Prof Zoya Hasan at Democracy Dialogues on 27 March 2022

 

Democracy Dialogues Lecture Series (Online )
Organised by New Socialist Initiative

16th Lecture

Topic: 'Challenges to India's Democracy' 

Speaker: Professor Zoya Hasan

Date and Time:  27th Mach 2022 at 6 PM (IST).

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Prof Zoya Hasan, Professor Emerita, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Distinguished Faculty, Council for Social Development, New Delhi, will be delivering the 16 th lecture  in the Democracy Dialogues Series, organised by New Socialist Initiative, at 6 PM, (IST) Sunday, 27 th March, 2022.

She will be speaking on ‘Challenges to India’s Democracy‘

Prof Zoya Hasan has written and edited many books on state, political parties, ethnicity, gender and minorities in India and society in north India and has been a visiting Professor to the Universities of Zurich, Edinburgh and Maison des Sciences de L’Homme, Paris.

Her most recent publications include Forging Identities : Gender, Communities And The State In India ( edited) ,  Agitation to Legislation – Negotiating Equity and Justice in India ,   Congress after Indira: Policy, Power and Political Change (1984–2009), Politics of Inclusion: Castes, Minorities and Affirmative Action, (2009) and a collection of essays titled Democracy and the Crisis of Inequality.

Abstract of the Talk:

The 75th anniversary of Indian Independence is a landmark event in the history of our democracy. It is for this reason a significant moment to assess the state of India’s democracy. As the largest democracy in the non-western world, India is a success story. Its success, however, has primarily been recognized as an electoral democracy, with regular free and fair elections registering high voter participation, and also peaceful transfer of power. Elections certainly are a climactic moment of the democratic process but by no means the only important one. Politics between elections is central for understanding the challenges facing Indian democracy, and it is important, therefore, to contextualize democracy.

Three years since the Bhartiya Janata Party government was re-elected has seen the consolidation of the process begun in 2014 – the establishment of a Hindu state. This process has been facilitated by the combination of majoritarianism and authoritarianism which has resulted in democracy becoming thinner, not accidentally, but deliberately. This does raise certain questions about the relationship between Hindu nationalism and democracy which seems to weaken the idea of democracy moderated by institutions.

This paper tries to make sense of these shifts through a thematic exploration of the trajectory of Indian democracy since 2014 focusing on three overlapping developments - the consolidation of a majoritarian brand of politics, the decline of independent institutions, and the shrinking space for political dissent and protests - which has undermined democracy. Each of these issues distinct and significant in its own right when taken together constitutes a major risk to Indian democracy. However, public protests in the last few years have emerged as a major bulwark against authoritarian rule and the erosion of democratic dissent. For the Opposition it’s a moment of reckoning but there are signs of churning among the Opposition as well.

The Work of Theatre

Bhartendu Kashyap

 ‘When will you start working?’ Young members of our theatre group often get this complaint from their families and friends. By this is meant, ‘When will you start a job?’Or,‘when will you start earning?’ Work in an amateur theatre group obviously does not pay any money like a job. This however does not mean that it is not work.  In fact, the amount of time and degree of commitment theatre requires is more than many regular jobs.

No serious theatre is possible without putting in hard work. When we are in the production process, i.e. preparing for a play, then on average we meet and work together for about six hours a day, every day of the week. During ‘breaks’ between preparing and performing plays we are busy with workshops on acting, body rhythm, music sensibility, or on technical matters like sound and lighting. Then there are sessions on poetry, painting, or stage-craft, and discussions on philosophy and social issues. We invite well-known artists, authors and intellectuals to these. We feel that a good theatre is not possible without a feel for other arts, an awarenessof diverse social issues, and an understanding of the social context in which we are living.

Our theatre group is called The Mocking Birds. It was established four years ago. We are based in Lucknow, the capital of the largest state of the country. Members are either students, or work at other jobs. We have fifteen regular members. It can be considered a medium-sized group. Some of us are good in composing music, some are good in writing dialogues, some are artists and are able to sketch and draw, but everyone also acts. All members are expected to be multi-talented, and ready to do different kinds of work.

Our members are from diverse communities and castes. In terms of class we are mostly from the lower middle class. Only two to three of us are from a working class background. We are equally backward in gender ratio. Only four or five in the group are women. They too find it difficult to be regular. Young women in our society face way more pressure while doing theatre than men.Some of our members are not prepared to work as rigorously as theatre demands. Everybody faces the pressure of making a living. Ideological differences also emerge. We lose two to three people every year. The same number of new people also join in.

Decision-making in a small and diverse group like ours is never simple. However, we consciously try to follow a democratic process where all decisions are taken only after discussions during which all members get an opportunity to put forth their point of view.

