial violence from police and civil vigilantes, to the villages of Madhya Pradesh, where Dalits oppressed for millennia in the Hindu caste society are not free to change their religion. The experience of discrimination is singular piercing, yet it is done in such an atmosphere of normality that the ones of who discriminate often are not even aware that they have done something odd. Such is the racism among the majority of the so called mainstream Indians. ‘White-washing the Paints on the Wall’ by Amrapali Basumatary provides an insight into the racism experienced by people from the ‘North-East’ and by immigrant African students. Stereotyping is a gross understatement of the aggressive ridicule and violence that these people face in the national capital. Visible facial differences and skin colour are surface excuses for racism. Its roots are ancient in the hegemonic Aryan culture.

Conservative thinkers like Dumont have found Hindu caste system to be the ideal form of hierarchy. Sinthujan Varathararajah’s ‘Sikke Ke Do Pahlu Hain’ is a reflection on the unsaid agony and confusion of being a child of a mixed Dalit and caste Hindu parentage in Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. Protective parents of such children are forced by histories to teach them to tell lies about their family origins, even while in far off countries. Despite all efforts, when at the age of twenty two, their child, now a young man writes his first poem on experience of caste, all they can say while crying is that ‘You too could not escape from it!’. ‘Discomfort or an Identity’ by Zaara Wakeel and Hafsa Sayeed is about the experiences of being a Muslim and a hijab wearing young woman in a country whose dominant culture has turned virulently Hindutva recently. Everyday life for them requires an ever present caution for security, as for a Muslim seller of rolls near the university who has put up a Hindu religious sign on his shop. Hijab, a mere dress, is seen as the full identity. It does not matter what she is; as if her interests, thinking and feelings do not exist, she is just a walking hijab. However, whenever possible her Kashmiri identity too is immediately seized upon, with comments and jokes about terrorism.