Hum muwahid hain, humara kesh hai tark-e-rusoom,
Millatein jab mit gayeen,ejzaae imaan ho gayeen.
{ We believe in One God, rituals we renounce,
Creeds when dissolved, merge into One faith.}
~Ghalib

This does not mean anything, does it? Who is going to decide whether a certain group has inherited insult from the past or has actually invented it for the present? The VHP folks like many Modi-supporters in Gujarat and elsewhere regularly speak about avenging their historical humiliation and insult. On what grounds and through what political means do we confront the subjective experience of these people? I say political means deliberately. Social scientists are very fond of critiquing “expertise” when it comes to development and environmental conflicts – as something that short-circuits politics in the name of technical knowledge. It seems to me that exactly this kind of “historical expertise” is implicitly being called for in Prof. Guru’s implication that there is somewhere an unproblematic account which can separate the grain of genuine historical insult from the chaff of invented hurt.

Yes, not all insults are equal, there has to be a gradation in the weight and viciousness of insults, and it should be possible to call some insulted groups’ bluff – but these are matters of political negotiation rather than historical-sociological expertise. They require persuading people to think a certain way, altering the interpretation of their experience – which is what politics is all about. Perhaps I am mistaken, but Prof. Guru, by being silent about the complexity of negotiating different claims of insult, seems to be suggesting that this is a matter of solid historical sociology, rather than solid politics.

It is possible that as many have pointed out, the cartoon could be read differently in upper caste dominated classrooms in a way that could offend, it is also possible that it brought casteist connotations to some minds ( but it is very important to remember these readings came much after the controversy had already erupted on the national scene by groups with learly questionable motives, after some years of it having been part of a classroom curricula ). It is also important to remember that it was the manner in which this adhoc, unilateral and arbitrary intervention occurred that led to the initial responses and defences by sections of academic community fearing the consequences of such a withdrawal.

One feels the argument being made by Gopal Guru here is however different. Teltumbde’s article is an important case in this point – a ‘bathani tola’ could go unnoticed while dalit sensibilities about a cartoon could be dealt with such alacrity by those actively responsible for the continued assertion of upper caste dominance in the corridors of power. After all , who had any stake in preserving a textbook attempting to bring in a critique of such dominance in itself in the first place? It was so easy to bring out the upper casteness of those attempting to raise these very questions in young minds.

It is precisely because Ambedkar refused to let a ‘Nehru’ or a ‘Subhash Chandra’ appropriate reason and rationality as the domain of a privileged upper caste understanding, he appropriated it to bring in a powerful critique and assertion of caste identities. Was that imitation on his part? So are we admitting the upper caste are rational while dalits are emotional?? And whatever be the cause or the context, their emotions are to be reified when appropriating them is not merely easy, but serves other interests too ? It is not a question of privileging ‘emotion over reason’ or ‘reason over emotion’, for who can question the legitimacy of the historical experience of caste humiliation ? They often demand redressal in political interventions too. But the point being made is simple – should one let the discourse of hurt emotions be so easily and strategically deployed whenever it suits partisan interests both within and outside the marginalised community? Is that not patronization and an assertion of upper caste guilt on part of the dominant and a playing into the mode of victimization on part of the marginalised’?

1. I don’t hold this view. Why should I when I belong to the same class? I only made the point that there are other forms of censorships which are, arguably, more dangerous and we ought not to forget that.

2. My problem is not with the protest against internet censorship but against the particular tactics that Anonymous India advocates. Surely that is clear? My point is that if you legitimize this tactic then others can do the same in defence of causes that we might not like.

3. Whatever we do, the fight against censorship is going to be a long drawn one. This is not simply because our government is “evil” though that is there too. However, I think the presence of censorship also reflects the fact that we are not as yet a liberal society where freedom of speech is accepted as a general principle. In particular, I don’t think many accept the idea that freedom of speech necessarily means the right to say things that may offend others.

Too often, various groups in our society are quick to draw offence and demand that something or the other be banned. So the fight against censorship is also a battle to transform attitudes in our own society and that is necessarily going to long drawn. I therefore think that the choice of tactics becomes important. Of course, you might well disagree.

The rule of law should be absolute in any democracy. There is no question about it. However, in certain democracies, such as ours and that seen in the United States, what happens when the rule makers are the rule breakers? In fact many laws are made so that what used to be illegal or at least immoral becomes legal. I can give you many many instances of such laws at least in the United States. The might of the powerful becomes so overwhelming that a common man has no chance to fight against injustice and win. A very simple example: as an individual do you believe you can take a mighty corporation, say Walmart, and win in a court? You will simply lose because you can never meet their deep pockets and the lawyers cost a pretty penny. So the government is supposed to be on your (common man’s) side and they are supposed to appoint public prosecutors to fight your case. It seldom happens in practice because of the lobbies. The same lobbies then go and have the laws rewritten so that even the courts can’t help you.

Obviously the best way forward is to choose our representatives wisely. That seldom happens either in India or US. In India they play caste politics, violence and what have you so that the same villains get elected again and again. In the US, they play money politics, remap the districts and two party politics and it is the same story all over again.

The movements like the anonymous and occupy are nothing but the popular expression of helplessness against the loaded die. Until something drastically changes, these movements will grow and I think they are as legitimate as, say the rebellion against East India Company rule in 1857 or the Arab spring of 2011.