A Passage to Theatre

I got exposed to theatre in myhome town inAzamgarhdistrict. My father was active in the local Ramlila. I would do small things, like make Hanuman’s tail, or just be around to do errands. In school I was active in many cultural activities, including plays. I remember we did AndherNagari. We would practice and sing songs in the folk idiom of Heera-Dom. We also developed a rational approach to understanding through participation in cultural activities.

I did well in my intermediate examinationsand got into Allahabad University. Like most other students with good marks I joined the sciences, and did a B.Sc. Atthe university I got aproper exposure to theatre. I joined thegroup led byAniranjanBhaumik. Rehearsals for this group used to happen in the Union Hall of the university. Prof.Lal Bahadur Verma, Pranay Krishan, Mrittunjay and Subhash Kashyap used to come and interact with us. It was a serious theatre group. The first play I did was on poems of Dr. Shri. Ram Verma,NanheNanhe Pair. We also performed the Caucasian Chalk Circle of Brecht,Nikoloi Gogol’s InspectorGeneral, Swadesh Deepak’sCourt Martialand Mohan Rakesh’s AhsadhKaaEk Din.After completing my M.Sc. I came to Delhi to do a workshop on film-making. In Delhi, I applied to BNA (BhartenduNatya Academy), which is in Lucknow. At that time, it was one of the only two such academies in the country, the other one being the National School of Drama in Delhi.

The environment in BNA was markedly different from what I had experienced before. It was a place where there are twenty people around you who think only about theatre24 hours a day. And then there was institutional emphasis on training; you have to work so many hours on your vocals, so many on body control, etc. We also got exposure to the history and variety of theatre– GreekTheatre, Roman Theatre, Western Theatre, Russian Theatre, Oriental theatre. One positive of the institute training is that you learn to work rigorously and hence you can improve yourself. You learn how to achieve excellence, and what you have to do channelise excellence in others.  One drawback is the lackof socio-political awareness and democratic citizenship. This is not only in BNA; you will find it in NSD too. Our batch was fortunate that we had Prof. Surya Mohan Kulshreshth as the institute Director. He was a leftist and had been withthe Indian People’s Theatre Association. Many acclaimed directors used to visit the Academy. We were taught Brecht by Robin Das, who came as a guest faculty. Now BNA seems to have become more localised.

Somebody who has done serious theatre for 10-15 years is unable to leave. It is unlike other jobs, from which people retire and then live on pension, oron some other source of income. It is not only full-time work, but full lifetime engagement. Theatre people are able to establish a balance between their other requirements of life and theatre. Skills learnt in theatre like time management, stress management and work ethics help them create this balance.

Thriving Against the Wind

There are about ten to fifteen regular theatre groups in Lucknow. However, there is minimal institutional support. For rehearsals and meetings, we use aprivate space provided bya friend, for which we pay a nominal amount. Sangeet NatakAkademi rents out its space, but they charge Rs. 5,000 and it is very difficult to get. Since I am a BNA graduate, I can rent their auditorium for shows, and get up to 30 percent discount.

Lucknow gets two good theatre festivals every year. Repertoire Theatre Festival is corporate-funded, but the shows are of good quality. The second is Kabir Theatre Festival whose fourth edition was held recently. These festivals get groups from outside and provide us a good opportunity for interaction. There are two academies, BNA and SNA, and two festivals, so all technical support needed for a national, or international-level play can be arranged on demand in the city.

If your play and content is strong, then audience does come for the play and they are generally able to appreciate good theatre. However, the intellectual class does have an attitude that they do not come unless invited, i.e. unless a card is delivered to their home. We are unable to treat our play as a commodity. Hence we do not put a ticket. The ideal situation would be that a play covers expenses from ticket sales. However, that does not happen even in Delhi. A 200-300 seat auditorium is rarely filled. We will not be able to generate much cash if we put a ticket of 200 rupees, since many people who otherwise would come to watch the play would think before buying a ticket. Another reason is that if I see a play of the same category as ours being sold for Rs. 1,000, and keep my ticket at Rs. 200, I am devaluing our play. We rely on our own savings and contributions from well-wishers. Another important source is distribution of brochures about the play to the audience. Along with the brochure we keep an envelope, and request audience to contribute as much as they wish. That covers 15-20 percent of the expenses; this isas much as we would get from ticket sales.

The well-off sections of Lucknow do show concern for theatre, partly because they know that theatre can be a good means to personality development and communication skills. Student of elite schools have a good exposure to theatre. But they will not join a theatre group. They will do it out of hobby, and it will be part of their bio-data.

The changing social context of theatre is bringing new challenges. Seventy percent of my batch-mates from BNA are now doing cinema or TV serials. Many people who join us leave because they think they have not gained anything if their face is not on a poster in one year. This is a problem not only in youngsters, but also in mature people. They ask us to open our own YouTube channel to become visible on social media. We do not want to go after populist channels which may bring some recognition but would not do justice to our intent and content.

If new digital technologies are not used judiciously, theatre ends up being a multi-media product. Digital sound systems, and lighting have come; projection, etc., are also being used. Digital technology also provides an opportunity to see what is happening in other areas of the world. That is fine for learning,but theatre’s core is live performance. That magic does not get easily transmitted through such technologies. You can watch exercises on YouTube and learn, but you cannot design a play by watching what is on YouTube. If somebody does, it ends up being a bad imitation. Shankaran, Jyotishchand, Sunil Shanbag and other directors from the south and from Mumbai are using digital multi-media technology innovatively, but that is not happening in Lucknow. 

For people who do theatre it is much more than work. It has a life of its own which makes you humble. I consider theatre to be a play, which is based on the foundation of unreality. Its intent,however,is not to spread falsehood, but to realise the truth. Any art can rise to its highest level only with the full commitment of its artists. This requires that society too gives space to artists, and recognises their commitment. It is a work in society. Social concern for art should be more than what is seen today.

(As told to Sanjay Kumar and Sudha Vasan)

Bhartendu is the Theatre Director of The Mocking Birds, an amateur theatre group based in Lucknow. Other members of the group are Mahender, Devasheesh, Shakti, Deepa, Sachin, Vinay, Shubham, Shivanshi, Amit, Shivam, Sugreev, Suraj, Anuj, Harsh and Jaggi.

(This writeup first appeared in Critique, Vol 6, Issue 1, 2019)

(Critique Magazine Article ) Braving the Class Assault and Building a Better Future

An Interview With Union Organisors Khushi Ram, Jitender and Ram Nivas

(Critique Magazine Article... by on Scribd

इक लपकता हुआ शोला, इक चलती हुई तलवार

- रूपाली सिन्हा 

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उत्तरप्रदेश के रुदौली में 19 अक्टूबर 1911 को जन्मे उर्दू के लोकप्रिय शायर मजाज़ की गिनती उन चंद तरक्कीपसंद शायरों में की जाती है जिसने बहुत ही कम उम्र में शोहरत की बुलंदियों को छू लिया। 46 साल की छोटी सी उम्र में इस नौजवान शायर ने शायरी के जो जलवे दिखाए उसकी चमक आज भी वैसे ही बरक़रार है। सन 1929 में 18 वर्ष की उम्र में कॉलेज में दाखिला पाने के लिए मजाज़ आगरा पहुंचे। यहाँ की सरगर्मियों और गहमागहमी के माहौल में उन्होंने गज़लें और नज़्में लिखनी शुरू की। आगरा में एक साल भी नहीं बीता कि उनके पिता का तबादला अलीगढ हो गया। पढ़ाई पूरी करने के मक़सद से मजाज़ कॉलेज के हॉस्टल में रहने लगे। उनकी आज़ाद तबियत यहीं परवान चढ़ी। मजाज़ का ज़्यादातर वक़्त अदबी महफ़िलों में ही गुज़रा। 

1931 में बी ए करने के लिए जब वे अलीगढ आये तो यहाँ मंटो,इस्मत चुगताई,अली सरदार जाफरी ,जां निसार अख्तर,सिब्ते हसन जैसी शख्सियतों की संगत में उनकी शायरी और सियासी रुझान को निखरने का पूरा मौका मिला। 1931 तक आते-आते 'अंगारे' के प्रकाशन से रशीद जहाँ और सज़्ज़ाद ज़हीर वामपंथी सोच के लेखकों के बीच ख़ासी लोकप्रियता प्राप्त कर चुके थे। इसी सरगर्म माहौल में मजाज़ ने अपनी मशहूर नज़्म इंकलाब,रात और रेल जैसी मशहूर रचनायें की। वे एम ए की पढ़ाई पूरी किये बिना ही दिल्ली नौकरी करने चले गए, लेकिन साल भर बाद ही लखनऊ लौट आये। 

देश में जब साम्राज्यवादी विरोध का स्वर पुख्ता हो रहा था ,प्रगतिशील ताक़तें इकट्ठी हो रही थीं ,मजाज़ की शायरी इसी माहौल में परवान चढ़ रही थी। प्रगतिशील लेखक संघ के गठन और विकास के शुरुआती दौर में उर्दू शायरों और अफ़्सानानिगारों की बहुत बड़ी भूमिका रही है। एक तरफ इक़बाल के गीतों ने देशभक्ति की आत्मा विकसित की तो दूसरी तरफ दिनकर और नवीन जैसे कवियों ने उसमे जान फूँक दी। यह विशेषता हमारी समूची सांस्कृतिक विरासत में दिखाई देती है। प्रेमचंद का ही उदाहरण लें, वे पहले उर्दू के लेखक हैं बाद में हिंदी मे आये। इस बात को बार -बार रेखांकित करने की ज़रूरत है कि उर्दू मुसलमानों की भाषा नहीं,हिन्दुस्तानियों की ज़बान है। भाषा के तमाम साम्प्रदायीकरण के बावजूद उर्दू का सीना खोलकर खड़े रहना इस बात का सबूत है कि तरक़्क़ीपसन्द ताक़तें इस मज़हबी जूनून और बंटवारे की राजनीति को सिरे से नकारती रही हैं। 