-RK

Thrilled to have seen the mention of Zahoor Siddiqui, who for us, being Zahoor Uncle, not only just lived next door, but also will be revered by all our subsequent generations for having gifted to my Mom (his colleague) a sapling of qalmi Ratol mango sapling, almost two decades ago, which has now become a giant tree, that bears the most delicious mangoes every other year.

Going back further, sitting in Matia Mahal home of Dada Abba, on the dasterkhwaan, with buckets full of mangoes, softening and squeezing them, and eating just mango after mango, in sweltering heat, is another memory worth a treasure.

If you haven’t heard of an income tax raid on the residential premises of Nitish Kumar’s close aide and treasurer of the ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U), Vinay Kumar Sinha, you are not alone. Thanks to the local media, it took a while even in Patna—where the house is located—for people to get to know. This, incidentally, is the same place where Nitish Kumar used to live until he became Chief Minister of Bihar. In the aforementioned raid, which took place in the third week of March, tax sleuths seized sacksful of cash, nearly Rs 5 crore of it, and ownership papers of 50 flats located in different parts of Patna, among other things. But in the next morning’s newspapers, this news was either missing or buried deep within as a single-column or brief item on an inside page.

“Not that it was not big news, it indeed was,” says the editor of an English daily in Bihar, “But, you see, that’s how it is.” The helplessness of this editor, who speaks anonymously, is a feeling shared by several other journalists. They talk ominously of controls placed on the media in Bihar. Yet, what is most striking about this awkward truth of the state is the determination with which this ‘control’ is being exercised on the media. It is a carrot-and-stick mechanism that is unparalleled in the modern history of Bihar.

What this tells us is that that our various governments have a number of tools at their disposal for controlling dissent. In our middle-class obsession with internet censorship, we should not forget the others. Personally, I think internet censorship may not even be the most important one.

We have cops beating up protesters. Do they get arrested for using the wrong means for *whatever* ends? The fact is that the government sabotages dissent.

So, one crime justifies another? That aside, what is the government of India being compared to? The Nazis? The British raj? If the space for dissent was non-existent or close to it, there’d be a point to adopting such tactics. However, we are not there as yet.

Defacement gets the message out to all users of the Internet fast. Think of it as wildfire, you hack a Web site and one person finds out. That one person then tells another person and from that you now have the message spreading.

And what is that message? That it is okay to hack and deface web sites provided you can give a positive spin to it? Once you go down this route, then you cannot prevent others from employing similar tactics in defence of causes that you may not find appealing. The end result may be something that leaves all of us worse-off.

At independence we inherited a pile of censorship laws from the British raj. One would have thought that over time we would get rid of them. Not only have we not done so, we have added to them. Some of them are just insane. This is what Mallika Sarabhai says about — oh, yes, the shining state — Gujarat:

You may or may not know that Gujarat is one of the very few stats in this country which has its own prude system for theatre – over and above the guidelines for performances laid down by the Center. Each public presentation of a play needs a script approval. NO guidelines are provided. But an unsees set of eyes and unseen minds arbitrate, and often arbitrate as late as a few hours before a performance, to decide on the fate of the play.

And so back to our Aktors Theater Festival. They have had two innocuous plays cancelled. In the first, an ugly woman who is unable to get married and is insulted by a string of suitors, gets into a sexual relationship with an elderly neighbour and then decides that as society will never leave her alone, commits suicide. Alas not an uncommon or unheard of incident in real life. Censored because it will disturb the ”suruchi” of the audience. The second has a hero with a physical defct, whose girlfriend leaves him to get married to someone else. He spends the play imagining the violence he will commit on her and her new husband, till in the end he admits that it is in fact he himself who has sent her off with another man. Censored because “it will incite violence”.

Sadly, Gujarat is by no means the exception. This lunacy seems prevalent in all states and in all political parties. We have to fight censorship alright and the fight is not going to be easy. In my opinion, though, tactics like those advocated by Anonymous India are not going to be helpful.

What does it cost to produce/market ‘organic’ mango?

worth a serious read:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3270584

“In its final form, the Draft Constitution contains 395 articles and 8 Schedules. The total number of amendments to the Draft Constitution tabled was approximately 7,635. Of them, the total number of amendments actually moved in the House were 2,473…I mention these facts because at one stage it was being said that the Assembly had taken too long a time to finish its work, that it was going on leisurely and wasting public money. It was said to be a case of Nero fiddling while Rome was burning. Is there any justification for this complaint? Let us note the time consumed by Constituent Assemblies in other countries appointed for framing their Constitutions… It is true that we have taken more time than what the American or South African Conventions did. But we have not taken more time than the Canadian Convention and much less than the Australian Convention. In making comparisons on the basis of time consumed, two things must be remembered. One is that the Constitutions of America, Canada, South Africa and Australia are much smaller than ours. Our Constitution as I said contains 395 articles while the American has just seven articles, the first four of which are divided into sections which total up to 21, the Canadian has 147, Australian 128 and South African 153 sections. The second thing to be remembered is that the makers of the Constitutions of America, Canada, Australia and South Africa did not have to face the problem of amendments. They were passed as moved. On the other hand, this Constituent Assembly had to deal with as many as 2,473 amendments. Having regard to these facts the charge of dilatoriness seems to me quite unfounded and this Assembly may well congratulate itself for having accomplished so formidable a task in so short a time…”