सन 1931 में 'अंगारे' का प्रकाशन इस दृष्टि से महत्वपूर्ण साबित हुआ कि इसके द्वारा उर्दू दुनिया का मार्क्स से परिचय हुआ। बेशक इस समय की रचनाओं में साहित्यिक उत्कृष्टता नहीं थी लेकिन रचनाकारों की सोच और नज़रिये में महत्वपूर्ण बदलाव आया। इन लेखकों ने सामंती समाज के पिछड़ेपन की ज़ंजीरों के खिलाफ बेड़ियां खनकायीं। पांच साल बाद इन्ही लेखकों द्वारा 'तरक़्क़ीपसन्द तहरीक़' (प्रगतिशील लेखक संघ) की बुनियाद डाली गयी। जल्द ही यह आंदोलन एक मज़बूत और जीवंत आंदोलन बन गया जिसका प्रभाव तेज़ी से फैलता गया। तहरीक़ की लोकप्रियता के कारण उसके वे सरोकार थे जिन्होंने सामंती,रूढ़िवादी सोच पर प्रहार कर प्रगतिशील विचारों और साहित्य के लिए माहौल और ज़मीन तैयार की। मजाज़ इसी माहौल की देन थे। वे प्रगतिशील आंदोलन के ऐसे शख्स थे जिनके सरोकार इस आंदोलन के साथ इस कदर घुल-मिल गए थे कि उनको अलग करके देखना नामुमकिन है। 

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.

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.

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.

New Issue of Critique Magazine: Challenging Precarity/असुरक्षा के निज़ाम को चुनौती

New Issue of Critique "Challenging Precarity/असुरक्षा के निज़ाम को चुनौती" is out. Critique Magazine, September-December, 2015, Volume: 3 Issue: 3. Pg. 64. Rs. 30 /-. Critique is brought out by Delhi University chapter of New Socialist Initiative. Sharing below the cover of this issue and the content list.

Content

1. Editorial: Challenging Precarity

2. संपादकीय : असुरक्षा के निज़ाम को चुनौती 

3. I am not Meosum (slave); I am Masum, the Worker - Maniruzzaman Masum

4. बेलगाम पूंजी का पहिया - विकास कुमार

5. An Introduction and Invitation to Delhi University Theka Mazdoor Manch - DUTMM

6. Ragpickers of Delhi: Workers of Swachh Bharat - Critique Collective

7. San Quintin and the Anger We Hold - Neo Lopez 

8. Decoding the Labour Law Code in India - Anamitra Roychowdhary

9. मज़दूर कानूनों में सुधार : मर्ज़ बढ़ता ही गया जितनी दवा की - प्रभु महापात्रा [अनुवाद : योगेन्द्र दत्त ]

10. [Photo Essay] Of Hands and Faces - Wazirpur Workers Strike, June 2014 - Ayan Mrinal

11. The Real Estate Greed and Poverty of Imagination in India's Latest State Capital - Critique Collective

12. The Making of a Migrant Workers Movement in Korea - Bonojit Hussain

13. Finance Capital: The New Masters of Today's Social World - Sanjay Kumar

14. Reflections on a Media Internship - Aliza Bakht

15. Cities of Sleep: A Conversation with Shaunak Sen - Malay Firoz

16. हेडगेवार - गोवलकर बनाम अम्बेडकर - सुभाष गताड़े 

17. कला स्वतंत्रता और प्रतिरोध : FTII संघर्ष की ओर - शुभम 

18. 'Bure' Students in the times of 'Achhe Din' - Shardul Bhardwaj and Ketaki Prabhu

19. Silencing the Scholarship: A Tribute to Prof. M.M Kalburgi - M.K Madhavi

20. Basavanna the Bhandari (Treasurer) - Prof. M.M Kalburgi [Translator: Sudheer]

21. हिंदी , हिन्दू , हिंदुस्तान - जावेद अनीस 

22. एक लपकता हुआ शोला, इक चलती हुई तलवार - रूपाली सिन्हा 

23. The Rojava Revolution, Democratic Autonomy, and the (Re)Institution of Fragmented Sovereignty in Kurdistan - Hanifi Baris

24. Does the State have the Right to Kill? - Radhika Chitkara and Megha Bahl

25. The Crisis of Left Solidarity in EU, Austerity and the 'Greece Problem' - Jakob Graf

26. The 'Refugee/Migrant' Crisis in Europe: Time for an "Instability Tax"? - I. Almond

27. On the Farcical Implementation of the CGPA Grading System in Delhi University - Saumyajit Bhattacharya

28. एक गौभक्त से भेंट - हरिशंकर परसाई

Its time to read the writing on the walls

- Critique Collective

Note: This piece was published under the title "Students rise to free education, Resist onslaught of free Market" as the editorial in Critique Magazine, Vol-1, No-2, January-March, 2011. Though written and published more than 4 years ago, the piece remains very much relevant for today.

The current unrest in universities across the globe seems to stretch the limits of national boundaries. It is not about England or Germany or South Africa or any other country; the speedy transformations in higher education occurring within the geo-political boundary of India are more than education in India. If students’ protest in the UK are reverberating its pulses in other parts of the globe, though varied in degree or nature these may be, the current ‘reforms’ attempted by coordinates of power within the Indian education system, could well stand ironically in a position of pre-empting possible disturbances that might result in mass protests. Slogans of different students’ protests against reckless process of privatisation and privilegisation of education which are unabashed symptoms of the chronic rampage of dear old capitalism, have sought to analyse, reassert as well as redefine the meaning and nature of a university:

“University is a factory”

“University has no history of its own; its history is the history of capital. Its essential function is reproduction of the relationship between capital and labour”

“Resistance does not mean nostalgia for the old university model that was embedded in state power and supported by an idealistic and ideological conception of the university as an ‘ivory tower’ of national pride”

These slogans from around the world capture the nature and idea of a university in the current context. Lessons are to be learnt.

In a capitalist world, the production of knowledge and ideas are bound to comply to need of capital like everything else in society has been made to since its advent, be it the patriarchal family or the modern state. The recent developments in universities across the globe are historical consequences of a churning that has long been attempted and resisted. This upsurge of protests are mirrors of what is wrong with capitalism and are clarion calls for what is to be done about this wrong. While students cannot offer a blueprint of “What is to be done” to destroy capitalism, they constitute a force which can ignite the restlessness in society. If university has become a factory, the relationship of the students with the university has become like the one between factory owners and workers.

The nature and intensity of students’ organisation/movement/protest have been determined by nature of state and market, as much as by ideology. The immediate context, however, is the nature of the university within which they are located. For instance, in the recent developments in the Delhi University, the resistance against the ill-conceived educational reforms by undemocratic imposition of the Semester System came mainly from the teaching community and not the students. While we have witnessed that in other places it was mainly the student mass which led and organized the protests, eventually to be joined by other sections directly or indirectly linked to university and education. What is so different about Delhi University then, becomes a question to be deliberated upon, at least a worthwhile question to ask if not sure answers as of now. The clue perhaps lies in the hierarchical relations between students and teachers which further reflect persistent pre-modern hierarchies in our societies.

The nature and structure of teacher-student relationship with Delhi University, as in most parts of India, is largely a hierarchical one. Despite entering the university as adults, the students are largely infantilised; their concerns, especially academic ones, are represented by teachers who do a sorry job of entering into any widespread and intensive dialogue with the student community. This has only got reiterated during the Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) movement against the new Semester System. The history of Delhi University students’ politics (barring the small scale protests by mainly left students’ organization) have rarely seen students coming out as a mass force to take up academic issues in their own hands and make an argumentation towards a radical intervention. It is a reality that what has been inflicting students in other universities in the world is also inflicting students in Delhi University. However, the latter seem to be waiting for a taste of bitterness to enter into its veins or it lies incapacitated. In recent times, it is true that the class character of the students might have gradually changed and entered the chasm of consumerism at large. However, the problem is not simple as that. It is an indication of why these ‘conscious’ sections of society are not ready to ‘fight’. If the court has admonished the striking teachers for being ‘disruptive’, the teachers in general filter down the same ‘value’ to the students. The teaching and the student community stand segregated making a mockery of the organic teacher-student relationship which defines the university. University as a space of adults and free deliberations, dialogues, debates and imagination ceases to exist as a whole, with allowances of tiny and sporadic sparks which might not necessarily lead to a firing of consciousness. 

Confronting Discrimination - New Issue of Critique Magazine

New Issue of Critique "Confronting Discrimination" is out. Critique Magazine, March-August, 2015, Volume: 3 Issue: 2. Pg. 48. Rs. 30 /-. Critique is brought out by Delhi University chapter of New Socialist Initiative. Sharing below the cover of this issue and the content list.

Content

1. Editorial: Confronting Discrimination

2. सम्पादकीय: भेदभाव के विरोध में 

3. White-washing the Paints on the Wall: A Reflection on Racism - Amrapali Basumatary

4. सिक्के के दो पहलू हैं निजी और राजनीतिक - सिंथुजन वरथराजा 

5. Why its Difficult to See Eye to Eye - Vikramaditya Sahai

New Issue of Critique Magazine: Fascism Now and Here

New Issue of Critique "Fascism Now and Here" is out. Critique Magazine, August, 2014, Volume: 3 Issue: 1. Pg. 56. Rs. 30 /-. To order your copies write to delhi.nsi@gmail.com Sharing below the cover of this issue and the content list.

Contents

1. Editorial: Fascism: Now and Here

2. सम्पादकीय : हमारे समय का फासीवाद

एकान्तिक मीनार में बन्दः जेस्टोर अकादमिक अनुसन्धान को क्यों कैद करता है

- लॉरा मैककेना

आज सुबह मैंने आनलाईन डाटाबेस जेस्टोर में ऑटिज़म पर अनुसन्धान लेखों को पढ़ने की कोशिश की। मेरा एक बच्चा है जिसके ऑटिज़म के शिकार होने की आशंका है तथा मैं इस विषय पर नवीनतम अनुसन्धान से अवगत होने की कोशिश में रहती हूं।ऑटिज़म शब्द वाले पहले दो सौ लेखों में से मैं एक भी लेख नहीं पढ़ पायी, क्योंकि युनिवर्सिटियों के पहचान पत्र वालों को ही अकादमिक पत्रिकाओं के लेखों के पढ़ने की सुविधा है। उनके अलावा हर एक को, चाहे वे पत्रकार हों, स्वतन्त्र विद्वान हों या उत्सुक व्यक्ति, पढ़ने के लिये मोटा शुल्क देना पड़ता है।

मुझे बाद में एक लेख मिला जो 38 डॉलर में उपलब्द्ध था। मुझे यह नहीं पता कि 12 पेज के एक लेख का दाम 38 डॉलर क्यों है। मुझको लेख पर सरसरी नजर डालने में 8 मिनट लगते हैं। अनुसन्धानकर्ता को कोई रॉयल्टी नहीं मिलती है। तब एक लेख पढ़ने की इतनी कीमत क्यों? उत्तर अकादमिक प्रकाशन की पुरानी चली आ रही रीत में है। 

एकान्तिक मीनार से किवाड़ोंबद्ध डाटाबेसों तक

एक अकादमिक अनुसन्धानकर्ता को किसी विषय पर अनुसन्धान करने में वषों का समय लगता है। यह अनुसन्धान सरकारी अनुदानों तथा विश्वविद्यालयों द्वारा दी गयी रियायतों पर संभव होता है। प्रोफेसर को अनुसन्धान के लिये समय, स्थान व कार्यालय की सहुलियत दी जाती है। तब वह अनुसन्धान पर लेख अकादमिक जर्नल को भेजता या भेजती है।

On The Limits of Middle-Class Radicalism

- Malay Firoz

Student politics in the university seems to face a strange problem these days. No sooner does someone announce a fledgling commitment to a cause than he is accosted by all sorts of questions: how deep does his commitment go, what price is he willing to pay for it, has he paid that price yet, and if not, to what extent can he regard himself as ‘really’ committed? The matter at hand, it seems, is an issue of representation: can the person claim to represent a form of politics? Most middle-class students who proclaim a broadly ‘radical Left’ view, have at some point, whether in public forums or informal conversations, been challenged by the contention that they are not suitable representatives of the causes they espouse, either because the privileges they enjoy are willfully at odds with their stated ideals or because their class location, despite their best intentions, somehow disqualifies them at the very outset. The former concern alleges hypocrisy, the latter raises the problem of identity, but both are ways of saying the same thing: that the political agent has somehow failed a particular standard of representational adequacy as a bearer of radical politics. This piece is an attempt to think through some of these contentions. In using the word ‘radical’, our concern is not to define what radicalism is or to specify who can claim to be radical, but to explore the dilemmas of taking a position broadly critical of the mainstream. Part hypothetical and part biographical, it is a story that describes a political coming of age and a story of confronting the difficulties therein.

The accusation of hypocrisy tends to be issued from outside politically organised circles. It’s a familiar theme. Neoliberal India offers a stunning array of consumer choices that was, till the ‘90s, the stuff of postcards and presents from non-resident relatives. For those who can afford it, it is today possible to enjoy our very own First World utopia of conspicuous consumption, unrecognisable to an earlier generation raised on principles of sustainability and responsible saving. Indeed, scholars have begun speaking of First and Third Worlds no longer as territorially determined distinctions, but as social indices that constitute an enduring architecture of inequality within and across national borders. Of course, these Faustian ambitions have their price, and the dark underside of liberalisation has been the subject of much critique. What then, of a supposedly radical activist who happens to own expensive gadgets, happens to wear branded clothes, to frequent multinational restaurants, to turn westward for higher education, or in general found luxuriating in the trappings of bourgeois affluence? Often these indulgences have been treated as incriminating instances of complicity with a vague notion of capitalism (and its implied system of exploitative relationships) that most radicals claim to oppose in one way or another.

[Film Review] Songs of the Unequals

- Anupama Ramakrishnan

On the face of it, Jai Bhim Comrade is an intense introduction to the music and poetry of Dalit political resistance in Maharashtra. Songs of protest and hope, and injustice and inequality, filmed almost entirely during live performances, occur throughout the film, reminders of the spirit of subaltern protest. But the film is also as much about Dalit politics in contemporary Maharashtra.

Beginning with the unprovoked police firing that killed eleven people in Ramabai Nagar, Mumbai, in 1997 and the subsequent suicide of Dalit poet and singer Vilas Ghogre, Jai Bhim Comrade is a wonderfully layered film that strings together elements as diverse as the desperate factionalism of mainstream Dalit political parties and the utter incomprehension of a mother who waits for her daughter, driven underground by an intolerant state, to return home. The film has been feted in several festivals and in a rather surprising move, contrary to the fate of many of Patwardhan’s documentaries, has been passed by the censor board without any cuts. All the more reason to watch this film.

Shot over fourteen years, the 198 minutes of Jai Bhim Comrade takes viewers through, among other places, slums in Ghatkopar and Mulund, the primarily upper caste and very elite Shivaji Park, a hot, dusty village in Beed district and the streets of Pune. And everywhere, a most fascinating range of people appear. In Mulund, we meet Vilas Ghogre’s son trying to find normalcy. In Shivaji Park, we meet a perplexed jogger unable to quite place B.R. Ambedkar. In a garbage dump somewhere in Mumbai, we meet a contract worker who calls himself a ‘Jai Bhimwala’ and who tells us that he cannot understand why the municipal corporation can pay a lawyer to fight him and his co-workers in court, but can’t pay minimum wages or provide boots and gloves for them. In Beed, we meet an elderly lady whose fortitude and faith in a better future are only matched by the tragedy of her husband’s brutal murder. In a press conference, we see a senior police official justifying the transfer to a hospital, rather than to a jail, of Sub-Inspector Kadam, who was convicted in the Ramabai firing case … and these are just a few of the many people who appear in the film.

The film does not lay out any easy answers for the viewer by building up to a climactic finish. Rather, it meanders through people’s lives, and gives the viewer a sense of the complexity of the issue. Beginning with an enquiry into the protest-suicide of his friend, Vilas Ghogre, Patwardhan introduces us to the inter-related histories of the Dalit and left movements and their failure to form a coherent political force. As in most democratic coalitions, the Ambedkarites and Marxists have had a very contentious relationship.

Economics: Dismal Science or Powerful Dogma?

- Anirban Kar

“Most people take capitalism for granted…From this point of view one can understand and criticize what happens within the framework of the system; one can neither understand nor evaluate what happens to the system itself.” - Paul Sweezy; The Theory of Capitalist Development.

In this short note, I shall try to sketch the role of Economics as a discipline in the capitalist world order. I shall argue that the prominence and the crisis of Economics are organically linked with the dynamics of capitalism and hence a critique of its present state of pedagogy and research must be situated within this broader framework. This note has three sections. In the first section, as a prelude, I briefly discuss how Economics originated as a separate discipline from Political Economy during the heyday of laissez-faire capitalism. The second and the third section look at the role of Economics as a tool and an ideology of Capitalism, respectively.

Origin of Economics

“In fact, the whole world may be looked upon as a vast general market made up of diverse special markets where social wealth is bought and sold. Our task then is to discover the laws to which these purchases and sales tend to conform automatically.”

Leon Walras, one of the founders of Economics, wrote in 1874, while setting the agenda for Economics as a discipline. This was the time when capitalism was blooming in Western Europe and North America. For the first time in human civilization, indeed, wealth of a society appeared in the form of commodities which was produced at a massive scale, was bought and sold in market places and was circulated around the world. As soon as production decisions came to be determined by market conditions, it became important to understand ‘the laws’ of market. Focus shifted away from understanding the dynamics of social relations, which are governed by material conditions to the study of individual behaviour and optimal use of scarce resources. Economic system came to be understood not in terms of relation between men and men but in terms of relation between men and commodities; Political Economy gave way to Economics. It is not a coincidence that the book by Leon Walras, mentioned above, was titled ‘Elements of Pure Economics’.

Economics as a tool

Through the peak and trough of capitalism, different schools of thought made its way into mainstream Economics. However the central debate revolved primarily around the same set of issues: Does market allocate scarce resources efficiently? If and when this is not possible, can efficiency be achieved through a degree of state control? Can institutions and regulations be designed for this purpose? And finally, how aggregate level economic phenomenon (such as prices, production and consumption) arises from individual actions, essentially limited to economic decision making (capturing atomistic relation between men and commodities)? To summarize, Economics got busy with ‘smaller’ questions; about adjusting the Economy to suit the need of the hour. Understanding the dynamics and contradiction of capitalism, its historical path of development, increasingly, got relegated to back seat. Economics became a tool for capitalism. This had multifarious effects on the pedagogy and research of Economics. I shall touch upon a couple of issues.

Increasing specialization: With advancement of knowledge, a degree of specialization is perhaps inevitable. But the degree of specialization Economics has witnessed is simply astounding. For instance, the current issue of American Economic Review (considered to be the top Economics Journal) listed papers under following categories; Recessions and Retirement, Economics of Automobile Sector, Law and Economics, Labour Economics etc., not to mention exotic categories, such as, Wine Economics and Economics of Arts. However this was expected. Since Economics was preoccupied with repairing parts and components of capitalist economy, knowledge of each component became a specialized field. Incentives and punishments were also realigned to support this form of fragmented studies. For instance, research works in Economics now appear primarily as standalone articles and not as a body of knowledge in the form of thesis or books. In a competitive market for academic positions, where researchers are evaluated by number of publications, specialization is naturally more remunerative than development of a broader perspective.

Making the Steam Roll: A Personal Narrative of a Locoman

- Dharampal / Comrade Burmee  

I 

I came to India on January 8, 1965 as an Indian repatriate from Burma. My friends call me Burmee as I came from Burma. The coup took place in Burma in 1962 and every bit of business was nationalized. 

Every businessmen left for home in the evening after closing his shop or establishment. (There was not a single factory in my birthplace Tannggyi, the capital of Southern Shan State). One day in 1962, when the shopkeepers returned to open their shops, they found to their astonishment that two military personnel were on guard at their shops and they were asked to hand over the keys. It was announced that everything was nationalized and nobody, not even the Burmese nationals, have the right to run any business. 

The bazaars and eatery shops were allowed to run as before as it involved no direct business but were dependent on traders to buy their stuff, prepare it and sell. 

The same day the currency was changed and the entire nation was in a fix and all were finding it very hard to digest but there was no rebellion. Everything was accepted as Gods’ will. 

My parents had settled in Burma in late 1920s and I was the youngest in my family. My elder brothers and sisters could not get proper education because of the War. They were unable to settle in one place. 

I was born after the second world war and my parents were able to send me to proper convent school, St. Anne’s Convent High School, run by Italian missionaries. My entire schooling up to matriculation was done in this school. I was in first year of college when I was refused the citizenship though I was born there and was a state football player. 

Though no one was asked to leave the country, people started leaving the country for their countries of origin like India, Pakistan, Thailand, Australia and other countries. In the same way my parents thought of sending me to India as they thought my future in Burma was very dim. 

I joined the Railways when the transition from steam to diesel and again to electric locomotive engines was taking place. More importantly, I am also one of those railway workers who has not only been a witness to, but has been actively involved in the most glorious and militant period of labour politics in India. 

I was appointed as a loco cleaner on March 3, 1965 in Old Delhi loco shed. Though the duties of loco cleaner was to clean the steam locos, rubbing the engines, to collecting the token from the time keeper. The job was almost like a contract work. Once a group of cleaners had gathered, a jamadar would distribute the work to everyone. The other part of the engine to be cleaned meticulously was the smoke box from the wastes that had gathered there. But apart from merely cleaning it we had to make it shine too, and because of my English language skills I was put to work as a telephone attendant. After sometime I was asked to work as coal checker. My work was to note the amount of coal in tonnes in the incoming trains, to keep a record of the loaded coal etc. For almost three years I continued this job. 

In January 1968 I was transferred to Tughlakabad (TKD). I was allotted a quarter at the railway colony in TKD. My quarter was very close to my heart for many reasons. My entire working period as a fireman, Diesel Assistant, trade unionist, political activist, happened during my stay there. The best part is that I met my lifelong friends there. Hard work apart, I enjoyed my days off, always involving myself with one activity or the other. At times I went to workers colony, where many of the firemen and drivers whom we used to call Purabias because of their specific local dialects, stayed. I still am not clear to which part of India do they belonged to. Usually they would prepare a chillum (a pipe to smoke marijuana) and sing songs in their own language which I used to enjoy. I still remember a few lines. On other days I used to sit along with my colleagues and over a peg or two and sing Ghalib or Cliff Richard. Because of my Burmese background I still could not write Hindi. I could only speak it. In order to sing Ghalib’s poetry I used to write it in Roman English, understand the meanings and the pronunciation and then sing. For me life without music is just not possible. 

Once in a month I used to take my family for a movie or trade fair or whatever outing was possible. At times I used to go to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and spend the night with my student activist friends. I happened to read Zola’s Germinal and to my surprise the Railway Colony was almost the same. The abuses, the quarrels, the fights among the workers were the same.